Walker v. NationsBank of Florida N.A.

• Decision Date: 12 June 1995
• Docket Number: 94-2134,Nos. 93-3380,s. 93-3380
• Parties: 68 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 314, 42 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 566 Myra J. WALKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NATIONSBANK OF FLORIDA N.A., a Florida Corporation, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1548

53 F.3d 1548

68 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 314, 42 Fed. R.

Evid. Serv. 566

Myra J. WALKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NATIONSBANK OF FLORIDA N.A., a Florida Corporation,

Defendant-Appellee.

Nos. 93-3380, 94-2134.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eleventh Circuit.

June 12, 1995.

John F. MacLennan, Smith, Hulsey and Busey, Jacksonville, FL, for appellant.

Richard F. Kane, Michael V. Matthews, Blakeney, Alexander and Machen, Charlotte, NC, for appellee.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before HATCHETT and COX, Circuit Judges, and JOHNSON, Senior Circuit Judge.

HATCHETT, Circuit Judge:

In this sex and age discrimination case, appellant, Myra Jeanette Walker, appeals from the district court's granting of a directed verdict, pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 50, and the awarding of attorney's fees. We affirm the directed verdict ruling, but vacate the attorney's fee ruling.

FACTS

This case involves the employment relationship of Walker, NationsBank (the bank), and her immediate supervisor, Eugenia Sefcik. In September, 1987, the bank promoted Walker to the position of branch manager of its Baymeadows Jacksonville, Florida branch. In this new position, Walker reported directly to Sefcik. ¹ Sefcik's first evaluation of Walker's job performance occurred in January, 1988, and she rated Walker at "expected" or "expected plus" in all of the areas listed on the evaluation form. At a meeting in June, 1988, Sefcik angrily accused Walker of failing to offer a Baymeadows branch employee the office manager position at another of the bank's Jacksonville, Florida, branches, and of failing to notify another Baymeadows branch employee that the employee had been denied a salary increase as a result of excessive absenteeism. At the time of this confrontation, Walker contended that she had carried out the directives as instructed.

In June, 1988, the bank conducted an audit of its three Jacksonville branches. The audit of Walker's Baymeadows branch uncovered several deficiencies, and the branch was given an overall rating of unsatisfactory. ² In a June 24, 1988 telephone conversation, Sefcik angrily expressed to Walker her displeasure with Walker's job performance based on the results of the audit of the Baymeadows branch. Walker, in response, sent Sefcik a memorandum in which she characterized Sefcik's reaction to the Baymeadows branch's unfavorable audit as "mental harassment."

As a result of Walker's memorandum, Sefcik and Joyce Sheets, a bank personnel specialist, met with Walker on July 6, 1988. At this counseling session, Sefcik presented Walker with her concerns about Walker's substandard performance during the first six months of 1988, and also set a number of performance goals for Walker to meet in the coming months. Following this meeting, Sefcik documented Walker's performance deficiencies in a July 13, 1988 written performance Walker and Sefcik also held a regularly scheduled quarterly meeting on September 19, 1988, during which Sefcik instructed Walker to contact a bank employee, Nancy Moore, to ensure that the Baymeadows branch received credit for certain referrals; Sefcik also instructed Walker to contact another bank employee, Marsha Murphy, who could answer Walker's questions concerning account analysis.

evaluation. ³ In an August 4, 1988 memorandum, Walker responded to this performance evaluation claiming that the deficiencies cited in the branch audit had been corrected.

In November, 1988, the bank conducted a follow-up, pre-audit check of Walker's Baymeadows branch and found more deficiencies. On November 28, 1988, Walker and Sefcik held a conference in which Sefcik again rated Walker's performance as unsatisfactory due to Walker's failure to meet certain goals established at the July 6, 1988 meeting. As a result of the unsatisfactory rating, Sefcik placed Walker on probation for thirty days. During this period, the bank required Walker to perform satisfactorily or face immediate termination of her employment. Sefcik also provided Walker with a list of changes to be implemented at the Baymeadows branch. In a memorandum dated November 30, 1988, Walker responded to the follow-up audit's results asserting that the audit's conclusion was unfair and unfounded.

