Carter v. DecisionOne Corp. Through C.T. Corp. System

• Decision Date: 18 September 1997
• Docket Number: 96-8635,Nos. 95-9349,s. 95-9349
• Citation: 122 F.3d 997
• Parties: 75 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 108, 47 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1101, 11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 562 Bonnie E. CARTER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DECISIONONE CORPORATION, a Delaware corporation, Through its agent for service, C.T. CORPORATION SYSTEM, Defendant-Appellant, Thomas A. Vassiliades, in his individual capacity as Chief Executive Officer of Bell Atlanta, Inc., et al., Defendants, Konny Light Mitchell, Movant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 997

122 F.3d 997

75 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 108, 47 Fed. R.

Evid. Serv. 1101,

11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 562

Bonnie E. CARTER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DECISIONONE CORPORATION, a Delaware corporation, Through its

agent for service, C.T. CORPORATION SYSTEM,

Defendant-Appellant,

Thomas A. Vassiliades, in his individual capacity as Chief

Executive Officer of Bell Atlanta, Inc., et al., Defendants,

Konny Light Mitchell, Movant.

Nos. 95-9349, 96-8635.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Sept. 18, 1997.

Weyman T. Johnson, Jr., Nancy E. Rafuse, Kelly J. Koelker, A. Craig Cleland, Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellant.

Alan E. Lubel, Elizabeth R.C. Morrison, Troutman Sanders, Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before BIRCH and CARNES, Circuit Judges, and HENDERSON, Senior Circuit Judge.

PER CURIAM:

The plaintiff-appellee, Bonnie E. Carter, filed this employment discrimination action in several counts against her former employer, Bell Atlantic Business Systems Services, Inc., now known as DecisionOne Corporation. Following a jury trial, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia entered a final judgment in favor of Carter. DecisionOne Corporation filed these appeals from the final judgment and the order disposing of post-judgment motions. We affirm the judgment of the district court.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In 1969, Carter was hired as a records clerk by Management Assistance, Inc., a company which provided computer maintenance services. During the 1970's, she received promotions and eventually became a district administrative supervisor and manager, helping to establish operations support offices in the Southeast. In this time period, the company changed its name to Sorbus. In 1982, Sorbus promoted Carter to Depot Manager. As such, she established and managed the new Microcomputer Repair Center in Atlanta. The company was acquired by Bell Atlantic Corporation in 1985 and eventually changed its name to Bell Atlantic Business Systems Services, Inc. (hereinafter "BABSS" or "the Company"). In a subsequent reorganization, the Depot Manager position was eliminated and Carter was appointed to a sales position.

From March, 1986 until her termination in January, 1990, Carter was a sales representative in the Company's Atlanta District, which included Georgia, Florida and Puerto Rico. Each of the Company's sales personnel was allotted an annual dollar sales quota, and their performance was measured by the percentage of his or her quota each achieved. Throughout the period covered by this litigation, few of the salespeople in the Atlanta District or in the Company's Central Region, of which the Atlanta District was part, consistently reached their sales goals. While she had no prior selling experience, Carter's performance in 1986 was rated "good," even though she attained only 69.9% of her quota. She improved her endeavors in 1987, however, and was recognized for the first sale of a mainframe contract in the Company's Central Region.

Late in 1987, Les Singletary became Carter's immediate supervisor. At that time, the sales force in the Atlanta District was assigned to geographical areas. In 1988, Carter realized more of her annual sales quota than all but two of the sales personnel in the Atlanta District. While he generally thought the quotas were unrealistic, Singletary, under pressure from his supervisor, issued Carter and the other sales persons in a like position a "form improvement" letter. Singletary had several conversations about women in the workforce with Bill Spencer, another manager with the Company. According to Singletary, Spencer told him that women should stay at home with their children but, if they were going to be in sales, it was preferable to have "a nubile young lass" in a sales position because a potential customer might grant her an interview just to take a look at her. ¹ Singletary also testified that Spencer told him that, if he were Carter's boss, "I'd fire that bitch." ²

In January 1989, Spencer replaced Singletary as Branch Sales Manager and became Carter's supervisor. He decided to reassign his Atlanta-based sales representatives to a product-line rather than geographic sales territory. Prior to making these moves, Spencer invited the three male salespeople in the office for drinks after work and allowed them to select the territories that would give them their best chance to meet their quotas. Despite her seniority, Carter was the only salesperson from the office not invited to or informed of this meeting. As a result, she ended up with small and mid-sized computer product lines in Atlanta, the least desirable assignment. After she protested, Spencer changed her territory to include portions of central and south Georgia and Tallahassee, Florida. Subsequently, without telling Carter, Spencer gave the Florida state business in Tallahassee to another employee and assigned a second salesperson to her Georgia territory.

