Bennett v. Nucor Corp..
| Citation | 656 F.3d 802,113 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 616,94 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 44283 |
| Decision Date | 22 September 2011 |
| Docket Number | 10–1332.,Nos. 09–3831,09–3834,s. 09–3831 |
| Parties | Cornelius BENNETT, Individually, and on behalf of the Class he seeks to represent; Sylvester Rogers, Individually, and on behalf of the Class he seeks to represent, Plaintiffs/Appellees/Cross–Appellants,Stacey Warren, Plaintiff,Rodney Washington, Individually, and on behalf of the Class he seeks to represent; Clifton Lee, Sr., Individually, and on behalf of the Class he seeks to represent; Ozzie Green, Individually, and on behalf of the Class he seeks to represent; Larry McBride, Individually, and on behalf of the Class he seeks to represent, Plaintiffs/Appellees/Cross–Appellants,Melvin Wright; Jerome Bogan; Johnny Banks; Charles Wells; Jeff Stone; Bruce Henley; Lamar Freeman; Wilson Done; George Reed; Ed Rhodes; Carlos Chambers; Jerry Wilson; Leslie Chalk, Intervenor Plaintiffs/Cross–Appellants,v.NUCOR CORPORATION; Nucor–Yamato Steel Company, (Limited Partnership), Defendants/Appellants/Cross–Appellees,Nucor Steel—Arkansas, Defendant.Cornelius Bennett, Individually, and on behalf of the Class he seeks to represent; Sylvester Rogers, Individually, and on behalf of the Class he seeks to represent, Plaintiffs/Appellants,Stacey Warren, Plaintiff,Rodney Washington, Individually, and on behalf of the Class he seeks to represent; Clifton Lee, Sr., Individually, and on behalf of the Class he seeks to represent; Ozzie Green, Individually, and on behalf of the Class he seeks to represent; Larry McBride, Individually, and on behalf of the Class he seeks to represent, Plaintiffs/Appellants,Melvin Wright; Jerome Bogan; Johnny Banks; Charles Wells; Bruce Henley; Lamar Freeman; Wilson Done; George Reed; Ed Rhodes; Carlos Chambers; Jerry Wilson; Leslie Chalk, Intervenor Plaintiffs/Appellants,Jeff Stone, Intervenor Plaintiff,v.Nucor Corporation; Nucor–Yamato Steel Company, (Limited Partnership), Defendants/Appellees,Nucor Steel—Arkansas, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Thomas Walsh, argued, St. Louis, MO, John K. Linker, Jeffrey S. Mayes, and Cary A. Farris, Houston, TX, and Elizabeth C. Carver, St. Louis, MO, on the brief, for Appellants/Cross–Appellees Nucor Corp. and Nucor–Yamato Steel Company.Robert L. Wiggins, Jr., argued, Birmingham, AL, Susan G. Donahue, C. Michael Quinn, and Ann K. Wiggins, Birmingham, AL, and Nate Coulter, Little Rock, AR, on the brief, for Plaintiff–Appellees/Cross–Appellants and Intervenor–Plaintiffs/Cross–Appellants.Before COLLOTON, GRUENDER, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.COLLOTON, Circuit Judge.
Six current and former African–American employees brought this action against Nucor Corporation and Nucor–Yamato Steel Company, L.P. (collectively, “Nucor”), alleging racial discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e to 2000e–17. The district court 1 denied the plaintiffs' request for class certification, granted summary judgment in favor of Nucor on several claims, and the case proceeded to trial. A jury returned verdicts against Nucor and awarded each plaintiff $200,000 in damages. The parties appealed and cross-appealed, contesting various rulings by the district court. We affirm.
Nucor is a large steel manufacturing company that maintains its headquarters in North Carolina and operates a number of production plants throughout the United States. One production plant in Blytheville, Arkansas, consists of two large steel mills that employ several hundred workers. The plaintiffs each worked at the Blytheville facility.
The Blytheville plant is divided into five departments: the melt shop, the roll mill, quality assurance, maintenance, and shipping. The production process begins at the melt shop, where scrap metal is melted down and cast into semi-finished products. These semi-finished products proceed to the roll mill, the largest department, where the metal is formed into finished steel beams. The quality assurance department conducts tests throughout the production process. The maintenance department is responsible for keeping the plant's mechanical and electrical equipment in good order, while the shipping department is charged with maintaining finished steel products and loading them for shipment. The plaintiffs all worked exclusively in the roll mill department.
