Wilson v. Phoenix Specialty Mfg. Co., Inc.

• Decision Date: 23 January 2008
• Docket Number: No. 06-1818.,No. 06-1836.,06-1818.,06-1836.
• Citation: 513 F.3d 378
• Parties: Jimmy L. WILSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. PHOENIX SPECIALTY MANUFACTURING COMPANY, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellant. Jimmy L. Wilson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Phoenix Specialty Manufacturing Company, Incorporated, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

513 F.3d 378

Jimmy L. WILSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. PHOENIX SPECIALTY MANUFACTURING COMPANY, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellant.

Jimmy L. Wilson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Phoenix Specialty Manufacturing Company, Incorporated, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 06-1818.

No. 06-1836.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: September 27, 2007.

Decided: January 23, 2008.

ARGUED: George Andrew Harper, Jackson & Lewis, L.L.P., Greenville, South Carolina, for Phoenix Specialty Manufacturing Company, Incorporated. Candy Maria Kern-Fuller, Danielson and Kern-Fuller Law Group, Piedmont, South Carolina, for Jimmy L. Wilson. ON BRIEF: Robert E. Hoskins, Foster Law Firm, L.L.P., Greenville, South Carolina; Victoria L. Eslinger, Nexsen Pruet, Columbia, South Carolina, for Jimmy. L. Wilson.

Before NIEMEYER and MICHAEL, Circuit Judges, and T.S. ELLIS, III, Senior United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge MICHAEL wrote the majority opinion, in which Senior Judge ELLIS joined. Judge NIEMEYER wrote a dissenting opinion.

OPINION

MICHAEL, Circuit Judge:

Phoenix Specialty Manufacturing Company, Inc. (Phoenix) appeals the district court's determination, made after a bench trial, that the company terminated the employment of Jimmy Wilson because it regarded him as disabled by Parkinson's disease, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. We affirm this decision because there is no error in the district court's findings of fact or conclusions of law. In addition, after considering Wilson's cross-appeal, we affirm the district court's decision to deny him an award of front pay. The judgment is therefore affirmed.

I.

The district court tried this case without a jury and made the following findings of fact. Phoenix, a family-owned company with over ninety employees, makes specialty washers (perforated disks) that are used primarily in aircraft manufacturing. The company hired Wilson as its shipping supervisor in November of 1988. Ten years later he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, a progressive, degenerative disease of the nervous system that affects both motor and non-motor functions. On May 16, 2001, Wilson experienced a major panic attack during a meeting at work. He left immediately to see Marion Dwight, M.D., who was both the company physician and Wilson's personal physician. Dr. Dwight referred Wilson to a neurologist, Kenneth Bergmann, M.D., who examined Wilson on May 24, 2001. At that time Wilson was experiencing anxiety and a loss of motor control in his right hand. Dr. Bergmann adjusted Wilson's medications and released him to return to work with no restrictions. When Wilson attempted an immediate return to his job, a Phoenix official told him that he could not return until he obtained a release from Dr. Dwight, the company physician. On or about June 4, 2001, Dr. Dwight, without examining Wilson, released him to work half days for two weeks. Without further word from Dr. Dwight, Phoenix allowed Wilson to resume full-time work around the third week of June. Notwithstanding Wilson's Parkinson's symptoms, at all times between his return to work in June 2001 and his termination in August 2002 he was able to perform the essential functions of his job.

When Wilson returned to work, he was treated differently by senior management. Harry Wise, a company vice president and Wilson's immediate supervisor, stopped his practice of joining Wilson on the loading dock for a "talk over coffee." J.A. 814. Wise "no longer met with [Wilson] and refused to look at him." Id. Phoenix president, Robert Hurst, avoided Wilson whenever possible. Hurst required Wilson, after every visit to the doctor, to report to Wise about his condition and the expected progression of his disease. In a June 2, 2001, e-mail to the company's human resources assistant, Hurst stated that Wilson "qualifies for ADA designation and we will have to consider accommodations." J.A. 815. Wilson in fact requested a 21-inch computer screen and help with matters that required writing. The company provided him with a 17-inch screen, the same as other supervisors. Although Wilson was eventually given some assistance in writing employee evaluations, the company made no serious effort to provide assistance with respect to writing tasks.

