United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued October 14, 2010 Decided January 14, 2011
No. 10-7013
KAREN VATEL,
APPELLANT
v.
ALLIANCE OF AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURERS AND DAVID K.
MCCURDY,
APPELLEES
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 1:08-cv-00467)
Lynn I. Miller argued the cause for appellant. With her
on the briefs was James R. Klimaski.
Ari Karen argued the cause for appellees.
Before: BROWN, GRIFFITH, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit
Judges.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge
KAVANAUGH.
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KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge: David McCurdy is
President and CEO of the Alliance of Automobile
Manufacturers. In November 2007, McCurdy fired his
assistant, Karen Vatel. McCurdy asserted that he dismissed
Vatel because they had incompatible styles of work and her
performance therefore did not meet his expectations. Vatel
sued, claiming that McCurdy fired her because of her race and
gender. Finding that Vatel had produced insufficient
evidence to undermine McCurdy’s stated reason for firing
her, the District Court granted summary judgment to
McCurdy and his employer. We agree with the District Court
and therefore affirm.
I
In June 2006, the interim president of the Alliance of
Automobile Manufacturers (known as the AAM) hired Karen
Vatel as his assistant. In December 2006, the AAM hired
David McCurdy as the new President and CEO. Although
McCurdy could have hired someone new as his assistant, he
chose to retain Vatel after a positive lunch interview with her.
But problems quickly developed in the working relationship
between McCurdy and Vatel. Beginning in May 2007, Lori
Johnson, the AAM’s human resources manager, met regularly
with Vatel to explain that McCurdy was frustrated with
Vatel’s performance.
McCurdy ultimately fired Vatel on November 1, 2007,
telling her that their styles were incompatible. McCurdy later
explained that he expected his assistant to be “strategic” and
“proactive,” but found Vatel rigid and unable to address
problems before they affected him.
Vatel filed suit against the AAM and McCurdy in the
District of Columbia Superior Court. Vatel alleged that
3
McCurdy terminated her because of her race and gender, in
violation of the District of Columbia Human Rights Act, D.C.
Code §§ 2-1402.01 and 2-1402.11(a). The defendants
removed the action to the U.S. District Court for the District
of Columbia based on diversity of citizenship among the
parties. After discovery, the District Court granted the
defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Vatel appealed to
this Court. We review the District Court’s summary
judgment de novo.
II
We analyze discrimination claims under the D.C. Human
Rights Act in the same way that we analyze discrimination
claims under the federal anti-discrimination laws. See
Gaujacq v. EDF, Inc., 601 F.3d 565, 576 (D.C. Cir. 2010).
Once an employer has offered a legitimate reason for an
employee’s dismissal, the question at the summary judgment
stage is whether the employee has “produced sufficient
evidence for a reasonable jury to find that the employer’s
asserted non-discriminatory reason was not the actual reason
and that the employer intentionally discriminated against the
employee on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national
origin.” Brady v. Office of the Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d
490, 494 (D.C. Cir. 2008).
McCurdy asserted that he dismissed Vatel because they
had incompatible working styles and Vatel therefore did not
meet his expectations for an assistant. This is a highly
subjective explanation, which makes it difficult for Vatel to
produce evidence casting doubt on it. We thus treat
McCurdy’s explanation “with caution.” Aka v. Washington
Hosp. Ctr., 156 F.3d 1284, 1298 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (en banc).
That said, Vatel does not dispute that incompatible working
styles is a legitimate basis for a manager to fire an assistant.
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With that background in mind, we turn to the question
whether Vatel has produced sufficient evidence that
McCurdy’s assertion – that he fired Vatel because of
incompatible working styles – is pretextual and that McCurdy
intentionally discriminated against her. The record contains
no direct evidence of discrimination – for example, a
statement that itself shows racial or gender bias in the
decision – that would generally entitle a plaintiff to a jury
trial. The nature of Vatel’s position means, moreover, that
many of the methods that employment discrimination
plaintiffs ordinarily use to demonstrate pretext are not
available to Vatel. For example, Vatel cannot show that
McCurdy treated other similarly situated employees
differently based on race or gender, because, as the lone
assistant, she had no similarly situated peers. Cf. Brady, 520
F.3d at 495. Vatel nonetheless claims that a jury could infer
from the record evidence that McCurdy fabricated his
explanation to mask his true motive: animus based on Vatel’s
race, gender, or both.
Vatel’s argument faces a significant initial hurdle in that
McCurdy himself selected Vatel to be his assistant less than a
year before her dismissal. If McCurdy did not want to work
with Vatel because of her race or gender, it would be odd to
select her and then immediately start ginning up reasons to
dismiss her. See Waterhouse v. District of Columbia, 298
F.3d 989, 996 (D.C. Cir. 2002). In affirming summary
judgment in Waterhouse, we noted: “‘when the person who
made the decision to fire was the same person who made the
decision to hire, it is difficult to impute to [that person] an
invidious motivation that would be inconsistent with the
decision to hire,’ especially ‘when the firing has occurred
only a short time after the hiring.’” Id. (quoting Grady v.
Affiliated Cent., Inc., 130 F.3d 553, 560 (2d Cir. 1997)). The
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same is true here. Although the fact that McCurdy initially
selected Vatel does not alone suffice for summary judgment,
it is probative evidence that McCurdy did not discriminate
against Vatel on account of her race or gender when he
dismissed her later that year. See Czekalski v. Peters, 475
F.3d 360, 368-69 (D.C. Cir. 2007).
