Everett Young seeks damages from his former employer, Dillon Companies, Inc. (“Dillon”), alleging that his discharge violated Title VII, was inconsistent with the parties’ implied contract terms, and ran afoul of the doctrine of promissory estop-pel. Finding that Mr. Young failed to identify a triable issue, the district court granted summary judgment for Dillon on all counts. Our review confirms that, on the limited record developed by plaintiff during discovery, entry of summary judgment was appropriate.
I.
From August 2001 through January 2003, Mr. Young worked as a retail investigator in various of Dillon’s King Soopers grocery stores in Colorado. At the time Mr. Young accepted the job with Dillon, he received (and signed for) a personnel manual. Pertinently for our immediate purposes, the manual provided that “[a]ll time card, time clock, or time and attendance entries must be accurately completed and reflect the true hours worked,” and that “Recording time on your time card, time clocks, or time and attendance for work not performed will be considered in violation of this policy, leading to disciplinary actions up to and including termination.” See Appellant’s App. at 123, 124. Upon taking the job, Mr. Young also received training during the course of which, he asserts, he was instructed that “just sleeping on the job [would lead to] immediate termination.” See id. at 91 [275:23-276:4].
On January 14, 2003, after nearly a year and a half of service as an investigator policing those who would steal from Dillon’s grocery stores, Dillon fired Mr. Young on the putative ground that he had engaged in “theft of time,” or seeking pay for hours not actually worked. According to Dillon, security cameras revealed that, on January 11, 2003, Mr. Young left more than two hours before his shift ended; failed to punch out when he departed; and then, in Dillon’s so-called “transfer log” where employees record their working hours every week, misrepresented that he *1247 had stayed until the end of his shift. For his part, Mr. Young claims that he worked a full shift, innocently neglected to punch out at the end of his shift, and returned to work later that night to punch out. Mr. Young also asserts that he recorded the true time of his departure in the transfer log and that, in any event, he was not sleeping on the job and therefore could not be properly subjected to immediate termination.
As of January 11, Mr. Young was already under investigation by Dillon because of a store manager’s allegation that Mr. Young abused telephone privileges during work hours. As part of that investigation, Jon Lesley, Mr. Young’s supervisor, began to review store security video recordings reflecting Mr. Young’s on-the-job conduct. Viewing a recording from King Soopers Store Number 6 in Colorado Springs, where Mr. Young was assigned to work on January 11, 2003, from 2 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., Mr. Lesley observed that at 8:00 p.m., Mr. Young put on his coat, collected his briefcase, and left the “camera room” where, as part of his job, he was watching security video feeds from various locations around the store. The store’s video recordings show that Mr. Young proceeded to leave the store and head into the parking lot. Video from the camera room further confirms that Mr. Young did not return there before the end of his shift at 10:30 p.m.
After viewing the video, Mr. Lesley consulted Mr. Young’s time keeping records. Mr. Young was required to “punch out” at the close of every shift using an electronic time card system. See Appellant’s App. at 55, 104 [70:13-16]. In addition, at the end of each work week, Mr. Young was supposed to leave the store where he was working that day fifteen minutes before the end of his shift, travel to his home store, and record the hours he worked that week in the transfer log. See id. at 55, 74 [191:3-13]. Upon review, Mr. Lesley found that, though January 11 represented the end of his work week, Mr. Young did not fill out his transfer log at the close of his shift as directed. Instead, video from Mr. Young’s home store showed that he appeared there at 5 a.m. the following day, January 12, to complete his transfer log. In the log itself, Mr. Young represented that he had worked until 10:30 p.m. the previous evening.