Phoenix believed that Wilson's Parkinson's disease rendered him substantially limited in his ability to see and perform manual tasks. In November 2001 the company installed a new, complex computer system that was used company-wide. Senior management believed that Wilson "had difficulty in adequately utilizing the information on [a] computer screen" and that he "was unable to adequately key information into a computer." J.A. 827. Indeed, the company did not provide Wilson with "substantial training [on the new] system." J.A. 815. Senior management, fearing that Wilson would make errors, barred him from inputting data into the computer and from counting washers.

In mid-June 2002 Phoenix's officers met and discussed eliminating two salaried positions, the shipping supervisor (Wilson's job) and the press room manager, and replacing them with hourly employees. At about the same time Phoenix began looking for an additional shipping clerk. Hurst, the company president, testified that Wilson had requested another clerk, but the district court "d[id] not find this testimony to be believable," J.A. 816, finding instead that Hurst decided on his own to hire the additional clerk. The company filled the new position by hiring Stacy Nix, a twenty-five-year-old woman with limited experience. Nix began work on July 8, 2002, and spent the first three weeks in training.

On August 1, 2002, Hurst informed Wilson that the company was undertaking a reduction in force. Wilson instantly assumed that Hurst was going to terminate Nix because she was a recent hire who was still in her probationary period. Thus, Wilson was quite surprised when Hurst said that Wilson's position in the shipping department was being eliminated. Wilson, who was fifty-six years old, asked that he be allowed to stay on and work in any position, including an hourly position, but Hurst advised him that an hourly job was not available to him. (The press room manager, whose job was also eliminated, was allowed to stay on as an hourly employee.) Within minutes of terminating Wilson, the company promoted Marviette Hogan, a shipping clerk, to the newly created position of foreman of the shipping department.

At the time of his discharge in August 2002, Wilson's symptoms from Parkinson's "w[ere] stabilized by medication." J.A. 820. Dr. Bergmann had reported in February 2002 that Wilson's "disease was `motor-wise in fairly good control' and that [he] had `good control of his stiffness and tremor.'" J.A. 816. Wilson was still able to write at the time of his discharge, although apparently with some difficulty. He was playing golf, coaching youth sports, and driving. Wilson was never given written or oral notice that his job performance was unsatisfactory. The district court found specifically that he "was a dependable employee who often worked six to seven days a week." J.A. 813.

Wilson filed a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and Phoenix's response to the charge was introduced at trial. Phoenix claimed in its response that a downturn in, sales to the aircraft industry after the events of September 11, 2001, necessitated a further reduction in its approximately ninety-person workforce in August 2002, specifically, the elimination of two supervisory positions, including Wilson's. (The company stated that it had undergone a reduction in force in June 2001.) The district court found that the reasons Phoenix gave to the EEOC for Wilson's termination were not supported by the evidence at trial. Indeed, the court found that the company did not eliminate the position of shipping supervisor, but simply changed the name of the position and promoted Hogan to fill it. The district court rejected as pretextual the following assertions that Phoenix made to the EEOC.

First, the district court discredited Phoenix's claim that it decided to implement a workforce reduction in August 2002. Wilson was not eliminated in a reduction of force, the court found, because "only two employees were involved," J.A. 816, and the company transferred the press room manager to another job.

Second, the district court rejected the company's claim that financial difficulties necessitated a workforce reduction in August 2002. The company paid bonuses to most employees in 2002. Two months after Wilson's termination Phoenix's three owners sold the company at a profit to younger family members. The sellers were paid at least $1 million for signing covenants not to compete.

Third, the district court discredited the reasons the company gave for selecting the shipping supervisor's (Wilson's) position for elimination. The company claimed that Wilson had delegated many of his job responsibilities to Hogan; that, for example, Hogan often ran shipping department meetings; and that Wilson had made no attempt to master the new computer system and could not input data. The court credited Hogan's trial testimony that she never ran department meetings and found that Wilson did not delegate his responsibilities, "but rather received some assistance in performing certain functions." J.A. 821. Hurst admitted at trial that Wilson had genuinely attempted to master the new computer system. Moreover, the district court found that the computer tasks the company complained Wilson could not do were those "such as input of information which the [company had] specifically instructed him not to handle for fear of an entry error." J.A. 821.

Fourth, the district court did not believe the company's assertion that it looked for an open position for Wilson in the shipping...