APPEAL
FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF
PUERTO RICO [Hon. Jay A. García-Gregory, U.S. District
Judge]
Juan
Rafael González-Muñoz, with whom Carlos M.
Vergne-Vargas, Juan C. Nieves-González, and
González-Muñoz Law Offices, PSC were on brief,
for appellant.
Tacy
F. Flint, with whom Luis D. Ortiz Abreu, Javier G.
Vázquez Segarra, Goldman Antonetti &
Córdova, LLC, Brian J. Gold, Natalie C. Chan, and
Sidley Austin LLP were on brief, for appellant.
Before
Torruella, Lynch, and Barron, Circuit Judges.
BARRON, Circuit Judge.
Marisol
Micheo-Acevedo ("Micheo") appeals an order granting
summary judgment to Stericycle of Puerto Rico
("Stericycle") and other defendants on her claims
under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C.
§§ 2000e et seq. ("Title VII"),
and dismissing without prejudice her related pendent Puerto
Rico law claims. We affirm.
I.
Stericycle's
services include managing medical waste for hospitals. In
April 2012, Stericycle hired Micheo as a field sales
representative. A little less than a year later, in March
2013, Stericycle launched a program called
"BioSystem," to which Micheo was then assigned in
March 2013. Under that program, through contracts with
hospitals, Stericycle installed containers to dispose of
sharp, biomedical objects like syringes.
Stericycle
terminated Micheo's employment in January 2014. Micheo
brought suit against the company and two of its managers in
the District Court for the District of Puerto Rico on
February 3, 2015. She alleged violations of Title VII, the
Americans with Disabilities Act, 48 U.S.C. §§
12101, et seq., the Family and Medical Leave Act, 29
U.S.C. §§ 2601-54, and six Puerto Rico laws, P.R.
Laws Ann., tit. 29, §§ 146 et seq., 185(a)
et seq., 194 et seq., 1321 et
seq.; P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 1, §§ 501 et
seq., 511 et seq.
On July
11, 2016, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment
as to all of Micheo's claims. Micheo then filed a motion
to strike the defendants' summary judgment motion
pursuant to Rule 56 of the Local Rules for the District Court
of Puerto Rico ("Local Rule 56"), which requires
that such motions provide citations to supporting record
evidence. The District Court denied Micheo's motion.
Several
months later, on November 14, 2016, Micheo filed an
opposition to the defendants' motion for summary
judgment. Micheo argued that summary judgment was not
warranted on her Title VII claims and her related Puerto Rico
law claims, but she abandoned her other federal and Puerto
Rico law claims.
On
March 31, 2017, the District Court issued an order that
granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment as to
Micheo's Title VII claims, dismissed with prejudice the
federal and Puerto Rico law claims that Micheo had abandoned,
and dismissed without prejudice Micheo's remaining
pendent Puerto Rico law claims. This appeal then followed.
II.
We
start with Micheo's Title VII claim for gender-based
disparate treatment. Because Micheo put forward no direct
evidence of discrimination, the District Court applied the
familiar burden-shifting framework set forth in McDonnell
Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792,
802 (1973), in considering the defendants' motion to
grant summary judgment as to this claim. Under that
framework, to survive summary judgment, Micheo must show that
there is a genuine issue of disputed material fact with
respect to, among other things, whether her employer
subjected her to an adverse employment action. See
Lockridge v. The Univ. Of Maine Sys.,
597 F.3d 464, 470, 472 (1st Cir. 2010).
We
review the District Court's grant of summary judgment de
novo. Colón v. Tracey, 717
F.3d 43, 49 (1st Cir. 2013). In performing that review, we
must draw "all reasonable inferences . . . in favor of
the non-moving party," but we are "not obliged to
accept as true or to deem as a disputed material fact, each
and every unsupported, subjective, conclusory, or imaginative
statement made to the Court by a party."
Torrech-Hernández v. Gen. Elec.
Co., 519 F.3d 41, 47 (1st Cir. 2008) (emphasis omitted).
Micheo
argued that the defendants subjected her to an adverse
employment action by passing her over for a promotion from
her position as a field sales representative in
Stericycle's BioSystem Program to the position of
"Project Manager" or "Program Manager" of
the Integrated Waste Stream Solutions ("IWSS"),
[1] an
initiative within the BioSystem Program. She contends that
the defendants gave the position instead to Jorge
RodrÃguez-Toro ...