Mr. Lesley also consulted an administrative assistant at Mr. Young’s home store, Tina Hammer, about Mr. Young’s electronic time card entries for January 11. Ms. Hammer apparently reported that the electronic time card system did not return any departure time for Mr. Young in the 10:30 p.m. “time slot.” See id. at 104-05 [72:21-73:6]. Mr. Lesley apparently took this to mean that Mr. Young did not punch out at all on the evening of January ll. 1
Based on the facts he had before him— the video from Store 6, a review of Mr. Young’s transfer log, video from his home store, and his consultation with Ms. Hammer about the electronic time card records — Mr. Lesley concluded that Mr. Young had left work early on January 11. Because store video feeds are “copied over” routinely, Mr. Lesley proceeded to transfer for preservation onto a video tape *1248 what he considered to be the relevant video reflecting Mr. Young’s conduct. 2 Then, on January 14, 2003, Mr. Lesley met with Mr. Young to discuss his findings. Mr. Young denied leaving early. When told that video showed him leaving at 8 p.m., Mr. Young replied that this “was impossible.” See id. at 75 [193:14-19]. Mr. Young asserted that he punched out on the electronic time card system at the end of his shift, “which would have been 10:30.” See id. at 74 [192:22-23].
Mr. Lesley was unpersuaded and reported his belief that Mr. Young had left work early to his supervisor, Jerry Riblett, King Soopers’ Director of Security. It is undisputed that Mr. Lesley further supplied Mr. Riblett with a faithful account of Mr. Young’s version of the events of the evening in question. Mr. Riblett, in turn, reviewed the materials provided by Mr. Lesley, including the recorded video and transfer log; concurred with Mr. Lesley’s findings; and proceeded to discuss the matter with Stephanie Bouknight, King Soopers’ Manager of Labor and Employee Relations. Together, Mr. Riblett and Ms. Bouknight decided to terminate Mr. Young. Mr. Riblett conveyed the decision to Mr. Lesley who, in turn, informed Mr. Young of his termination.
This lawsuit followed. In his complaint, Mr. Young, an African American, alleged that he was fired because of his race and that Dillon either breached its contract with him or acted in a manner that contravenes the doctrine of promissory estoppel. During the course of discovery, Mr. Young received, among other things, electronic time card records reflecting that, while he did not punch out at his appointed departure time of 10:30 p.m. as Ms. Hammer reported to Mr. Lesley, he did in fact punch out later, at 11:58 p.m. At his deposition, Mr. Young testified that he realized that he had forgotten to punch out after he arrived home and returned to the store to do so. See Appellant’s App. at 82 [230:23-231:7]. He also testified that, between 8 and 10:30 p.m., he walked inside and outside of the store checking on the security of, among other things, certain gas tanks stored behind the building. See id. at 75 [195:4-11], 82 [232:18-25], Mr. Young, however, apparently did not share either of these points with Mr. Lesley prior to his termination, but instead told Mr. Lesley merely that he didn’t “recall exactly what time” he had punched out and that he “punched out at whatever time my shift was to end, which would have been 10:30.” Id. at 74 [192:21-23]; see also id. at 75 [195:25-196:3] (“[A]ll I could tell [Mr. Lesley] was whatever time I punched out is when I left at the end of my shift. We weren’t talking about propane tanks or going to cars or nothing else of that nature.”).
After a hearing on defendant’s motion for summary judgment, the district court issued an oral ruling for defendant on all of Mr. Young’s claims against Dillon. With respect to plaintiffs discrimination claim under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq., the district court held that:
[T]he law is that the employer’s reasons do not have to be correct, they have to be honestly believed and acted on in good faith. And in this case, we have a video showing [Mr. Young] putting on his coat and leaving the place where he was supposed to be at 8 o’clock. We have no indication, even though the video continues, that he came back to that *1249 room. And all of this explanation about checking propane and walking around the store was not adequately explained to King Soopers initially when they asked him about leaving late.... [Tjhere is more than adequate proffered testimony and reasons that defendant honestly believed that he left early, lied about where he was, and if they did honestly believe, that is sufficient.
See Appellant’s App. at 274-75. With respect to Mr. Young’s breach of contract claim, the district court held that neither the employee manual nor the alleged statements during training constituted an enforceable contract. Id. Finally, the district court dismissed Mr. Young’s promissory estoppel claim “not only because [Mr. Young] has faded to identify a policy in an employee manual that [Dillon] failed to follow, but because [Mr. Young] could not have reasonably relied on the statement [allegedly made during] training that the only terminable offense was sleeping on the job.” Id. at 276.
II.
We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo.
See Stover v. Martinez,
A.
