Turlington v. Atlanta Gas Light Co.

Citation135 F.3d 1428
Decision Date26 February 1998
Docket NumberNo. 97-8071,97-8071
Parties76 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 303, 72 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,186, 11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 1076 Billy Joe TURLINGTON and Ellen Jocile Turlington, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. ATLANTA GAS LIGHT COMPANY, Randy Curry, Robert Miller, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

Page 1428

135 F.3d 1428
76 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 303,
72 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,186,
11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 1076
Billy Joe TURLINGTON and Ellen Jocile Turlington,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
ATLANTA GAS LIGHT COMPANY, Randy Curry, Robert Miller,
Defendants-Appellees.
No. 97-8071.
United States Court of Appeals,
Eleventh Circuit.
Feb. 26, 1998.

Page 1430

David J. Worley, Jacobs & Slawsky, Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

John Lewis Sapp, Richard Read Gignilliat, William Drummond Deveney, Elarbee Thompson & Trapnell, Atlanta, GA, for Defendants-Appellees.

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

Before BIRCH, Circuit Judge, HILL and KRAVITCH, Senior Circuit Judges.

KRAVITCH, Senior Circuit Judge:

This case raises two important issues regarding the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-34: the timing requirements for filing discrimination charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") and the standard for awarding attorney's fees to prevailing defendants.

Plaintiffs-appellants Billy Joe Turlington ("Turlington") and his wife, Ellen Jocile Turlington ("Mrs. Turlington"), sued the Atlanta Gas Light Company ("AGL") and two AGL employees, Randy Curry and Robert Miller, alleging, inter alia, that AGL discriminated against Turlington on the basis of his age in violation of the ADEA. The district court granted summary judgment to AGL on this claim and awarded attorney's fees to AGL. 1 The Turlingtons appeal both rulings.

Page 1431

We affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment to AGL, but we vacate the attorney's fees award and remand the case to the district court to decide whether the Turlingtons litigated in bad faith and to substantiate its determination with appropriate findings.

I.

Turlington was employed by AGL from May 1967 to March 1995. Initially, he worked in AGL's Information Systems Department ("IS Department"), where he rose to the position of Supervisor of Shift Operations. In February 1990, he was demoted to Class A Computer Operator for failing to demonstrate job improvement during the prior year. Turlington presented evidence indicating that AGL, beginning in February 1990, denied him the same on-the-job training, practice time, skill training, and software training that it provided to his younger co-workers. Although Turlington complained about the denial of training, his supervisors told him that he was incapable of learning new skills. 2

On July 9, 1993, having received four consecutive below-acceptable annual performance evaluations, Turlington was transferred to the Display Department, where he worked constructing signs manually. In an effort to block the transfer, Turlington submitted a written protest, which was prepared by a lawyer. The attorney also wrote AGL's Chief Executive Officer stating that he was representing Turlington "for the discriminatory action taken against [Turlington] over the last several years culminating with his transfer." 3 Turlington filed no discrimination charges with the EEOC at the time.

A year later, Turlington was still working in the Display Department when he applied for a Class C Computer Operator position in the IS Department. 4 On October 12, 1994, Dale Kilpatrick, manager of the IS Department, informed Turlington that he would not be considered for the position because of his previous performance in the IS Department. Turlington was 54 years old at the time.

On December 16, 1994, Turlington filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC alleging that AGL discriminated against him based on age by denying his application for the Class C Computer Operator position and subsequently hiring a 23-year-old man for that position. 5 The accompanying affidavit stated that Turlington failed to obtain the job because his supervisors in the IS Department did not provide the same technical training to Turlington as they did to his younger co-workers.

On January 4, 1995, 6 the staff of the Display Department was told that the Display Department would be downsized to a single Display Coordinator. Later that month the Display Coordinator position was posted, and Turlington and two other candidates applied. After interviews and evaluations, a three-person panel rated each applicant, and based on these ratings, one of Turlington's two competitors, a 44-year-old man, was selected for the position. On February 17, 1995, Turlington amended his EEOC charge to incorporate his claim that AGL's failure to select him as Display Coordinator was discriminatory. Turlington's employment at AGL ended in March 1995.

