Bucci v. Hurd Buick Pontiac GMC Truck, LLC

• Decision Date: 04 March 2014
• Docket Number: No. 2011–163–C.A.,2011–163–C.A.
• Citation: 85 A.3d 1160
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court
• Parties: Carmella BUCCI v. HURD BUICK PONTIAC GMC TRUCK, LLC et al.

85 A.3d 1160

Carmella BUCCI

v.HURD BUICK PONTIAC GMC TRUCK, LLC et al.

No. 2011–163–C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

March 4, 2014.

Patricia E. Andrews, Esq., Providence, for Plaintiff.

David A. Wollin, Esq., Providence, for Defendant.

Present: SUTTELL, C.J., GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, ROBINSON, and INDEGLIA, JJ.

OPINION

Justice FLAHERTY, for the Court.

Hurd Buick Pontiac GMC Truck, LLC, Hurd Buick Pontiac GMC Truck, LLC d/b/a Regine Pontiac GMC, and Hurd Chevrolet, Inc. (collectively Hurd or defendant), terminated the employment of Carmella Bucci, the plaintiff, when she was seventy-two years old. After it had hired the plaintiff twice at the age of sixty-seven for brief periods of employment, the defendant rehired Bucci, then aged sixty-eight, as a titles and registrations clerk. She then worked for a period of four years before Hurd terminated her for the final time. Bucci filed suit in Superior Court alleging, inter alia, that the defendant fired her due to unlawful age and disability discrimination in violation of G.L.1956 § 28–5–1, the Fair Employment Practices Act (FEPA). A justice of the Superior Court granted summary judgment to Hurd, and Bucci timely appealed to this Court. We are called upon to determine if the parties have met their burdens under the now familiar McDonnell–Douglas framework so that we may discern if summary judgment was appropriate. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.

IFacts and Travel

The defendant hired Bucci on three different occasions, the first of which was as a part-time receptionist when Bucci was sixty-seven years old. That employment ended one month later because her services were no longer needed. In August 2001, Bucci was rehired, this time to work as the titles and registrations clerk. In this capacity, plaintiff was responsible for filing the necessary paperwork to transfer titles and registrations to the vehicles that defendant had purchased, sold, or leased. It was her task to resolve discrepancies, locate any missing documents, notarize titles, and send appropriate documentation to the various state registries of motor vehicles. At least once or twice per day, plaintiff interacted with customers in an effort to resolve issues pertaining to the registering of vehicles.

The defendant terminated Bucci's employment in November 2001, after it received complaints from customers through Hurd's finance and insurance and internet/e-mail departments. That, however, did not bring Bucci's employment history with Hurd to an end. In August 2002, at the suggestion of one of her former supervisors at a different dealership, Hurd hired Bucci for the third time to again serve as the titles and registrations clerk. At that time, Bucci was sixty-eight years old.

At the beginning of her third employment period, defendant provided Bucci with its employee handbook, which stated in relevant part that “our employment-at-will policy permit[s] you or HURD AUTOMOTIVE to end our relationship for any reason at any time.” The handbook also says, “Neither the employee nor HURD AUTOMOTIVE is bound to continue the employment relationship if either chooses, at its will, to end the relationship at any time.” Notably, the handbook instructed employees “to refrain from any illegal, dishonest, or unethical conduct” and provided that failure to comply with Hurd's “standard of business ethics and conduct could lead to disciplinary action, up to and including possible termination of employment.”

Finally, the handbook includes a “Progressive Discipline” section that outlines the manner in which the company will handle unsatisfactory conduct. However, and significantly, this section also cautions that Hurd may make use of that policy “at its discretion.” The disciplinary process described may include any of four steps: “verbal warning, written warning, suspension with or without pay, or termination of employment.” It provided that, although normally the steps would be followed in order, in some circumstances, including “extreme situations, termination of employment” may occur “without going through the usual progressive discipline steps.” Bucci acknowledged receipt of the handbook in 2004.