The bank contends that during the period between November 28, 1988, and Walker's dismissal on December 5, 1988, Sefcik determined that Walker had made a second misrepresentation to her: Walker had not contacted the two bank employees, Moore and Murphy, as Sefcik instructed her to do at their September 19, 1988 meeting, although Walker had told Sefcik that the directive had been carried out. Walker admits that Sefcik confronted her with the allegation that she had not contacted Moore and Murphy as instructed.

The bank scheduled Walker to attend a training class in Orlando on November 30, 1988. Due to a problem with Walker's mother's health, Walker did not attend the class. The parties dispute the extent of Walker's efforts to notify Sefcik that she would be unable to attend the training course.

Sefcik terminated Walker's employment on December 5, 1988. Sefcik stated as justification for the termination Walker's failure to notify Sefcik of the inability to attend the November 30 training course and Walker's two earlier misrepresentations that she had carried out Sefcik's directives.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On January 9, 1989 Walker filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging that her termination was due to her age and sex, in violation of Sec. 703(a)(1) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 255, as amended, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-2(a)(1), and Sec. 4(a)(1) of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 81 Stat. 602, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 623(a)(1). On October 4, 1990, the EEOC's Miami District Office issued a determination letter in which it found no evidence that Walker's termination had been in violation of the statutes. From that determination, Walker appealed to the EEOC headquarters in Washington, D.C.

On December 4, 1990, Walker filed suit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. The EEOC's Washington, D.C. office issued a determination letter on December 5, 1990, in which it found reasonable cause to believe that the bank had discriminated against Walker in violation of Title VII and the ADEA. The bank moved for summary judgment on November 18, 1991. On December 12, 1991, Walker sought leave to amend her complaint on the grounds that the Civil Rights Act of 1991 entitled her to a jury trial, compensatory damages, and punitive damages in connection with her sex discrimination claim. On June 12, 1992, the district court denied the bank's motion for summary judgment. In denying the bank's summary judgment motion, the district court assumed the admissibility of the EEOC determination On April 8, 1993, the bank filed a motion in limine and a supporting memorandum of law seeking to exclude the EEOC determination letter on the grounds that it was untrustworthy under Federal Rules of Evidence 803(8)(C), and unduly prejudicial under Federal Rules of Evidence 403. The district court granted the bank's motion on April 27, 1993, on the ground that the conflicting findings of the two EEOC offices would result in confusion of the issues for the jury. On May 28, 1993, the bank filed a motion for reconsideration of the district court's June 12, 1992 denial of the bank's summary judgment motion. The district court denied the bank's motion for reconsideration on September 17, 1993.

letter and found that the EEOC's determination was sufficient to establish a factual issue as to whether the Bank's legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for Walker's termination was pretextual. ⁴ Following this court's decision in Curtis v. Metro Ambulance Service, Inc., 982 F.2d 472 (11th Cir.1993), holding that the Civil Rights Act of 1991 would not be applied retroactively, the district court denied Walker's motion to amend her complaint.

In October, 1993, the trial commenced. At the close of Walker's evidence, the court granted the bank's Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 50 motion and entered judgment against Walker as a matter of law. The district court also awarded the bank attorney's fees in excess of $50,000.

ISSUES

Walker raises the following issues: (1) whether the district court committed error in excluding the EEOC determination letter; (2) whether the district court erred in granting the bank's rule 50 motion; and (3) whether the district court committed error in awarding the bank attorney's fees. ⁵

CONTENTIONS

Walker contends that the district court's exclusion of the determination letter on the ground that it would confuse the jury was error, and that the probative value of the determination letter is not substantially outweighed by the potential prejudice to the bank. The bank argues that the EEOC determination letter was properly excluded because its admission would have unduly prejudiced its defense, pursuant to rule 403.

Walker also contends that the bank's stated justification for her termination was pretextual. She argues that when she was terminated, Sefcik gave as a justification Walker's alleged misrepresentations, and her failure to provide Sefcik with advance notice of her inability to attend the November 30, 1988 training class. At trial, however, the bank contended that those two reasons justified Walker's termination and Walker's deficient job performance. According to Walker, this difference in the explanations for her termination suggests that the bank's stated reasons were pretextual, and the jury could have inferred that the real reasons for the termination were her gender and age. Walker buttresses this contention with the fact that the bank's Downtown branch also received an unsatisfactory rating; however, the branch manager, who was a male, was not disciplined. The bank contends that...