PHILADELPHIA – A steelworker fired for supposedly using his company phone to pick up prostitutes while working has had his retaliation claims resurrected by a federal appellate court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unanimously revived plaintiff Joseph Canada’s claims against Samuel Grossi & Sons, Inc., which argued that the company fired him not for allegedly soliciting prostitutes, but as a retaliatory measure for him taking medical leave in response to back injuries.
Third Circuit judges Theodore McKee, L. Felipe Restrepo and Julio Fuentes came to a consensus in the case, with McKee authoring the ruling handed down on Sept. 15.
Canada, a Black man, was employed by the Bensalem-based defendant for 10 years and suffered from both herniated discs and arthritis. He alleged that during his time with the company, management dissuaded him from taking time off under the Family Medical Leave Act and harassed him when he did so, as he used the time to seek treatment for his back injuries.
Canada brought a federal court lawsuit against Samuel Grossi & Sons, Inc. in 2019, on the grounds of racial discrimination and violating his rights under the FMLA.
The plaintiff added that his supervisors burglarized his workplace locker during a vacation he was on and accessed his cell phone, which was said to have contained text messages sent to prostitutes during work hours.
Canada claimed his supervisors broke into his work-issued locker while he was on vacation and accessed his cell phone, which contained messages to prostitutes sent during work hours. According to Canada, the texting was “dumb entertainment” and he never actually met the women in question.
As a result of discovering the text messages, the defendant fired Canada – which led him to amend his complaint and add a retaliation charge.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Judge Jan E. DuBois dismissed Canada’s case in August 2020, ruling the text messages justified the plaintiff’s firing.
Canada then appealed the dismissal of his retaliation claims to the Third Circuit, countering that Grossi’s search of his phone was done to find a pretext for firing him, apart from taking FMLA leave and bringing his lawsuit.
The Third Circuit agreed with Canada and found that his reference to the events of Hobgood v. Illinois Gaming Board in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit – where that Court concluded that an employer’s motive in investigating an employee was relevant to establishing pretext under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – were both valid and applicable to the instant case.
“The Court reasoned that Hobgood had presented a ‘convincing mosaic of circumstantial evidence,’ which ‘when taken as a whole and viewed in a light favorable to Hobgood’s case, could convince a reasonable jury that he was the victim of unlawful retaliation,” McKee stated.
“We believe the same analysis is pertinent here and would allow a jury to conclude that Grossi’s stated reason for firing Canada was a pretext intended to thwart any suggestion of illegal retaliation. The evidence here clearly supports a conclusion that Grossi was looking for something that would justify terminating Canada and that it undertook that search because of Canada’s complaints of discrimination.”
According to McKee, as in Hobgood, there is a “convincing mosaic of circumstantial evidence” which, when taken as a whole and viewed in a light favorable to Canada’s case, could convince a reasonable jury that he was the victim of unlawful retaliation.”
As a result, the Third Circuit reversed the District Court’s grant of summary judgment to Grossi on Canada’s retaliation claims under Title VII, Section 1981, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the FMLA, and remanded the case to the District Court for further proceedings.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit case 20-2747
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 2:19-cv-01790
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com