Russell v. Kronos Incorporated

Background

Tala Russell sued her former employer, Kronos Incorporated, asserting employment claims under Title VII and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. She alleged sex, national-origin, and race discrimination; retaliation; failure to prevent discrimination and harassment; and wrongful discharge in violation of public policy. Kronos moved for summary judgment on all of her claims.

Russell worked for Kronos as a Senior Sales Executive from approximately September 2013 until July 2017. Kronos said it terminated her because of poor performance. The evidence described concerns about her quota attainment, sales pipeline, forecasting, preparation, and participation in sales meetings. Three direct supervisors identified performance concerns during her employment. Kronos issued Russell a letter of concern in April 2017 and a performance improvement plan in June 2017 before terminating her on July 17, 2017.

Court’s analysis

For the discrimination claims, the court applied the burden-shifting framework commonly used in employment-discrimination cases. Kronos assumed, and the court also assumed, that Russell had established the initial showing needed for her sex-discrimination claim. The court nevertheless concluded that Kronos had provided legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for the termination and that Russell had not presented enough specific and substantial evidence for a reasonable jury to find those reasons were a pretext—a cover for unlawful discrimination.

The court rejected Russell’s arguments concerning her sales quota, the transfer of three accounts, allegedly delayed commissions, performance goals, and comments about women. It also noted that Russell’s replacement was a woman and that there was no indication Kronos had a pattern or practice of disciplining or firing women. The court applied the same reasoning to the national-origin and race discrimination claims, concluding that Russell had not raised a triable issue regarding pretext or discriminatory intent.

The court also rejected Russell’s retaliation claims. Russell acknowledged that, in her conversations with Human Resources and Tony Lombardi, she did not say she believed she was being discriminated against based on sex, national origin, ethnicity, or another protected status. The court concluded that her complaints about unfair treatment and being targeted did not reasonably communicate that she was alleging unlawful discrimination. Kronos’s stated performance reasons also were not shown to be a pretext for retaliation.

The court found that Russell’s failure-to-prevent claim failed because the underlying discrimination and retaliation claims lacked merit and for an additional reason discussed in the opinion. It also concluded that her wrongful-discharge claim was derivative of her discrimination claims and therefore failed with them.

Ruling

Judge Edward M. Chen granted Kronos’s motion for summary judgment. The order stated that it disposed of Docket No. 55. It further stated that the only claims appearing to remain were Kronos’s counterclaims under California Penal Code sections 632 and 632.7 or, alternatively, Massachusetts General Laws chapter 272, section 99. Kronos was ordered to state within a week whether it intended to proceed to trial on those counterclaims; if not, the court would direct entry of final judgment.