Family Practice and Injury Center, Inc. is a St. Petersburg, Florida based general family medical practice owned by Dr. Nila Allen. The plaintiff Shirley Johnson is an African American woman who worked as a medical assistant from July 2016 to November 2017. Dr. Speros George Hampilos was also employed since 2005 by Family Practice and Injury Center, who worked as the primary medical director physician.
Dr. Hampilos allegedly said, "If football players can stand in line for welfare checks, they can stand up for the national anthem” while watching television to the plaintiff. He also reportedly used the "n word" on two occasions, making the plaintiff uncomfortable.
On November 1, 2017 the Plaintiff told Dr. Allen in a text message that she would be late for work. She responded that she would change her hours to 1pm to closing time. Around Nov 27, 2017 she quit her position.
Plaintiff sued the Defendants for retaliation under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, with allegations she was subjected to Dr. Hampilos' racist comments. Johnson said she complained to Allen during employment about the comments, and expressed that she was uncomfortable. As a result, she said her hours were drastically cut, which was essentially a discharge. The Plaintiff says that she faced a negative action because she opposed an unlawful employment practice, under 42 U.S.C. § 1981.3Id. at ¶18.
The Defendants state that their decision to reduce her hours were a logical decision based on the tardiness of the Plaintiff. For this and other reasons, the Motion is due to be granted because the Plaintiff did not establish a prima facie case of retaliation under § 1981.
The Plaintiff satisfied the requirement of proving she faced materially adverse consequence by the Defendant conceding that reducing her work hours would have negative consequences.
However, the Plaintiff failed to present that she engaged in statutorily protected activity. Also, the Plaintiff failed to demonstrate the objectively reasonableness of her belief.
Accordingly, the judgement was granted in favor of the Defendant on February 3, 2020.
