RODRIGUEZ v. AMERICANWEST BANK 50 (2018)

MEMORANDUM **

Plaintiff-Appellants Jacqueline Rodriguez and Shawn Sangeladji (“employees”) appeal the district court’s grant of summary judgment on their retaliation and wrongful termination claims against their former employer, AmericanWest Bank. See Cal. Lab. Code § 1102.5(b). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm.

The district court properly granted summary judgment because the employees failed, under the test articulated in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), to make even a prima facie showing of a causal link between their alleged protected activity and the adverse employment actions they suffered. See Morgan v. Regents of Univ. of Cal., 88 Cal. App. 4th 52, 69, 105 Cal.Rptr.2d 652 (2000). “Essential to a causal link is evidence that the” decisionmakers in charge of employment determinations were “aware that the plaintiff had engaged in a protected activity.” Id. at 70, 105 Cal.Rptr.2d 652.

Here, as to all but one of the areas of allegedly protected activity, the district court properly found that the employees failed to produce sufficiently probative evidence that the three managers who actually decided to fire them were aware of their alleged protected activity.¹ At best, they demonstrated that they made several complaints to their direct supervisors, who were not the decisionmakers. Further, the employees have not directed this panel’s attention to any evidence that sufficiently demonstrates that either supervisor told the decisionmakers about the employees’ complaints.

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

1.   As to the one remaining area of allegedly protected activity—Sangeladji’s complaints about the security systems in the bank—Sangeladji produced no evidence that the complaints were about illegal activity, or that he reasonably could have thought they were. See Mokler v. Cty. of Orange, 157 Cal. App. 4th 121, 138, 68 Cal.Rptr.3d 568 (2007) (explaining that an employee engages in a protected activity when she discloses “reasonably based suspicions of illegal activity” to another employee who has the authority to correct the violation).