Mulero-Rodriguez v. Ponte, Inc., Civ. No. 93-2790(PG).

• Citation: 891 F. Supp. 680
• Decision Date: 23 June 1995
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 93-2790(PG).
• Parties: Gilberto MULERO RODRIGUEZ, et al., Plaintiffs, v. PONTE, INC., et al., Defendants.
• Court: United States District Courts. 1st Circuit. District of Puerto Rico

891 F. Supp. 680

Gilberto MULERO RODRIGUEZ, et al., Plaintiffs, v. PONTE, INC., et al., Defendants.

Civ. No. 93-2790(PG).

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

June 23, 1995.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Kevin G. Little & Alberto J. Pérez-Hernández, Río Piedras, PR, for plaintiffs.

Juan Carlos Guzmán-Rodríguez, San Juan, PR, for defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

PEREZ-GIMENEZ, District Judge.

Pending are defendants' Motion For Summary Judgment, plaintiffs' Motion in Opposition, and defendants' Reply thereto. For the reasons set forth below, defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED.

I. Background

Ponte, Inc. is a Puerto Rico corporation that sells electrical equipment. The company is owned by members of the Ponte and Sabines families. Plaintiff Mulero was employed by Ponte, Inc. for 29 years until his discharge on January 26, 1993. He was hired initially to serve as a driver and ultimately climbed the corporate ladder to positions of store supervisor, general manager, and director. In the latter positions, which he held at the time of his discharge, Mulero bore substantial responsibility for the daily operations of the company. Mulero received compensation in the amount of $150,000.00 annually.

In late-1991, María Luisa Ponte, an owner and officer of the company, began to work at the company. She restricted Mulero's authority to hire and fire employees, requiring Mulero to seek her approval for personnel actions.

Throughout 1992, Ms. Ponte and Mulero clashed over issues relating to Mulero's job performance, benefits, and interaction with other employees. Finally, on January 26, 1993, Mulero was discharged by Haydeé Sabines and her son-in-law, Jorge Redondo, who was not employed by Ponte, Inc.

Mulero and his wife and their conjugal partnership filed this lawsuit on December 30, 1993, alleging causes of action under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 626(c) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq. Defendants are Ponte, Inc. and Haydeé Sabines, president of the company.

II. Summary Judgment

Summary judgment is appropriate when "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). "Where the defendant has invoked Rule 56 and asserted a lack of supporting evidence, the plaintiff must establish the existence of a triable issue which is both genuine and material to his claim." Pagano v. Frank, 983 F.2d 343, 347 (1st Cir.1993) (citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 247-48, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2509-10, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)). "In this context, `genuine' means that the evidence about the fact is such that a reasonable jury could resolve the point in favor of the nonmoving party and `material' means that the fact is one that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law." United States v. One Parcel of Real Property, Etc. (Great Harbor Neck, New Shoreham, R.I.), 960 F.2d 200, 204 (1st Cir. 1992).

"On issues where the nonmovant bears the ultimate burden of proof at trial, he may not defeat a motion for summary judgment by relying on evidence that is `merely colorable' or `not significantly probative.'" Pagano v. Frank, 983 F.2d at 347 (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. at 249-50, 106 S.Ct. at 2511). The nonmovant must "present definite, competent evidence to rebut the motion." Mesnick v. General Elec. Co., 950 F.2d 816, 822 (1st Cir.1991), cert. denied 504 U.S. 985, 112 S.Ct. 2965, 119 L.Ed.2d 586 (1992). "Summary judgment may be appropriate if the nonmoving party rests merely upon conclusory allegations, improbable inferences, and unsupported speculation." Medina-Muñoz v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 896 F.2d 5, 8 (1st Cir.1990). Nonetheless, "no credibility assessment may be resolved in favor of the party seeking summary judgment." Woodman v. Haemonetics Corp., 51 F.3d 1087, 1091 (1st Cir. 1995) (citation omitted).

III. Discussion

A. The Burden-Shifting Framework

Plaintiffs and defendants are required to satisfy alternating burdens under the law applicable to claims of age- and national origin-based discrimination. The burden of "persuasion," of course, rests at all times with plaintiff; defendants bear no more than a burden of "production" at any time. Woodman, 51 F.3d at 1092.