In July 1995, the plaintiffs filed suit in federal district court alleging that the defendants:

Page 1432

(1) discriminated against Turlington on the basis of his age in violation of the ADEA; (2) retaliated against Turlington for filing an EEOC charge; (3) breached contractual obligations to Turlington in violation of Georgia law; (4) intentionally and/or negligently inflicted emotional distress upon Turlington in violation of Georgia law; and (5) caused Mrs. Turlington's loss of consortium under Georgia law.

Turlington's complaint alleged that AGL violated the ADEA in several ways, including: (1) demoting him in February 1990; (2) failing to provide him adequate training from February 1990 to July 1993, thus "doom[ing] [him] to poor performance" 7 and substandard evaluations; (3) transferring him in July 1993; (4) refusing to hire him for the Class C Computer Operator position in October 1994; (5) refusing to hire him for the Display Coordinator position in 1995; and (6) thereafter discharging him.

Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, which included a request for reasonable attorney's fees. The district court dismissed plaintiffs' claims against defendants Curry and Miller; deemed the retaliation, breach of contract, and emotional distress claims abandoned; dismissed the loss of consortium claim; granted summary judgment to AGL on the ADEA claim; and awarded attorney's fees and costs to AGL. Turlington appeals the district court's resolution of the ADEA claim and the award of attorney's fees.

On appeal, Turlington has narrowed significantly the basis of his ADEA allegations, arguing only that AGL discriminated against him on the basis of age when it denied him the Class C Computer Operator position in October 1994. According to Turlington, that decision was discriminatory because it was based on Turlington's poor evaluations in the IS Department, which in turn resulted from AGL's discriminatory denial of training.

II.

A.

This court reviews de novo a district court's grant of summary judgment. We apply the same legal standards that bound the district court and view all facts and any reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. See Hale v. Tallapoosa County, 50 F.3d 1579, 1581 (11th Cir.1995). Summary judgment is appropriate only when "there is no genuine issue of material fact and ... the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c).

Where, as here, a plaintiff attempts to use circumstantial evidence to establish unlawful discrimination under the ADEA, this court employs the following burden-shifting scheme. Initially, the plaintiff must establish a prima facie case of discrimination. The employer then must respond with a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its actions. In order to prevail, the plaintiff must establish that the employer's articulated legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason was a pretext to mask unlawful discrimination. See Walker v. NationsBank of Fla. N.A., 53 F.3d 1548, 1556 (11th Cir.1995).

In an ADEA case involving discharge, demotion, or failure to hire, a plaintiff may establish a prima facie case by showing: (1) that he was a member of the protected group of persons between the ages of forty and seventy; (2) that he was subject to adverse employment action; (3) that a substantially younger person filled the position that he sought or from which he was discharged; and (4) that he was qualified to do the job for which he was rejected. See O'Connor v. Consolidated Coin Caterers Corp., 517 U.S. 308, 313, 116 S.Ct. 1307, 1310, 134 L.Ed.2d 433 (1996) (stating that an ADEA plaintiff must show that he was replaced by someone "substantially younger," not necessarily by someone under age 40); Jameson v. Arrow Co., 75 F.3d 1528, 1531 (11th Cir.1996) (listing elements of prima facie case). We apply this prima facie standard to Turlington's claim that AGL discriminated by denying him the Class C Computer Operator position in 1994.

Although a plaintiff's burden in proving a prima facie case is light, see Isenbergh v. Knight-Ridder Newspaper Sales, Inc., 97 F.3d 436, 439 (11th Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 2511, 138

Page 1433

L.Ed.2d 1014 (1997), summary judgment against the plaintiff is appropriate if he fails to satisfy any one of the elements of a prima facie case. For example, summary judgment is appropriate against a plaintiff who fails to demonstrate that he was qualified to perform the position for which he was rejected. See Baker v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 903 F.2d 1515, 1520-21 (11th Cir.1990) (per curiam) (holding that terminated plaintiff failed to make out prima facie case under the ADEA; ruling that she was not qualified given her consistent failure to meet employer's quota for sale of maintenance agreements, a requirement of the position).

B.

In granting summary judgment to AGL on Turlington's ADEA claim, the district court held that Turlington failed to establish a prima facie case. Citing Roberts v. Gadsden Mem'l Hosp., 835 F.2d 793, 796 (11th Cir.), amended by 850 F.2d 1549 (1988), which addressed a Title VII claim rather than an ADEA claim, the district court stated that a plaintiff seeking to demonstrate a prima facie case under the ADEA must demonstrate, inter alia, that "a person outside of the...

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