McKenzie v. Davenport-Harris Funeral Home

• Decision Date: 21 December 1987
• Docket Number: 87-7161,Nos. 86-7888,DAVENPORT-HARRIS,s. 86-7888
• Citation: 834 F.2d 930
• Parties: 45 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 959, 45 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 37,695, 107 Lab.Cas. P 35,004, 9 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1092 Luellen R. McKENZIE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.FUNERAL HOME, a division of Protective Industrial Insurance company; and Protective Industrial Insurance Company, Defendants-Appellees. Luellen R. McKENZIE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.FUNERAL HOME, a division of Protective Industrial Insurance Company, Defendants-Appellees, Protective Industrial Insurance Company, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 930

834 F.2d 930

45 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 959,

45 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 37,695,

107 Lab.Cas. P 35,004, 9 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1092

Luellen R. McKENZIE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DAVENPORT-HARRIS FUNERAL HOME, a division of Protective

Industrial Insurance company; and Protective

Industrial Insurance Company,

Defendants-Appellees.

Luellen R. McKENZIE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DAVENPORT-HARRIS FUNERAL HOME, a division of Protective

Industrial Insurance Company, Defendants-Appellees,

Protective Industrial Insurance Company, Defendant.

Nos. 86-7888, 87-7161.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eleventh Circuit.

Dec. 21, 1987.

Robert L. Wiggins, Jr., Ann K. Norton, Melinda L. Denham, Gordon, Silberman, Wiggins, and Childs, Birmingham, Ala., for plaintiff-appellant.

Demetrius C. Newton, Birmingham, Ala., for defendants-appellees.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Before VANCE and CLARK, Circuit Judges, and GARZA ^*, Senior circuit judge.

GARZA, Senior Circuit Judge:

A woman filed a Title VII claim and an Equal Pay Act claim against her former employers. She alleged that she was discriminated against on the basis of her sex. The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on the Title VII claim. The court held that the woman's second employer did not maintain the jurisdictional number of 15 employees, and that the businesses could not be considered a single or joint employer for Title VII purposes. Further, the court dismissed the plaintiff's Equal Pay Act claim, with prejudice, on the basis that her counsel failed to comply with the court's scheduling order.

I. Facts and Proceedings

Luellen R. McKenzie, plaintiff-appellant, was hired by Protective Industrial Insurance Company (Protective) in 1957. She worked at Protective for about twenty years as an insurance agent. Although there is some confusion as to whether she quit or was transferred, in 1977 she began working for Davenport-Harris Funeral Home (Davenport-Harris). While at Davenport-Harris, McKenzie worked as a receptionist and bookkeeper, but retained her capacity as an insurance agent, and continued to do a minimal amount of insurance work for Protective.

Virgil Harris is the President of both Protective and Davenport-Harris. He owns a small percentage of the outstanding stock of both companies. ¹ He also, in large part, controlled the personnel management of both companies.

Paul Harris is the Secretary of both Protective and Davenport-Harris, and also serves as Vice-President of Protective. The books of Protective and Davenport-Harris, including receipts and salary records, are maintained by Paul Harris at Protective's offices. The salary checks for Davenport-Harris employees are issued from Protective.

In 1984, McKenzie was laid off. Virgil Harris, while in his office at Protective, telephoned Winfield Simpson at Davenport-Harris, and ordered him to give the bad news to McKenzie. Virgil Harris released her because of a claimed lack of business, despite his perception of McKenzie as providing 27 years of good service. Less than one month after her termination from employment, a man was hired at a higher salary to replace her.

In response, McKenzie filed a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). After receiving notice of right to sue from the EEOC, McKenzie brought suit against Protective and Davenport-Harris, alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 2000e, et seq., and the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The main obstacle to her Title VII claim was that Davenport-Harris did not employ the requisite 15 employees to be subject to Title VII. To establish jurisdiction for the Title VII action, it was incumbent upon McKenzie to show a substantial relationship between Protective and Davenport-Harris. Protective retains approximately 200 employees. Accordingly, she could receive Title VII relief if the companies could be considered a single or joint employer under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e(b).

The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, stating that Protective and Davenport-Harris are separate corporate entities, and thus the threshold requirement of 15 employees was not met for Title VII purposes. The defendants further argued that McKenzie was not employed by Protective. Affidavits were filed in opposition to the defendants' motion.

