174 F.3d 917 (8th Cir. 1999), 98-2050, Morse v. Southern Union Co.
| Citation | 174 F.3d 917 |
| Party Name | Carl MORSE, Appellee, v. SOUTHERN UNION COMPANY, a Delaware Corporation, Appellant. |
| Case Date | April 14, 1999 |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals, U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
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Submitted Feb. 11, 1999.
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Curtis E. Woods, Kansas City, MO, argued (J. Bradley Leitch, Amy E. Bauman, David L. Black on the brief), for Appellant.
Michael S. Ketchmark, Kansas City, MO, argued (Brett A. Davis, Scott A. McCreight, Korey A. Kaul, on the brief), for Appellee.
Before: BOWMAN, Chief Judge, FAGG, and HANSEN, Circuit Judges.
BOWMAN, Chief Judge.
Southern Union Company appeals from the judgment of the District Court 1 entered on a jury verdict returned in favor of Carl Morse on his age discrimination claims. We affirm.
I.
" 'We recite the facts in the light most favorable to the jury verdict and the district court's findings.' " Denesha v. Farmers Ins. Exch., 161 F.3d 491, 496 (8th Cir.1998) (quoting Newhouse v.. McCormick & Co., 110 F.3d 635, 637 (8th Cir.1997)). In 1964, Morse began working for Gas Service Company, which underwent several ownership changes before being acquired by Southern Union in February 1994. Southern Union formed a division called Missouri Gas Energy (MGE) to operate the acquired company. Morse held a variety of positions during his thirty-two years with the company and had a positive work history. He joined the plant accounting department in 1967, becoming a supervisor in 1976 and a manager in 1980. In 1985, when the accounting department was moved to Topeka, Kansas, Morse chose to take a non-management position in the engineering department in Lee's Summit, Missouri, instead of moving to Topeka. In March 1994, Stuart harbour, MGE's Controller, recruited Morse to join MGE's newly-created plant accounting department as its supervisor.
In April 1995, Southern Union's top management, including President Peter Kelley, held a series of "roundtable" meetings with all MGE supervisory-level employees. During these meetings, according to the testimony of Morse and several former MGE employees, Kelley expressed a preference for younger employees and indicated that dramatic changes were on the way for MGE. He wanted young blood and a young, fresh, new look. Kelley stated MGE was not a place people should
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expect to retire from and people should not work anywhere for more than ten years. Kelly also wanted younger supervisors because they accepted change better and had more ambition. The supervisory-level employees in attendance were asked to recall when they had last fired someone and were reminded that they possessed the authority to fire employees within their supervision.
Morse's supervisor, Stuart Harbour, attended one of these roundtable meetings, and Harbour terminated Morse's employment approximately nine months after the meeting. Morse presented evidence that Harbour had made various remarks to him about his age, including repeated references to him as the "old man" in accounting. At a celebration honoring Morse's thirty years of service, Harbour stated that it was rare for people to work for one company as long as Morse had and noted that he was only five or six years old when Morse began working for the company. Harbour also had given Morse a drawing of a wrinkled older man with no hair or teeth that was labeled "Typical Plant Accountant," which Harbour had brought back from Southern Union's headquarters because it had reminded him of Morse.
On January 22, 1996, Harbour terminated Morse's employment without providing a reason for the termination. Morse was fifty-two years old. Morse had received a good performance review from Harbour in November 1994, and he was awarded a four percent merit-based salary increase in May 1995. A less favorable review in November 1995 was, according to Harbour's testimony, the result of Morse's alleged deficiencies in learning the operations of a new computer system and his failure to draft an operating manual for the new system. The review, however, set numerous goals for Morse in the upcoming year that would "greatly benefit MGE and further develop [Morse's] abilities." Appellee's App. at 359. Only a few weeks after this review, Harbour made the decision to fire Morse.
At trial, Southern Union argued Morse's position was eliminated on account of efficiencies created by a new computer system which became operational on June 30, 1995. According to Southern Union, this new computer system allowed one accountant to accomplish the tasks previously performed by four employees and eliminated the functions of Morse's position with the exception of a thirty-minute manual calculation per month. Harbour testified that Morse was displaced from his position because of the computer-created efficiencies, and not for performance reasons. Harbour and the personnel director testified that no positions were available within the company to which Morse could have transferred when his position was eliminated and, consequently, that Morse's employment with Southern Union was terminated.
