Page:Lindsley v. TRT Holdings (20-10263) (2021) Opinion.pdf/9

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

a separate establishment.” Id. § 1620.9(a). In Marshall v. Dallas Independent School District, 605 F.2d 191 (5th Cir. 1979), the court held that a school district was a single establishment because all the schools in the district were controlled by a central administrative office that supervised delivery of custodial services across all schools and paid all salaries, the custodial job classification system was uniform throughout the school district, wages were set under a single wage agreement with uniform salary schedules, there was no differentiation in pay based upon the building in which the employees worked, and employees rotated through different schools. Id. at 194.

Here, by contrast, the record, viewed in the light most favorable to Lindsley, establishes at most that corporate executives at Omni exercised some control over hiring and salaries. While this factor is a common condition for a multi-location establishment, it is by no means dispositive. If it were, “then just about any corporation with a hierarchical management structure and a functioning human-resources department would find itself defined as a single ‘establishment.’” Renstrom v. Nash Finch Co., 787 F. Supp. 2d 961, 965 (D. Minn. 2011).

Generally, each Omni hotel location functions separately. It is undisputed that the general manager at each Omni property is the primary force behind all new hires, even if corporate must be on board. Unlike the school district in Marshall, which hired janitors on a district-wide basis subject to a wage agreement, Omni hires on a property-by-property basis and has no wage agreement. And the job duties of each food and beverage director differ by location. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment on this issue.

The same analysis does not apply, however, to her claims under Title VII and the Texas Labor Code. Those statutes contain no “establishment” requirement. Yet the district court did not address whether

9