The district court granted a partial summary judgment directed at the Title VII claim. The court determined that the businesses were separate entities [T]here is no dispute that Davenport and Protective are separate corporate entities although there is substantial similarity in their corporate officers and in their directors, as well as a common business interest. The ownership of the two corporations, in effect, is also quite similar. The depositions before the court, however, establish without dispute that their assets are not interchangeable and that there is no co-use of the assets by the two corporations. Further, it is established that there are no similarities with regard to their operations, although there is a significant degree of interrelationship.

The partial summary judgment did not affect the Equal Pay Act claim. McKenzie filed a notice of appeal.

The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the remaining claim under the Equal Pay Act. They claimed that McKenzie failed to comply with paragraph 7(a) of the pre-trial order. Paragraph 7(a) required a statement of the principal facts which the plaintiff intended to prove at trial. The court entered an order on December 19, 1986, requiring the plaintiff to comply with the pre-trial order by December 23. On December 23, McKenzie sent the court a letter reciting that the parties had reached an agreement on the claim, and that they were in the process of filing the necessary papers with the court.

On December 29, the parties filed a stipulation of dismissal of the plaintiff's Equal Pay Act claim against Davenport-Harris, pursuant to Rule 41(a)(1)(ii). Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(a)(1)(ii). The parties disagree as to the intent of that stipulation. The plaintiff claims that the stipulation did not state that the dismissal was with prejudice, and thus, under Rule 41, was deemed to be without prejudice. The defendants argue that although the stipulation failed to state that the dismissal was with prejudice, the defendants believed that the dismissal was with prejudice.

On January 5, 1987, the district court entered an order dismissing the plaintiff's Equal Pay Act claim with prejudice. The plaintiff filed a motion to strike the court's order, contending that it was unauthorized under Rule 41. On February 17, the court issued another order stating that "[t]he dismissal with prejudice on January 5, 1987 was, while based upon the stipulation, in implementation of the sanction noticed by the December 19, 1986 order. Parties cannot circumvent sanctions through the device of a stipulation of dismissal." The plaintiff filed a timely notice of appeal, and the appeal was consolidated with the Title VII appeal filed earlier.

II. Discussion

We face two issues in this appeal. We must first decide whether the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the defendants on the Title VII claim. Our review of this matter is plenary. Summary judgment is proper only if the evidence produced by the non-moving party, when viewed in a light most favorable to that party, fails to establish a genuine issue of material fact. Tippens v. Celotex Corp., 805 F.2d 949, 953 (11th Cir.1986).

The second issue raised for review is whether the district court erred in dismissing with prejudice the Equal Pay Act claim. We must determine whether the trial judge acted within the proper scope of his discretion in dismissing the claim with prejudice. Our study of the record reveals that the district court should not have granted summary judgment for the defendants on the Title VII claim. Further, the judge abused his discretion in dismissing McKenzie's Equal Pay Act claim with prejudice. For the reasons that follow, we are compelled to reverse the final judgment of the district court on both grounds.

A. The Title VII Claim

Of course, McKenzie must bear the burden of proving that subject matter jurisdiction exists. McKenzie's impediment to jurisdiction, at least with the district court, was that she could not establish that Davenport-Harris employed 15 or more employees for each working day in 20 or more weeks. Although there is some dispute, we will assume for purposes of this appeal that the district court did not make so obvious a mistake and that Davenport-Harris has at no time engaged as many as 15 employees at one time. ²

A liberal construction must be accorded to the term: employer. Trevino v. Celanese Corp., 701 F.2d 397, 403 (5th Cir.1983); Baker v. Stuart Broadcasting Co., 560 F.2d 389, 391 (8th Cir.1977). McKenzie tried to prove to the trial court that Davenport-Harris' and Protective's activities, operations, ownership and management are sufficiently interrelated to be perceived as a single employer for purposes of Title VII. Counsel for the defendants contended that the separate corporate existence of Davenport-Harris and Protective could not be disregarded. Based on three depositions and a handful of exhibits alone, the district court judge determined that Protective could not be considered an employer of McKenzie. The court made this determination despite its finding that "there is substantial similarity in their corporate officers and in their directors, as well as a common business interest. The ownership of the two corporations, in effect, is also quite similar." The court also found that "there is a significant degree of interrelationship."

Our role is to decide whether McKenzie presented sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue concerning whether Davenport-Harris and Protective should be treated as a single entity. The...