When she returned to Hurd Automotive, Bucci's job responsibilities as the titles and registrations clerk were largely the same as before. She was required to complete and file the registrations and titles in a timely fashion for the vehicles that defendant sold, leased, or purchased. The record indicates that in 2005, defendant hired a new chief financial officer (CFO), a new office manager, and a new human resources director, all of whom either supervised or interacted with plaintiff. Unfortunately, some of the same performance issues that had bedeviled Bucci during her second stint of employment with Hurd began to surface. Although there had been one documented customer complaint about plaintiff's professionalism soon after she was rehired, indications of Bucci's unsatisfactory performance began to increase.

In an affidavit in support of Hurd's motion for summary judgment, office manager Alison Drake attested that Bucci was confrontational, lost paperwork, or provided incomplete paperwork to the various state motor vehicle departments and also that Drake had received complaints from employees in other departments about Bucci's “failure to fulfill her job duties in a timely manner.” Another affiant, director of human resources, Connie Mandeville, attested that, on at least three occasions, she had received complaints from the Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) about Bucci's failure to forward proper registrations in a timely manner. CFO A1 Martin attested that he had personally observed plaintiff's poor attitude and that he was aware of customer complaints about delays in registration of vehicles that they had purchased or leased.

Also, Martin noticed that the titles and registrations department, over which he exercised oversight, was not as productive as similar departments in other dealerships at which he had been employed over the span of his forty-two-year career in the industry. He attested that, because that department did not generate activity reports outlining the current status of titles and registrations for vehicles sold by defendant, Hurd had difficulty tracking paperwork and responding to questions from customers or state registries. He also attested that, generally, the other titles and registrations departments at dealerships with which he had been associated performed additional duties, such as payroll processing. Martin discussed increasing productivity with Bucci, but he said that he found that she was generally unwilling to perform those responsibilities and that she resisted receiving training on the payroll computer system. By contrast, in Bucci's deposition testimony, she asserted that Martin had asked her to do billing for wholesale vehicles. This, she said, she was willing to do because she had performed that type of work previously. However, Bucci further testified that her computer was limited to use for registrations, and, when it was programmed for the additional workload, a software conflict would crash the registrations program. Therefore, Bucci said, she required a second computer to perform the additional tasks, and she had not received it by the time of her termination. Nonetheless, Martin averred that Bucci failed to perform other tasks, such as generating activity reports, and that she had difficulty completing customers' registrations and timely filing them with the appropriate state registries.¹

It is also significant that, in early 2006, plaintiff experienced certain physical health problems. She began having pain in her left knee to the extent that she required a walker and that made walking up and down stairs difficult for her. Eventually, defendant arranged to move Bucci's office from the second floor to the first so that she would be relieved of using the stairs. Bucci did not miss any time from work as a result of her knee pain. Also, in the summer of 2006, Bucci underwent cataract surgery, which required her to take medical leave for less than a week.

It is undisputed that, on the day before she underwent cataract surgery, Bucci forged two customer signatures to a letter sent to the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles (the department). After she had registered a vehicle for two customers who resided in Connecticut, plaintiff realized that the department had overcharged Hurd more than $900. Bucci learned from the department that the only way to have the overcharged amount refunded to defendant, rather than to the customers, was for the customers to send a letter to the department authorizing the change. Bucci testified at her deposition that, instead of waiting until after her surgery to resolve the issue, she drafted the letter, signed the customers' names, and faxed it to the department. Several days later, the customers called Hurd to complain that their signatures had been forged. The customers also contacted the police, although no criminal charges were lodged against Bucci. As a result of this incident, on September 6, 2006, plaintiff's supervisor, Wendy Bowen, and Mandeville disciplined plaintiff by means of a written warning, which she acknowledged by signing. The warning also instructed plaintiff that she was “never to sign for a customer under [any] circumstances.” Mandeville testified that Martin and Bowen had considered discharging Bucci because of the forgery incident, but, on reflection, they had decided to give her another chance.

Approximately two months later, Martin terminated plaintiff's employment. Martin swore in his affidavit that, before the forgery incident, he had met with plaintiff on two occasions at which he communicated his expectations for her job performance. According to Martin, Bucci's performance failed to improve after those meetings; she continued to be...