Curtis v. Electronics & Space Corp.

• Decision Date: 28 May 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-3169,96-3169
• Citation: 113 F.3d 1498
• Parties: 73 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1649, 70 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 44,768 Dorothy CURTIS, Plaintiff/Appellee, v. ELECTRONICS & SPACE CORPORATION, Defendant/Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 1498

113 F.3d 1498

73 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1649,

70 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 44,768

Dorothy CURTIS, Plaintiff/Appellee, v. ELECTRONICS & SPACE CORPORATION, Defendant/Appellant.

No. 96-3169.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted April 18, 1997.

Decided May 28, 1997.

John Benton Renick, St. Louis, Missouri, argued, for Defendant-Appellant.

John Douglas Lynn, St. Louis, Missouri, argued, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Before RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Chief Judge, FAGG and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

MURPHY, Circuit Judge.

A jury found that the Electronics & Space Corporation (ESC) willfully discriminated against Dorothy Curtis on the basis of her age in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634 (1997), and awarded her back pay and liquidated damages. The district court ¹ then added front pay and attorney fees. ESC appeals from the judgments. We affirm.

Dorothy Curtis was fired from her job in the administrative services department of ESC in 1991, when she was 63 years old. ESC was reducing its workforce, and the manager of the department, Cathy Crosby, was asked by the head of the department, David Taylor, to recommend employees for termination. Crosby recommended Curtis who was then laid off. Curtis testified at trial that at the meeting in which she was told she was losing her job, "Ms. Crosby told me that there was a decline in the work in my area and I was going to be 64, [on] my birthday July the 5th, and it was decided that I was going to be laid off because of my age."

The jury found that ESC had willfully violated the ADEA and awarded Curtis $33,380 for back pay, to which the district court added $33,380 in liquidated damages. An evidentiary hearing on Curtis' request for equitable relief was held after the jury trial and resulted in her receiving $40,303 in front pay. She also was awarded attorney fees in an amount lower than she sought.

ESC appeals from the judgments and the denial of its motion for judgment as a matter of law or, in the alternative, a new trial. ESC presents three major arguments: there was insufficient evidence to support the jury finding that it violated the ADEA, its conduct was not willful, and the district court erred by awarding Curtis front pay.

I.

ESC contends that there was insufficient evidence to support a jury verdict in Curtis' favor and that the court erred by not granting its motion for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. Curtis' testimony that Crosby told her she was being terminated on account of her age should not have been credited. ESC presented evidence that Curtis had told another employee that she did not know why she had been fired and that her contemporaneous notes of the meeting with Crosby did not mention age discrimination. There was also testimony from another person who attended the meeting at which Curtis was fired who said that age was not discussed.

The standard of review of a denial of a motion for judgment as a matter of law is de novo. Wiehoff v. GTE Directories Corp., 61 F.3d 588, 591 (8th Cir.1995). The moving party must show that no reasonable juror could have found for the opposing party. Newhouse v. McCormick & Co., 110 F.3d 635, 639 (8th Cir.1997). All evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, and the winning side should receive the benefit of all reasonable inferences. Ryther v. KARE 11, 108 F.3d 832, 844 (8th Cir.1997) (en banc), petition for cert. filed, 65 U.S.L.W. 3694 (U.S. April 4, 1997) (No. 96-1571). The court should also assume that all conflicts in the evidence were resolved in favor of the verdict and that the prevailing party proved all the facts its evidence tended to prove. Id. "Only when there is a complete absence of probative facts to support the conclusion reached does a reversible error appear." Id. at 845 (quoting Lavender v. Kurn, 327 U.S. 645, 653, 66 S.Ct. 740, 744, 90 L.Ed. 916 (1946)).

The district court did not err in denying the motion for judgment as a matter of law. There was sufficient evidence to support a verdict in favor of Curtis. Although there was evidence that challenged her credibility, the court's role is not to reassess the credibility of the witnesses. E.g., Fox v. T-H Continental Ltd. Partnership, 78 F.3d 409, 413 (8th Cir.1996). The jury is free to credit or discredit testimony as it believes appropriate, and it was up to it to decide whether Curtis was telling the truth about Crosby's comments at the termination meeting. Crosby was involved in the decision-making process that led to the termination, and the statement attributed to her was direct evidence of discriminatory animus in violation of the ADEA. See Stacks v. Southwestern Bell Yellow Pages, Inc., 27 F.3d 1316, 1323 (8th Cir.1994). There was evidence attacking Crosby's credibility as well, countering the reasons given by ESC for the termination, and suggesting there was preferential treatment of younger employees.

