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Earnest Durant v. District of Columbia

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, No. 13-7060 · judgment November 17, 2017


Certiorari denied · June 4, 2018
Pre-decision estimate: 6% cert probability (95% interval 3%–9%)

Before the decision, modestly above the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a D.C. Circuit decision below, a circuit split argued in the petition, and a dissent in the court below (flagged in the petition), and down for a state or local-government respondent.

Question presented

  1. In light of the fractured decision in Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317 (1986), and the conflicting Circuit approaches regarding summary-judgment practice that it has generated, what is a movant’s burden of production to obtain summary judgment pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 when the movant does not bear the burden of proof on the merits of a claim?

  2. For purposes of defeating a summary-judgment motion on a retaliation claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a), is a showing of temporal proximity between an employee’s protected conduct (such as the filing of a lawsuit against an employer) and an employer’s adverse employment decision (such as terminating the employee’s job) sufficient to create a genuine issue that any proffered legitimate reasons by the employer for the adverse employment decision are a “pretext” for retaliation?

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Anthony F. Shelley
Miller & Chevalier Chartered

For respondent
Loren L. AliKhan
D.C. Office of the Attorney General

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Proceedings

  1. Jun 04 2018
    Petition DENIED.
  2. May 15 2018
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 5/31/2018.
  3. May 08 2018
    Waiver of right of respondent District of Columbia Government to respond filed.
  4. Apr 09 2018
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due May 9, 2018)