In Williams v. Housing Authority of Savannah, the 11th Circuit held that an employee failed to show that a Georgia Housing Agency acted discriminatorily when the employee failed to rebut the employer’s basis for her termination – she violated HAS rules by failing to maintain possession of her master keys and did not report that she never got them back.
Monica Williams was an Assistant Asset Manager for the Housing Authority of Savannah (HAS). Her duties included inspecting housing units, assisting with unit recertification, and completing paperwork. HAS gave Williams a set of master keys so she could access all the apartment units at the River Pointe Apartment Complex. HAS told Williams that she was to never let her master keys out of her sight because if they were lost it could put the residents of River Pointe in danger and expose HAS to liability.
On Friday February 2, 2018, Williams; Robert Marshall, the HAS Director of Facilities Management; Rafaella Nutini, a HAS Real Estate Analyst; and Roger Salazar, a subcontractor employed by HAS, were inspecting rental units at River Pointe. During the inspections, Williams was subjected to sexually objectifying comments by Marshall and Salazar. Near the end of their inspections, Williams advised Marshall that she was unable to lock a utility door inside one of the units. Marshall told Williams to give her master key to Salazar, so he could secure the door. Williams refused because it was against HAS rules to give anyone her master keys. Salazar then grabbed Williams from behind and tried to kiss her while reaching for her keys. Williams punched Salazar and said to not touch her. Marshall again ordered Williams to give Salazar the keys. She complied and left the River Pointe complex without her master keys.
Williams attempted to report the incident with Salazar to Human Resources, but the office was closed for the weekend. She called her supervisor, Kim-Nee Stewart, to advise her she would be reporting the incident to Human Resources.
On Monday February 5, 2018, Williams contacted Douglas Reed, the Director of Human Resources, and Salazar’s employer to complain of Salazar’s actions. When she made the complaint, she did not tell HAS anything about giving Salazar her master keys and not having possession of her master keys.
On the same day, a resident of River Pointe emailed Stewart that Williams left her master keys in her unit on Friday. Stewart forwarded the information to her supervisor, Earline Davis, who stated it was gross neglect for Williams to not report her keys were out of staff control and asked Stewart to prepare Williams’ termination papers.
The next day, Kenneth Clark, HAS’s Director of Development Services, spoke to Salazar’s employer and requested that Salazar no longer work with HAS in Savanah. That same day, Clark told Williams that Salazar would no longer be working at River Pointe.
The following day, Williams met with Reed and Stewart and was read her termination notice which stated she was being fired because she “’left a set of master keys in a[n] unoccupied unit and never reported the keys as missing,’ putting residents in danger and placing HAS at extreme risk of liability.” It was at this meeting that Williams first advised HAS that Marshall ordered her to give Salazar the keys. Reed advised Williams she could appeal the termination decision, but she declined. Instead, Williams filed claims for sex discrimination, harassment, and retaliation with the EEOC and later filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.
The District Court granted summary judgment for HAS, finding that Williams did not establish either a prima facie case of sex discrimination or that HAS’s proffered legitimate reason for her termination was a pretext for an underlying discriminatory motive.
On appeal, the 11th Circuit stated that regardless of the theory of discrimination proposed by the plaintiff, the focus is “whether the unlawful discriminatory animus motivated the decision.” Williams failed to rebut the reason offered for her termination or show that HAS’s actions were motivated by bias against her sex when it fired her. There was no genuine dispute of the facts that formed the reason for her termination. When offered the chance to challenge the reason for her termination, she declined. The court remarked that it will not second-guess an employer’s reasons for terminating an employee as long as the reasons for terminating the employee were not made with a discriminatory motive. The court concluded, “Williams understandably would have been distracted and upset by Marshall and Salazar’s actions on February 2, but HAS’s failure to excuse her policy violation in light of those circumstances does not mean that its actions were discriminatory.”