ESC also contends the district court erred by denying its motion for a new trial since Curtis' testimony was unreliable and should not have been credited and the verdict was a miscarriage of justice. Leichihman v. Pickwick Int'l, 814 F.2d 1263, 1267 (8th Cir.1987). The denial of a new trial motion based on the argument that the jury verdict was against the weight of evidence "is virtually unassailable on appeal," however. Grogg v. Missouri Pac. R.R. Co., 841 F.2d 210, 214 (8th Cir.1988). The role of the trial court in deciding such a motion does not include making its own assessment of witness credibility, see McGee v. South Pemiscot Sch. Dist. R-V, 712 F.2d 339, 344 (8th Cir.1983), and ESC has not shown the verdict was against the weight of the evidence or that there was a miscarriage of justice. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for a new trial.

II.

ESC argues there was insufficient evidence to support the jury's conclusion that it willfully discriminated against Curtis on the basis of her age. Liquidated damages should therefore not have been awarded. ESC claims that Curtis offered no proof of willfulness and that it had procedures in place to prevent willful violations of the ADEA.

"A violation of the ADEA is willful if 'the employer either knew or showed reckless disregard for the matter of whether its conduct was prohibited by the statute.' " Nelson v. Boatmen's Bancshares, Inc., 26 F.3d 796, 803 (8th Cir.1994)(quoting Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604, 617, 113 S.Ct. 1701, 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 338 (1993)). We review the jury's determination that ESC willfully violated the ADEA under the same standard applied to its conclusion that the ADEA was violated. Nelson, 26 F.3d at 803.

Examination of the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict shows there was evidence to support an inference Crosby knew that her conduct was unlawful. She acknowledged that she had attended company seminars at which she was told age discrimination was against company policy and there were ADEA posters at ESC that she would have seen. While the existence of an ADEA poster in the workplace and evidence that the decision-maker has been briefed on age discrimination may not individually support a finding of willfulness, see Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U.S. 111, 128, 105 S.Ct. 613, 625, 83 L.Ed.2d 523 (1985); Glover v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 12 F.3d 845, 849 (8th Cir.1994), such evidence can be relevant on the issue. Here there was evidence that ESC intentionally terminated Curtis on the basis of age, and the jury could find its violation was willful since there was evidence that Curtis knew age discrimination was unlawful. See Hazen Paper, 507 U.S. at 617, 113 S.Ct. at 1709 ("It would be a wholly circular and self-defeating interpretation of the ADEA to hold that, in cases where an employer more likely knows its conduct to be illegal, knowledge alone does not suffice for liquidated damages.") ESC has not argued that it mistakenly believed that it had made a legitimate age-based decision under the ADEA. See id. at 616, 113 S.Ct. at 1710 (no liquidated damages if employer in good faith and "nonrecklessly" believes its action was permitted under the ADEA).

ESC's reference to its policy designed to prevent age discrimination does not insulate it from liability under the ADEA. The policy may have been designed to ensure that its employees were not reckless in disregarding the ADEA, and it may have often served that purpose, but if Curtis' testimony is credited, the policy did not prevent Crosby from discriminating on the basis of age. A company policy cannot shield an employer from liability if one of its decision-makers willfully and unlawfully discriminates against an employee on the basis of her age. See Ryther v. KARE 11, 864 F.Supp. 1510, 1520 (D.Minn.1994), aff'd, 108 F.3d 832 (8th Cir.1997) (en banc) (finding willful violation even though company had policy against age discrimination).

III.

ESC challenges the district court's award of three years of front pay to Curtis. ESC disputes Curtis' testimony that she could have worked to age 70, and front pay should not have been awarded it says because her back pay award was approximately the value of three years pay and fully compensated her since she would have eventually lost her job in 1994 when further cuts were made. ²

Curtis testified at the post trial hearing that she had intended to work for ESC until she was 70. She introduced expert testimony that calculated her future damages to be $42,768 (or about $14,000 per year) for lost wages and benefits. ESC argued in response that there was insufficient evidence she would have worked until age 70 or remained so long at ESC. It also offered evidence that Curtis' position was eliminated in May 1994 when the work was taken over by a part-time employee, that thereafter there were no employees at her salary grade in her former department, and that the department lost another job in February...