Third Circuit finds that four to six weeks between an employee’s internal complaint and his termination is “not unduly suggestive” of retaliatory animus under Title VII.

The plaintiff sued his employer alleging, inter alia, that he was terminated in retaliation for reporting sexual misconduct at work in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Specifically, the plaintiff filed an internal complaint on May 9, 2017, reporting that a co-worker had inappropriately touched him. Thereafter, unsatisfied with the response of his employer—an investigation and subsequent written warning for the offender—the plaintiff made two additional complaints on May 15th and May 30th, both times insisting that the offending employee should have been terminated. Around the same time, the employer had been engaged in a comprehensive review and overhaul of its operations and management, which included firing several underperforming managers and hiring at least one new manager. Following a management assessment in early June 2017, the employer terminated the plaintiff’s employment, citing poor performance and leadership problems. The plaintiff then filed suit. In attempting to connect his internal complaints with his termination, the plaintiff testified that the causal connection could be readily seen in the timeline of events—i.e., complaints on May 9th, 15th and 30th, and then termination on June 27th. But the District Court disagreed and granted the employer’s motion for summary judgment, finding the record, taken as a whole, to be insufficient to support a causal connection between the complaints and the termination. The plaintiff appealed, and the Third Circuit affirmed, making it clear that “[e]ven the most generous reading of the temporal proximity is not, on its own, unduly suggestive of a causal link” sufficient to defeat summary judgment.

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