Jeff Bonomo v. The Boeing Company, No. 22-1531 (8th Cir. 2023)
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Plaintiff began working for McDonnell Douglas in 1985. He stayed there until it merged with The Boeing Company (Boeing) in 1997. In 2017 and 2018, Plaintiff unsuccessfully applied for promotions within Boeing. Both times, the promotion was given to younger candidates who scored better in the interview. In 2017, the promotion went to an employee aged 33; in 2018, to one aged 34. Plaintiff alleged that Boeing discriminated against him on the basis of age, in violation of the Missouri Human Rights Act (MHRA). Plaintiff brought two separate lawsuits, now consolidated, alleging age discrimination in relation to the 2018 opening and a claim for constructive discharge. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Boeing on both claims, holding that Plaintiff (1) failed to demonstrate a material dispute as to whether Boeing’s stated rationale for the hiring decision was a mere pretext for age discrimination and (2) failed to timely file a complaint with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights within six months of when his constructive-discharge claim accrued.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court concluded that Plaintiff failed to rebut the non-age-based, legitimate reasons offered by Boeing for its choice to hire the other applicant instead of him. Further, Plaintiff alleged that his termination paperwork started the clock, not his email. The court explained that Plaintiff gave his employer a little more than five weeks’ notice. But his claim still accrued then—on the day he gave notice, not the day he filed the paperwork. Because May 28, 2020, falls 185 days after November 25, 2019, Plaintiff’s complaint was untimely and thus barred.
Court Description: [Smith, Author, with Gruender and Stras, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Employment Discrimination. Plaintiff produced no direct evidence of age discrimination, and the court reviews the claim under the McDonnell Douglas framework; plaintiff developed a prima facie case, but the district court did not err in determining that Boeing had provided a legitimate, non-discriminatory ground for its hiring decisions, and that plaintiff had failed to show the grounds were pretexts for discrimination; the district court did not err in dismissing plaintiff's constructive discharge claim because he had failed to file it with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights on a timely basis.
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