Anderson v. Otis Elevator Co.

• Decision Date: 12 April 2013
• Docket Number: Case No. 11–10200.
• Citation: 923 F.Supp.2d 1032
• Parties: Raymond ANDERSON, Ralph Brown, Earl Lardner, James Lardner, Anton Wolf and Richard Wright, Plaintiffs, v. OTIS ELEVATOR COMPANY, a foreign corporation, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

923 F.Supp.2d 1032

Raymond ANDERSON, Ralph Brown, Earl Lardner, James Lardner, Anton Wolf and Richard Wright, Plaintiffs,

v.OTIS ELEVATOR COMPANY, a foreign corporation, Defendant.

Case No. 11–10200.

United States District Court,

E.D. Michigan,

Southern Division.

April 12, 2013.

Darcie R. Brault, Klimist, McKnight, Sale, McClow & Canzano, Southfield, MI, for Plaintiffs.

Cintra B. McArdle, Chicago, IL, Lisa C. Walinske, Cardelli Lanfear & Buikema, Royal Oak, MI, Thomas G. Cardelli, Cardelli, Hebert, Royal Oak, MI, for Defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT (ECF NO. 54)

PAUL D. BORMAN, District Judge.

This matter comes before the Court on Defendant Otis Elevator Company's (“Otis”) Motion for Summary Judgment. (ECF No. 54.) Plaintiffs filed a response (ECF No. 67) and Otis filed a reply (ECF No. 89). The Court held a hearing on February 7, 2013. For the reasons that follow, the Court GRANTS Otis's motion.

INTRODUCTION

This action involves claims of age discrimination by six individuals, two of whom also assert claims of race discrimination, who were employed as mechanics by Defendant Otis Elevator Company (“Otis”) in the Detroit metropolitan area and were terminated in 2008–2009. Otis claims that the six Plaintiffs were among 17 mechanics who were laid off, and whose duties were assumed by other Otis mechanics, as part of a broader workforce reduction necessitated by economic conditions. Otis claims that Plaintiffs were selected for lay off pursuant to a performance ranking system unrelated to the Plaintiffs' age and/or race. Plaintiffs claim that they were terminated and replaced by younger, less qualified mechanics and argue that the reduction in force, and the ranking system utilized by Otis to select them for lay off, were a guise for both age and race discrimination. Presently before the Court is Otis's Motion for Summary Judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs in this action are six former Elevator Journeymen Mechanics who worked for Otis and were laid off between February, 2008 and October, 2009. Plaintiffs worked at Otis's Detroit Branch Office which has three elevator departments-Modernization (updating existing elevator equipment), Construction (installation of new elevator equipment), and Service (repair and maintenance of existing elevator equipment). (ECF No. 54, Def.'s Mot. Summ. Judg. Ex. 2, March 9, 2012 Declaration of Joseph Steger ¶ 4.) In addition to performing work on elevators at various properties throughout the Detroit market, the Detroit Otis Office also contracts with Northwest/Delta Airlines to provide service and maintenance for elevators, escalators, moving walkways and an indoor tram system known as the Automated People Mover (“APM”) at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport–McNamara Terminal (“DTW”). ( Id. ¶ 9.)

Plaintiffs contend that they were terminated and replaced by younger workers and treated disparately compared to youngerworkers. Plaintiffs Anderson and Wright additionally allege that they were discriminated against because they are African American. Plaintiffs contend that there was a “corporate culture” at Otis that devalued older workers, that certain Otis employees made “ageist” and racist remarks and that African American mechanics were under-represented in the workforce.

Otis responds that it eliminated 40 hourly employees in Detroit through rolling layoffs which began in January, 2009, including the lay off of 16 of its 72 mechanics in the relevant time period, as part of a workforce reduction, including the six Plaintiffs in this action, each of whom, Otis maintains, was among the lowest performing mechanics when terminated. (Def.'s Mot. Summ. Judg. Ex. 18, Interrogatory Resp. 5; Def.'s Mot. Summ. Judg. Ex. 17, March 6, 2012 Declaration of Elizabeth Ceriello ¶ 7.) Otis further responds that neither race nor age was a consideration in the decision to layoff the six Plaintiffs.

