Thresa J. Scott v. Macon Bibb County Georgia

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I. Factual Background and Procedural History

Scott, a Black woman, filed her initial pro se complaint against her employer, Macon-Bibb County, pursuant to Title VII and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983 for race discrimination. Scott later re- tained counsel, and without seeking leave of the court, filed her first amended complaint which added Appraisers Crutchfield and Claborn to the suit.²She alleged that Defendants racially discrimi- nated against her by failing to timely reclassify her to Appraiser III in Macon-Bibb County's Tax Assessor's Office (TAO), in which she is employed in the Personal Property Division (PPD). After addi- tional proceedings not relevant on appeal, Scott filed her second amended complaint against Defendants.

In her second amended complaint, Scott alleged the follow- ing facts. Crutchfield served as the Chief Appraiser for Macon-Bibb County's TAO, and Claborn served as the TAO's Deputy Chief Ap- praiser. Scott worked as an "Appraiser II."³Scott first began work- ing for Macon-Bibb County as a receptionist in 1998 and became an "Appraiser Trainee" in the TAO in 2008. In July 2010, Scott passed the requisite Appraiser I exam; she was reclassified to the Appraiser I position in August 2012. She was not promoted to the

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4 Opinion of the Court 24-11388 Appraiser II position until 2015, five years after she passed the Ap- praiser II exam. On the Appraiser III exam, a 70 is considered a pass- ing score, and an 80 is needed to later be eligible to take the Ap- praiser IV exam under Macon-Bibb County policy.

Scott took the Appraiser III exam on several occasions. Scott passed the Appraiser III exam on February 6, 2018, but she was not reclassified. By February 2020, Scott's supervisor, Desiree Murray, had recommended that Scott be reclassified to Appraiser III on sev- eral occasions. Murray indicated that she not only felt like Scott was qualified for reclassification to Appraiser III, but that she had been performing duties consistent with the Appraiser III designa- tion for years. When Scott had still not been reclassified by Febru- ary 2020, two years after Scott passed the exam, Murray made an- other explicit recommendation in Scott's annual evaluation. But Murray's recommendations were denied, and Claborn did not pro- vide any reason for denying Scott's reclassification. Meanwhile, around the same time, several non-Black employees were reclassi- fied within 30 days of passing their Appraiser III exams. After the discovery deadline had passed, Defendants moved for summary judgment. Scott filed a motion to defer consideration of Defendants' motion for summary judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(d). Within the motion, Scott asserted that after the close of discovery,⁴Scott learned that Macon-Bibb

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24-11388 Opinion of the Court 5 County "was conducting an investigation into its workplace."

Upon realizing that the investigation was not specifically related to this litigation,⁵Scott submitted a request to Macon-Bibb County under the Georgia Open Records Act for the entire investigative file. Macon-Bibb County did not produce any documents related to the investigation on the grounds that the documents were attor- ney work product. The district court denied Scott's motion to de- fer.

The district court then granted Defendants' motion for sum- mary judgment, holding that Scott did not meet the last two prongs of the McDonnell Douglas framework and, therefore, could not make out a prima facie case of Title VII race discrimination. The court also addressed Scott's other "catchall arguments" and "pur- ported facts," noting that Scott does not exactly "call it a convincing mosaic or a direct evidence argument." Nevertheless, the court turned to said evidence and addressed it in a convincing mosaic- like analysis, once again concluding that Scott had not met her bur- den.⁶

closed in July 2023, and after Defendants moved for summary judgment in Au- gust 2023, to request information about the investigation.

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6 Opinion of the Court 24-11388 Scott timely appealed both the grant of summary judgment and the denial of her Rule 56(d) motion to defer.

