NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION File Name: 18a0568n.06 No. 18-1489 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT ESTEFANY MARTINEZ-GONZALEZ and ) FILED Nov 09, 2018 IMELDA LUCIO LOPEZ, ) ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk Plaintiffs-Appellants, ) ) ON APPEAL FROM THE v. ) UNITED STATES DISTRICT ) COURT FOR THE WESTERN LAKESHORE STAFFING, INC. and RANDELL ) DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN G. PRICE, ) ) Defendants-Appellees. ) ) BEFORE: THAPAR, BUSH, and NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judges. JOHN K. BUSH, Circuit Judge. Appellants Estefany Martinez-Gonzalez (“Martinez”) and Imelda Lucio Lopez (“Lopez”) claim that Appellees Lakeshore Staffing, Inc. (“Lakeshore”) and its President and Owner Randell G. Price (“Price”) unlawfully discriminated against them, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000(e)(2), and the Michigan Elliot Larsen Civil Rights Act, M.C.L. § 37.2101. They appeal the district court’s decision to grant summary judgment to Appellees.1 We AFFIRM the district court’s decision. I. BACKGROUND Lakeshore supplies employees to nineteen McDonald’s locations in the West Michigan area. This appeal concerns the McDonald’s located at West Leonard Street in Grand Rapids. The categories of employees at this restaurant are managers, maintenance employees, and “crew”. The 1 The district court granted Lakeshore’s motion to dismiss Martinez and Lopez’s Equal Pay Act claim with prejudice, as they agreed to withdraw that claim. Martinez and Lopez do not appeal this dismissal. No 18-1489, Martinez, et al v. Lakeshore Staffing, Inc., et al written Job Description states that “crew” includes “crew trainee, express person, front counter, grill cook, assembler, dress assembler, made-for-you line, [and] fry cook.” All crew employees have responsibilities that include to “[k]eep general [the] area clean” and to “[c]onduct sweeps and mops.” Lakeshore has employed Martinez and Lopez at the West Leonard Street location since 2009. Both are Hispanic and of Mexican national origin and speak Spanish as their primary language. On October 18, 2016, they filed their complaint, alleging that Lakeshore and Price engaged in three types of discrimination: (1) discrimination and disparate treatment based on Appellants’ national origin because they were required to, among other things, sweep the interior and exterior of the restaurant, clean doors and windows, clean bathrooms, take out trash, and remove ice during the winter, while similarly situated non-Hispanic employees were not required to do these tasks; (2) unequal pay based on their national origin because they did not receive regular raises and were compensated less than other similarly situated non-Hispanic employees; and (3) workplace harassment2 because, among other things, they were expected to perform the above- mentioned “menial work;” they were told to speak English in the workplace because of an “English-only” policy; they were disciplined when similarly situated non-Hispanic employees were not; and they were treated poorly by management. On November 30, 2017, Lakeshore and Price moved for summary judgment, arguing that Martinez and Lopez failed to demonstrate a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Lakeshore and Price discriminated against them and harassed them because of their national origin. The ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals