Jinks v. Allied Signal, 00-5160

• Citation: 250 F.3d 381
• Decision Date: 04 May 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-5160,00-5160
• Parties: (6th Cir. 2001) David M. Jinks and Elizabeth M. Green, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Allied Signal, Inc., Defendant-Appellee. Submitted:
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

Page 381

250 F.3d 381 (6th Cir. 2001)

David M. Jinks and Elizabeth M. Green, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Allied Signal, Inc., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 00-5160

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

Submitted: May 4, 2001

Decided and Filed: May 14, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Chattanooga. No. 98-00441, R. Allan Edgar, Chief District Judge.

Anita B. Hardeman, Harry F. Burnette, BURNETTE, DOBSON & HARDEMAN, Chattanooga, Tennessee, for Appellants.

William N. Ozier, Michael S. Moschel, BASS, BERRY & SIMS, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee.

Before: SILER and GILMAN, Circuit Judges; DUGGAN, District Judge^*.

OPINION

RONALD LEE GILMAN, Circuit Judge.

David M. Jinks and Elizabeth M. Green brought suit against their former employer, AlliedSignal Inc., alleging that they were wrongfully terminated because of their age in violation of the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Tennessee Human Rights Act. Following the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of AlliedSignal, Jinks and Green filed a motion for relief from judgment pursuant to Rule 60(b)(1) and (6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The district court denied relief. For the reasons set forth below, weAFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual background

Allied Signal produces automotive brake parts at its manufacturing plant in Cleveland, Tennessee. In May of 1981, Jinks was hired by AlliedSignal's predecessor to be a time-study analyst. He served in that position for ten years before becoming a process engineer. In August of 1996, he was promoted to the position of manufacturing leader in AlliedSignal's drum-brake production operation. This was his first managerial position at Allied, and he was responsible for supervising 30 to 45 hourly employees.

Green was the Cleveland plant's most senior employee. AlliedSignal's predecessor hired her as an accounts-payable clerk in 1964. In August of 1993, she was made an associate accountant responsible for processing the hourly workforce payroll. She was the only associate accountant in the department.

In October of 1997, AlliedSignal announced its third-quarter earnings, noting the poor performance of its automotive-products group and its plans to take aggressive action to reduce costs associated with that group. As a result, the salaried workforce at the Cleveland plant was reduced as part of a group-wide reduction-in-force ("RIF"). Eleven salaried positions were eliminated at the Cleveland plant.

Allied Signal reduced the number of drum-manufacturing leader positions from five to three. Jinks was one of the two drum-manufacturing leaders selected for layoff because he had less supervisory experience than the retained manufacturing leaders. Moreover, immediately prior to his layoff, his performance evaluation noted that he needed improvement in his teamwork, attitude, and performance. Jinks was 45 years old when he was laid off.

The RIF also affected the accounting department. Green's position was abolished because AlliedSignal had decided to implement a new payroll system that would have eliminated half of Green's responsibilities. Her remaining duties were reassigned to other personnel within the department. Green was 57 years old at the time.

Both Jinks and Green were invited to apply for position openings as they became available at the Cleveland plant following their layoffs. In August of 1998, Jinks was offered his old position back as a drum-manufacturing leader with the same salary and benefits that he had previously enjoyed. Jinks, however, had already taken a new job in Texas by that time. Because a return to AlliedSignal would have required him to incur significant moving expenses, he asked AlliedSignal to pay these costs. When AlliedSignal refused to pay his moving expenses, Jinks declined the offer.

Green was also informed of job openings within the accounting department. Although she was interviewed for an accountant position, AlliedSignal hired someone with greater accounting experience. Green had only worked as an associate accountant, not a full-charge accountant. In January of 1998, she interviewed for, and was offered, an accounts-payable clerk position. Because the position's annual salary was between $23,000 to $24,000, and she had previously been earning in the low-$30,000 range, she rejected the offer.

