Martinez v. Midwest Restoration LLC

Olga Martinez (plaintiff) sued her former employer, Midwest Restoration LLC (Midwest) (defendant), for sex-based discrimination violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). Midwest moved for summary judgment, arguing that it did not qualify as an employer under Title VII and was therefore not subject to the act’s prohibitions. An entity was an employer only if it had 15 or more employees for each working day in 20 or more weeks of the current or previous year, here 2013 and 2014. Midwest’s payroll records showed that Midwest had no more than eight employees for any pay period in 2013 or 2014. However, Martinez argued that Midwest’s numbers were artificially low because Midwest regularly employed temporary employees, who were on the staffing companies’ payrolls. Martinez thought they should be considered Midwest employees for weeks they worked for Midwest. Martinez’s accountant reviewed the staffing agencies’ records and created a spreadsheet. It showed that Midwest employed 69 temporary employees at various points in 2014. However, it showed only five weeks in which at least 15 temporary employees worked at Midwest. Further, the spreadsheet did not show whether a temporary employee worked at Midwest all five workdays in a week. Nevertheless, the accountant concluded that Midwest had 15 or more employees for 21 weeks in 2014 after the accountant added between 11 and 17 employees to the temporary employees each week based in part on (1) one of Midwest’s interrogatory responses stating that it had five job-site employees and five to six administrative employees and (2) Martinez’s lawyer’s recollection that Midwest’s website showed five managers in 2014. The district court considered the parties’ arguments.