Title VII retaliation; 42 USC § 2000e-3(a); McDonnell Douglas Corp v Green; Prima facie causation; Temporal proximity; Pretext; Reduction in force; Failure to follow internal procedures; Title VII hostile work environment; § 2000e-2(a)(1); Same-sex harassment; Oncale v Sundowner Offshore Servs, Inc; Faragher Ellerth affirmative defense; Faragher v City of Boca Raton; Burlington Indus, Inc v Ellerth; Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA); 29 USC § 623(a)(1); Replacement; Reduction-in-force evidence; Grosjean v First Energy Corp; Geiger v Tower Auto

The court held that factual disputes precluded summary judgment on plaintiffs’ Title VII retaliation claims, but that defendant was entitled to summary judgment on their hostile-work-environment claims and one plaintiff’s ADEA claim. Plaintiffs sued their former employer after one plaintiff filed an ethics complaint about their supervisor and both were later terminated. The district court granted defendant summary judgment on all claims. On appeal, the court first held that plaintiffs met their “minimal” prima facie burden on causation because evidence showed the decisionmaker did not make his final termination decisions until after the ethics complaint and may have decided to terminate the second plaintiff after he participated in the investigation. The court also held that a reasonable jury could find pretext. Evidence showed the decisionmaker “question[ed] the timing” of the ethics complaint, and stated in the same email that he planned to terminate plaintiffs. Further, he terminated them even though his supervisor had “[n]o expectations” that the reorganization would lead to terminations, and seemingly failed to follow defendant’s reduction-in-force process. Because the parties offered “two reasonable interpretations of the evidence,” the retaliation claims had to go to a jury. But the hostile-work-environment claims failed under the Faragher/Ellerth defense. The court held that defendant had a reasonable harassment policy, promptly investigated the complaint, substantiated the allegations, disciplined the supervisor, and thereby “exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly” the harassment. It also held that plaintiffs unreasonably failed to use defendant’s corrective measures because one waited about four months to report and largely provided only vague allegations, while the other never reported the conduct. Finally, the court held that the ADEA claim failed because the plaintiff’s duties were redistributed among existing employees, and “‘[s]preading the former duties of a terminated employee among the remaining employees does not constitute replacement.’” Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.