Bacon v. Honda of America Mfg., Inc.

• Decision Date: 27 May 2004
• Docket Number: No. 01-3520.,01-3520.
• Citation: 370 F.3d 565
• Parties: Marc E. BACON, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. HONDA OF AMERICA MANUFACTURING, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

370 F.3d 565

Marc E. BACON, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. HONDA OF AMERICA MANUFACTURING, INC., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 01-3520.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: December 4, 2002.

Decided and Filed: May 27, 2004.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Robert A. Steinberg (argued and briefed), Waite, Schneider, Bayless &

Chesley, Cincinnati, OH, Robert F. Laufman (briefed), Laufman & Gerhardstein, Cincinnati, OH, John S. Marshall (briefed), Law Offices of John S. Marshall, Columbus, OH, Michael J. O'Hara (briefed), O'Hara, Ruberg, Taylor, Sloan & Sergent, Covington, KY, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Mary Ellen Fairfield (argued and briefed), James A. Wilson (briefed), Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease, Columbus, OH, for Defendant-Appellee.

Richard T. Seymour (briefed), Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, Washington, DC, for Amici Curiae.

Before BOGGS, Chief Judge; GUY, Circuit Judge; and EDMUNDS, District Judge.^*

OPINION

BOGGS, Chief Judge.

Plaintiffs, Marc Bacon and Terry Harden, brought this employment discrimination action against defendant Honda of America Manufacturing, Inc., seeking to represent a class of all current and former African-American employees at Honda's four manufacturing plants located in central Ohio. Plaintiffs appeal, asking for review of both the denial of class certification and the subsequent grant of summary judgment to Honda on all of plaintiffs' individual claims. Bacon and Harden allege that the company uses discriminatory procedures for promoting employees in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., 42 U.S.C. § 1981, Ohio Revised Code § 4112.99, and Ohio common law. The district court correctly determined that Bacon and Harden failed to meet the prerequisites for class certification and that they could not show that they were denied promotions for which they were eligible. For the reasons elaborated upon below, we affirm the decision of the district court in its entirety.

I

On August 19, 1999, Bacon and Harden (plaintiffs), who were employed as "nonexempt" production associates (PAs) for Honda, filed a class action complaint, alleging that Honda engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against African-American employees by denying them promotions. Relying on both disparate impact and disparate treatment theories to prove liability, plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief, promotion to desired positions, back pay, and compensatory and punitive damages.

Honda has four manufacturing plants in central Ohio: Marysville Auto Plant (MAP); Marysville Motorcycle Plant (MMP); Anna Engine Plant (AEP); and East Liberty Plant (ELP). These four facilities have various purposes that range from manufacture of Accord and Acura automobiles, to production of Honda motorcycles, to building of engines and other components. In addition, Honda plants have quality departments, which are responsible for inspecting products coming off the line; purchasing departments; and various administrative offices, such as Human Resources. In all, there are thirty-nine departments at Honda.

Sixty percent of Honda's 12,700 employees are production associates, who are nonexempt¹ employees supervised by team leaders, the first supervisory level. Production staff share this secondary level of authority with team leaders. The next level of management is production coordinator an exempt² position, who reports to an assistant manager or department manager, who in turn reports to a senior manager or plant manager.

In general, production associates may seek promotion to team leader,³ but only in the department in which they are currently working. Furthermore, an employee becomes eligible for promotion only after meeting minimum requirements for time working both in the department and for Honda in general. In addition, he or she must have a strong attendance record, typically ninety-eight percent or above, and a disciplinary record that shows no counseling by a manager within the past twelve months. Past performance evaluations are also taken into account and some departments require the production associate to pass a trade test and/or to have completed a certain number of special projects. A team leader must be willing to work any shift or to travel. See Bacon v. Honda of Am. Mfg., 205 F.R.D. 466, 471-72 (S.D.Ohio 2001) (giving detailed description of Honda's production facilities and corporate structure).

The motion for class certification was filed in September 2000, and an evidentiary hearing was held in December 2000. On March 7, 2001, the district court denied the motion for class certification, finding that: (1) plaintiffs did not satisfy the requirements of commonality, typicality, and adequacy of representation with respect to the disparate treatment claims under Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a); (2) the predominance of monetary relief precluded certification of injunctive class under Rule 23(b)(2); (3) requirements for class certification under Rule 23(b)(3) were not met; and (4) Seventh Amendment concerns made bifurcation and certification of certain issues improper, or at least prevented that process from being the most fair and efficient way to litigate the claims. Id. at 490.

