Dominguez worked as a security guard supervisor at a Halliburton facility in Duncan, Oklahoma, where Weiser Security provided contract services. In June 2020, during an HR investigation into a race discrimination complaint by another employee, Dominguez told Weiser's VP of Human Relations that his site manager Joseph Yates showed favoritism to female guards who flirted with him. Days later, branch manager Mike Strickland fired Dominguez, citing performance issues including failure to train officers on COVID temperature checks and missing a weekend training session.
Circuit Judge Timothy Tymkovich wrote that to prove causation on a retaliation claim, "a plaintiff must show either that the decisionmaker on the adverse employment action knew of his protected activity, or that a person harboring retaliatory animus knew and used the decisionmaker as a cat's paw." The court found Dominguez "invites the factfinder to fill in the gaps with speculation" about what his supervisor and manager knew, noting that "bare speculation" about knowledge cannot defeat summary judgment.
The district court had granted Weiser's motion for summary judgment under the McDonnell Douglas framework, finding Dominguez couldn't prove Strickland knew about his June 10 report to HR. The court also rejected Dominguez's "cat's paw" theory that Yates manipulated Strickland into firing him, determining there was insufficient evidence that Yates knew about the protected activity.
The ruling highlights the high evidentiary bar for proving causation in retaliation cases, particularly when the decision-maker claims no knowledge of the protected activity. Employment lawyers say the decision reinforces that circumstantial evidence must go beyond mere opportunity to communicate and show actual transmission of knowledge about complaints to avoid summary judgment.