Where, as here, a Title VII plaintiff relies on indirect or circumstantial evidence to show discrimination, we examine the claim under the familiar burden-shifting framework set forth in
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green,
The parties agree that Mr. Young has made out a prima facie case of race discrimination and that Dillon has put forth a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for Mr. Young’s termination.
See
Appellant’s Br. at 25-29; Appellee’s Br. at 22-23. Thus, all that remains before us is to decide whether a genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether Dillon’s proffered reason for discharging Mr. Young was pre-textual. That is to say, we must determine whether there is evidence from which a reasonable fact finder could conclude that Dillon fired Mr. Young on account of
*1250
his race rather than, as Dillon claims, because of his alleged attempt to get paid for hours not actually worked. To show that the defendant’s proffered race-neutral reasons were actually a pretext for discrimination, this Court has held that the plaintiff must demonstrate that the defendant’s “proffered [race-neutral] reasons were so incoherent, weak, inconsistent, or contradictory that a rational factfinder could conclude the reasons were unworthy of belief.”
See Stover,
1.
Mr. Young argues that he worked until the completion of his shift, that Dillon’s assertion otherwise is false, and that Dillon’s racial animus can be inferred from the falsity of its proffered race-neutral reason for the termination. The Supreme Court has recognized that “[i]n appropriate circumstances, the trier of fact can reasonably infer from the falsity of the explanation that the employer is dissembling to cover up a discriminatory purpose.”
See Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc.,
Discussing the quantum of evidence required by
Reeves,
this Court has held that, “[i]n drawing [a Reeves-type] inference, the factfinder must be able to conclude, based on a preponderance of the evidence, that
discrimination was a determinative factor
in the employer’s actions — simply disbelieving the employer is insufficient.”
Miller v. Eby Realty Group LLC,
As the district court observed, Mr. Young offers no evidence that Mr. Riblett and Ms. Bouknight honestly believed anything other than that Mr. Young had left work early, that he intentionally misrepresented his time in the transfer log, and *1251 that he sought to obtain pay for work he never performed. Nor does Mr. Young dispute that Mr. Riblett and Ms. Bouk-night had before them video showing him leaving the store early, not returning to the camera room, and failing to complete his transfer log at his home store at the end of his shift as instructed.
Disputing none of this, Mr. Young emphasizes the electronic time card record showing that he punched out at 11:58 p.m., as well as his deposition testimony explaining that he was busy after 8 p.m. walking around inside and outside the store. This evidence may very well cast doubt on Dillon’s conclusion that Mr. Young left early, but, as the district court observed, there is no evidence that these facts were known to the relevant decision makers within Dillon at the time they made their decision to fire Mr. Young. To the contrary, the record indicates that the first time Mr. Riblett and Ms. Bouknight learned of these claims was in the course of discovery in this litigation. The electronic time card evidence unearthed during discovery was not presented to either decision maker before they made the decision to terminate Mr. Young’s employment. Neither did Mr. Young come forward with an explanation of his whereabouts during the relevant time period when he was interviewed by Mr. Lesley. Accordingly, while evidence amassed during discovery may well suggest that Dillon’s beliefs about Mr. Young were wrong, they do not suggest those beliefs were held in bad faith.
Nor are we pointed to facts suggesting that relevant evidence was deliberately suppressed from the decision makers or ignored in order to further a discriminatory purpose. It is undisputed that Mr. Lesley reviewed video and the transfer logs; inquired with Ms. Hammer about the content of Mr. Young’s electronic time card records; passed along her finding that there was no indication that Mr. Young punched out in the 10:30 p.m. “time slot”; offered Mr. Young a chance to respond to the facts as Mr. Lesley understood them; and accurately reported his findings and Mr. Young’s responses to Mr. Riblett and Ms. Bouknight. While in hindsight perhaps more might have been done, we are given no reason on the record before us to conclude that the investigation’s limits were the result of an improper racial animus.
The facts before us are very much like those we faced in
Kendrick.
There the plaintiff was discharged for insubordination, including allegedly pushing a supervisor.
See Kendrick,
Mr. Young argues that
Plotke v. White,
2.
