Teresa J. Scott v. Macon Bibb Couonty, Georgia, et al.

Macon, Georgia employment law lawyers represented the Plaintiff who sued on a job discrimination theory.<br>
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Scott, a Black woman, filed her initial pro se complaint against her employer, Macon-Bibb County, pursuant to Title VII and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983 for race discrimination. Scott later retained counsel, and without seeking leave of the court, filed her first amended complaint which added Appraisers Crutchfield and Claborn to the suit.2 She alleged that Defendants racially discriminated against her by failing to timely reclassify her to Appraiser III in Macon-Bibb County's Tax Assessor's Office (TAO), in which she is employed in the Personal Property Division (PPD). After additional proceedings not relevant on appeal, Scott filed her second amended complaint against Defendants.<br>
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In her second amended complaint, Scott alleged the following facts. Crutchfield served as the Chief Appraiser for Macon-Bibb County's TAO, and Claborn served as the TAO's Deputy Chief Appraiser. Scott worked as an "Appraiser II.”3 Scott first began working for Macon-Bibb County as a receptionist in 1998 and became an "Appraiser Trainee” in the TAO in 2008. In July 2010, Scott passed the requisite Appraiser I exam; she was reclassified to the Appraiser I position in August 2012. She was not promoted to the 2 The complaint also named Macon-Bibb County's Board of Tax Assessors. <br>
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However, in a subsequent complaint, Scott removed the Board of Tax Assessors from the suit after the parties agreed that Macon-Bibb County, rather than the Board of Tax Assessors, was Scott's employer. 3 Macon-Bibb County has several classes of appraisers—Appraiser Trainee, Appraiser I, Appraiser II, Appraiser III, and Appraiser IV. USCA11 Case: 24-113884 Opinion of the Court 24-11388 Appraiser II position until 2015, five years after she passed the Appraiser II exam. On the Appraiser III exam, a 70 is considered a passing score, and an 80 is needed to later be eligible to take the Appraiser IV exam under Macon-Bibb County policy. <br>
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Scott took the Appraiser III exam on several occasions. Scott passed the Appraiser III exam on February 6, 2018, but she was not reclassified. By February 2020, Scott's supervisor, Desiree Murray, had recommended that Scott be reclassified to Appraiser III on several occasions. Murray indicated that she not only felt like Scott was qualified for reclassification to Appraiser III, but that she had been performing duties consistent with the Appraiser III designation for years. When Scott had still not been reclassified by February 2020, two years after Scott passed the exam, Murray made another explicit recommendation in Scott's annual evaluation. But Murray's recommendations were denied, and Claborn did not provide any reason for denying Scott's reclassification. Meanwhile, around the same time, several non-Black employees were reclassified within 30 days of passing their Appraiser III exams.<br>

Motion for summary judgment granted.<br>
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Affirmed

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