Allen v. USPS, No. 22-30297 (5th Cir. 2023)
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Plaintiff brought claims of age discrimination and retaliation against her former employer, the United States Postal Service (“USPS”). The district court granted summary judgment to USPS on all of Plaintiff’s claims. Plaintiff appealed.
The Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. The court reversed summary judgment on Plaintiff’s age discrimination and retaliation claims arising out of her February 26, 2019 termination from USPS Central Station, as well as her retaliation claim arising out of the May 2019 recission of her job offer at the Metairie USPS station. The court affirmed dismissal of all other claims.
The court concluded, in assessing Plaintiff’s age-discrimination claim, that Plaintiff’s evidence creates a fact issue as to whether USPS’s proffered reason for her termination is pretextual. Specifically, Plaintiff has submitted evidence that her supervisors set her up for failure by obstructing her efforts to succeed at her job, including by hiding her mail, making her clock into street time when she was, in fact, in the office, and denying her the tools necessary for her deliveries. Moreover, Plaintiff has submitted evidence that USPS did not document the performance deficiencies it relies on as the basis for Plaintiff’s termination. And again, the circumstances of the station manager’s “hiring” of Plaintiff render inappropriate the “same actor” inference. A reasonable jury could find, based on this evidence, that USPS’s reason for terminating Plaintiff was pretext for retaliation based on her EEO activity directed against the USPS.
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