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Medley v. Valentine Radford Communications7/19/2005
ing rehired is arguably an adverse action against her.
The problem is whether she can demonstrate that the adverse action was causally related to her discrimination complaint. Valentine Radford claims that its decision to not rehire Ms. Medley was not related to her claim under the MHRA. It points out that no one was hired to replace her and that her duties were redistributed to other people in the department. Further, it appears that after Ms. Medley was told to submit her resume to human resources so that she could be considered for any appropriate positions, she did not do so. So she does not appear to have provided sufficient evidence to support a finding that the failure to rehire her was related to her discrimination complaint. And the fact that the failure to rehire happened only a month after she complained is not enough to change that. Buettner v. Arch Coal Sales Co., 216 F.3d 707, 715-16 (8th Cir. 2000) (although a causal connection may be proven circumstantially by showing that the discharge followed the protected activity very closely in time, usually "more than a temporal connection between protected activity and an adverse employment action is required to show a genuine factual issue on retaliation exists").
Further, even if we found that Ms. Medley did supply a causal connection, Valentine Radford offered a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason to not rehire her to her old job. Her job duties were divided among the other people in the department, and so it was unnecessary to hire someone else. And Ms. Medley has offered no evidence that this claim was pretextual. Further, we do not interpret the attorney's letter as an offer of reemployment to Ms. Medley, it was simply notice that she was free to reapply and that she would be considered if she did so. There was no guarantee that she would be offered a job, and Valentine Radford was not required to have her position open.
So summary judgment was properly granted on this point as well.
IV. CONCLUSION
We sympathize with Ms. Medley, knowing that she suffered from a terrible health problem. The law, however, directs us to this result. There were no disputed facts, and Ms. Medley could not show that there was any reason to think that she could work with reasonable accommodation at the time that Valentine Radford terminated her. So she did not fit under the MHRA, and Valentine Radford was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Hence, the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Valentine Radford is affirmed. We also affirm the summary judgment in favor of Valentine Radford on the retaliation claim.
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