In selecting the six Plaintiffs (along with 11 other mechanics who are not plaintiffs in this lawsuit) for layoff, Otis purports to have relied, in part, on a ranking system, the Field Associate Ranking, colloquially referred to as the “Rack and Stack,” which was created by Otis on an annual basis to compare employee performance based on a pre-selected set of criteria to evaluate the workforce for possible layoffs. (Def.'s Mot. Summ. Judg., Ex. 2, Steger Decl. ¶ 14, Ex. B, 2009 Rack and Stack; ECF No. 83, Pls.' Sealed Resp. to Mot. Summ. Judg. Ex. T, 2007 Rack and Stack.) ¹ According to the testimony of several Otis witnesses, the Rack and Stack was intended to reflect in some measure the information reported by supervisors on employee performance evaluations, Field Associate Performance Evaluations (“FAPEs”). (ECF Nos. 115–119, Pls.' Supplemental Brief Regarding Summary of 2008 and 2009 FAPEs and Sealed Exhibits.) ²

The FAPEs are prepared by supervisors to rate the performance of individual employees, scoring the employee on a given set of factors by assigning the employee a competency level (unsatisfactory, low/limited, medium and strong (or not applicable)) on the pre-selected set of factors. For the most part, the performance factors considered by supervisors completing a FAPE, i.e. safety, ethics, focus on customer needs, customer relationship building, technical expertise, productivity, work quality, attitude, applying standard processes, dependability/reliability, communication, problem solving, results oriented, planning and organization, leveraging networks, troubleshooting skills, repair skills and availability for callbacks, are the same factors considered on the Rack and Stack. The competency levels on the FAPEs are not assigned numeric values.

On the Rack and Stack, the competency levels utilized on the FAPEs are assigned numeric values: 1–unsatisfactory, 2–low/limited, 3–medium, and 4–strong. Additionally, on the Rack and Stack, the factorsare weighted, i.e. given a rating from one to five, 1–desired, 2–encouraged, 3–important, 4–necessary and 5–critical, corresponding to the criticality of each of the listed factors. The competency number assigned for a given factor is multiplied by the weight assigned to that factor and the sum of those values is the total point number assigned to a given employee on the Rack and Stack. Employees scoring the lowest total points were generally selected first for work force reduction layoffs, although other considerations, such as a customer request or a specialized skill, could trump the Rack and Stack order in certain circumstances. When the Rack and Stack process originally began, the mechanics were ranked by department, i.e. Service, Construction and Modernization, separately. Beginning in 2009, the Rack and Stack ranked all mechanics from all departments for the entire Detroit Office. Although the Rack and Stack is a tool used in the event of a lay off, a Rack and Stack is performed every year, regardless of the need for lay offs in that particular year.

Plaintiffs contend that the Rack and Stack was somehow “rigged” against them because the Rack and Stack values did not, in every case, exactly mirror the corresponding competency levels on each employee's FAPE. Plaintiffs claim that the FAPE scores and the Rack and Stack values were supposed to completely align and that disparities between the scores on the individual FAPEs and the scores on the 2009 Rack and Stack demonstrate that the 2009 Rack and Stick was “rigged” by Otis to target older mechanics for layoff in favor of younger, less qualified mechanics.

A. The Otis Supervisors and Management Personnel Involved in the Plaintiffs' Terminations.1. Joe Steger

Joe Steger (Caucasian DOB October 3, 1966) has been employed as a Field Operations Manager responsible for the Service/Maintenance Department of Otis's Detroit Office since 2002. (Steger Decl. ¶¶ 2–3.) Steger reports to the General Manager of the Detroit Office, which was Tim Collins in 2007 and 2008 and Robert Olney in 2009. (Steger Decl. ¶ 2.) In his role as a Field Operations Manager (Maintenance), Steger oversaw Maintenance operations and provided technical support for the Detroit Office sales department. (Def.'s Mot. Ex. 1, October 3, 2011 Deposition of Joseph Steger, 25.) Steger also was responsible for helping to prepare the budget for Maintenance operations based on monthly performance projections. ( Id. at 28–29.) Steger would receive monthly reports from Otis's corporate headquarters that would set forth the profit that Maintenance was expected to achieve. ( Id. at 29–30.) The Maintenance Department did not meet budget in 2009. ( Id. at 35.)

In the latter half of 2008, Steger became aware that Otis experienced a significant decline in business due to the overall declining economy and particularly in Otis's Construction and Modernization departments. As a result of the decline in business, and in an effort to cut costs, the Detroit Office implemented a workforce reduction and laid off mechanics and apprentices on a rolling basis. (Steger Decl. ¶ 11.)

In his role as the Field Operations Manager of the Detroit Office, Joe Steger oversaw the Rack and Stack ranking process and was the official, and sole, custodian of the final Rack and Stack document. (Def.'s Mot. Summ. Judg. Ex. 1, Steger Dep. 100–01.) In this role, Steger oversaw the January 21, 2009 Rack and Stack meeting that resulted in the preparation of the 2009 Rack and Stack, pursuant to which Otis claims to have terminated each of the Plaintiffs, with the exception of Wolf, who was terminated earlier pursuant to a different Rack and Stack, the 2007 Rack and Stack. (Steger Dep. 93–95.) The 2009 Rack and Stack, for the first time, consolidated and ranked mechanics from all three of Otis's departments, i.e. Construction, Modernization and Maintenance/Service, into one single Rack and Stack. Previously, the mechanics had been ranked only against other mechanics from their department. (Def.'s Mot. Ex. 1, Steger Dep. 57–58; Def.'s ...