Groce v. Lilly & Co
| Decision Date | 30 September 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 98-3105,98-3105 |
| Citation | 193 F.3d 496 |
| Parties | (7th Cir. 1999) FREDERICK H. GROCE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ELI LILLY & COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division. No. 97 C 1047--Richard L. Young, Judge.
Before HARLINGTON WOOD, JR., RIPPLE and KANNE, Circuit Judges.
Frederick H. Groce filed a complaint against his employer, Eli Lilly & Company ("Eli Lilly"), alleging that Eli Lilly had terminated him in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"). He also brought state law causes of action against Eli Lilly. The district court granted summary judgment to Eli Lilly on all claims, federal and state. In this appeal Mr. Groce challenges the district court's exercise of its supplemental jurisdiction and its grant of summary judgment to Eli Lilly on his Indiana retaliatory discharge claim. For the reasons set forth in the following opinion, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
Frederick Groce worked at Eli Lilly on the night shift for more than three years, from July 1992 to November 10, 1995, as a production technician who set calibrations on machines and handled troubleshooting. He was terminated on November 10, 1995, for insubordination, dishonesty and horseplay. The misconduct that led to his termination occurred on November 1, 1995. On that evening, according to Mr. Groce's immediate supervisor, Mr. Groce had ignored his supervisor during the shift; had yelled the word "Clear!" when he knew the machine was not clear; had blown up and popped plastic gloves; had argued with his supervisor about an assignment; and had responded in a disrespectful and insubordinate manner to an explanation his supervisor gave him. Another supervisor reported that Mr. Groce, that same night, had made a whip out of a piece of board and some banding material and was pretending to hit another employee with it.
The next evening, November 2, 1995, two supervisors met with Mr. Groce to discuss the incidents of the previous night. When Mr. Groce denied the misconduct, they told him that they would look into it further. Mr. Groce then went back to work. Around 10:30 p.m., an incident occurred that Mr. Groce characterized as a "near miss."1 Mr. Groce was helping his supervisor, Ron Burleson, and a coworker, Tony Hoffman, conduct lock-out procedures on a tray machine.2 The other two men were responsible for locking out the equipment; according to Mr. Groce, however, they did not follow proper procedures. Just as Mr. Groce was working on a set screw with his finger, Hoffman "jogged the machine while my hand was in the machine." R.27, Ex.A at 90. Mr. Groce claimed that Hoffman deliberately tried to injure him and that the incident could have caused Mr. Groce severe injury. Mr. Groce immediately documented the incident, and his supervisor, Burleson, signed it. Burleson then reported the incident to his own supervisor.
Around 7 a.m. the next morning, November 3, Mr. Groce reported the near miss incident to Eli Lilly's safety department. He learned that neither Burleson nor Hoffman had reported it. Later that day, the Area Safety Coordinator scheduled a near miss review meeting to discuss the circumstances surrounding the possible accident. At the meeting, Mr. Groce implied that the incident may have been a deliberate act by Hoffman and Burleson. After the Area Safety Coordinator completed his questions, Mr. Groce, his wife and the supervisors at the meeting discussed Mr. Groce's concerns about his job.
Over the next several days, Mr. Groce's supervisors interviewed other night shift employees about the November 1 incidents. They then held a lengthy meeting with Mr. Groce on November 7 to discuss his misbehavior, including his propensity to sit down during his shift,3 and Mr. Groce eventually admitted carrying out the incidents in question. At that point, the personnel manager in Mr. Groce's department was convinced that Mr. Groce had demonstrated misconduct, insubordination, and dishonesty; he stated in his Declaration that he completely lost confidence in Mr. Groce's integrity. After the meeting, Mr. Groce was sent home. When Mr. Groce returned to work on November 10, he was informed that he had been discharged from his employment with Eli Lilly for that misconduct.
Mr. Groce brought an action against his employer pursuant to the ADA, alleging that Eli Lilly and its agents harassed him because of his disability, namely his hip injury, and failed to accommodate his disability. He also brought state law claims of intentional misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, promissory estoppel and retaliatory discharge. The district court granted summary judgment to Eli Lilly.
