Pryor v. Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
212 F.3d 976 (2000)
After nine years of good performance reviews, secretary Pryor (plaintiff) complained about sexual discrimination by a lawyer at her employment-law firm (defendant), and shortly after, the firm's personnel manager fired her without warning after seeing her doing a friend's nails on her break; the firm claimed she was fired for poor performance, inappropriate attire, and skipping mandatory Excel training, but could not document the alleged performance problems or the supposed Excel-training requirement, and the lawyer who had previously praised her work now disavowed those compliments. The trial court granted the firm summary judgment on both her discrimination and retaliation claims, and Pryor appealed.
Whether summary judgment is improper when there is sufficient evidence to support a finding that the defendant's stated defense is pretextual.