[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________ FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
No. 09-14094 ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
MARCH 31, 2010
Non-Argument Calendar
JOHN LEY
________________________
CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 06-00263-CV-HLM-4
SARA VALDEZ,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
STAPLES, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
_________________________
(March 31, 2010)
Before TJOFLAT, BARKETT and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Sara Valdez appeals from the district court’s grant of summary judgment in
favor of Staples, Inc. in her retaliation claim, filed pursuant to the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. § 623(d).1 We affirm.
Valdez, a 53-year-old woman, was terminated from her position as a part-
time cashier at the Staples store in Rome, Georgia on April 18, 2006. She alleges
that during a meeting with Tara Mayes, her store manager, Mayes called Velez
“nothing but an old bag”. Valdez contacted Bob Noon from Staples’s human
resources department to report that Mayes had been loud and disruptive and had
called her an “old bag.” Valdez admits that she did not expressly raise the issue of
age discrimination in this conversation. Rebecca Ward, a colleague of Noon’s
from human resources, was sent to the Rome store to investigate Velez’s
complaints about Mayes. Ward concluded that all of Valdez’s claims about Mayes
were unsubstantiated and that Valdez’s behavior since the meeting had been
disruptive and unprofessional. As a result, Ward recommended that Valdez be
counseled for unprofessional behavior in the workplace.
Sometime thereafter, one of Valdez’s coworkers informed Mayes that she
had seen Valdez filling out reward card applications using the phone book, in
violation of Staples’s policies. When Mayes asked Valdez if she had, in fact, filled
out applications in this manner without customer consent, Valdez admitted that she
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Valdez also brought a claim for age discrimination but later dismissed it voluntarily,
with leave of the court. Accordingly, that claim is not presently before us.
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had done so, but asserted that she was only doing what Mayes had previously
instructed her to do. Mayes contacted Ward who, after another investigation,
determined that Valdez should be terminated for falsifying documents in violation
of Staples’s ethics policy. Valdez was then terminated by Ward via telephone with
Mayes and her assistant manager present.
We find no reversible error in the district court’s conclusion that Valdez
failed to present sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact as to
whether she was terminated because of her complaint regarding Mayes. After
Valdez complained about Mayes’s “old bag” comment, Ward came to the Rome
store and conducted an investigation, finding no merit to Valdez’s complaint.
Although Valdez may be dissatisfied with the results of Ward’s investigation into
Mayes’s comment, the evidence shows that an independent investigation into her
claims was completed.
Further, after this investigation was completed, an independent report was
made by one of Valdez’s coworkers that she falsified documents in violation of
company policies, a claim which Valdez does not dispute. Ward conducted
another investigation into Valdez’s claim that she had been instructed by Mayes to
falsify documents and again found no merit in this claim Valdez’s intervening act
of misconduct and the intervening investigation by the corporate office were
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sufficient to erode any causal connection created by the close temporal proximity
between Mayes’ comment and the termination.
AFFIRMED.
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