Case: 20-10417 Document: 00516270122 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/06/2022
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
No. 20-10417 April 6, 2022
Summary Calendar Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Andre W. Williams, Sr.,
Plaintiff—Appellant,
versus
City of Richardson; Daryl Fourte; Travis Switzer,
Defendants—Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Texas
USDC No. 3:16-CV-2944
Before King, Costa, and Ho, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
Andre Williams, who worked as a heavy equipment operator for the
City of Richardson, sued the city and its several of its employees for race, age,
and disability discrimination. The district court granted summary judgment
in favor of defendants. Williams, who is representing himself, appeals the
*
Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
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No. 20-10417
district court’s grant of summary judgment for claims related to his not
receiving a promotion. We affirm.
Williams alleges that the city and two of its employees who
interviewed him—Daryl Fourte and Travis Switzer 1—discriminated against
him based on his race, age, and disability in declining to promote him to the
position of Solid Waste Supervisor. His claims against the city are under
Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA); his claims against Fourte and
Switzer are under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. 2
We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, drawing all
reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. Goudeau v. Nat’l
Oilwell Varco, 793 F.3d 470, 474 (5th Cir. 2015). “Summary judgment is
proper when there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the
moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Reed v. Neopost
USA, Inc., 701 F.3d 434, 438 (5th Cir. 2012).
In employment discrimination cases involving circumstantial
evidence, we use the burden-shifting framework outlined in McDonnell
Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973) (establishing the framework in a
1
Williams sued five other city employees. The district court entered a separate
final judgment dismissing those employees, which Williams did not appeal.
2
Besides his allegation that the city discriminated in passing him over for the Solid
Waste Supervisor job, Williams also alleged at the district court that the city discriminated
by passing him over for a different position. But Williams did not exhaust this claim at the
EEOC. Additionally, on appeal, Williams argues that his termination was discriminatory.
This claim was not exhausted either; indeed, Williams received his EEOC right-to-sue
letter well before his termination. Moreover, Williams does not seem to have alleged in his
complaint that his termination was discriminatory, nor does the district court appear to
have ruled on this allegation. Consequently, we do not address these claims. See, e.g.,
Pacheco v. Mineta, 448 F.3d 783, 792 (5th Cir. 2006) (affirming a dismissal of claims not
raised in EEOC charge).
2
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Title VII case). See also Morris v. Town of Independence, 827 F.3d 396, 400
(5th Cir. 2016) (applying the framework in a section 1981 case); Goudeau, 793
F.3d at 474 (applying the framework in an ADEA case); EEOC v. LHC Grp.
Inc., 773 F.3d 688, 694 (5th Cir. 2014) (applying the framework in an ADA
case). First, the plaintiff must make a prima facie showing of discrimination.
Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 142 (2000). That
shifts the burden to the employer to articulate a legitimate and
nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment action. Id. If the
employer satisfies its burden, the plaintiff then must be afforded the
“opportunity to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the legitimate
reasons offered by the defendant were not its true reasons, but were a pretext
for discrimination.” Id. (quoting Tex. Dep’t of Comm. Affs. v. Burdine, 450
U.S. 248, 256 (1981)).
Although the district court based its summary judgment on
Williams’s failure to establish a prima facie case, we can affirm on any ground
supported by the record. Campos v. Steves & Sons, Inc., 10 F.4th 515, 520 (5th
Cir. 2021). We will assume that Williams established a prima facie case on
all his claims. We nonetheless affirm because defendants offered several
nondiscriminatory reasons for not promoting Williams, and Williams has not
produced evidence to cast doubt on the legitimacy of those reasons.
Defendants provided evidence that Williams was denied a promotion
because (1) he had worked in his current position fewer than 90 days, (2) he
had not yet completed the probationary period for that position, (3) his
performance in that role was far from exemplary, (4) his argumentativeness
and lack of cooperation made him unsuitable for a supervisory position, (5)
and his written and oral test scores were not at the level the interviewers
wanted.
The two pieces of evidence that Williams cites to rebut defendants’
proffered reasons do not show them to be pretextual. He points to the
3
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characteristics of the person eventually promoted, who was 17 years younger
and did not have a commercial driver’s license. But to prove pretext based
on the hiring of a less qualified candidate, a plaintiff must show that “no
reasonable person, in the exercise of impartial judgment, could have chosen
the candidate selected over the plaintiff for the job in question.” McMichael
v. Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling, Inc., 934 F.3d 447, 459 (5th Cir.
2019) (quoting Moss v. BMC Software, Inc., 610 F.3d 917, 923 (5th Cir. 2010))
(holding no age discrimination when comparator had higher performance
rating). Here, hiring the younger candidate was reasonable because he had
more administrative and supervisory experience than Williams did. Williams
also raises derogatory racist comments allegedly made by a supervisor named
Jones. But Jones was not involved in the hiring decision that Williams
challenges.
Williams also challenges the district court’s decision not to appoint
counsel for him. That decision is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. See
Baranowski v. Hart, 486 F.3d 112, 126 (5th Cir. 2007). The district court
considered the well-developed nature of employment discrimination law and
the straightforward nature of Williams’s claims. It also recognized that
Williams did a decent job filing pleadings, effecting service of process, filing
lengthy briefs, and accumulating evidence. More proof of Williams’s ability
to represent himself is his 51-page appellate brief. See also Oviedo v. Lowe’s
Home Improvement, Inc., 184 F. App’x 411, 412 (5th Cir. 2006) (upholding the
denial of appointed counsel); Buesgens v. Snow, 169 F. App’x 869, 871 (5th
Cir. 2006) (same). The district court’s careful ruling was not an abuse of
discretion.
***
AFFIRMED.
4