Baselice v. AstraZeneca,LP

Background

Mary E. Baselice sued AstraZeneca LP under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, claiming that AstraZeneca terminated her because of her pregnancy. She had worked for AstraZeneca as a Pharmaceutical Sales Specialist since October 2010. Her duties included making sales calls to healthcare providers, working from 8:30 a.m., engaging in selling activities for 7.5 hours each day, and recording her calls in AstraZeneca’s Veeva system.

Baselice’s manager, Beth Rumore, gave her positive year-end reviews in 2016 and 2017 but also raised concerns about missing call entries and her work hours. Human Resources reviewed her activity in 2017, found Rumore’s concerns substantiated, and gave Baselice coaching. On January 19, 2018, Rumore discovered that Baselice had not entered calls for the entire week and later saw that Baselice had entered calls after the fact, including calls scheduled for a company holiday. Baselice disclosed her pregnancy during a call with Rumore that day.

Human Resources then reviewed Baselice’s activity from November 2017 through January 2018. It found that she had entered morning calls late on 24 of 39 business days, had not completed certain duties before noon on 33 days, had not completed other duties before noon on all 39 days, and had started her workday at 1:05 p.m. on average. After Baselice was given an opportunity to respond, AstraZeneca terminated her with the agreement of Rumore, Andrew Strow, and Human Resources.

Legal standard and arguments

AstraZeneca moved for summary judgment. Summary judgment is appropriate when the evidence shows 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 Baselice, the nonmoving party.

The court applied the burden-shifting framework used for employment-discrimination claims. Under that framework, a plaintiff initially must show facts supporting a basic discrimination claim; the employer may then provide a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its action; and the plaintiff must ultimately show that discrimination was at least one motivating factor.

The court assumed, for purposes of the motion, that Baselice satisfied the first two steps and focused on whether she had enough evidence for a reasonable jury to find that her pregnancy motivated the termination. Baselice pointed to nonpregnant employees who allegedly entered calls late, the close timing between her pregnancy disclosure and termination, and her positive performance reviews.

Court’s analysis

The court found that Baselice did not show that the other employees were similarly situated because she did not show that they engaged in conduct of comparable seriousness, such as skipping most or all morning work hours. The court also noted that Baselice admitted AstraZeneca might not have known about the other employees’ late entries.

The court held that the timing of the pregnancy disclosure and termination, standing alone, was not enough to show discriminatory motivation. It emphasized that the performance events leading to the termination—including Baselice’s failure to enter calls for the preceding week and her erroneous entries for a company holiday—occurred before she announced her pregnancy.

The court also found that the earlier positive reviews did not eliminate the significance of the later performance problems, which Rumore discovered after those reviews. AstraZeneca presented evidence that Baselice had not followed its requirements to begin work at 8:30 a.m. and log calls as they occurred. The court accepted the company’s explanations concerning late entries, lack of morning work, and falsified data entries as related to the same performance concerns rather than inconsistent reasons.

The court further considered evidence that AstraZeneca had accommodated Baselice during an earlier pregnancy and after her return from maternity leave, and that it had accommodated other pregnant employees in the same role. The court said this evidence weighed strongly against finding that AstraZeneca acted because of bias against pregnant women.

Disposition

Judge James Oetken held that Baselice had not presented evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that her termination was motivated by pregnancy-based discrimination. AstraZeneca’s motion for summary judgment was granted, and the Clerk of Court was directed to close the motion at Docket Number 39 and close the case.