Raymond M. Cornwell v. Electra Central Credit Union James E. Sharp

439 F.3d 1018 Raymond M. CORNWELL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ELECTRA CENTRAL CREDIT UNION; James E. Sharp, Defendants-Appellees. No. 04-35408. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted September 14, 2005. Filed March 1, 2006. COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED Craig A. Crispin, Crispin Employment Lawyers, Portland, OR, for the plaintiff-appellant. Richard R. Meneghello (argued), Fisher & Phillips, LLP, Portland, OR, Karen E. Saul (argued) and Kimberley Hanks McGair, Farleigh, Wada & Witt, PC, Portland, OR, for the defendants-appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon; Garr M. King, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-03-00699-GMK. Before: FISHER, GOULD, BEA, Circuit Judges. GOULD, Circuit Judge: 1 Plaintiff-Appellant Raymond Cornwell appeals the district court's order granting summary judgment to defendants-appellees Electra Central Credit Union and Jim Sharp, and dismissing Cornwell's retaliation and race discrimination claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 , Title VII, and Oregon law. Cornwell also appeals the district court's order denying his motion to reopen discovery so that Cornwell…

Plaintiff-Appellant Raymond Cornwell appeals the district court’s order granting summary judgment to defendants-appel-lees Electra Central Credit Union and Jim Sharp, and dismissing Cornwell’s retaliation and race discrimination claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 , Title VII, and Oregon law. Cornwell also appeals the district court’s order denying his motion to reopen discovery so that Cornwell could depose an additional witness to oppose summary judgment. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I

Electra Central Credit Union (Electra) is a not-for-profit cooperative that provides financial services, including banking and lending, to its members. On August 30, 1993, Electra hired Raymond Cornwell, who is African-American, as its Director of Lending. Cornwell supervised the nine employees who worked in Electra’s loan department and managed Electra’s lending operations until Cornwell was promoted to Vice President and Chief Operating Officer in 2000. Thereafter, Cornwell managed Electra’s branches and cash operations in addition to Electra’s lending business.

During Cornwell’s stewardship of Electra’s lending operations, the value…

concurring:

I concur separately as to Part IILAl/of the opinion 1 because I think the evidence of Sharp’s immediate reaction to Corn-well’s enquiry — an offer to find Cornwell employment elsewhere — can reasonably be seen as contradictory to Sharp’s assertion he wanted to have Cornwell remain with the company and be in charge of lending. Hence, the trier of fact can view Sharp’s business related reason for re-assigning Cornwell as a pretext, and can then consider racial animus as the true motivation of Cornwell’s reassignment or demotion. See Reeves, 530 U.S. at 148, 120 S.Ct. 2097 .

I respectfully disagree with the majority as to the effect of the other evidence it cites as a basis for a finding of pretext or racial animus. Taken alone or together with the evidence of Sharp’s said immediate reaction, the fact that (1) Cornwell was a valued employee- of Electra who knew the most about lending, 2 (2) was the only *1037 African-American executive, (3) was the only executive demoted, or (4) was kept out of meetings where his demotion was discussed does not undermine Sharp’s evidence that Sharp wanted to limit Cornwell to lending. Absent some claim of earlier racial discrimination,…