Honda moved for summary judgment on plaintiffs' individual claims. The plaintiffs filed a Rule 56(f) motion in response, requesting a revised discovery schedule and a new trial date. The district court denied the motion, although it allowed one additional deposition. On April 30, 2001, the district court granted summary judgment to Honda on the individual claims of Bacon and Harden. That order thoroughly addressed each of the plaintiffs' claims under both the disparate impact and disparate treatment theories. This appeal followed.

II Class Action Certification

This court reviews denial of class action certification for abuse of discretion. Alkire v. Irving, 330 F.3d 802, 810 (6th Cir.2003). In order for one or more litigants to represent all parties in a class, four prerequisites must be met: "(1) the class [must be] so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable, (2) there [must be] questions of law or fact common to the class, (3) the claims or defenses of the representative parties [must be] typical of the claims or defenses of the class, and (4) the representative parties [must] fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class." Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a). In this case the district court conducted the mandatory "rigorous analysis [to confirm] that the prerequisites of Rule 23(a) have been satisfied." Gen. Tel. Co. v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 161, 102 S.Ct. 2364, 72 L.Ed.2d 740 (1982). We agree with its conclusion that the disparate treatment claim fails the second, and the disparate impact claim the third, part of the Rule 23(a) test.

Numerosity

There is no automatic cut-off point at which the number of plaintiffs makes joinder impractical, thereby making a class-action suit the only viable alternative. In re Am. Med. Sys. Inc., 75 F.3d 1069, 1079 (6th Cir.1996). However, sheer number of potential litigants in a class, especially if it is more than several hundred, can be the only factor needed to satisfy Rule 23(a)(1). 1 Herbert B. Newberg & Alba Conte, Newberg on Class Actions, § 3:5, at 243-45 (4th ed.2002). The facts of the case guide a court's determination that the class is sufficiently large to make joinder impractical. Gen. Tel. Co. v. EEOC, 446 U.S. 318, 330, 100 S.Ct. 1698, 64 L.Ed.2d 319 (1980). In this case, Bacon proposes a class of some 800 current and former African-American Honda employees, a number well beyond the point that joinder would be feasible. The requirement of Rule 23(a)(1) is met.

Commonality

In order to show disparate treatment, a potential class representative must show that the employer intentionally discriminated against a protected class and that there are questions of law or fact common to the class. Falcon, 457 U.S. at 162, 102 S.Ct. 2364 (Burger, C. J., concurring in part). The Supreme Court has noted that class certification is "appropriate ... [when] [i]t is unlikely that differences in the factual background of each claim will affect the outcome of the legal issue." Califano v. Yamasaki 442 U.S. 682, 701, 99 S.Ct. 2545, 61 L.Ed.2d 176 (1979) (upholding class certification for litigation of an issue of interest to all social security beneficiaries). Variations in the circumstances of class members are acceptable, as long as they have at least one issue in common. In re Am. Med., 75 F.3d at 1080 (citations omitted) (reversing a grant of certification because the putative plaintiffs had used many different models of a certain medical device, which had produced a range of side effects, so that the malfunction could not be attributed to a common cause).⁴

Bacon and Harden were responsible for satisfying the court's concerns related to whether:

(i) the nature of the alleged unlawful employment practice genuinely had a class-wide impact;

(ii) employment practices affecting the class were uniform or diverse, given factors such as size of the work force, number of plants involved; range of employment conditions, occupations, and work activities; geographic dispersion of the employees and extent of intra-company employee transfers;

(iii) members' treatment would be likely to involve common questions;

(iv) relevant employment and personnel policies and practices were centralized and uniform; and

(v) similar conditions prevailed throughout the time period covered by the allegations.

Stastny v. S. Bell Tel. and Tel. Co., 628 F.2d 267, 277 (4th Cir.1980) (citing Harriss v. Pan Am. World Airways, Inc., 74 F.R.D. 24, 41 (N.D.Cal.1977)); Newberg, § 24:21, at 133-34 (requiring a specific showing of underlying facts that might raise an inference of a common pattern or practice through allegations of specific incidents of discrimination, supporting affidavits, or evidence at the class certification hearing).

Bacon and...