Bernard v. St. Jude Medical S.C., Inc.

Background

St. Jude Medical S.C., Inc. employed Craig Bernard from 2003 until September 6, 2016. Bernard had worked as a sales representative and later as a territory manager in the Birmingham, Alabama region. He had previously been diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and received chemotherapy; in 2016, he also underwent immunotherapy and requested time off for treatment.

Bernard alleged that St. Jude discriminated against him because of his age and health problems and retaliated after he complained about that treatment. His complaint asserted seven claims: age discrimination and retaliation under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act; disability discrimination and retaliation under the Americans with Disabilities Act; and age-discrimination, disability-discrimination, and retaliation claims under the Minnesota Human Rights Act.

St. Jude maintained that it fired Bernard for legitimate performance-related reasons. The company pointed to declining sales, complaints from team members about Bernard’s communication and leadership, Bernard’s 30-day suspension from the Brookwood Medical Center account, his failure to promptly tell management about that suspension, and his failure to comply substantially with an improvement plan.

Summary-judgment standard and employment actions

The court explained that summary judgment is appropriate when the record shows no genuine dispute over a material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The court must view the evidence and reasonable inferences in favor of the party opposing the motion, but that party must identify specific evidence supporting a trial.

Bernard identified three alleged adverse employment actions: losing half of the commissions from the University of Alabama in Birmingham Medical Center account after St. Jude promoted Rachelle Mouron; being placed on a performance improvement plan; and being fired.

The court assumed, without deciding, that the commission loss could qualify as an adverse employment action. It nevertheless held that the claim could not be based on that event because the February 2016 commission change was a separate employment action occurring more than 180 days before Bernard filed his discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Alabama. The court could still consider the surrounding events as evidence concerning the later termination.

The court also held that the performance improvement plan was not an adverse employment action. The plan required Bernard to complete eight tasks, including preparing a business plan, submitting weekly reports, meeting with team members, holding team meetings, completing a conduct-training module, attending leadership training, and maintaining professionalism. Bernard conceded that these were reasonable business expectations and that he should have been able to meet them.

Age-discrimination claim

The court rejected Bernard’s argument that comments by Royster and Kieck provided direct evidence of age discrimination. Royster allegedly told Bernard that it was time to step aside and let younger employees have a chance, and Kieck placed a younger employee on a management track while describing Bernard as being on a senior-sales-representative track. The court found that these comments were made outside the termination decision-making process and about a year before Bernard’s firing, making them insufficient direct evidence of discriminatory termination.

The court assumed that Bernard had established the initial elements of an age-discrimination claim. St. Jude had offered a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the termination: performance-related concerns. The question was therefore whether Bernard had produced evidence that this reason was a pretext, meaning a cover for unlawful discrimination.

Bernard argued that St. Jude treated younger employees, including Mouron and Brian Faulknier, better than it treated him and that his earlier record of sales success contradicted St. Jude’s performance explanation. The court rejected both arguments. It found no evidence that Mouron or Faulknier had engaged in the same combination of conduct attributed to Bernard, such as receiving complaints about leadership, experiencing a prolonged sales decline, being suspended from a major account, failing to report that suspension, or failing to comply with a reasonable performance plan.

The court also found that Bernard’s earlier success and a March 2016 performance review rating him as meeting expectations did not establish pretext. By the time of his termination, St. Jude had evidence of more recent performance concerns, including declining sales, team complaints, the Brookwood suspension, and Bernard’s substantial failure to follow the performance plan. The court granted St. Jude summary judgment on the age-discrimination claim.

Disability-discrimination claim

Bernard argued that the timing of his April 2016 notice about immunotherapy, the May performance plan, and his September termination supported an inference that St. Jude fired him because he was ill. The court rejected that argument.

First, the court found no evidence that St. Jude designed the performance plan to conflict with Bernard’s treatment. Bernard had agreed that the plan’s requirements were reasonable and had not told St. Jude that his treatment prevented him from completing them or that he needed an accommodation. Second, the court held that timing alone did not overcome the undisputed evidence that Bernard failed to complete the plan and that other performance concerns existed. Third, the court noted that St. Jude had allowed Bernard time off for earlier leukemia treatment and had promoted him twice after his diagnosis, which the court viewed as evidence against an inference of disability discrimination.

The court concluded that no reasonable juror could find that St. Jude fired Bernard because he was undergoing immunotherapy rather than because of genuinely held performance concerns. It granted St. Jude summary judgment on the disability-discrimination claim.

Retaliation claims

Bernard contended that his May 5 and May 14 complaints about age- and health-related discrimination were protected activity and that his termination four months later was retaliation. The court held that Bernard had not shown the required causal connection between the complaints and the termination.

Although the timing could suggest a connection, the court found that intervening events weakened that inference. In particular, Bernard substantially failed to comply with the performance plan, and the record also included the continuing sales decline, team complaints, and Brookwood suspension. The court further held that Bernard had not shown that St. Jude’s performance explanation was a pretext for retaliation. It granted St. Jude summary judgment on the retaliation claims.

Minnesota Human Rights Act claims

The court held that the Minnesota Human Rights Act applies to employees who reside or work in Minnesota. Bernard lived and worked in Alabama during the relevant period, so the court concluded that he lacked standing to assert claims under that statute. It granted St. Jude summary judgment on the Minnesota claims. The court added that, even if Bernard had standing, the state claims would have failed for the same reasons as the federal claims.

Disposition

The court granted Defendant St. Jude Medical’s motion for summary judgment and ordered that judgment be entered accordingly. The order resolved all of Bernard’s claims in St. Jude’s favor.