Employment – Company prevails on retaliation claim

Where a man was terminated for misuse of his company card and dishonesty, and he failed to show these reasons were false and that retaliation was the true reason, his employer prevailed on the retaliation claim.

Background

Jason Boyer sued his former employer, Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, for retaliation. Defendant has filed a motion for summary judgment.

Analysis

Defendant asserts that plaintiff was terminated for his misuse of his PCard and failing to live up to principles related to honesty. This satisfies defendant’s burden to “articulate” a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason, which is only a burden of production. The burden then shifts to plaintiff to establish pretext. No reasonable juror could find that defendant’s proffered reason was pretextual.

In the first instance, plaintiff does not challenge that he was perceived as lacking honesty during and as a result of the investigation. Defendant has been consistent in referring to plaintiff’s dishonesty. It is unclear why plaintiff considers references to a lack of transparency and gaps in the information provided to be meaningfully different from dishonesty. They are not and pretext is not established by minor changes in wording that mean the same thing. Thus, the decisions at the time plaintiff was terminated were all remarkably consistent.

Plaintiff further acknowledges and, indeed, argues that the “decision to terminate Mr. Boyer was made on July 18, 2024, prior to a full and complete investigation.” Thus, it is unsurprising that, after the investigation, defendant referenced other, additional bases for his termination. But, even so, defendant continued to consistently reference plaintiff’s dishonesty and violation of defendant’s honesty principles.

Plaintiff argues that the prohibition on use of the PCard for personal expenses was “routine.” But the document upon which he relies contains no reference to frequency and emphasizes that such use of the PCard is a violation of company policy. Plaintiff next argues that PCard “blocks” based on untimely submissions of expense reports were company among defendant’s employees. But plaintiff does not point to anywhere in the record where defendant asserted that it terminated plaintiff for failing to timely submit a PCard expense report. Thus, this argument has no relevance with respect to whether plaintiff was treated differently from similarly situated persons.

Likewise, plaintiff’s argument that he was not previously reprimanded for splitting charges does little to advance defendant learning of that practice now is pretextual. Plaintiff provides a receipt indicating that, on one other occasion he split a bill so that the checks fell below the $75 reporting threshold. But plaintiff provides no evidence that anyone at defendant approved of this practice, noticed this practice or even that it was a practice used on more than two occasions.

Plaintiff further argues that a reasonable jury could find defendant’s allegations of timecard fraud as unsupported. Not so. Plaintiff testified that he arrived at the June 18, 2024, happy hour at around 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon, yet he reported that he was “working 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.” Thus, plaintiff has conceded that he reported that he was working when he was attending the happy hour and plaintiff offers no explanation for why this inaccuracy would not constitute fraud.

Plaintiff further concedes that he often failed to accurately report his time. Although plaintiff contends that he often underreported his time, plaintiff does not explain why this would excuse his failure to honestly and accurately report his time.

In short, a reasonable juror could not find in plaintiff’s favor on any of the identified bases of pretext. Moreover, there is no other evidence in the record that would support a reasonable inference of retaliation on which plaintiff carries the ultimate burden.

Defendant’s motion for summary judgment granted.

Boyer v. Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, Inc., Case No. 1:24-cv-2014, May 5, 2026. EDVA at Alexandria (Alston). VLW 026-3-202. 19 pp.

Full-Text Opinion
VLW 026-3-202