Beamon v. Marshall & Ilsley Trust Co.

• Decision Date: 15 June 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-1521.,No. 04-2263.,04-1521.,04-2263.
• Citation: 411 F.3d 854
• Parties: Alex F. BEAMON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MARSHALL & ILSLEY TRUST COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

411 F.3d 854

Alex F. BEAMON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MARSHALL & ILSLEY TRUST COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 04-1521.

No. 04-2263.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued November 5, 2004.

Decided June 15, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Rocky L. Coe (argued), Coe Law Offices, Milwaukee, WI, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Ely A. Leichtling, Pamela M. Ploor (argued), Quarles & Brady, Milwaukee, WI, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before EASTERBROOK, MANION, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

SYKES, Circuit Judge.

Alex Beamon began working as an accountant at Marshall & Ilsley Trust Company ("M & I") in Milwaukee in 1992. Nine years later, Beamon, who is African-American, filed this lawsuit alleging that a dozen discrete job-related actions by M & I amounted to racial discrimination and retaliation for complaining about discrimination and created a hostile work environment, all in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq. The district court granted M & I's motion for summary judgment and Beamon appeals. Beamon also appeals the amount of costs awarded to M & I by the district court as the prevailing party below. We affirm in all respects.

I. Background

The material facts are undisputed but lengthy, given the nature and scope of Beamon's claims. M & I provides trust, employee benefits, and financial services to both individuals and corporations. Beamon began working at M & I in 1992 and for the first five-and-a-half years of his career with the company was employed as a trust fund accountant. In November 1997 he was promoted to a supervisory position in the Income Processing Department, which oversees the daily posting of income into the accounts of M & I's trust clients. This promotion made Beamon M & I's only African-American supervisor at the manager level. The Income Processing Department was "in turmoil" for numerous reasons and suffered from low employee morale. Indeed, Beamon's two predecessors in the position had served abbreviated terms, and the supervisor's job had been vacant for the three months preceding Beamon's promotion. The long-standing problems in the department were not alleviated with Beamon's arrival.

Within the corporate structure at M & I, the Income Processing Department is a subset of Trust Operations, which in turn falls under the jurisdiction of the Support Services Division of the company. In February 1999 the head of the Support Services Division resigned from M & I and a new division chief, Paul Ewig, was brought in to effect a reorganization of M & I's Trust Operations. On March 29, 1999, as part of the reorganization, Ewig removed Beamon from his job as supervisor of Income Processing and transferred him to a position as a "technical consultant" in the Securities Movement and Control area, also known as the "booking area." At that time the only reason given to Beamon for the transfer was that "changes were being made" and he was to be "a part of those changes." Beamon's new position in the booking area did not involve supervisory or managerial responsibilities, but his salary was not affected by the transfer.

As part of Ewig's reorganization of Trust Operations, two white employees, Tami Hagen and Connie Douglas, were also relieved of their supervisory responsibilities. Douglas was moved from a supervisor in the mutual funds area to a position concentrating on mutual fund exceptions, and Hagen was transferred from supervisor of the booking area to a job in customer service. Douglas received a reduction in pay in connection with this move, while Hagen's salary remained the same. Beamon's prior position as supervisor of Income Processing was filled with a white employee named Mark Cashion. For Cashion, however, the move was not a step up the corporate ladder. He had previously been Manager of Financial Reporting, where in the nomenclature of M & I's corporate hierarchy, he had done "grade 20" work. As supervisor of Income Processing, Cashion did "grade 18" work, supervised fewer employees, and had fewer responsibilities than he had in the Financial Reporting Department.

Beamon's immediate supervisor in the booking area was Scott Joers. Approximately five months after Beamon's transfer, Joers left M & I for a job with another company without first completing the 1998 performance reviews for seven of the eight employees he supervised; Beamon was among the seven employees who did not receive a performance review. Joers did, however, make salary increase recommendations for all eight employees prior to his departure. Joers recommended that Beamon receive a 3.2% pay raise. Ewig, who had the final word on such matters, did not concur with Joers' recommendation. On June 7, 1999, Ewig decided that Beamon should receive no annual salary increase. Ewig's decision was based upon information received from Joers that in February or March 1999, while still the supervisor of Income Processing, Beamon failed to perform an assigned task that resulted in a $61,000 loss to M & I. Beamon learned that he would not be receiving a raise when he did not see any increase on his July 1999 paycheck.

