Adams v. Schneider Elec. USA
| Decision Date | 17 August 2022 |
| Docket Number | 21-P-158 |
| Citation | 101 Mass.App.Ct. 516,194 N.E.3d 1247 |
| Parties | Mark A. ADAMS v. SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC USA. |
| Court | Appeals Court of Massachusetts |
101 Mass.App.Ct. 516
194 N.E.3d 1247
Mark A. ADAMS
v.
SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC USA.
No. 21-P-158
Appeals Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.
Argued December 14, 2021
Decided August 17, 2022
Robert S. Mantell (Ilir Kavaja also present) Boston, for the plaintiff.
Christopher W. Kelleher, Boston, for the defendant.
Present: Green, C.J., Meade, Rubin, Henry, & Singh, JJ.1
HENRY, J.
The plaintiff, Mark A. Adams, a former employee of Schneider Electric USA (Schneider or company), appeals from a summary judgment entered in favor of Schneider on his age discrimination
claim.2 See G. L. c. 151B, § 4 (1B). The
summary judgment record in this case contains something rarely seen in discrimination cases: an e-mail trail documenting that Schneider was so concerned about its "aging" Boston work force that it instituted a series of reductions in force (RIF) designed to shed older workers to make room for "young talent." Viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, here Adams, a rational fact finder could find that the company engaged in a systematic effort to replace older workers, including Adams, to make room to hire younger ones, and that Adams lost his job as a result.
Because there were facts in dispute from which a jury could find that age was not "treated neutrally" either in calling for the RIF or in selecting Adams for the RIF, summary judgment should not have been granted. Accordingly, we reverse.
Standard of review. In reviewing a grant of summary judgment, we assess the record de novo and take the facts, together with all reasonable inferences to be drawn from them, in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. See Godfrey v. Globe Newspaper Co., 457 Mass. 113, 119, 928 N.E.2d 327 (2010). "[T]he court does not ‘pass upon the credibility of witnesses or the weight of the evidence [or] make [its] own decision of facts.’ " Shawmut Worcester County Bank, N.A. v. Miller, 398 Mass. 273, 281, 496 N.E.2d 625 (1986), quoting Attorney Gen. v. Bailey, 386 Mass. 367, 370, 436 N.E.2d 139, cert. denied, 459 U.S. 970, 103 S.Ct. 301, 74 L.Ed.2d 282 (1982). Viewing the facts in this light, we then determine whether the moving party has affirmatively shown that there is no real issue of fact, "all doubts being resolved against the party moving for summary judgment." Id. The record at hand, viewed with these principles in mind, showed the following.
Factual background. Schneider is a large global conglomerate with offices and facilities located in one hundred countries. Schneider has numerous divisions and subdivisions or "departments," and a complicated organizational structure. At all relevant times, Adams was employed as an electrical engineer in the secure business power group of the home and business network in
the research and development subdivision (HBN R&D).3 He worked out of Schneider's Boston One Campus in Andover (BOC or Boston).4
Around 2012, Adams began working on Schneider's battery quality initiative project supporting the field quality engineering and procurement teams headed by William Kabai and Christopher Granato. As a member of the "Battery A-team," Adams visited suppliers all over the world, investigating battery failures and fixing problems, assisting with the development of processes to improve quality, writing protocols and checklists for suppliers, auditing suppliers to ensure they were complying with manufacturing standards, and validating potential new suppliers.
In 2015, Adams began reporting to Mirza Akmal Beg, who also contributed to the battery quality initiative; the two spoke dozens of times about battery failures. In 2016, Adams was pulled from the battery
quality initiative to work on the restricted other hazardous substances project (ROHS), an important engineering project of HBN R&D.5 That year, Schneider implemented a number of internal reorganizations and two RIFs.
1. The RIFs. Amanda Arria was a human resources (HR) leader for the company's Boston office during the time period relevant to the layoffs.6 She stated that she "partner[ed] with the leadership team to ensure we have the right people strategies in place for the business success." In October 2015, fifteen months before the January 2017 RIF through which Adams was terminated, Colin Campbell, vice-president of the information technology division (ITD), wrote in an e-mail message to Arria that the "[b]usiness [p]ower team in Andover needs age diversity. The embedded system team leader recognizes this and has been stocking his team with young talent. I'd like to encourage this more." In the months that followed, the company did just as Campbell suggested.
