ISIRAMEN v. YUMA REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER (2021)

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.2021-03-03No. No. 20-15695

Summary · law.co

Holding. The court affirmed the grant of summary judgment, holding that Isiramen failed to establish a genuine dispute of material fact on her claims of disparate treatment, hostile work environment, and retaliation.

Isiramen, a Black nurse, sued her employer Yuma Regional Medical Center under Title VII for racial discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation. The district court granted summary judgment for the hospital, and Isiramen appealed. The appellate court found that Isiramen failed to present sufficient evidence to support any of her claims. On the disparate treatment claim, she did not identify comparable employees who received better treatment. Regarding hostile work environment, the court determined that the incidents she cited—an anonymous racist bathroom message she never saw and a promptly-removed magazine article about a historical song—were too isolated to constitute severe or pervasive harassment. Her co-worker's performance-related complaints were directed at specific work issues, not motivated by race.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

Whether plaintiff presented comparative evidence of disparate treatment
Whether isolated incidents of alleged racial conduct created a hostile work environment
Whether a voluntary transfer requested by the employee constitutes adverse retaliation
Temporal relationship between protected activity and adverse action

Procedural posture

Isiramen appealed from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant on her Title VII employment discrimination claims.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion · public domain

MEMORANDUM **

Omon Isiramen (“Isiramen”) appeals the grant of summary judgment to defendant Yuma Regional Medical Center in her Title VII action alleging disparate treatment, hostile work environment, and retaliation for filing an EEOC complaint. We affirm.

Although Isiramen is in a protected class, she presented no evidence that non-black employees with qualifications similar to her were treated more favorably. Cordova v. State Farm, 124 F.3d 1145, 1148 (9th Cir. 1997). She further failed to identify any similarly-situated individuals and provided only her own conclusory testimony that she was treated less favorably than other nurses. The district court correctly held that this was insufficient to carry her burden in creating a genuine issue of material fact as to disparate treatment. See Thornton v. City of St. Helens, 425 F.3d 1158, 1167 (9th Cir. 2005).

Nor did Isiramen demonstrate a material issue of fact on her claim that she was subjected to unwelcome conduct based on her race and that the conduct was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive work environment. Isiramens assertions that co-worker Stanfields repeated complaints about her were racially motivated are speculative and unsupported, as each complaint was directed at specific work performance issues and some were corroborated by other employees. Her only evidence of a racially-hostile atmosphere was (1) a racial statement anonymously written on a bathroom wall, which Isiramen did not personally see; and (2) a magazine article posted on a bulletin board in a nurse lunchroom about the history of the song “Dixieland,” which was removed promptly after Isiramen complained about it. These isolated incidents are insufficient to show severe or pervasive harassment. Manatt v. Bank of Am., N.A., 339 F.3d 792, 798 (9th Cir. 2003).

The district court did not err in denying Isiramens claims of retaliation for making complaints against Stanfield and for filing an EEOC complaint. Her complaints against Stanfield do not assert racial discrimination and do not constitute protected activity. There was also nearly a year between these complaints and the corrective action, so the timing does not raise an inference of causation.

While Isiramens filing of an EEOC complaint is a protected activity, she filed the complaint five days after she received the corrective action, so the corrective action could not have been in retaliation for the filing. This leaves only Isiramens transfer to Tower 5 as a potential adverse employment action. Although a lateral transfer may in some instances qualify as a retaliatory action if it is dictated by the employer, Ray v. Henderson, 217 F.3d 1234, 1241 (9th Cir. 2000), here Isiramen requested the transfer herself, citing patient safety concerns. As the district court held, there is no case law supporting the assertion that a voluntary transfer made at her request can qualify as a retaliatory adverse action. See Steiner v. Showboat Operating Co., 25 F.3d 1459, 1465 (9th Cir. 1994).

AFFIRMED.