Dews v. A.B. Dick
| Decision Date | 28 October 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 98-4551,98-4551 |
| Citation | 231 F.3d 1016 |
| Parties | (6th Cir. 2000) Charlie Dews, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. A.B. Dick Company, Defendant-Appellee. Argued: |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio at Cincinnati. No. 97-00792--Sandra S. Beckwith, District Judge.
Paul J. Vollman, LINDHORST & DREIDAME, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant.
Mark J. Stepaniak, Jeremy P. Blumenfeld, TAFT, STETTINIUS & HOLLISTER, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellee.
Before: JONES, BOGGS, and COLE, Circuit Judges.
JONES, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which COLE, J., joined. BOGGS, J. (pp. 1023-25), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.
Plaintiff-Appellant Charlie Dews ("Dews") appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment to Defendant-Appellee A.B. Dick Company ("A.B. Dick" or "the company"). Dews sued A.B. Dick for employment discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and 42 U.S.C. § 2000, and O.R.C. § 4112, et seq, alleging that the company wrongfully denied him promotions in 1995 and 1996 on the basis of his race. For the reasons that follow, we REVERSE the district court's judgment and REMAND for further proceedings.
A.B. Dick manufactures and sells printing presses, pre-press equipment, and related supplies. Prior to 1994, the company also sold, but did not manufacture, copy machines. From 1984 through 1992, A.B. Dick's sales force was divided into geographical sales territories known as branches. Branches consisted of a sales territory the size of approximately one major city and were run by Branch Sales Managers. Dews, an African American male, worked for A.B. Dick beginning in 1984 as a Copier Sales Representative in Cincinnati, Ohio. From May 1988 until 1992, A.B. Dick promoted Dews several times, first to Senior Sales Representative, then to Sales Manager of the Cincinnati Branch, and finally to Senior Branch Sales Manager in 1992.
In 1993, management restructured the company from branch offices to sales districts and closed the Cincinnati branch. Several of the old branch offices were then combined into multi-state districts, each headed by a District Sales Manager ("DSM"). Many branch mangers lost their jobs during the restructuring. Although A.B. Dick eliminated Dews' position, he was not laid off. Instead, Richard Peterson, former Vice President of Sales and Marketing, promoted Dews to Regional Manager of Copier Sales. A.B. Dick relocated Dews and his family to Atlanta, Georgia, where Dews managed copier sales for the Eastern Region.
In May 1994, A.B. Dick withdrew from the copier sales business. Most of the employees in the copier division lost their jobs at this time. A.B. Dick eliminated Dews' position as Regional Manager of Copier Sales, but again he was not laid off. Rather, the company offered, and Dews accepted, a position in government sales as National Digital Government Manager. In that position, Dews sold A.B. Dick products to national and local government customers.
Two District Sales Manager positions became available in 1995 -- one for the Central District and the other for the Northeast District. Both positions were created during the 1992 sales force restructuring into districts. The Central District combined the old Cincinnati branch, which Dews headed in 1992, with the Columbus and Dayton branches. A.B. Dick originally considered Dews and Randy Freel for the Central DSM position in 1992. Both were considered highly qualified for the position, yet the company decided Dews' talents would be better utilized as Copier Regional Sales Manager. Accordingly, in 1992, Randy Freel became the DSM for the Central District.
In 1995, after Dews relocated to Atlanta as Copier RSM, Dews learned that Randy Freel left the company. Ron Kukla, then National Sales Manager, was responsible for filling the Central DSM vacancy. Although Dews was strongly considered for the position three years earlier, Kukla and Peterson recruited from outside A.B. Dick to fill the position. The two contracted with Jeff Stultz, a recruiter, who stated that Kukla and Peterson assured him that no internal candidates were being considered for the Central District Sales Manager position.
Kukla states that a candidate for the Central DSM position required the following qualifications: (1) experience in or selling to the commercial print market -- defined as businesses with annual sales in excess of five million dollars, and (2) experience managing employees from a distance. Kukla interviewed Dews but did not consider him to be the best candidate for the Central DSM position. Instead, Kukla selected external candidate Mike Dregalla because he allegedly had experience working for a commercial printer and in managing people from a distance. Dews claims Kukla never informed him of his decision to hire Dregalla.
Additionally, the Northeast DSM position was vacated in May 1995. This position was identical to the Central DSM position. Kukla and Peterson interviewed numerous internal candidates and eventually hired Scott Schwebke, a copier salesman from the Chicago District. Schwebke was an entry-level copier salesman at the time who did not have management experience at A.B. Dick prior to the promotion.
In early 1996, A.B. Dick's new Chief Executive Officer ("CEO"), Jerry McConnell, told Peterson that declining sales necessitated a forty percent reduction of A.B. Dick's field employees. At that time, A.B. Dick sold products through direct and indirect channels of distribution. Direct sales were made by A.B. Dick employees, while indirect sales were made through independently owned distributorships licensed to use the A.B. Dick name. Both indirect and direct sales employees ultimately reported to Peterson. To achieve a forty percent reduction-in-force, Peterson combined the direct and indirect sales forces and then divided them into six geographic regions headed by Regional Sales Managers. Kukla states that the changes in position to Regional Sales Managers were not promotions, but merely reflected new titles and a readjustment of the responsibilities for six people.