II. Standard of Review

"We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo applying the same standards as the district court." Stewart v. Happy Herman's Cheshire Bridge, Inc., 117 F.3d 1278, 1284 (11th Cir. 1997) (emphasis removed). Summary judgment is appropriate if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any mate- rial fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id.; see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). A factual dispute is genuine if it has a real basis in the record and the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could rule in favor of the nonmovant. Ellis v. England, 432 F.3d 1321, 1325-26 (11th Cir. 2005) (per curiam). When a district court considers a motion for summary judgment, it must view all the ev- idence and all factual inferences reasonably drawn from the evi- dence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and must resolve all reasonable doubts about the facts in favor of the non- movant. Rioux v. City of Atlanta, 520 F.3d 1269, 1274 (11th Cir.

2008).

We review the district court's denial of a motion to defer under Rule 56(d) for abuse of discretion. See Fla. Power & Light Co.

v. Allis Chalmers Corp., 893 F.2d 1313, 1315 (11th Cir. 1990) (origi- nally referring to Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(f), the prior version of present Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(d)).

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III. Title VII Claims

Title VII prohibits an employer from discriminating against a person with respect to the "terms, conditions, or privileges of em- ployment, because of such individual's race." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). Without direct evidence of discrimination, a plain- tiff can prove a discrimination claim under Title VII through cir- cumstantial evidence, which we generally analyze using the three-step, burden-shifting framework created in McDonnell Doug- las or by using the convincing mosaic approach. E.E.O.C. v. Joe's Stone Crabs, Inc., 296 F.3d 1265, 1272 (11th Cir. 2002); Lewis v. City of Union City, 934 F.3d 1169, 1185 (11th Cir. 2019). A plaintiff may defeat a summary judgment motion under the convincing mosaic approach by presenting "circumstantial ev- idence that would allow a jury to infer intentional discrimination."

Lewis, 934 F.3d at 1185 (quotation marks omitted). "The convinc- ing mosaic approach is—in its entirety—the summary judgment standard. That phrase 'is a metaphor, not a legal test and not a framework.'" McCreight v. AuburnBank, 117 F.4th 1322, 1335 (11th Cir. 2024).

Here, there is sufficient circumstantial evidence that would allow a jury to infer intentional discrimination. But before discussing that evidence and the parties' argu- ments, it helps to frame the discussion with some policies relevant to Scott's employment. The TAO sets the standards for reclassifi- cation in Macon-Bibb County, while the Georgia Department of Revenue is responsible for administering the appraiser

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8 Opinion of the Court 24-11388 examination. To qualify for reclassification to the Appraiser III po- sition in the PPD, the TAO's policies and procedures manual states an individual:

• Must have the ability to make accurate apprais- als of all types of personal property within his/her jurisdiction. Must be able to supervise and direct the activities of subordinate person- nel effectively. The Appraiser III must:

• Be 21 years of age or older; hold a high school diploma or its equivalent;

• Have a minimum of four (4) years appraisal ex- perience;

• Have the ability to apply correctly the three (3) approaches to value in appraising properties within his/her jurisdiction;

• Have the ability to organize and direct the ac- tivities of subordinate personnel;

• Have the ability to perform all phases of mass appraisal and revaluation work within his/her jurisdiction, including the ability to develop pricing and valuation schedules for personal property;

• Successfully have completed the State Ap- praiser III exam.

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• Successfully have completed these appraisal courses offered by the Georgia Department of Revenue: Course I or Course IA, Course III, and two (2) of the following courses: Course II, Course IV (A/B), and Course V.

(Appraiser III job description).

On appeal, Defendants argue that they did not promote Scott to Appraiser III because for two reasons, she was not quali- fied. First, Scott did not score an 80 on the Appraiser III exam, and second, Scott has no supervisory experience. But they miss the mark with both arguments.

Turning first to supervisory experience, while Defendants argue that Scott was unqualified for the position of Appraiser III because she had no supervisory experience, the Appraiser III job description does not state that supervisory experience is required for promotion to Appraiser III. And evidence suggests that Scott has the "ability to organize and direct the activities of subordinate personnel," as required by the Appraiser III job description. Scott testified in her deposition that while she had not held the title of a

"supervisor," she had indeed trained and given directives to subor- dinates during her employment. Scott also testified that she was able to meet the requirement of being able to supervise subordi- nates.

