Sharon Meeks v. Dept. of Health & Human Serv., No. 15-1901 (8th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseCourt Description: Per Curiam. Before Wollman, Bye, and Gruender, Circuit Judges] Civil Case - employment discrimination. Adverse grant of summary judgment is affirmed. Meeks did not administratively exhaust her failure-to-promote and failure-to-reinstate discrimination claims and did not prove her termination was a pretext for racial discrimination.
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United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________ No. 15-1901 ___________________________ Sharon L. Meeks lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellant v. Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee ____________ Appeal from United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Little Rock ____________ Submitted: November 5, 2015 Filed: November 9, 2015 [Unpublished] ____________ Before WOLLMAN, BYE, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges. ____________ PER CURIAM. Sharon Meeks appeals the district court’s1 adverse grant of summary judgment in her Title VII employment discrimination action against the Arkansas Department 1 The Honorable Susan Webber Wright, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas. of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Having carefully reviewed the record and the parties’ arguments on appeal, we conclude that summary judgment was properly granted. See Jain v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc., 779 F.3d 753, 759 (8th Cir. 2015) (grant of summary judgment is reviewed de novo). As to Meeks’s failure-to-promote and failure-to-reinstate discrimination claims, we agree with the district court that she failed to exhaust her administrative remedies. See Parisi v. Boeing Co., 400 F.3d 583, 585-86 (8th Cir. 2005) (dismissal of claim for lack of exhaustion is reviewed de novo; discussing exhaustion requirement as applied to distinct claims). As to her discriminatory discharge claim, we conclude that there was insufficient evidence to support a reasonable inference that DHHS’s proffered non-discriminatory explanation for her termination was a pretext for racial discrimination. See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973) (burden-shifting analytical framework); Twymon v. Wells Fargo & Co., 462 F.3d 925, 935 (8th Cir. 2006) (to prove pretext, plaintiff must both discredit asserted reason for termination and show that circumstances permit drawing reasonable inference that real reason for termination was unlawful discrimination). Accordingly, we affirm. See 8th Cir. R. 47B. ______________________________ -2-
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