A number of Nucor employees commenced this action in the federal district court for the Western District of Arkansas in December 2003, alleging violations of federal antidiscrimination law at Nucor facilities in four different states. The district court severed the claims of the six plaintiffs in this case and transferred them to the Eastern District of Arkansas. These Arkansas plaintiffs—Cornelius Bennett, Sylvester Rogers, Rodney Washington, Clifton Lee, Ozzie Green, and Larry McBride—then sought certification of a class consisting of more than one hundred black individuals who were employed, applied for employment, or were discouraged from applying for employment at the Blytheville plant.
The plaintiffs asserted both disparate treatment and disparate impact theories of liability. Disparate treatment claims involve allegations of intentional discrimination, while disparate impact claims challenge “practices that are not intended to discriminate but in fact have a disproportionately adverse effect on minorities.” Ricci v. DeStefano, ––– U.S. ––––, 129 S.Ct. 2658, 2672, 174 L.Ed.2d 490 (2009).
To establish disparate treatment liability, the plaintiffs alleged that Nucor had denied them promotions and training opportunities and tolerated a racially hostile work environment. The plaintiffs submitted evidence designed to show that they had been denied various promotions that were awarded to white employees, and that their requests for training in other areas of the plant were rebuffed. The plaintiffs also presented evidence that employees at Nucor regularly used racial epithets, that racial graffiti commonly appeared in the bathrooms, and that the Confederate flag was often displayed in the plant, including on Confederate-style “do-rags” sold in Nucor's on-site store for employees. Other evidence suggested that black employees were ridiculed by other employees on the workplace radio system, and the plaintiffs recounted a specific incident in which a rubber chicken was “lynched” near a black employee's work area.
In the alternative, the plaintiffs argued that even if they could not prove disparate treatment, Nucor was liable under a disparate impact theory of liability. The plaintiffs relied on statistical evidence designed to show racial disparities in Nucor's hiring and promotion decisions at the Blytheville plant. The plaintiffs argued that this statistical evidence was sufficient to prove that the criteria used to evaluate employees for promotion had a disparate impact on black employees.
The district court denied the plaintiffs' motion for class certification. The court reasoned that the plaintiffs' claims and the claims of rejected and discouraged applicants for employment would not turn on the same issues of law and fact. The court further concluded that the plaintiffs would not be adequate representatives of a class of current and former black employees, because the plaintiffs had not shown that their experiences at Nucor were sufficiently similar to those of black employees working in other areas of the Blytheville plant.
The district court then granted summary judgment in favor of Nucor on the plaintiffs' disparate impact claims and on several of the plaintiffs' disparate treatment claims. After other claims were voluntarily dismissed, the case proceeded to trial on the hostile work environment claims filed by all six plaintiffs, and a retaliation claim asserted by Lee. Following a trial in October 2009, a jury returned verdicts for the plaintiffs on their hostile work environment claims and awarded each plaintiff $100,000 in compensatory damages and $100,000 in punitive damages. The jury found in favor of Nucor on Lee's retaliation claim.
After the district court entered its final judgment in November 2009, thirteen individuals moved to intervene, asserting identical claims to those brought by the original six plaintiffs. The proposed intervenors asserted that they were members of the putative class identified by the plaintiffs, and they sought to intervene for the purpose of appealing the district court's denial of class certification. Because notices of appeal had been filed from the final judgment, the district court determined that it lacked jurisdiction over the motion to intervene.
Nucor appeals several of the district court's evidentiary rulings and argues that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury's award of punitive damages. In their cross-appeal, the plaintiffs challenge the district court's denial of their motion for class certification and several of the district court's summary judgment rulings.
Nucor challenges the admission at trial of several types of evidence describing discrimination against nonparties at the Blytheville plant. The challenged evidence includes a complaint filed against Nucor by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) in 1995, a 2002 letter from Nucor employees to the EEOC, and various employee affidavits gathered by Nucor in anticipation of litigation in 2003. Nucor also challenges the admission of the testimony of another Nucor employee named Danny Lee and certain statements made during the plaintiffs' closing argument. We review a district court's evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. United States v. Espinosa, 585 F.3d 418, 430 (8th Cir.2009).
Nucor's first contention is that the district court erroneously adopted a per se rule that prior acts of discrimination against nonparties at the Blytheville plant were admissible. Nucor points to statements made by the...
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