Hassan v. Amazon.com Services, LLC

Background

Ahmed Hassan worked for Amazon from 2015 until Amazon terminated his employment effective February 9, 2023. He alleged that Amazon failed to promote him and took other adverse employment actions because of his race, color, and national origin. He brought discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Minnesota Human Rights Act, and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. He also brought retaliation claims under Title VII and the Minnesota Human Rights Act.

Hassan testified that his former direct manager, Derek Kling, asked about his national origin, commented about Somalia and piracy, questioned him about fasting, and called fasting “stupid.” Hassan also claimed that Amazon did not promote him as expected and that Amazon later retaliated against him through actions including a lower employee rating, failure to promote, a written warning, a performance-improvement plan, leave denials, and termination. His separate disability-discrimination claim had already been dismissed with prejudice by stipulation and was not at issue in this motion.

Amazon terminated Hassan after an expense investigation. The investigation concerned his purchase and return of Apple AirPods that he charged as a business expense, as well as an Internet expense above Amazon’s stated cap. Amazon determined that the AirPods expense was fraudulent and violated its expense policy.

Summary-judgment standard

The court applied Rule 56’s summary-judgment standard. Summary judgment is proper when there is no genuine dispute about a fact that could affect the result and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law. The court viewed the evidence in the light most favorable to Hassan but explained that unsupported conclusions, inadmissible hearsay, and speculation could not create a jury question.

Discrimination claims

The court analyzed Hassan’s race, color, and national-origin discrimination claims together. Hassan could survive summary judgment by presenting direct evidence of discrimination or by using the burden-shifting framework established in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green. Under that framework, he first had to show that he belonged to a protected group, met Amazon’s legitimate expectations, suffered an adverse employment action, and experienced circumstances supporting an inference of discrimination. If he made that showing, Amazon would need to identify a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason, after which Hassan would need evidence that the stated reason was a pretext for discrimination.

The court held that Kling’s comments were not direct evidence connected to the challenged decisions. The court said the questions about Somalia did not, by themselves, show discriminatory intent relevant to the race, color, or national-origin claims. It found that the comments about fasting reflected hostility toward religion, but Hassan had not asserted a religion-discrimination claim. The court also found no evidence that Kling participated in the later promotion decisions or in the termination decision, which were made after Kling stopped being Hassan’s direct manager.

The court rejected Hassan’s comparison-employee evidence under the burden-shifting framework. Hassan identified David Arensman and referred generally to other employees whom he believed were white and had received promotions. The court found that the cited deposition pages supporting the comparison with Arensman were not in the record. It also found that neither Kling nor Hassan’s later manager, Jake Sanchez, supervised Arensman, and that Hassan had not shown the other employees were similarly situated in all relevant respects. The court therefore held that Hassan had not shown that his discrimination claims could proceed to trial.

Hostile-work-environment theory

The court held that Hassan’s race-, color-, and national-origin-based hostile-work-environment theory failed both procedurally and on the merits. Procedurally, the amended complaint did not reasonably plead such a claim. Its references to a hostile work environment concerned retaliation, not race, color, or national origin, and its discrimination counts identified the failure to promote—not a hostile work environment—as the adverse action. The court also found that Hassan waived the theory by failing to address Amazon’s arguments about it in his opposition brief.

On the merits, the court held that Kling’s statements could not support a hostile-work-environment claim. The record showed, at most, a discrete event or possibly more than one conversation in April or May 2021. Hassan did not testify that Kling repeated the comments frequently or that they interfered with his work. The court concluded that no reasonable jury could find that the statements created a hostile work environment based on race, color, or national origin.

Retaliation claims

The court applied the same burden-shifting framework to Hassan’s Title VII retaliation and Minnesota Human Rights Act reprisal claims. Hassan had to show protected conduct, a materially adverse action, and a causal connection between the two. He identified complaints to Alyssa Alvarez in February or March 2022 about Kling’s comments and about the promotion of employees whom he believed were white American employees.

The court found that Hassan relied primarily on timing and had not shown a sufficiently close connection between his complaints and the challenged actions. The Quarter 1 2022 nonpromotion occurred before his complaints. Hassan did not identify when other promotion decisions or the alleged rating reduction occurred. The written warning came about three months after the complaints, the performance-improvement plan was created in November 2022, a leave denial occurred in January 2023, and the termination occurred in February 2023. The court held that these periods were too long, standing alone, to establish causation.

The court also rejected Hassan’s argument that Amazon’s stated reason for termination was pretextual. Amazon said it terminated him for expense fraud based on the AirPods purchase, charge, and return. Hassan argued that he had approval through Amazon’s internal messaging system, but the court found that this assertion came from a later declaration and conflicted with his earlier denial that he had expensed the AirPods. The court held that Hassan had not created a genuine factual dispute about whether Amazon honestly believed he had violated its expense rules.

Disposition

The court granted Amazon’s motion for summary judgment. It dismissed Hassan’s amended complaint with prejudice and directed that judgment be entered accordingly.