From April 2016 to January 2017, the company conducted
three RIFs. Twenty-three of twenty-four terminated employees were over the age of forty and twenty-two of the twenty-four were over the age of fifty. In an April 2016 RIF, six of seven terminated employees were over the age of forty and five of seven were over fifty. In a May 2016 RIF, all nine terminated employees were age forty-eight or older and six of the nine were over age fifty. Adams was terminated by the company in January 2017 at the age of fifty-four. All eight of the employees selected for this third RIF that included Adams were over the age of fifty.
2. Colby's selection of Adams for the January 2017 RIF. In December 2016, the senior vice-president of HBN, Pankaj Sharma, "gave cost take-out targets to each of his leaders." Sharma informed Kenneth Colby, who had recently been promoted to the position of director of engineering of HBN R&D, that he needed to cut twenty-two percent of his budget, the equivalent of around €1.7 million.7 Sharma, whose office was in Singapore at that time, left the specifics of how to meet the goal up to Colby. Colby understood that because the majority of his budget was spent on personnel, that meant the majority of the reduction would have to be a reduction in the number of employees, referred to by the parties as "headcount." Once Bin Lu was hired as vice-president of HBN global R&D in February of 2017, he supervised Colby.
Colby testified as follows as to how he came to include Adams in the January 2017 RIF: Colby approached Jim Munley, the vice-president of the project management office, his boss in his previous position, for guidance. Munley provided Colby with three pieces of advice in making his selections: look for employees who are working the majority of their time outside of HBN R&D, supporting other teams; select employees whose loss would have the least impact on the HBN R&D team and goals; and consider consolidating management positions. After evaluating and ranking his employees, Colby selected
eight for layoff, including a manager and Adams. Their ages ranged from fifty-four (Adams) to sixty-two.
Colby also testified that before making his selections, he prepared a spreadsheet listing factors such as "pros," "cons," "impact,"
and salaries. Under Adams's "cons," Colby wrote, among other things, that he "[d]oes not care for standard [R&D] work." Colby explained that Adams "really enjoyed" field quality work and all aspects of the work supporting the field quality team; in contrast, Adams did not really enjoy the HBN R&D ROHS work assigned to him (on which he spent around twenty-five percent of his time). As for the impact posed by Adams's separation, Colby concluded that there would be a "big impact short-term" on the ROHS work and a "huge impact" on the battery initiative supporting other HBN subdivisions. Under comments, Colby questioned whether Adams could be moved to field quality engineering. One of the two managers on the final RIF list of eight was selected by someone other than Colby.
In January 2017, Colby met with Sharma, Gregoire Rougnon from "finance," Munley, Arria, and Michelle Gautreau (an HR employee who reported to Arria) to review every person on the RIF list and the potential business and financial impact on the company from each separation. Before the RIF, Colby's reports included thirty-eight employees ages forty and over and eleven employees under age forty.8 All employees Colby selected for the January 2017 RIF were age fifty-four or older.
The record reflects that Colby had the discretion to inquire about transferring Adams to another department, which would have met Colby's need to reduce his budget while saving Adams's job. Considering the evidence in the light most favorable to Adams, Adams was key to Granato's department (Granato was a peer of Colby and Kabai). Yet neither Colby nor anyone else gave Granato advance notice that Adams would be in Colby's RIF. Granato learned after the fact that Adams was terminated. Colby did give advance warning to Kabai that Adams would be in the RIF, but not that Colby had asked at that time to move Adams to Kabai's department.9
On January 27, 2017, Colby called Adams at home and informed him of his termination, effective January 30, 2017.10 He instructed Adams not to return to the office. HR followed up the call with written notification and a severance package offer,
which Adams declined.11
Once the January 2017 RIF was announced, Granato and Kabai discussed trying to keep Adams, but Colby was not involved in that conversation. Granato had funding to retain Adams in some capacity and asked Colby about the possibility. Colby dissuaded Granato from trying to retain Adams. Instead, Colby assured Granato that "they'd figure out something to support [Granato's] project going forward." In the light most favorable to Adams, a jury
could infer that Colby failed to tell Granato in advance of the RIF and Colby thwarted Granato's attempt to retain Adams in order to reduce the number of older workers.
3. Post-RIF evidence. In a series of e-mails following the three RIFs, the highest tiers of management reviewed the status of their plan to reduce the number of older...
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