Thomas v. Seminole Elec. Coop., Inc.

385 F.Supp.3d 1246

Jozette THOMAS, Plaintiff,

v.SEMINOLE ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, INC., Defendant.

Case No: 8:16-cv-03404-MSS-JSS

United States District Court, M.D. Florida, Tampa Division.

Signed September 6, 2018

Derek Usman, The Usman Law Firm PA, Tampa, FL, for Plaintiff.

Brian Koji, Carly Dianne Wilson, Allen, Norton & Blue, PA, Tampa, FL, for Defendant.

ORDER

MARY S. SCRIVEN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

THIS CAUSE comes before the Court for consideration of the Motion for Summary Judgment filed by Defendant, Seminole Electric Cooperative, Inc., (Dkt. 25), the Response in opposition thereto filed by Plaintiff, Jozette Thomas, (Dkt. 35), Defendant's Objections to Plaintiff's Response, (Dkt. 47), and Defendant's Reply to Plaintiff's Response, (Dkt. 48). Upon consideration of all relevant filings, case law, and being otherwise fully advised, the Court GRANTS Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment.

I. BACKGROUND¹

Plaintiff asserts that the Defendant discharged her from employment in May 2016 because of her gender and age, in violation of Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"), and the Florida Civil Rights Act ("FCRA"). (Dkt. 34 ¶ 1). Plaintiff also alleges that she was subjected to unlawful sexual harassment and age harassment in violation of Title VII, the ADEA, and the FCRA.²

Defendant is a non-profit, member-owned Generation and Transmission rural electric cooperative. (Dkt. 34 ¶ 1). Plaintiff began her employment with Defendant in February 1997 as a programmer, initially, and became a systems programmer supporting the mainframe computer in 1999. (Dkt. 25 ¶ 2). Plaintiff's job duties encompassed work with hardware and software on a mainframe-based computer system prior to Defendant's transition to a server-based environment. The Parties dispute Plaintiff's job duties after the mainframe was decommissioned. (Dkt. 8 ¶ 15).

Julian Leon ("Leon") was originally Defendant's Manager of Technical Support who served as Plaintiff's direct supervisor. (Dkt. 43 at 6). After Leon's retirement in July 2011, through the time of Plaintiff's discharge, Rick Miller ("Miller") served as Plaintiff's immediate supervisor, reporting to Steve Saunders ("Saunders"), the Director of Information Technology. (Dkt. 34 ¶ 2). In addition to Plaintiff, Miller also supervised the other employees who made up the Technical Support area, which included John Phillips, Will Simmons, Rishi Maharaj, and Michael Estevens. (Dkt. 25 ¶ 4).

From 2012 through March 2014, Defendant began the process of transitioning from its mainframe computing environment to a PC and server-based computing environment. (Dkt. 34 ¶ 3). During this time, Defendant transitioned all of its applications and functions from the mainframe to PCs and servers, culminating in the ultimate shutdown and decommissioning of Defendant's mainframe on March 13, 2014. Id.

When Defendant began the transition to a PC server-based computing environment, Plaintiff had no experience working in that environment. Rather, her expertise "was on the mainframe side, not the server side," and she "didn't have any real experience with the server system." (Dkt. 34 ¶ 4). Plaintiff's educational background and training also focused exclusively on mainframe responsibilities. Id. Other employees in the department had experience with server-based computing. (Dkts. 25 ¶ 8; 35 ¶ 9). Plaintiff testified that she was not aware of anyone else working for the Defendant whose experience was mainframe-based and who would need to acquire a new skill after the transition. (Dkt. 27 at 81). Plaintiff testified that no one specifically mentioned that her job would be eliminated, but that she was concerned that her position may be eliminated or that she would be laid off after the mainframe transition because what she had been doing "was no longer going to be continuing in that format[.]" (Dkt. 27 at 79–80). Plaintiff testified that she began to look for other jobs at the time, both internally and externally. Id. at 80–81.

Defendant contends that Plaintiff was assigned a number of non-mainframe responsibilities to assist Plaintiff in gaining a working knowledge and expertise in a PC server-based environment. (Dkt. 25 ¶ 12). Specifically, Miller assigned Plaintiff to assist John Phillips with Defendant's IT hotline, which employees could call to get help on various computing issues, and to shadow John Valles on weekly trips to assist employees at the Defendant's power plant with computer issues. Id. ¶¶ 12–13. Miller also approved Plaintiff's request for a week-long course on PC servers in 2012 and directed Plaintiff to take a week-long Microsoft training course on a specified product in 2013. Id. Additionally, Plaintiff attended two trainings in 2013, on Microsoft and Windows products. Id. ¶ 14. Plaintiff also sought courses to take outside of work in an effort to further improve her server skills and requested that Defendant purchase a training book for her, which Defendant did. Id.