In all, Spencer changed Carter's assignments a total of five times in the first half of 1989. As a result of these changes, Carter made only about 39% of her quota. ³ While most other salespersons in the region also did not meet their quotas, Carter was the only one placed on a corrective plan. ⁴ In addition, Carter was the only sales representative required by Spencer to sign in and out of the office. Although all the salespeople spent a majority of their time out of the office and left the office early on a regular basis, none but Carter was required to sign in and out of the workplace. ⁵

In July, Carter reached 135% of her adjusted quota and, in August, 88% of her quota. Despite this dramatic improvement, Spencer placed Carter on a second corrective plan on October 18, 1989, at which time she was leading the district in monthly quota attainment. She was then told by Spencer that failure to consistently achieve quota would result in her termination. Although other, younger salespeople in the district had also failed in this respect, none was placed on a corrective plan. In October, Carter was the only Atlanta District salesperson to realize her quota. In November, she reached 87% of her sales requirement, the highest end-user performer in the Atlanta District.

Spencer had brought Carter's problems in reaching her quotas to the attention of his supervisor, Bob Donalson, but failed to inform him of Carter's subsequent improvement. Donalson testified that the decision to terminate Carter was made by Spencer in early to mid-December 1989. ⁶ In December, 1989, Carter took a previously planned two-week vacation, which had been approved by Spencer. Due to the vacation and her failure to close several accounts until after the end of the month, she obtained only a small portion of her sales goal for the month. On January 8, 1990, Spencer told Carter that she was being terminated for failing to meet her quota in December, 1989. At the same meeting, but only after Carter requested it, Spencer gave her the ring she had earned for twenty years of service with the company. At the time, Carter was forty-two years of age. She was replaced by Dick Fitzpatrick, a thirty-nine year old male.

Les Singletary, Carter's former supervisor, testified that in early 1990, shortly after Carter was terminated, Bell Atlantic's president, Tom Vassiliades, stated in a meeting that he had gotten rid of the "old sleazy people" employed by the Company when he began running it. ⁷ Spencer himself, an older Sorbus employee, was discharged later in 1990 by a younger manager, though he was rehired just two months prior to the trial of this case.

Carter filed this employment discrimination action in April 1991 against the Company and three individuals, Thomas A. Vassiliades, as Chief Executive Officer of Bell Atlantic, Inc.; H. Gene Greer, as President of BABSS; and Bill Spencer, as Branch Sales Manager of BABSS. The complaint alleged that she was dismissed from her employment because of sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2; age discrimination in breach of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq.; and the maintenance of discriminatory practices and procedures in violation of her due process rights and the Equal Pay Act, 29 U.S.C § 206(d)(1). ⁸

The defendants eventually filed a motion for summary judgment on all of Carter's claims, contending principally that she was terminated for poor work performance. The magistrate judge recommended that the motion be denied with respect to Carter's sex and age discrimination causes of action, finding that there were genuine disputes of fact as to whether the defendants' proffered reason for terminating Carter was a pretext for discrimination. He recommended that the defendants' motion be granted on Carter's claim that certain practices and policies of the defendants had a disparate impact on women. He also recommended summary judgment for the defendants on Carter's due process and Equal Pay Act claims, to the extent they were alleged by her complaint, on the ground that she had abandoned them. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendations on these issues. The court also granted the individual defendants' motion for summary judgment, finding that the corporate employer was the only necessary defendant in a Title VII action.

Although Carter was entitled to a jury trial on her age discrimination claim but not on the Title VII sex discrimination cause of action, the parties agreed that bifurcation of the trial was not necessary. The claims were tried to a jury and the court jointly during May and June, 1995. The jury returned a verdict in Carter's favor on the ADEA cause of action, awarding her $173,000.00 in back pay and $100,000.00 in liquidated...