In Davis v. Miami-Dade County, 2024 WL 4051215 (11th Cir. Sept. 5, 2024), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court’s dismissal of plaintiff’s race and age discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination Act (ADEA).
From the decision:
[T]he correct pleading standard in a discrimination case is the same as in any other case: “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). This plausibility standard is met “when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556).
In a discrimination case, that means that the complaint “need only provide enough factual matter (taken as true) to suggest intentional … discrimination.” Surtain, 789 F.3d at 1246 (quotations omitted).
Applying this familiar pleading standard, Davis has alleged sufficient facts to state his claims for race and age discrimination. According to the complaint, Davis was 59 years old when he was fired and replaced by a considerably younger man, Edwards. Edwards had originally been hired as Davis’s subordinate only three years previously, around the same time that Davis himself was hired. When he was fired, Davis was the only man of his race in a leadership position, and when he was replaced by Edwards, Davis was replaced by a man of a different race.This alone would not be enough to plead intentional discrimination. The County argues, and we agree, that “[i]t simply cannot be the case that because a 59-year[-]old white man — who was hired by the same employer at age 56 — is dismissed by a black man, that it automatically states a plausible case of discrimination that satisfies the Twombly/Iqbal standard.” (Emphasis added).
But here, there is more. Davis also alleges that the County’s only reason for firing him was that he was not meeting Majekodunmi’s “vision” — an opaque reason at best. Employers may fire at-will employees for any non-discriminatory reason, Flowers v. Troup Cnty., Ga., Sch. Dist., 803 F.3d 1327, 1338 (11th Cir. 2015), but the court is f ree to scrutinize an employer’s decision to check that it is not mere pretext for discrimination, see Hurlbert v. St. Mary’s Health Care Sys. Inc., 439 F.3d 1286, 1298 (11th Cir. 2006) (recognizing that “an employer’s failure to articulate clearly and consistently the reason for an employee’s discharge may serve as evidence of pretext”). The County’s decision is particularly worth scrutinizing in this case, where Davis has also alleged that he was the only white man in a leadership position when he was fired, and that, in the 32 months he worked for the County, he was never informed of any performance issues, never counseled for any misconduct, and never given an annual evaluation, despite requesting one several times and despite the fact that it was “in accordance with County policies” to receive an annual evaluation. In particular, he was never told that his “vision” did not comport with the vision of the office. We would expect that if an employee were genuinely not meeting his employer’s “vision” over a period of almost three years, the employer would warn him that he was not meeting expectations and give him a chance to improve before firing him. These facts thus present an allegation of discrimination that is “plausible on its face.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.1
The County argues that “not meeting your boss’[s] vision of the job is a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for dismissal,” and that it was not suspicious to give Davis’s work to Edwards, who had worked for the County just as long as Davis and therefore had the same level of experience. It’s true that the County could have had nondiscriminatory reasons for firing Davis for not meeting Majekodunmi’s “vision” and for giving his work to Edwards.
But the fact, as alleged in the complaint, that the County’s only stated reason for firing Davis was that he didn’t meet Majekodunmi’s “vision” is suspect. To begin with, “[v]ision” is a vague term that can mean many things, from the literal “action of seeing with the bodily eye,” to “[a] mental concept of a distinct or vivid kind,” and “[t]he action or fact of seeing or contemplating something not actually present to the eye[, like] foresight,” to the “[a]bility to conceive what might be attempted or achieved, esp. in the realm of politics.” Vision, Oxford English Dictionary (June 2024). Not only are there many meanings behind the term, but it can be applied in various ways. Majekodunmi could’ve meant that he had a plan for how the office would run and he didn’t see Davis as a part of that ideal office, whether because of his work product, his personality, or — the most sinister possibility — because of his race or age. Or Majekodunmi could’ve meant that he’d asked Davis to carry out work in a certain way, and Davis had failed to do so. If that were the case, though, it seems odd for the County not to have given Davis any negative performance evaluations, or even a single annual evaluation, for his entire 32-month stint at the office, notwithstanding having been repeatedly asked to provide Davis with an evaluation and notwithstanding that it was County policy to provide one.
In any event, we are at the motion-to-dismiss stage, and a complaint alleging employment discrimination must simply state sufficient “factual content” to “allow[ ] the court to draw the reasonable inference” that the employer had discriminatory intent when it fired the plaintiff. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. And the complaint offers no “obvious alternative explanation” for his sudden firing, without so much as a word of warning that he was not meeting expectations. See id. at 682 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 567). Nor is it likely, as the County argues, that Edwards was as experienced as Davis — otherwise the County would not have seen fit to place Davis as Edwards’s supervisor when it first hired the two men. Of course, it remains to be seen whether Davis can prove with competent evidence the allegations he has raised in his complaint. But at the pleading stage, his allegations are enough.
The County also argues that, because it hired Davis when he was 56 years old, it cannot possibly be an employer who discriminates on the basis of age. But under this rationale, no employer could ever discriminate against any employee based on a characteristic the employee had at the time of hiring. There could never be a successful race discrimination claim — because, after all, the employer must have chosen to hire the employee in the first place, knowing the employee’s race. Clearly, race discrimination claims exist and are sometimes successful (tellingly, the County does not make the same argument for Davis’s race discrimination claims). Nor does the County cite a single case for this argument.
The County finally takes issue with the fact that Edwards has not been alleged to be a materially similarly situated comparator. No matter. As we’ve already explained at length, a plaintiff need not make out a McDonnell Douglas prima facie case — which discusses materially similarly situated comparators — in order to allege a discrimination claim. Indeed, we’ve recognized that a plaintiff may have a legitimate discrimination claim even if there is no other employee against whom the plaintiff can perform a direct comparison. See Smith, 644 F.3d at 1328.
The court concluded that plaintiff need not allege a comparator, not to show a “convincing mosaic” of circumstantial evidence to sufficiently allege his discrimination claims.