Defendant required each employee complete at least twenty hours of mandatory job-related training during Plaintiff's employment. (Dkts. 38 at 61; 42 at 15). Defendant asserts that despite its efforts and patience, Plaintiff was unable to make a successful transition from the mainframe environment to the PC-server based environment. (Dkt. 25 ¶ 16). Defendant offers an internal list of department responsibilities to illustrate that Plaintiff was unable to assume the responsibility levels nearly equal to those of her co-workers. Id.

Plaintiff disputes the efficacy of these so-called trainings and Defendant's characterization of trainings as unsuccessful. (Dkt. 35 ¶¶ 15–16). Additionally, Plaintiff challenges the accuracy of Defendant's chart as an attempt by Defendant to minimize Plaintiff's responsibilities. Id. Plaintiff further contends that she was denied proper training and instruction to complete assigned tasks. (Dkt. 1 ¶ 39). Specifically, Plaintiff argues that she was excluded from attending weekly management meetings by a co-worker in 2012, excluded from a vendor presentation for tech services, and was assigned clerical tasks. Id. ¶¶ 30–31, 45.

Plaintiff's Annual Performance Evaluations during the relevant time period range from a 4, exceeds expectations, to a 2, meets expectations. (Dkt. 27-1). In 2011, Plaintiff received a 4, exceeds expectations, and commented on her evaluation that she felt the review did not adequately represent her efforts through the past year. Id. at 46. Plaintiff's 2012 evaluation reflects a 2.16, meets expectations; her 2013 review shows a 2.37, meets expectations. Id. at 48–61. In 2014, Plaintiff initially received an overall rating of 1.57, does not meet expectations, which Miller rounded up to a 2.0, meets expectations. Id. at 71. Miller's comments on Plaintiff's 2014 review note that Plaintiff attended class to prepare for and complete the installation of Microsoft System Center Service Desk Change Control software, but was ultimately unable to install the product, despite spending nearly six months on the project. Id. Plaintiff contests whether the substance of the training was sufficient to instruct her to complete the project but admits that she attended the training and spent a significant amount of time on the project. (Dkt. 35 ¶ 17). Plaintiff comments in her 2014 review that she was using her own resources to buy her own books and research classes in an effort to make a successful transition from the mainframe environment to a server-based environment. Id. After Plaintiff's 2014 review, Miller provided Plaintiff with a Performance Improvement Task Plan to help improve her performance and a report detailing her progress on these tasks. Id. at 71–75. The progress report notes that Plaintiff did "well" on two tasks, was "running out of time" on one task and that Miller "would like to see more effort in troubleshooting by logging on each night to watch the jobs run" on a third project. Id. at 75. In 2015, Plaintiff received an overall performance evaluation of 3.2, meets expectations. (Dkt. 1 Ex. E). Miller commented on the 2015 review that Plaintiff accomplished most of her goals with efficiency and that Plaintiff's initial support of the JAMS technology system was not meeting expectations and had to be reassigned, but that Plaintiff was performing better after the reassignment. Id.

Miller issued a Performance Improvement Plan ("PIP") to Plaintiff on Mach 7, 2016 as a "last ditch effort" for Plaintiff. (Dkt. 36 at 75). Plaintiff, Miller, and Kelly Faircloth ("Faircloth"), a human resources representative of Defendant, met to discuss the PIP. (Dkt. 35 ¶ 20). This was Plaintiff's first meeting with Faircloth. Id. The PIP identified areas of concern, improvement goals, recourse, expectations, and progress checkpoints. (Dkt. 27-1 at 87–89). Moreover, the PIP established that the failure to meet or exceed identified expectations would result in further disciplinary action, up to and including termination. The PIP explicitly stated that if there was no demonstrated, significant improvement indicating that the expectations and goals will be met, employment could be terminated prior to completion of the 90-day period. Id.

The PIP assigned five performance standards, including two specific projects, which Plaintiff was required to accomplish in order to demonstrate progress towards the achievement of Plaintiff's identified goals. Id. First, Plaintiff needed to take over the Printer project from John Phillips and upgrade printer services with minimal assistance from other team members. Id. Second, Plaintiff needed to get the Help site for SharePoint forms operational with updated information for each form. Id. at 88. Defendant asserts that it became evident, shortly after the PIP was issued to Plaintiff, that Plaintiff was relying too heavily on a co-worker to complete her responsibilities and was failing to make any appreciable progress on her PIP tasks. (Dkt. 25 ¶ 21–22). Plaintiff...