That Thomas denied falsifying records did not create a dispute of fact as long as Dollar General had a reasonable good-faith belief she did. Essentially, the Court found that Thomas did not show that Dollar General’s legitimate reason for her termination-that she either falsified the employee training records or worked employees off the clock-was pre-textual. The district court granted Dollar General’s motion for summary judgment on all claims, and the Eleventh Circuit affirmed. She also pointed to a potential comparator, Reeves, who Dollar General investigated for changing an employee’s computer record but did not fire. To support her claim, she relied on the close temporal proximity of her FMLA leave and her termination, her denial that she falsified records, and her boss’s comments suggesting hostility toward her disability and leave. Thomas filed a lawsuit claiming her termination was (1) discrimination based on her disability (cancer), (2) FMLA interference because the company did not return her to her position following her leave, and (3) FMLA retaliation because the company fired her while she was on leave. Thomas denied that misconduct and said she told the employees to take the computer training “off the clock.” Not surprisingly, Dollar General found working employees off the clock was not okay and terminated Thomas-while she was still on FMLA leave.

Dollar General concluded that Thomas took the CBLs for them and falsified company records to suggest they were trained-a terminable offense. The employees’ records, however, indicated that they had taken the CBL. During Thomas’s leave, her store was robbed, so her boss investigated and determined that two of the store employees had not taken the computer-based course on robbery prevention (CBL). Kimberly Thomas, a Dollar General store manager who had cancer, requested and received FMLA leave for treatment (a double mastectomy).

Despite this unfortunate temporal proximity to her FMLA leave, the Eleventh Circuit found Dollar General’s investigation and decision making were unrelated to her disability and leave, and affirmed summary judgment for the company.

The timing of Dollar General’s decision could not have been worse (at least from a lawyer’s perspective)-the employee was still on leave for cancer treatment when the company determined she had committed a terminable offense. A recent Eleventh Circuit case under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) approved Dollar General’s termination of an employee on leave.

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