Federal appeals court sides with Midland Brewing Company in discrimination suit
A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling that dismissed a discrimination lawsuit against the Midland Brewing Company.
A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit agreed with U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington who had earlier granted the brewery’s motion for summary judgment, dismissing the case.
The lawsuit, filed in 2019, alleged that the craft brewery fired an employee, Ryan Boshaw, because of his sexuality in violation of Title VII and Michigan’s Elliott Larsen Civil Rights Act and accused brewery manager Donna Reynolds and owner David Kepler of a civil conspiracy to terminate his employment based of his sexuality.
Mr. Boshaw was hired at Midland Brewing Company in March of 2018 and had a meteoric rise at the restaurant, promoted multiple times over the next 15 months, ultimately to the position of Front of House Operations Manager. He alleges that in July of 2018, after working for months as a server, he and Ms. Reynolds discussed his sexual orientation and masculine appearance.
Mr. Boshaw testified that Ms. Reynolds told him that he would not be promoted unless he removed his relationship status from Facebook, remove visible piercings, and style his hair differently. The cumulative effect of these changes, Mr. Boshaw said, would be to hide his status as a homosexual, and appear more stereotypically masculine.
Ms. Reynolds swore in an affidavit that “at not point during his employment did I tell Mr. Boshaw to change his appearance, including telling him to appear more masculine … At no point during his employment did I tell Mr. Boshaw to hide or remove his relationship status on his social media accounts.”
Among other findings, the panel ruled that Mr. Kepler’s termination of Mr. Boshaw satisfied the “honest belief rule,” which precludes a finding of pretext when an employer’s nondiscriminatory reason for terminating an employee is later proven false, so long as the employer can show that it honestly believed the reason was true when making the termination decision.
Mr. Boshaw was fired in May of 2019 after missing a mandatory “problem solving meeting” and a shift without notifying management. After being reminded of the meeting, Mr. Boshaw texted a fellow employee.
“Fuckkk. What time is it? I need to find a sitter for the crack of fucking dawn. Those meetings are such a waste of time for MBC,” he said.
Mr. Boshaw testified that he received verbal permission from Ms. Reynolds to skip the meeting however Ms. Reynolds and Mr. Kepler both swore in affidavits that no permission was granted.
The next day, Mr. Boshaw was fired.
“Among other issues, and finally due to your absence and failure to notify management, we have decided to terminate your employment at Midland Brewing Company,” Mr. Boshaw’s termination letter reads.
The opinion was written by Circuit Judge Chad A. Readler, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump in 2019. The other judges on the panel were Alice M. Batchelder, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, and Joan Larsen, a former justice on the Michigan Supreme Court who was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2017.
Michael Westendorf is the chairman and executive editor of Chemical City Paper. As Executive Editor, he leads the City Paper’s news coverage and editorial team.