Tuttle v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville

• Decision Date: 18 January 2007
• Docket Number: No. 05-6471.,No. 05-6055.,05-6055.,05-6471.
• Citation: 474 F.3d 307
• Parties: Patricia Burlin TUTTLE, Plaintiff-Appellant/ Cross-Appellee, v. METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT OF NASHVILLE and Davidson County, Tennessee, Defendant-Appellee/ Cross-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 307

474 F.3d 307

Patricia Burlin TUTTLE, Plaintiff-Appellant/ Cross-Appellee, v. METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT OF NASHVILLE and Davidson County, Tennessee, Defendant-Appellee/ Cross-Appellant.

No. 05-6055.

No. 05-6471.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: July 18, 2006.

Decided and Filed: January 18, 2007.

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ARGUED: Douglas B. Janney III, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellant. Kevin C. Klein, Metropolitan Department of Law, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Douglas B. Janney III, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellant. Kevin C. Klein, Metropolitan Department of Law, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee.

Before MARTIN and RYAN; Circuit Judges; MARBLEY, District Judge.^*

OPINION

ALGENON L. MARBLEY, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Patricia Burlin Tuttle appeals from the district court's entry of judgment as a matter of law in favor of Defendant, stemming from Defendant's termination of Plaintiff's employment. Following a full trial on the merits, which resulted in a jury verdict in favor of Tuttle in the amount of $199,200.00, the district court granted Defendant's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law on Tuttle's claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 and retaliation. After the district court entered its judgment, and after Tuttle timely filed a Notice of Appeal, Defendant filed a Motion for the Conditional Grant of a New Trial, which the district court denied as untimely. Defendant filed a Notice of Cross-Appeal. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM in part and REVERSE in part the district court's decisions.

II. BACKGROUND

A. Facts

1. Tuttle's Employment with Metro

Plaintiff Patricia Burlin Tuttle ("Tuttle") is a 63-year-old woman who was employed by Defendant Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee (hereafter, "Metro") from November 14, 1994 until March 4, 2002, when Defendant fired her.

Tuttle worked in various clerical positions at Metro until 1998, when she was promoted to Account Clerk II in Metro's Department of Public Works. As an Account Clerk II, Tuttle received positive employment reviews from her supervisor, Renesa Davis ("Davis"). On October 1, 1999, Tuttle was promoted to Account Clerk III, where her duties included answering and dispatching telephone calls, submitting payroll information, recording employee attendance, and processing work orders, among other things. Tuttle successfully completed the standard six-month probationary period for the Account Clerk III position.

Tuttle's first supervisor in the Account Clerk III position was Mike McCallister. When McCallister resigned in July 2000, George Sullivan ("Sullivan") became Tuttle's next supervisor. On one occasion Sullivan instructed Tuttle to correct some payroll errors that had occurred when Metro began using a new payroll system. Tuttle resisted making the corrections, arguing that the employee who caused the problems should correct them and explaining that she had substantial work of her own to do because she recently had been out of the office for medical reasons.

In August 2000, Tuttle reported to John Walker ("Walker"), the human resources manager for Metro's Department of Public Works, that she had observed Sullivan and Cheryl Harrington ("Harrington"), one of Tuttle's co-workers, destroying documents. Sullivan and Harrington denied that they had destroyed any documents. Metro investigated, but it did not identify any evidence to support Tuttle's accusation. Thereafter, Tuttle's relationship with Harrington began to decline.

On October 3, 2000, Sullivan submitted a performance evaluation for Tuttle, and he rated her "below expectations" in the area of peer relations, referencing the incident when Tuttle refused to follow his instructions to make payroll corrections. This was the first time Tuttle ever received any unfavorable performance evaluation in her time at Metro. Tuttle maintains that Sullivan was motivated by retaliation for Tuttle having reported the complaint against Sullivan and Harrington regarding the destruction of documents.

When Sullivan retired from Metro on February 28, 2001, Chase Anderson ("Anderson") became Tuttle's new supervisor. During the time that Anderson supervised Tuttle, there were various complaints issued by Metro employees against Tuttle.¹ When Anderson consulted Walker about some of Tuttle's performance deficiencies, Walker instructed him to begin documenting any of Tuttle's employment issue for her file. Anderson subsequently reassigned Tuttle's payroll responsibilities to Harrington.²

Anderson did not complete timely Tuttle's annual performance evaluation, which was due on October 1, 2001. On several occasions after October 1, 2001, Tuttle reminded Anderson that she needed him to complete her evaluation so that she could obtain her annual pay increase, but Anderson did not complete her evaluation.³ Anderson timely completed and submitted his other subordinate employees' performance evaluations. He completed Tuttle's evaluation, which was unfavorable, on January 15, 2002, more than three months late.

