98-129 La.App. 3 Cir. 7/1/98, Greer v. Dresser Industries, Inc.

• Decision Date: 01 July 1998
• Citation: 715 So.2d 1235
• Parties: 98-129 La.App. 3 Cir
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

Page 1235

715 So.2d 1235

98-129 La.App. 3 Cir. 7/1/98

Fred GREER, et al., Plaintiffs--Appellants, v. DRESSER INDUSTRIES, INC., et al., Defendants--Appellees.

No. 98-129.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana Third Circuit.

July 1, 1998.

Robert Bruce Macmurdo, Baton Rouge, for Fred Greer, et al.

Fraser A. McAlpine, Houston, TX, for Dresser Industries, Inc., et al.

Ronald J. Fiorenza, Alexandria, for Gail McDavid, et al.

Before YELVERTON, GREMILLION and PICKETT, JJ.

[98-129 La.App. 3 Cir. 1] YELVERTON, Judge.

This is an appeal brought by eight age discrimination plaintiffs from a summary judgment rendered in favor of their former employer, Dresser Industries, Inc., and several of Dresser's decision makers. Dresser is an international corporation with offices in the United States and England. The plaintiffs ¹ in these two consolidated [98-129 La.App. 3 Cir. 2] cases ² were all employees of Dresser's Pineville, Louisiana facility, which manufactures and sells industrial valves used in chemical and petroleum processing.

With its economic projections for 1994 showing lower profits, Dresser made a decision to cut overhead expenditures at the Pineville facility. John Cooper, the general manager of the Pineville facility, was instructed to implement a plan to cut costs, and he determined that a reduction in force was necessary. Cooper enlisted the aid of James Riegler, the human relations manager, for that purpose.

As to each department, Riegler determined the number of potential cuts that would be required. He then involved department managers for a determination of which jobs should be eliminated. One of those managers was Gail McDavid, who managed operations. Cooper, Riegler, and McDavid were all named as defendants in this suit, along with Dresser.

During 1993 and 1994, Dresser implemented the reduction in force (RIF) plan. The plaintiffs lost their jobs. Following their termination from Dresser, the plaintiffs filed suit alleging that Dresser and its decision makers (referred to collectively hereafter sometimes as Dresser) discriminated against the plaintiffs on the basis of their age while implementing the RIF. Dresser filed motions for summary judgment against the individual plaintiffs, and the trial court granted summary judgment in favor of all defendants. The trial court did not give written reasons for judgment, but implicit in its short oral reasons was a finding that the RIF was a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the plaintiffs' terminations, that there were no [98-129 La.App. 3 Cir. 3] genuine issues of material fact, that the defendants did not discriminate as to age, and that the defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. We reverse and remand.

LAW

Summary Judgment

We review summary judgments de novo. Smith v. Our Lady of the Lake Hosp., 93-2512 (La.7/5/94); 639 So.2d 730. In Taylor v. Oakbourne Country Club, 95-388 (La.App. 3 Cir. 10/4/95); 663 So.2d 379, we considered the parties' burdens of proof in age discrimination cases at the summary judgment level. Our reversal in that case relied heavily on a United States Fifth Circuit opinion in Thornbrough v. Columbus and Greenville R. Co., 760 F.2d 633 (5 Cir.1985).

The plaintiffs' argument in the present case rests extensively on our opinion in Taylor and on the Fifth Circuit's opinion in the Thornbrough case. We recognize that these reviews employed summary judgment rules that looked indulgently upon the claims of the party opposing the motion, i.e., summary judgment was not favored; and that those views must yield to two subsequent events: 1) the United States Supreme Court's opinion in Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986), which interpreted federal summary judgments as being favored, and 2) our legislature's adoption of that standard in the recently amended La.Code Civ.P. art. 966, as stated in Section 4 of Acts 1997, No. 483. Article 966 now declares, in pertinent part, that "summary judgment procedure is designed to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action, except those disallowed by Article 969. The procedure is favored and shall be construed to accomplish these ends." Because age discrimination is not one of those actions disallowed by [98-129 La.App. 3 Cir. 4] La.Code Civ.P. art. 969, Article 966 requires us to treat summary judgment in such cases as in every other case-i.e., with favor. Nevertheless, as we will further explain later, there are special rules of proof that the federal courts have fashioned to ease the evidentiary burdens on employment discrimination plaintiffs, and these rules are unaffected by the change in philosophy of summary judgment procedure.