In July 1999 Beamon was transferred from his position in the booking area to a position on the "Settlement Desk." The record does not disclose how Beamon's pay and grade were affected by this move. In August 1999 Beamon expressed concerns to his new supervisor, Wayne Klomstad, regarding the lack of an annual performance evaluation and raise. Klomstad explained that with the departure of Joers, there was no one currently working for the company who was qualified to evaluate the work Beamon had performed in 1998. However, Klomstad, with the blessing of Ewig, told Beamon that if he "was still with the company" at the end of December 1999, he would receive a 5% bonus.

On August 16, 1999, Klomstad promoted a white employee to the position of Trade Coordination supervisor — a position in which Beamon had been "interested" but had not formally applied. Beamon did not receive the promised 5% bonus at the end of 1999. In January 2000 he complained to Klomstad, who looked into the matter and reported that the delay had been caused by an e-mail miscommunication. Beamon received his 5% bonus on February 11, 2000.

In February Beamon once again requested a performance evaluation for the period left unreviewed by the departure of Joers. He was informed that a formal review for the prior period was not possible and that he would receive his next regularly scheduled review before the end of May 2000. Of the seven employees who did not receive reviews as a result of Joers' abrupt resignation, only one besides Beamon specifically requested a "make-up" review. This employee was also informed by Ewig that a review could not be accurately performed by any current M & I employees.

On March 2, 2000, Beamon's new supervisor, Dave Blader, asked Beamon whether he would be interested in a new position on the "Chase and Foreign Desk." Beamon was told that learning the functions of this job could lead to career advancement in the settlements area of the company. Beamon responded that he was not interested in the position unless it came with a $25,000 annual salary increase and an Assistant Vice President title. Blader was not receptive to these conditions and the matter was not pursued further.

On March 22, 2000, Beamon met with M & I's Equal Employment Opportunity supervisor, Suzanne Gawelski, and expressed his concern that his race may have factored into the foregoing management decisions regarding his employment. Gawelski investigated Beamon's concerns and determined that no racial discrimination had influenced any of the employment decisions. She did, however, conclude that Joers should have provided Beamon with a performance evaluation before leaving the company; she asked Klomstad and Ewig to evaluate Beamon's 1998-1999 performance. On April 24, 2000, they provided Beamon with a memorandum titled "1998/9 Performance Summary," the relevant portions of which stated:

The principle [sic] reason for [Beamon's] reassignment was that [Joers] and the rest of the management group had lost confidence in [Beamon's] ability to effectively lead the Income processing group from its day-to-day performance problems to those of an acceptable level.

. . . .

[Beamon] was not viewed as having demonstrated the ability [n]or possessing the skills to lead the group through a period of substantial change that would require strong supervisory skills, depth of specific income processing industry knowledge, improved department organization, creative solutions, and stronger use of system tools. [Beamon] was viewed as an extremely dedicated and hard worker who may have been prematurely moved into a supervisory role as a brand new supervisor over an area for which he did not have a strong base of industry experience.

The memo also cited the $61,000 loss for which Ewig held Beamon responsible as the reason for the lack of an annual raise that year.

Beamon strongly disputed the accuracy of these criticisms. On May 10, 2000, he prepared a written response detailing his accomplishments during his tenure with the company; the state of the Income Processing Department at the time he arrived as supervisor; and his belief that it was his successor, Cashion, who was actually responsible for the $61,000 loss. Beamon demanded a retraction of the performance memorandum and retroactive compensation in the form of the pay raise that had been denied. Gawelski, Klomstad, and Ewig decided not to grant Beamon's demands nor make any formal response. Around this time Beamon also retained an attorney who wrote a letter to M & I officials laying out Beamon's complaints.

On June 21, 2000, after the letter from Beamon's attorney was received by M & I management, Gawelski arranged a meeting between Beamon and Dave Mauer, M & I's Assistant Director of Corporate Human Resources, hoping that Mauer could "convince Beamon to focus...