B. Procedural background

On November 12, 1998, Jinks and Green filed suit in the Chancery Court of Bradley County, Tennessee pursuant to the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (29 U.S.C. §§621, 623) and the Tennessee Human Rights Act (Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-21-101). The complaint alleged that AlliedSignal had violated federal and state fair-employment laws by using age as a factor in its decision to eliminate their positions. Jinks further claimed that AlliedSignal violated Tennessee law by retaliating against him for filing his discrimination charge. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-21-301. On the basis of the federal question presented and the diversity of the parties' citizenship, AlliedSignal subsequently removed the lawsuit to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

Allied Signal then filed its answer, denying the substantive allegations of Jinks's and Green's complaint and asserting a counterclaim against Jinks for conversion and unjust enrichment, based upon Jinks's refusal to return severance pay that he had mistakenly received. On November 12, 1999, AlliedSignal moved for summary judgment on all claims. In granting the motion, the district court held that Jinks and Green had failed to establish a prima facie case of age discrimination and were unable to raise a genuine issue of material fact showing that AlliedSignal's proffered reasons for their termination were a pretext designed to mask age discrimination. The district court also concluded that Jinks could show no causal connection between AlliedSignal's demand for repayment of the severance pay and his filing of the age-discrimination charge. Accordingly, the case was dismissed with prejudice on December 16, 1999.

Six days later, Jinks and Green filed their motion for relief from judgment pursuant to Rule 60(b)(1) and (6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The motion raised new facts and arguments not presented to the district court on summary judgment. In support of their motion, they filed the affidavit of Paul Kirschmann, a 44-year-old AlliedSignal employee whose position had also been eliminated in AlliedSignal's RIF. His affidavit alleged that an AlliedSignal manager, Tom Samulaski, informed Kirschmann at his exit interview that age was a factor used in the company's RIF decision-making process.

Jinks and Green claimed that Kirschmann's "recent illness" had prevented them from timely filing the affidavit with their response to AlliedSignal's motion for summary judgment. Their motion also (1) offered a new interpretation of statistical evidence concerning the group of individuals considered for layoff, (2) asserted that the district court had improperly disregarded Jinks's prior supervisory experience, which was in the record but not referred to in their response to AlliedSignal's summary-judgment motion, and (3) sought leave to correct a clerical error in their summary-judgment answer, which had misstated the page in Green's deposition referencing Human Resources Manager Noe Gatyon's remark that she was an "old woman."

In denying the Rule 60(b) motion, the district court concluded that Jinks and Green had failed to establish sufficient grounds to justify relief under the rule. The court also stated in a footnote that even if it were to consider Kirschmann's affidavit, Gayton's "old woman" comment, or the argument concerning Jinks's supervisory experience, this evidence only went to the issue of pretext. Finally, the district court held that the statistical-evidence argument was not supported by any facts in the record. Jinks and Green, per the district court, had still failed to establish the requisite elements for a prima facie case of age discrimination. Jinks's and Green's appeal is based solely on the district court's denial of their Rule 60(b) motion.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of review

The district court's denial of a Rule 60(b) motion for relief from judgment will not be set aside unless we find an abuse of discretion. See Thompson v. American Home Assur. Co., 95 F.3d 429, 432-33 (6th Cir. 1996). An abuse of discretion will be found only where there is a "definite and firm conviction that the trial court committed a clear error of judgment."Davis v. Jellico Comty. Hosp. Inc., 912 F.2d 129, 133 (6th Cir. 1990) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Furthermore, in reviewing the district court's denial of a Rule 60(b) motion, we do not consider the merits of the underlying judgment. See Hood v. Hood, 59 F.3d 40, 42 (6th Cir. 1995). As such, Rule 60(b) does not allow a defeated litigant a second chance to convince the court to rule in his or her favor by presenting new explanations, legal theories, or proof. SeeCouch v. Travelers Ins. Co., 551 F.2d 958, 959 (5th Cir. 1977) (quoting 11 Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2858).

B. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the Rule 60(b) motion

Rule 60(b) allows the trial court to relieve a party from a final judgment for the following reasons, among others: (1)mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect ... or (6) any other reason justifying relief from the operation of the judgment. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b). Under Rule 60(b), a party seeking relief from judgment must show the applicability of the rule. See Lewis v. Alexander, 987 F.2d 392, 396 (6th Cir. 1993) ("As a prerequisite to relief under Rule 60(b), a party must establish that the facts of its case are within one of the enumerated reasons contained in Rule 60(b) that...