Mr. Young next argues that pretext can be inferred because Mr. Lesley is allegedly biased against African Americans. In support of this claim, Mr. Young alleges that Mr. Lesley has made certain statements that, we agree, evince a deep and repugnant racial animus. With one exception we shall discuss shortly, however, Mr. Young’s assertions do not concern statements he personally heard Mr. Lesley make. Rather, they concern statements Mr. Lesley allegedly made to other employees and which were subsequently conveyed, second-hand, to Mr. Young. That is, Mr. Young’s testimony rests on hearsay. Had counsel secured sworn statements or testimony from those employees who allegedly heard Mr. Lesley’s remarks first-hand, this case might be in a very different posture. As it is, however, we do not have direct testimony from the individuals to whom Mr. Lesley allegedly made racist remarks; the defendant has lodged a hearsay objection to the admission or consideration of these statements; and Mr. Young has pointed us to no applicable exception to the hearsay rule. We are thus required to abide our precedent and refrain from considering these matters on summary judgment.
Starr v. Pearle Vision, Inc.,
The single racial epithet for which Mr. Young is able to provide first-hand testimony concerns an episode when Mr. Lesley allegedly referred to an African American store manager as a “monkey.” Dillon does not dispute that such a remark, made in the context alleged, is a derogatory racial epithet. Instead, Dillon argues that, even if a discriminatory bias is proven with respect to one of defendant’s employees, there must be some evidence in the record suggesting that the plaintiffs termination at issue was infected by such bias; under this test, Dillon adds, Mr. Young’s claim fails because he has not pointed to any evidence in the record suggesting that Mr. *1253 Lesley’s alleged animus affected Mr. Young’s review and termination.
Like the district court, we feel constrained by our precedent to agree. In
Rea v. Martin Marietta Corp.,
To be sure, we have recognized that a racially biased investigator can issue reports and recommendations influenced by his or her bias and thereby cause decision makers who rely on those reports to fire an employee unlawfully — a situation in which the biased investigator uses the supervisors as a cat’s paw to effect his or her own biased designs.
See EEOC v. BCI Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Los Angeles,
B.
It is undisputed that Mr. Young was hired for an indefinite period of time and, thus, is an “at-will” employee under Colorado law, someone whose employment may be terminated lawfully by either party without reason or notice.
See Continental Air Lines, Inc. v. Keenan,
In
Evenson v. Colorado Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co.,
To state a claim for promissory estoppel, the Colorado Supreme Court has held that an employee must “demonstrate that the employer should reasonably have expected the employee to consider [its offer to the employee to be] a commitment ... to follow the termination procedures, that the employee reasonably relied on the termination procedures to his detriment, and that injustice can be avoided only by enforcement of the termination procedures.”
Keenan,
Mr. Young claims he can satisfy the elements for implied contract or promissory estoppel by virtue of three pieces of evidence. As the district court concluded, however, none suffices as a matter of law.
First, Mr. Young points us to Ms. Bouknight’s deposition testimony as Dillon’s corporate representative. There, Ms. Bouknight explained her understanding that an employee who innocently fails to clock out “probably” will not be terminated for a first offense. See Appellant’s App. at 134 [42:2-11], But we have no indication that the substance of Ms. Bouknight’s after-the-fact deposition testimony was ever conveyed to Mr. Young during the course of his employment. Without proof on this score, we cannot treat these terms as having been impliedly conveyed and accepted for consideration by the parties for purposes of an implied contract or reasonably relied upon for purposes of promissory estoppel.
Even assuming that Ms. Bouknight’s after-the-fact deposition testimony about her beliefs and understandings might alone provide the basis for recovery under a breach of implied contract or promissory estoppel theory, Mr. Young relies only on a snippet of her testimony. He fails to note that Ms. Bouknight also specifically testified that there is no mandatory progressive discipline system for intentional time keeping violations, and termination follows immediately whenever the evidence suggests that an employee fails to clock out with an intent to obtain pay for work never performed. See Appellant’s App. at 189 [34:5-35:17] (noting that for intentional infractions of the time keeping policy, “[t]here is no progressive discipline” and “[if] you steal from the company, you get terminated from the company”). Thus, there is no indication that Dillon had done anything to modify the at-will relationship with Mr. Young, at least with respect to an intentional effort to cheat the time keeping system.