Murray, Scott's immediate supervisor, also explained in her affidavit that Scott had many of the traits one would assume a per- son would need to be a supervisor. She indicated that Scott was

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10 Opinion of the Court 24-11388 trustworthy and dependable, that she was a team player, and that she often helped other employees to complete their work. Turning next to the exam score, the Appraiser III job de- scription requires that an Appraiser III must "[s]uccessfully have completed the State Appraiser III exam." And the Georgia Depart- ment of Revenue provides that "a passing grade of 70 or better" is considered "successful completion" of the Appraiser III examina- tion.⁷The parties agree that Scott scored a 70. Defendants reply that while 70 is technically the passing score according to TAO pol- icy, no one within the TAO has ever been reclassified to an Ap- praiser III without scoring at least 80 on the Appraiser III examina- tion.

Indeed, at the summary judgment stage, Scott offered up eight possible comparators, none of whom scored lower than an 80 on the Appraiser III exam. Therefore, Defendants argued, and the district court agreed, that none of Scott's proposed compara- tors were similarly situated to Scott. But Defendants are fighting a strawman here. That Scott did not score an 80 is neither the crux of the matter, nor is it disputed here.⁸The real issue is that neither

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24-11388 Opinion of the Court 11 the Macon-Bibb County policies and procedures, nor the Georgia Department of Revenue policies, make any reference to a score of 80 being required for promotion to Appraiser III.⁹ And, as Scott notes, it was not until this case was pending for over two years, and after Defendants had already filed multiple mo- tions to dismiss, that Defendants argued for the first time that Scott was not reclassified because she had not made the "required" score of 80 on the Appraiser III exam. Multiple times, Defendants changed their story about why they did not reclassify Scott,¹⁰and

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12 Opinion of the Court 24-11388 the supposed exam score requirement of 80 appears in the record only in the declarations of Crutchfield and Claborn, both defend- ants here.

So, this is what we are left with—a genuine factual dispute about whether a score of 80 was required for promotion to Ap- praiser III. There are compelling arguments on both sides. On the one hand, Scott cannot point to anyone who has been promoted to Appraiser III without scoring an 80 on the Appraiser III exam, which could suggest a legitimate company practice or policy to that effect. On the other hand, the supposed score requirement popped up relatively late into the litigation and only in declarations from two of the defendants here, which could suggest that the "require- ment" was a convenient reason utilized by opportunistic Defend- ants once they found out none of Scott's proffered comparators scored below an 80. The factfinder will ultimately have to decide whom to believe. Given the presence of a genuine issue of material fact such as this, we avoid making a credibility judgment and leave that task to the factfinder. Accordingly, we reverse the grant of summary judgment for Defendants.¹¹

IV. Motion to Defer

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(d) provides, "[i]f a non- movant shows . . . for specified reasons, it cannot present facts es- sential to justify its opposition, the court may: (1) defer considering

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24-11388 Opinion of the Court 13 the motion or deny it; (2) allow time to obtain affidavits or decla- rations or to take discovery; or (3) issue any other appropriate or- der." Whether to grant a continuance under Rule 56(d) is left to the sound discretion of the trial court. See Virgilio v. Ryland Group, Inc.,

680 F.3d 1329, 1338-39 (11th Cir. 2012). "Because the burden on a party resisting summary judgment is not a heavy one, [the party] must conclusively justify his entitlement to the shelter of [Rule 56(d)] by presenting specific facts explaining the inability to make a substantive response." Id. at 1338.

Here, despite first hearing of the investigation in March 2023, Scott's counsel did not make any effort to gain the investiga- tive file until August 2023. Scott waited until after the discovery deadline of July 2023 had passed before taking any action to gain the file. Moreover, Scott's counsel did not conduct any discovery whatsoever during the pendency of the case despite the court ex- tending the discovery deadline at Scott's request.¹²Because Scott was aware of the investigation and waited several months before taking any type of action to retrieve the files, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Scott's Rule 56(d) motion to de- fer.¹³

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AFFIRMED in Part, REVERSED and REMANDED, in Part.

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