Mitchell v. Vanderbilt University

• Decision Date: 10 November 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-5503.,03-5503.
• Citation: 389 F.3d 177
• Parties: William M. MITCHELL, M.D., Ph.D., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 177

389 F.3d 177

William M. MITCHELL, M.D., Ph.D., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 03-5503.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: September 22, 2004.

Decided and Filed: November 10, 2004.

ARGUED:

Tyree B. Harris IV, Willis & Knight, Nashville, TN, for Appellant. William N. Ozier, Bass, Berry & Sims, Nashville, TN, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF:

Alfred H. Knight, Janna E. Smith, Willis & Knight, Nashville, TN, for Appellant. William N. Ozier, Bass, Berry & Sims, TN, John C. Callison, Vanderbilt University, Office of General Counsel, Nashville, TN, for Appellee.

Before: MARTIN, COLE, and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Circuit Judge.

Dr. William M. Mitchell appeals the district court's summary judgment in favor of the defendant, Vanderbilt University, in this action under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. We conclude that Mitchell has failed to allege any adverse employment action and we therefore AFFIRM the summary judgment of the district court.

I.

Dr. William M. Mitchell, a sixty-nine-year-old member of the Pathology Department at Vanderbilt University, has filed this case against Vanderbilt University alleging age discrimination, based on a number of actions primarily taken by his superior the department chairman, Dr. Doyle Graham.

Mitchell first joined the faculty of Vanderbilt School of Medicine as an assistant professor in 1966, and received a promotion to Professor of Pathology in 1978. In 1995, Vanderbilt hired Graham as the new chairman of the Pathology Department. Soon after this appointment, Graham asked Mitchell whether he was considering early retirement and Mitchell stated that he had no intention of retiring at any time.

Since that initial meeting, Mitchell claims that Graham engaged in a series of actions constituting age discrimination. According to Mitchell, Graham's discriminatory attitude towards older employees was first observed in late 1997, when Graham had a meeting with Dr. Anh Dao, a colleague of Mitchell's in the Department of Pathology. During that meeting, Graham allegedly asked Dao whether he was ready for retirement. After Dao expressed to Graham a desire to continue working past his sixty-fifth birthday, Graham allegedly told Dao that "people should retire once they reach sixty-five years of age because they are not productive after sixty-five."

Following that initial remark to Dao, Mitchell claims that Graham took specific adverse employment actions aimed directly at him. First, in 1998, Graham removed Mitchell as a mentor of the M.D./Ph.D. and Ph.D graduate programs. Second, Graham prevented a M.D./Ph.D student from conducting research in Mitchell's laboratory, which Mitchell claims could have helped him in an application for a National Institutes of Health grant. Third, on January 13, 1999, Graham sent a letter to Mitchell ordering him to vacate his laboratory and office space and giving Mitchell several employment options, all of which involved reducing his salary and several of which included early retirement. Vanderbilt claims that the reason for this letter was that a medical faculty member is expected to bring in at least 80% of his/her salary from grants, and Mitchell had not contributed more than 25% of his salary from funded research since 1990. As further evidence of discrimination, Mitchell points to Graham's own copy of the January 13 letter on which Graham handwrote in the margins that Mitchell "will be 65 in another year," noting his date of birth and the date on which Mitchell would turn sixty-five.

Following receipt of the January 13 letter, Mitchell refused to choose one of the employment-altering options and filed a grievance with the Vanderbilt Faculty Senate's Professional Ethics and Academic Freedom Committee ("Faculty Committee"), claiming that Graham had engaged in age discrimination. While that grievance was pending before the Faculty Committee, Mitchell requested that Graham consider him for the vacant position of Medical Director of Clinical Laboratories. On March 19, Graham sent Mitchell another letter in which Graham notified Mitchell that he had not been chosen for the position, and that because Mitchell had not selected one of the employment modification options presented in the January 13 letter, he was going to change Mitchell's appointment to Full Status, Partial Load with a salary reduction of 49% and decrease his laboratory space as planned.