First, plaintiffs must offer evidence with respect to all four parts of a so-called "prima facie" case demonstrating that an adverse employment decision was the result of unlawful discrimination. Plaintiffs must show that the employee-plaintiff was (1) a member of a protected class, (2) met the employer's legitimate performance expectations, (3) suffered an adverse employment action, and (4) the employer sought a replacement with qualifications roughly equivalent to the employee-plaintiff's. Woodman, 51 F.3d at 1091; Greenberg v. Union Camp, 48 F.3d 22, 26 (1st Cir.1995); Smith v. Stratus Computer, Inc., 40 F.3d 11, 15 (1st Cir. 1994). Plaintiffs' burden at this stage is light; if satisfied, a presumption arises that the employer engaged in unlawful employment discrimination. Smith, 40 F.3d at 15 (citing Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 254, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1094, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981)).

Defendants must respond merely by articulating a "legitimate, non-discriminatory motive" for the adverse action taken against the employee. If defendants satisfactorily shoulder this burden, the presumption of unlawful discrimination vanishes, and plaintiffs again must take the stage. Greenberg, 48 F.3d at 22.

Plaintiffs finally must offer evidence that demonstrates that defendants' proffered justification for the adverse action is an attempt to mask a pernicious, unlawful age- or national origin-based animus. "A disparate treatment claim cannot succeed unless the employee's protected trait actually played a role in the decisionmaking process and had a determinative influence on the outcome." Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 113 S.Ct. 1701, 1706, 123 L.Ed.2d 338 (1993). There must be a "nexus" or "correlation" between the evidence reflecting bias and the adverse employment action. Cone v. Longmont United Hosp. Ass'n, 14 F.3d 526, 531-32 (10th Cir.1994) (citing E.E.O.C. v. Clay Printing Co., 955 F.2d 936, 942 (4th Cir.1992)). To survive a motion for summary judgment, the evidence must be "adequate to enable a rational fact-finder reasonably to infer that intentional age- or national origin- based discrimination was a determinative factor in the adverse employment decision." Woodman, 51 F.3d at 1092.

B. Plaintiffs' Prima Facie Case

Defendants concede for purposes of the summary judgment motion that employee-plaintiff Mulero satisfies the first, third, and fourth prongs of the test. See Woodman, 51 F.3d at 1091. Defendants contest, however, plaintiffs' assertion that Mulero was meeting defendants' legitimate job expectations at the time of his discharge.

Plaintiffs muster scant evidence to counter defendants' contention. Cast in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, the substance of their argument on this point is as follows: Mulero worked at Ponte, Inc. for 29 years, starting as a company driver and working his way up the corporate ladder until he held the positions of General Manager and Director; as General Manager and Director, Mulero was "almost entirely responsible" for Ponte's successful day-to-day operations. Finally, plaintiffs claim that "defendants acknowledge that they believed Mr. Mulero's performance ... up until 1992 to be good."

Very scant evidence, indeed. The argument itself amounts to little more than a statement that Mulero actually performed the job; it says little about the quality of his performance. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, the record is devoid of any affirmative indicia of satisfactory performance, such as evaluation reports or appraisals. The absence of this type of evidence may, of course, be attributable to defendants' failure to compile it; plaintiffs thus may not be condemned for a failure to produce it.

It is the evidence that plaintiffs do cite that nearly betrays their argument. Plaintiffs offer snippets of deposition testimony as support for a sanguine assessment of Mulero's performance. The deposition testimony is not, however, the solid undergirding plaintiffs believe it to be.

For example, plaintiffs assert that their claim that "defendants acknowledge that they believed Mr. Mulero's performance ... up until 1992 to be good" is supported by statements located at pages 32 and 78 of the deposition of María Luisa Ponte, an officer of Ponte, Inc. At page 32 of her deposition, however, Ms. Ponte merely testified that prior to the period during which she worked at Ponte, Inc., her "personal impression" of Mulero was "a good one," and that prior to the death of her uncle, who worked at Ponte, her uncle "would complain about Mr. Mulero's brother who worked at Ponte, Inc., but not about Mr. Mulero." At page 78, she participated in the following exchange with plaintiffs' counsel:

Q: In your estimation, prior to your starting employment at Ponte, Inc., was Mulero doing a good job with the inventory?

A: I have no idea what type of job he was doing.

Q: So you —

A: I assumed he was doing a good job.

Q: So prior to starting, you had no idea whether Mr. Mulero was doing a good or bad job with the inventory?

A: I assume he was doing a good job.

Although it is conceivable that these portions of Ms. Ponte's testimony indirectly or obliquely reflect that defendants considered Mulero's performance prior to 1992 to be acceptable, I am hard-pressed to consider either statement a clear "acknowledgement" of that opinion. Moreover, plaintiffs fail to offer evidence demonstrating the adequacy of Mulero's performance from late-1991, when Ms. Ponte began working at the...