Morse sued Southern Union for age discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634 (1994), and the Missouri-Human Rights Act (MHRA), Mo.Rev.Stat. §§ 213.010-.137 (1994). The jury returned a verdict for Morse, finding that Morse's age was a motivating and determining factor in Southern Union's employment actions regarding Morse and that Southern Union's violation of the ADEA was willful. The jury awarded Morse $450,000 in compensatory damages for emotional distress, $6,250,000 in punitive damages, and $29,073 in back pay. The District Court, on post-trial motions, reduced the compensatory and punitive damages awards and entered final judgment awarding Morse $70,000 in compensatory damages, $400,000 in punitive damages, $29,073 in back pay, $86,456 in front pay, and attorney fees and expenses.
Southern Union appeals the District Court's denial of its motion for judgment as a matter of law on the issues of liability, punitive damages, and willful violation of the ADEA an the denial of its motion for a new trial on the basis of alleged instructional errors. Southern Union also asserts
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that the remitted compensatory and punitive damages awards are grossly excessive and that the District Court abused its discretion in awarding front pay. For the reasons stated below, we affirm the judgment of the District Court.
II.
In reviewing de novo the denial of a motion for judgment as a matter of law (JAML), we must determine whether sufficient evidence supports the jury verdict. See Denesha, 161 F.3d at 497. Our review of a jury verdict is extremely deferential and we will not reverse for insufficient evidence unless " 'after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, we conclude that no reasonable juror could have returned a verdict for the non-moving party.' " Id. (quoting Ryther v. KARE 11, 108 F.3d 832, 836 (8th Cir.1997), cert. denied, 521 U.S. 1119, 117 S.Ct. 2510, 138 L.Ed.2d 1013 (1997)). We must consider the evidence in the light most favorable to Morse, assume all conflicts in the evidence were resolved in Morse's favor, assume Morse proved all facts that his evidence tended to prove, and give Morse the benefit of all favorable inferences that reasonably may be drawn from the proven facts. See id. To prevail on its motion for JAML, Southern Union has the difficult task of demonstrating that all the evidence points in Southern Union's direction and is susceptible of no reasonable interpretation sustaining Morse's position. See id. We apply the same analysis to Morse's ADEA and MHRA claims. See Breeding v. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., 164 F.3d 1151, 1156 (8th Cir.1999).
A.
Southern Union argues insufficient evidence exists to support the jury's verdict that it intentionally discriminated against Morse because of his age. Contending that no evidence causally links Kelley's remarks to the termination of Morse because Harbour was the sole decision-maker and did not consider Kelley's remarks in his decision, Southern Union characterizes Kelley's remarks as either stray remarks or statements by a non-decisionmaker and, thus, as insufficient evidence of intentional discrimination. 2 We disagree.
"When a major company executive speaks, 'everybody listens' in the corporate hierarchy, and when an executive's comments prove to be disadvantageous to a company's subsequent litigation posture, it can not compartmentalize this executive as if he had nothing more to do with company policy than the janitor or watchman." Lockhart v. Westinghouse Credit Corp., 879 F.2d 43, 54 (3d Cir.1989), overruled on other grounds, Starceski v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 54 F.3d 1089 (3d Cir.1995); see also Haun v. Ideal Indus., Inc., 81 F.3d 541, 546 (5th Cir.1996) (finding president's statement to personnel department that he did not want to hire older workers was sufficient to show company used age as a determinative factor in employment decisions generally); Radabaugh v. Zip Feed Mills, Inc., 997 F.2d 444, 449 (8th Cir.1993) (stating that documents setting forth a company's overall direction and demonstrating a preference for youth cannot be characterized as "stray remarks" even when the documents are not directly related to the employment action). The evidence reflects that Kelley expressed a strong preference for a younger workforce and encouraged MGE's supervisors to use their firing powers to effectuate company objectives. Although Southern Union strongly denies that a preference for younger employees was stated, our review does not include an assessment of the credibility of witnesses. See Curtis v. Electronics & Space Corp., 113 F.3d 1498, 1502 (8th Cir.1997)
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. The jury was free to credit or discredit testimony as it believed appropriate, and it was for the...
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