In October 2001, Anderson transferred Tuttle out of her office position to the "scale house booth" at Metro's thermal plant, where Tuttle worked twelve-hour days in relative isolation weighing Metro's garbage trucks. The scale house booth was about four miles away from the office where Tuttle previously had worked. When he transferred Tuttle to the scale house booth, Anderson told her that it would be a temporary transfer, and he estimated that she would only work there for thirty to thirty-five days, after which she would return to her Account Clerk III position. Tuttle worked for five months in the scale house booth with no documented job performance problems.

2. Tuttle's EEOC Complaint Against Metro

On December 6, 2001, Tuttle filed a Charge of Discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the "EEOC") against Metro, alleging that she had been discriminated against on the basis of her age. Metro was served with the Charge on December 10, 2001.

On December 19, 2001, Walker drove out to the scale house booth, where Tuttle was working at the time. When he arrived at the scale house booth, Walker told Tuttle that she would have either to transfer out of the Metro's Department of Public Works and into another Metro department or else she would receive an unfavorable evaluation and be demoted or terminated. Tuttle responded to Walker that she wanted to think about it before she made the decision to transfer out of the Department of Public Works. Shortly thereafter, Tuttle requested a transfer to the Metro's Motor Pool Department, but she was advised that the Motor Pool Department would not entertain any new transfers because of a hiring freeze.

3. Tuttle's Termination From Metro and Her Administrative Appeals

On January 15, 2002, Anderson submitted Tuttle's annual performance evaluation, which she failed. In an addendum to the evaluation, Anderson noted that Tuttle's job performance was not acceptable due to her "poor social skills," "poor work habits," and "lack of honesty." Moreover, Anderson recommended, based on her poor evaluation, that Tuttle be subject to discipline, up to and including termination. After a disciplinary hearing before Walker in February 2002, Walker concluded that there was ample evidence to terminate Tuttle's employment. Walker then recommended to the Director of the Department of Public Works that Tuttle's employment be terminated, and Metro terminated Tuttle's employment, effective March 4, 2002. On March 18, 2002, Tuttle filed a second Charge of Discrimination with the EEOC against Metro, alleging age discrimination and retaliatory discharge.

Tuttle next appealed her discharge to the Metro Civil Service Commission (the "Commission"), an administrative agency. On July 17, 2003, an administrative law judge ruled that, based on its factual findings, Metro had just cause to terminate Tuttle.⁴ The full Commission upheld the administrative law judge's decision in an order dated September 10, 2003. Finally Tuttle pursued review of the administrative record with the Chancery Court for Davidson County, Tennessee, which upheld the Commission's decision by an order dated August 24, 2004. Significantly, the Commission did not consider or decide Tuttle's age discrimination or retaliation claims because it did not have jurisdiction to adjudicate them.

B. Procedural History

1. Pre-Trial Proceedings

On November 12, 2002, Tuttle filed a suit in federal court against Metro and Chase Anderson, asserting claims of age discrimination, retaliatory discharge, and intentional and negligent misrepresentation under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621 et seq., Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq., the Tennessee Human Rights Act ("THRA"), Tenn.Code Ann. §§ 4-21-101 et seq., and the Tennessee Public Protection Act ("TPPA"), Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-1-304, as well as Tennessee common law claims of misrepresentation and outrageous conduct. Each of Tuttle's claims arose from her treatment during and termination of her employment with Metro. Anderson was included as a defendant in Tuttle's complaint because he was Tuttle's supervisor prior to her termination.

On September 30, 2004, Metro and Anderson filed a motion for summary judgment, and on January 21, 2005, the district court dismissed Tuttle's outrageous conduct claim, but it otherwise denied the defendants' motion. In April 2005, Metro and Anderson each filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, and on May 31, 2005, the district court granted those motions, leaving only the ADEA claims against Metro and the common law misrepresentation claim against Anderson for trial. On June 3, 2005, the district court entered an order, pursuant to a negotiated settlement between the parties,...