Meyer Kama sued the administrator of his former employer, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), alleging Title VII retaliation. The TSA terminated Kama’s employment based on his failure to cooperate in an investigation into whether he received illegal compensation for assisting other employees during internal agency investigations.
Kama did not dispute that the TSA’s reason for terminating him was a legitimate and non-retaliatory reason, but instead claimed that this reason was merely a pretext to cover up unlawful retaliation. To establish this claim, Kama relied primarily on the temporal proximity between the date of his last formal EEO complaint and the date of his termination. Kama contended that the 56-day interval established illegal pretext by proximity alone. He also cited other circumstantial evidence to support his pretext claim. The district court disagreed and granted TSA’s motion for summary adjudication.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the temporal proximity between Kama’s last formal EEO complaint and the date of his termination was not sufficient, by itself, to support his claim. The 56-day period was considerably longer than the time periods in nearly all of the cases that Kama relied upon. Also undermining Kama’s temporal proximity argument was the fact that there was a strong temporal link between his noncooperation and his termination. The panel also rejected Kama’s list of circumstantial evidence. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of the motion for summary adjudication.
Meyer Kama v. Mayorkas, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 17666 (9th Cir.).