*1255
Second,
Mr. Young points us to a statement allegedly made by an unidentified Dillon trainer indicating that, rather than being fired immediately for initial violations of the terms of employment outlined in the Dillon training manual, “you get written up,” and that the only basis for immediate termination is “sleeping on the job.”
See
Appellant’s App. at 91 [275:23-276:4]. But the employment manual provided to Mr. Young specifically states that the “failure to follow the[] policies and procedures [contained in the manual] may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination, which may include discharge
on the first offense.” See id.
at 119 (emphasis added). The manual also outlines the timekeeping procedures and adds that “recording time on your time card, time clocks, or time and attendance for work not performed will be considered in violation of this policy, leading to disciplinary actions up to and including termination.”
Id.
at 124. Mr. Young points us to no evidence suggesting that Dillon conveyed to him an intent to be bound by the trainer’s alleged statements contradicting its policy manual, nor is there any evidentiary basis for us to find that such statements, if made, were made in such a way as to justify Mr. Young in thinking that they overrode the company’s policy manual and that his employment constituted acceptance of the additional terms.
See Keenan,
Third, Mr. Young points us to a putative admission by Mr. Lesley during his deposition that he “failed to conduct a complete investigation.” See Appellant’s Br. at 22. In fact, however, Mr. Lesley only conceded that, had he seen Mr. Young’s time cards for himself (rather than rely on Ms. Hammer’s description of them) and noticed that Mr. Young clocked out at 11:58 p.m., he “probably would have done a more in-depth investigation.” See Appellant’s App. at 109-110 [100:20-101:1]. As with Ms. Bouknight’s testimony, we have no evidence suggesting that Dillon ever conveyed anything to Mr. Young during the course of his employment regarding the nature and scope of any investigation to which he would be entitled for alleged violations of the company’s time keeping policies. In addition, Mr. Lesley’s deposition testimony merely indicates what additional process might have been due if certain additional information had been before him. It does not, by itself, suggest that Mr. Lesley was obliged by any company procedure (let alone by terms communicated to Mr. Young during his employment) to seek out that additional information on his own initiative — that is, to review the electronic punch cards himself rather than (as he did) rely on Ms. Hammer’s description of their contents. At most, Mr. Lesley’s testimony can be read as a candid after-the-fact acknowledgment that he wished he had not relied on Ms. Hammer but had instead reviewed the electronic punch card data for himself, not as indicating that company policy before-the-fact promised a different or more thorough investigation. While the result of the investigation into Mr. Young’s timekeeping practices may well have been wrong, and while that would be something to be regretted by all involved, Mr. Young has adduced no evidence in the record before us suggesting that he was entitled, as a matter of implied contract or promissory estoppel, to an investigation any more elaborate than the one he received.
*1256 * * *
For the reasons discussed above, the district court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of Dillon is AFFIRMED.
Notes
. Mr. Young represents that Ms. Hammer showed the electronic time card reports to Mr. Lesley, but the record citations he provides for this proposition fail to support this assertion. See Appellant's Br. at 11. The only pertinent record testimony suggests just the opposite to be true — viz., while Mr. Lesley reviewed transfer log records, after hearing from Ms. Hammer that she found no electronic time records for Mr. Young in the 10:30 p.m. "time slot,” he did not pursue the issue further. See Appellant’s App. at 104-05 [72:8-73:22], 109-10 [100:20-101:8],
. Mr. Young complains that Dillon should have retained additional video from the night in question but does not argue intentional spoliation by Dillon; nor does he contend that Dillon did anything other than follow its normal procedures with respect to the preservation of such records.
. The district court had jurisdiction over Mr. Young's Title VII claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq., and 28 U.S.C. § 1331. With respect to his state law claims, the complaint alleges facts sufficient to invoke diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, as well as the exercise of supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367. We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
. Mr. Young also cites as evidence of racism Mr. Lesley’s investigative techniques, such as rifling through his trash can and smelling his coffee cup (ostensibly for alcohol). But Mr. Young fails to point us to evidence suggesting that Mr. Lesley subjected similarly situated non-minority employees to any different (albeit zealous) treatment.
. The parties agree that Mr. Young’s common law claims are governed by Colorado law. See Appellant’s Br. at 14; Appellee's Br. at 11-19.