Vatel has tried to undermine McCurdy’s explanation by
contending that they in fact had a positive working
relationship and that McCurdy was (or should have been)
satisfied with her performance. That argument is simply not
tenable. By Vatel’s own admission, Lori Johnson, the AAM’s
human resources manager, consistently said that McCurdy
was frustrated with Vatel’s performance, and Vatel herself
stated that “McCurdy tried to avoid [her] at all costs.” Vatel
Dep. 128-29, 133, Sept. 15, 2008. The undisputed facts in
this case overwhelmingly demonstrate problems in the
working relationship; indeed, that was the reason for the
regular meetings between Vatel and Johnson.
In light of the record evidence, Vatel’s mere personal
opinion that she and McCurdy had a positive working
relationship is insufficient to surmount summary judgment. It
is settled that “it is the perception of the decision maker which
is relevant, not the self-assessment of the plaintiff.” Hawkins
v. PepsiCo, Inc., 203 F.3d 274, 280 (4th Cir. 2000) (quotation
marks and alterations omitted). Under the precedents, it is
McCurdy’s perception that is relevant. Here, the evidence
overwhelmingly shows that McCurdy honestly and
reasonably believed that their working styles were
incompatible. That evidence requires summary judgment for
the defendants. See Brady, 520 F.3d at 496 (“The question is
not whether the underlying . . . incident occurred; rather, the
issue is whether the employer honestly and reasonably
believed that the underlying . . . incident occurred.”); George
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v. Leavitt, 407 F.3d 405, 415 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (“[A]n
employer’s action may be justified by a reasonable belief in
the validity of the reason given even though that reason may
turn out to be false.”).
Vatel offers some subsidiary arguments, but none
suffices to defeat summary judgment. For example, Vatel
contests what was said in her meetings with Johnson, the
human resources director. But the outcome of that dispute is
immaterial. Even if Johnson failed to tell Vatel how to
improve her performance, and even if Vatel did not expressly
refuse to change, those facts would not undermine McCurdy’s
assertion that he did not find their working styles to be
compatible.
Vatel also takes issue with some of McCurdy’s
statements in his deposition – in particular, his discussion of
travel difficulties on a trip to Germany. Vatel denies that she
was to blame for those problems. But Vatel’s focus on the
Germany trip does not advance her argument. To begin with,
Vatel was not fired because of the Germany trip; she was
fired because of an overall breakdown in the working
relationship that caused her boss to lose confidence in her. In
addition, the question whether Vatel was actually at fault for
McCurdy’s problems on the Germany trip is irrelevant if
McCurdy believed she was. He clearly did (and still does),
and Vatel has provided no evidence that McCurdy did not
think she was responsible. See Fischbach v. District of
Columbia Dep’t of Corr., 86 F.3d 1180, 1183 (D.C. Cir.
1996) (“Once the employer has articulated a non-
discriminatory explanation for its action . . . the issue is not
the correctness or desirability of the reasons offered but
whether the employer honestly believes in the reasons it
offers.”) (quotation marks and alterations omitted); see also
Brady, 520 F.3d at 495-96; George, 407 F.3d at 415.
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On a different tack, Vatel also has suggested that the
alleged problems in the working relationship and the regular
sessions with Johnson reflected a plot by McCurdy to paper
the record for the ultimate firing and thereby hide an improper
racist or sexist motivation. But there is simply no probative
evidence to support such a supposition. Moreover, any such
theory would be inconsistent with the fact that McCurdy,
knowing Vatel’s race and gender, initially selected her to be
his assistant. Under this Court’s precedents, we cannot green-
light a trial based on Vatel’s mere speculation that McCurdy
was feigning dissatisfaction with Vatel’s work in order to hide
his own allegedly improper motivation. See Brady, 520 F.3d
at 495 (“If the employer’s stated belief about the underlying
facts is reasonable in light of the evidence . . . there ordinarily
is no basis for permitting a jury to conclude that the employer
is lying about the underlying facts.”); Carney v. American
University, 151 F.3d 1090, 1094 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (plaintiff’s
“factual proffer requires too much speculation to create a
genuine issue of fact about [defendant’s] motivations”) (citing
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249-50
(1986)); see also Vickers v. Powell, 493 F.3d 186, 195-96
(D.C. Cir. 2007).
In sum, having acknowledged that a dysfunctional
working relationship is a legitimate ground for dismissal of an
assistant, Vatel was required to produce sufficient evidence
that, if believed, would undermine McCurdy’s claim that he
reasonably thought their working relationship was poor.
Vatel failed to do so. On this record, any effort to portray
their working relationship as anything other than
dysfunctional is simply not plausible.
Vatel’s submission thus boils down to the proposition
that discrimination plaintiffs should receive jury trials as a
8
matter of course, on the theory that the question whether the
defendant was motivated by racial or gender bias is always a
question of fact for a jury. But that is not the way the law has
developed. It is established that summary judgment and
judgment as a matter of law can be appropriate in
employment discrimination cases as elsewhere, and we have
no basis for departing from that framework here.
***
In light of the facts of this case, we find summary
judgment for the defendants appropriate. Because of the
distinctive relationship between a manager and his or her
assistant, the principle that (as Vatel herself acknowledges) a
breakdown in the manager-assistant relationship can be a
legitimate basis for dismissal, the fact that McCurdy himself
selected Vatel for the position the same year that he dismissed
her, the overwhelming evidence that McCurdy and Vatel
quickly developed a dysfunctional working relationship, the
lack of record evidence to undermine that conclusion, and the
absence of any direct evidence of race or sex discrimination in
the record, we affirm the judgment of the District Court.
So ordered.