On the federal ADA claim, the court found that Mr. Groce was not a "qualified person with a disability." Because his hip injury did not affect his ability to stand or walk, the court determined that he did not suffer from a physical impairment and therefore that he had no claim under the statute. The court also specifically found that Mr. Groce failed to present evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Eli Lilly knew of his alleged hip condition. Nor was there evidence that his employer regarded him as impaired. The district court held that Eli Lilly could not be held liable for discriminating against Mr. Groce on the basis of an alleged disability. This summary judgment decision on the federal ADA claim has not been appealed.
The district court then considered Mr. Groce's state law retaliatory discharge claim. Mr. Groce alleged that Eli Lilly terminated his employment because he had protested violations of the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Act, I.C. sec. 22-8-1.1-1 to sec. 22-8-4-1 ("IOSHA"). The court reviewed Indiana's public policy exception to the employment-at-will doctrine, as enunciated in Frampton v. Central Indiana Gas Co., 297 N.E.2d 425, 428 (Ind. 1973), and developed through the later holdings of the Supreme Court of Indiana that define the parameters of Frampton. The court concluded that Mr. Groce was actually a whistle blower who had merely reported a safety violation; he was not protected under Indiana tort law for wrongful termination because the statute did not create such a right under IOSHA. The court therefore held that Mr. Groce had not stated a cognizable retaliatory discharge claim under Indiana law. It further held that Mr. Groce could not succeed on his state fraud, negligent misrepresentation or promissory estoppel claims. Accordingly, it granted summary judgment to Eli Lilly on all of Mr. Groce's claims.
As this case comes to us, Mr. Groce has abandoned all but one of his claims; he appeals only the state retaliatory discharge claim. With respect to that claim, he contends that the district court should have declined supplemental jurisdiction over it and, in the alternative, that he had stated a cognizable claim for wrongful discharge under Indiana law. We review a district court's supplemental jurisdiction ruling under 28 U.S.C. sec. 1367(a) de novo.4 See Myers v. County of Lake, 30 F.3d 847, 850 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1058 (1994). We review its decision to exercise its supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. sec. 1367(c) for an abuse of discretion.5 See id. This court reviews a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. See Baulos v. Roadway Express, Inc., 139 F.3d 1147, 1150 (7th Cir. 1998).
Mr. Groce first claims that, after it dismissed the ADA claim, the sole federal claim in the case, the district court was without subject matter jurisdiction over his state law claims. He points out that there was no diversity of citizenship between the parties and that the state law claims do not arise under federal law. Therefore, he contends, the district court should have dismissed his supplemental state law claims without prejudice.
We cannot accept Mr. Groce's contention. The district court's original jurisdiction derives from the federal ADA claim that Mr. Groce properly brought to it. The accompanying state claims fall within a district court's supplemental jurisdiction if they are "so related to [the federal] claims . . . that they form part of the same case or controversy." 28 U.S.C. sec. 1367(a). This supplemental jurisdictional statute codifies the principle that "the federal courts' original jurisdiction over federal questions carries with it jurisdiction over state law claims that 'derive from a common nucleus of operative fact,' such that 'the relationship between [the federal] claim and the state claim permits the conclusion that the entire action before the court comprises but one constitutional "case."'" City of Chicago v. International College of Surgeons, 522 U.S. 156, 164-65 (1997) (quoting United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 725 (1966)).
In this case, the district court properly exercised subject matter jurisdiction to decide Mr. Groce's state law claims under 28 U.S.C. sec. 1367(a). His state law claims arose out of the same set of facts--those regarding his employment with and termination from Eli Lilly--as his federal claim. Therefore, the district court had subject matter jurisdiction to consider Mr. Groce's state law claims under sec. 1367(a). Moreover, our case law makes clear that the district court did not automatically lose that jurisdiction once it granted summary judgment on Mr. Groce's ADA claim.6
Nevertheless, as the Supreme Court emphasized in City of Chicago, the fact that sec. 1367(a) authorizes a district court to exercise jurisdiction over state claims "does not mean that the jurisdiction must be exercised in all cases." City of Chicago, 522 U.S. at 172. The plain wording of the statute makes clear that a district court has...
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