Moreover, it is still the law that a motion for summary judgment is not a substitute for a trial on the merits and is usually inappropriate in cases requiring a judicial determination of subjective facts, such as motive, intent, good faith, or knowledge. Douglass v. Alton Ochsner Med. Found., 97-25 (La.App 5 Cir. 5/28/97); 696 So.2d 136; Bilbo for Basnaw v. Shelter Ins. Co., 96-1476 (La.App. 1 Cir. 7/30/97); 698 So.2d 691, writ denied, 97-2198 (La.11/21/97); 703 So.2d 1312. In Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604, 113 S.Ct. 1701, 123 L.Ed.2d 338 (1993), the United States Supreme Court held that in an age discrimination suit, the ultimate fact that an employee must prove is that age was a motivating factor in the employer's decision to terminate the employee's employment. That being so, unless the evidence shows us that there are no genuine issues of material fact without our inquiry into the employer's motive, the summary judgment was inappropriate.

Further, it must be kept in mind that the "burden of proof remains with the movant." Article 966(C)(2). Dresser had the initial burden of showing that there was an "absence of factual support for one or more elements essential to" the plaintiffs' claims. Id. Only after that initial burden is satisfied will we inquire into whether the [98-129 La.App. 3 Cir. 5] plaintiffs have produced "factual support sufficient to establish that [they] will be able to satisfy [their] evidentiary burden of proof at trial." Id. We will now review the elements of an age discrimination case to determine what the plaintiffs must prove at a trial on the merits and whether Dresser has shown an absence of factual support for one or more of the essential elements.

Louisiana's Age Discrimination Law

The law under which the plaintiffs brought their suit is the Louisiana Age Discrimination in Employment Act (LADEA) as contained in La.R.S. 23:971 et seq. ³ Louisiana's prohibition against age discrimination is virtually identical to that under federal law, and so we have used federal jurisprudence for guidance in the interpretation of the LADEA. Taylor, 663 So.2d 379. A plaintiff can rarely produce direct evidence of discrimination and, so, to ease the evidentiary burden the courts have fashioned a special framework of proof for employment discrimination cases. Thornbrough, 760 F.2d at 638. In Rhodes v. Guiberson Oil Tools, 75 F.3d 989 (5 Cir.1996), the court discussed the evidentiary framework of an age discrimination case. We quote from Rhodes, 75 F.3d at 992-993 (footnote omitted):

To establish a prima facie case of age discrimination, the plaintiff "must demonstrate that: (1) he was discharged; (2) he was qualified for the position; (3) he was within the protected class at the time of the discharge; and (4) he was either i) replaced by someone outside the protected class, ii) replaced by someone younger, or iii) otherwise discharged because of his age." Bodenheimer v. PPG Indus., Inc., 5 F.3d 955, 957 (5th Cir.1993).

[98-129 La.App. 3 Cir. 6] Under the Supreme Court's McDonnell Douglas-Burdine framework, the plaintiff first must establish a prima facie case by a preponderance of the evidence; once established, the prima facie case raises an inference of unlawful discrimination. See Hicks at 506, 113 S.Ct. at 2747; Texas Dep't of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 252-53, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1093, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981); McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). The burden of production then shifts to the defendant to proffer a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the challenged employment action. Hicks, 509 U.S. at 506, 113 S.Ct. at 2747; Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253, 101 S.Ct. at 1093; McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802, 93 S.Ct. at 1824. The defendant may meet this burden by presenting evidence that, "if believed by the trier of fact, would support a finding that unlawful discrimination was not the cause of the employment action." Hicks, 509 U.S. at 507, 113 S.Ct. at 2747. If the defendant meets its burden, the presumption raised by the plaintiff's prima facie case disappears. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 255 & n. 10, 101 S.Ct. at 1094 & n. 10. However, the plaintiff is accorded the opportunity to demonstrate that the defendant's articulated rationale was merely a pretext for discrimination. See Hicks, 509 U.S. at 506-08, 113 S.Ct. at 2747-48; Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253, 101 S.Ct. at 1093; McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 804-05, 93 S.Ct. at 1825.

The court further stated that:

To sustain a finding of discrimination, circumstantial evidence must be such as to allow a rational factfinder to make a reasonable inference that age was a determinative reason for the employment decision. The factfinder may rely on all the evidence in the record to draw this inference of discrimination. In tandem with a prima facie case, the evidence allowing rejection of the employer's proffered reasons will often, perhaps usually, permit a finding of discrimination without additional evidence. Thus, a jury issue will be presented and a plaintiff can avoid summary judgment and judgment as a matter of law if the evidence taken as a whole (1) creates a fact issue as to whether each of the employer's stated reasons was what actually...