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Moorehead v. Hi-Health Supermart Corp.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
Jun 7, 2018
No. 17-15202 (9th Cir. Jun. 7, 2018)

Opinion

No. 17-15202

06-07-2018

CHRISTINE MOOREHEAD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HI-HEALTH SUPERMART CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.


NOT FOR PUBLICATION

D.C. No. 2:14-cv-02542-JJT MEMORANDUM Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona
John Joseph Tuchi, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted March 13, 2018 San Francisco, California Before: WATFORD and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges, and FEINERMAN, District Judge.

This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

The Honorable Gary Feinerman, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation. --------

1. The district court properly granted summary judgment to Hi-Health Supermart Corporation on Christine Moorehead's Title VII retaliation claim. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3. Moorehead failed to establish a causal connection between her protected activity and her termination. The 12-year gap between the two events was too long to support an inference of retaliation. See Manatt v. Bank of America, NA, 339 F.3d 792, 802 (9th Cir. 2003). Moorehead also received multiple bonuses during that period, and her supervisor ceased making statements about her protected activity more than one year before her termination. See id.

2. The district court properly granted summary judgment to Hi-Health on Moorehead's Age Discrimination in Employment Act claim. See 29 U.S.C. § 623. Moorehead's supervisor's repeated statements linking Moorehead's age to her performance go beyond "a stray remark," but they are not enough alone to defeat summary judgment. See France v. Johnson, 795 F.3d 1170, 1173 (9th Cir. 2015). We therefore assess Moorehead's claim using the burden-shifting framework established in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-04 (1973). Because Moorehead provided no evidence that the performance objectives she was required to meet were unreasonable, she has failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Hi-Health's proffered non-discriminatory reason for terminating her—that she failed to meet her objectives—was pretextual. See France, 795 F.3d at 1175.

AFFIRMED.


Summaries of

Moorehead v. Hi-Health Supermart Corp.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
Jun 7, 2018
No. 17-15202 (9th Cir. Jun. 7, 2018)
Case details for

Moorehead v. Hi-Health Supermart Corp.

Case Details

Full title:CHRISTINE MOOREHEAD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HI-HEALTH SUPERMART…

Court:UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

Date published: Jun 7, 2018

Citations

No. 17-15202 (9th Cir. Jun. 7, 2018)