Kalarickal v. Wilkie

Background

Alexander Kalarickal, a former contract employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs, sued after his assignment at the VA hospital ended. He alleged that the VA retaliated against him for seeking counseling from the VA’s equal-employment-opportunity office and filing a formal employment-discrimination complaint. The cases were consolidated. After an earlier order dismissed all of Kalarickal’s claims except his Title VII retaliation claim, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment.

Kalarickal filed his first formal Equal Employment Opportunity complaint on January 27, 2016, alleging discrimination and retaliation in connection with the VA’s failure to select him for two positions. On February 21, a nurse reported seeing him sleeping at his desk. His supervisor investigated the report and told a department administrator that he had also heard Kalarickal had been found sleeping at work on other occasions. The administrator requested that Kalarickal’s assignment be terminated, and Kalarickal was told on March 3 that his assignment would end in two weeks. A letter prepared at Kalarickal’s request described the termination as resulting from budget cuts.

Legal standard and analysis

Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine dispute about a fact that could affect the outcome and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law. The court must view disputed facts in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion and must give special consideration to filings by a party without a lawyer.

Title VII prohibits retaliation against an employee for opposing unlawful employment practices. Under the required burden-shifting framework, a plaintiff first must present evidence of protected activity, the employer’s awareness of that activity, a materially adverse employment action, and a causal connection between the activity and the action. If the plaintiff does so, the employer must identify a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason for its action. The plaintiff then must show that the stated reason was a pretext—a false explanation covering the real retaliatory reason—and that retaliation was the deciding cause of the action.

The court held that Kalarickal established an initial retaliation case. The VA did not dispute that seeking EEO counseling and filing an EEO complaint were protected activities, that it knew about those activities, or that ending his employment was an adverse action. The close timing—just over one month between the EEO complaint and notice that his assignment would end—was enough to support an initial inference of causation.

The court then found that the VA had offered a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason: Kalarickal’s supervisor had been told that Kalarickal was sleeping on the job. The court explained that the relevant question was whether the employer believed Kalarickal was sleeping, not whether he actually was sleeping or whether the report was factually correct.

The court found no sufficient evidence of pretext. Kalarickal denied sleeping at work and pointed to alleged errors or inconsistencies in reports, but did not explain how they created a material factual dispute. His comparison to another employee did not help because he did not show that the other employee had been found sleeping on the job or provide enough information to establish that the employees were similarly situated. The court also rejected reliance on the budget-cuts language in the reference letter because Kalarickal had requested that letter to help obtain other employment, the VA had already explained that the termination was based on the sleeping reports, and the VA had consistently maintained that explanation. Finally, the court found no basis to infer pretext from management’s handling of an assault and theft involving Kalarickal because the administrator who made the termination decision did not handle those incidents.

Disposition

The court denied Kalarickal’s May 9, 2022 motion for summary judgment and granted the defendant’s May 6, 2022 motion for summary judgment. It directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment for the defendant and close the case.