Smith v. Allied Systems

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT MARC S. SMITH,  Plaintiff-Appellant, v.  No. 00-1678 ALLIED SYSTEMS, Defendant-Appellee.  Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. Catherine C. Blake, District Judge. (CA-99-224-CCB) Submitted: September 26, 2000 Decided: October 23, 2000 Before LUTTIG and KING, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. COUNSEL Marc S. Smith, Appellant Pro Se. Gary Bruce Eidelman, SAUL, EWING, WEINBERG & GREEN, Baltimore, Maryland; James Cle- tus McGinty, ALSTON & BIRD, Atlanta, Georgia, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See Local Rule 36(c). 2 SMITH v. ALLIED SYSTEMS OPINION PER CURIAM: Marc S. Smith, an African-American male, filed suit against his former employer, Allied Systems, Inc., alleging racial discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Right Act, and racial discrimination under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1982, & 1985 (1994). The court granted Allied’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed the action. Smith appeals that order and claims the district court improperly limited discovery. We affirm. On appeal, Smith alleges the district court improperly granted sum- mary judgment on his racial discrimination, retaliation, and harass- ment claims. We review a grant of summary judgment de novo. See Higgins v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 863 F.2d 1162, 1167 (4th Cir. 1988). Summary judgment is appropriate only if there are no material facts in dispute and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986). We must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986). We have carefully reviewed the record in light of this standard and find no reversible error in the district court’s thorough opinion. Accordingly, we affirm the grant of summary judgment substantially on the reasoning of the district court.* See Smith v. Allied Systems, Inc., CCB-99-224 (D. Md. May 8, 2000). We further find the district court did not abuse its discretion in lim- iting discovery in this case to those records and documents relevant *We note the district court, in analyzing Smith’s Title VII claim of racial discrimination, applied the "pretext plus" standard that was recently rejected by the United States Supreme Court. See Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods. Inc., 120 S.Ct. 2097 (2000). For purposes of Smith’s claim, however, application of this standard by the district court has no effect on the outcome of his case. As the district court correctly determined, Smith failed to establish a prima facie case of discrimination based upon race. SMITH v. ALLIED SYSTEMS 3 to Smith’s individual claims of discrimination. See Martin v. Deiriggi, 985 F.2d 129, 137 (4th Cir. 1992). We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal conten- tions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process. AFFIRMED