After learning of the changes and reductions in Mitchell's laboratory space and status, the Faculty Committee sent a letter dated June 23 to several University administrators, including the Dean of the School of Medicine John Chapman, the Associate Vice-Chancellor of Research Lee Limbird, and Graham. The June 23 letter requested that the administrative actions be postponed until after the Faculty Committee had completed its investigation of Professor Mitchell's grievance. In response to the June 23 letter from the Faculty Committee, Chapman, Limbird and Graham agreed that while there would be no change in Mitchell's appointment or salary, the planned reduction of laboratory space would be implemented because they found that Mitchell's research effort did not warrant the level of laboratory space assigned to him. As the district court observed, at the time of the events at issue here Mitchell had not received a significant research grant award in roughly four years.

After negotiations between Mitchell and University officials failed, Limbird advised Mitchell in a letter dated July 9 that his laboratory space would be reduced from 2000 square feet to 150 square feet. The letter did, however, assure Mitchell that additional lab space would be ensured if he secured future grants.

Mitchell timely filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charge on July 22, 1999. On August 9, Graham removed Mitchell as Medical Director of Vanderbilt Pathology Laboratories Services. In an e-mail message to Mitchell on that date, Graham also stated his intention to appoint Mitchell to the position of Medical Director of the Bedford County Hospital Laboratories, an apparently undesirable post that would require travel away from Vanderbilt.

Following this action, Mitchell filed a second charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on August 19 alleging that the alleged adverse employment actions that occurred that month were retaliatory. On or about January 19, 2000, Graham placed a special requirement on Mitchell, requiring that all National Institutes of Health grant applications submitted by Mitchell were to be reviewed by Graham. Graham claims that the restriction was needed to prevent misstatements and hurriedly prepared proposals.

On October 11, 2000, Mitchell filed a second grievance with the Faculty Committee seeking an order to preserve his laboratory space. On December 11, the Faculty Committee denied the first grievance filed by Mitchell regarding the reduction in laboratory space, finding that the office space was assigned on the nondiscriminatory basis of research funding. On February 12, 2001, the Faculty Committee denied Mitchell's second grievance, allowing the University to reassign Mitchell's laboratory space.

II.

After receiving a right-to-sue letter in September of 2001, Mitchell filed this complaint in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee on December 18, 2001, alleging that Vanderbilt violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 28 U.S.C. 623(a), by reducing his research lab space, threatening to reduce his salary, removing him as a mentor of the M.D./Ph.D program, denying him the opportunity to work with a new M.D./Ph.D student, trying to force him to take early retirement, and failing to appoint him to the position of Medical Director for Clinical Laboratories. Mitchell also claimed that Graham retaliated against him for filing the discrimination charge by removing him from the position of Medical Director for Pathology Laboratory Services, appointing him to the position of Medical Director for the Bedford County Hospital Laboratories, and by not selecting him as Medical Director of Clinical Laboratories.

The district court granted Vanderbilt's motion for summary judgment in an order entered on March 18, 2003, finding insufficient direct or circumstantial evidence to establish a claim for age discrimination or retaliation. On appeal, Mitchell claims that the district court erred in granting summary judgment because he presented evidence of discriminatory animus and adverse employment actions that, if considered independently or collectively, is sufficient to defeat Vanderbilt's motion for summary judgment.

III.

A district court's grant of summary judgment is subject to de novo review by this Court. Williams v. London Util. Comm'n, 375 F.3d 424, 427 (6th Cir.2004). Summary judgment is appropriate where there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). When reviewing the record, all inferences are to be drawn in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Timm v. Wright State Univ., 375 F.3d 418, 422 (6th Cir.2004). "If after reviewing the record as a whole a rational factfinder could not find for the nonmoving party, summary judgment is appropriate since there is no genuine issue for trial." Apostolic Pentecostal Church v. Colbert, 169 F.3d 409, 414 (6th Cir.1999).

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act makes it unlawful for an employer "to discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's age." 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1). A plaintiff may meet his evidentiary burden under the Act in one of two ways. On the one hand, a plaintiff may offer direct evidence of the employer's discriminatory motive by producing ...