Peterson assigned Schwebke to the Northeast Region and Dregalla to the Central Region. He also selected Ken Johnson, with whom Dews had competed over the years, as a Regional Sales Manager. Peterson eliminated the positions of national managers Kukla and Morris Clement and re-assigned them to two of the RSM positions. Kukla maintains that the company did not consider any other A.B. Dick employees for these RSM positions. He does admit, however, that the company offered one of the positions to a non-employee of the company who happened to be a personal friend of CEO Jerry McConnell.
The Western Regional Sales Manager position was the last to be filled. While the position was still vacant, Dews asked his supervisor, Dan Holland, if he could be considered for the position. Holland stated that the employee had to live in the western part of the country because the company had not appropriated relocation funds for the position. However, Clement, the candidate who ultimately received the job, lived in Chicago, Illinois at the time the company selected him for the position.
As part of the massive 1996 downsizing, A.B. Dick eliminated Dews' government sales position. Dan Holland, Dews' supervisor, absorbed Dews' position along with the responsibilities of two other employees who had reported to Holland. Of the three who had reported to Holland, A.B. Dick retained Dews only. A.B. Dick offered Dews the position of Distribution Manager at his current salary even though this new position ordinarily paid less than Dews' former position. Dews accepted the position and worked for A.B. Dick until he voluntarily resigned in September 1996 after concluding that he had exhausted all possible promotional opportunities at the company.
On November 20, 1996, Dews filed a charge with the EEOC alleging, among other things, that A.B. Dick denied him promotions during his career based on his race. After receiving his "right to sue" letter from the EEOC, Dews filed suit on August 29, 1997, alleging that Dick violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 1981, and Ohio Revised Code § 4112, et seq by failing to promote him to a District Sales Manager position in 1995 and to a Regional Sales Manager position in 1996 because of his race. Dews further claimed that his resignation in September 1996 was a constructive discharge. Finally, Dews alleged that he endured a racially hostile work environment, lost income, and suffered emotional distress as a result of A.B. Dick's actions1.
Dews learned of the 1995 Northeast District Sales Manager vacancy and the surrounding circumstances when he deposed Schwebke one week before the close of discovery. Dews then sought to amend his complaint to allege that he was not promoted to this 1995 Northeast DSM position because of his race. Dews complained in his Memorandum in Support of his Motion for Leave to File an Amended Complaint that Kukla and Peterson's proffered justification for not promoting him to the Central DSM position - that he lacked management experience - was inconsistent with the company's decision to promote Schwebke directly from his entry-level sales representative position to the Northeast DSM position. Dews also filed a Motion to Extend Discovery to inquire as to the circumstances surrounding the hiring of the 1995 Northeast District Sales Manager. The Magistrate Judge denied both of Dews' motions. The district court upheld the Magistrate's recommendation, determining that any amendment to the complaint would be futile and would not survive a motion to dismiss because the 1995 claims were time-barred.
A.B. Dick moved for summary judgment, arguing that Dews failed to establish a prima facie case of employment discrimination because he was not...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Schobert v. CSX Transp. Inc.
...(2) did not actually motivate the action; or (3) were insufficient to warrant the action." Id. at 285 (citing Dews v. A.B. Dick, Co. , 231 F.3d 1016, 1021 (6th Cir. 2000) ). York might argue that CSXT's decision had no basis in fact, and CSXT will likely, or at least it so appears based on ......
-
Hajizadeh v. Vanderbilt Univ.
...actually motivate the defendant's challenged conduct, or (3) was insufficient to warrant the challenged conduct.” Dews v. A.B. Dick Co., 231 F.3d 1016, 1021 (6th Cir.2000). See also Imwalle v. Reliance Med. Products, Inc., 515 F.3d 531, 545 (6th Cir.2008). In order to show that there was no......
-
Wexler v. White's Furniture, Inc.
...actually motivate the defendant's challenged conduct, or (3) was insufficient to warrant the challenged conduct." Dews v. A.B. Dick Co., 231 F.3d 1016, 1021 (6th Cir.2000). The district court based its conclusion that the reason proffered by White's was not pretextual on an unwarranted defe......
-
Grace v. Uscar
...to warrant the challenged conduct.'" Wexler v. White's Fine Furniture, 317 F.3d 564, 576 (6th Cir.2003) (quoting Dews v. A.B. Dick Co., 231 F.3d 1016, 1021 (6th Cir.2000)). Here, the defendants claim that Grace's termination was the result of USCAR's decision to restructure its IT division,......
-
Employer Responses
...Plaintiff must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Defendant’s reason for its decision is not credible. Dews v. A.B. Dick Co., 231 F.3d 1016, 1021 (6th Cir.2000). He can attempt to prove this by showing that the reason given (1) has no basis in fact, (2) did not actually motivate ......