Biggers v. Koch Foods of Ala., LLC

• Decision Date: 08 May 2020
• Docket Number: Case No. 2:18-cv-00992-ALB-SMD
• Citation: 461 F.Supp.3d 1176
• Parties: Stanley BIGGERS, Plaintiff, v. KOCH FOODS OF ALABAMA, LLC, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama

461 F.Supp.3d 1176

Stanley BIGGERS, Plaintiff,

v.KOCH FOODS OF ALABAMA, LLC, Defendant.

Case No. 2:18-cv-00992-ALB-SMD

United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, Northern Division.

Signed May 8, 2020

Larry Apaul Golston, Jr., Wilson Daniel Miles, III, Lauren Elizabeth Miles, Leon Hampton, Jr., Beasley Allen Crown Methvin Portis & Miles PC, Montgomery, AL, for Plaintiff.

Jennifer McCammon Bedsole, Daisy Christina Karlson, Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC, Birmingham, AL, John Mark Hundscheid, Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP, Vestavia Hills, AL, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

ANDREW L. BRASHER, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Plaintiff Stanley Biggers filed this employment discrimination and retaliation action against Defendant Koch Foods, asserting racial discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, as well as state-law claims for negligent and wanton supervision and retention of its employees. This matter comes before the Court on the Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment. (Doc. 36). For the reasons stated below, the motion is due to be GRANTED.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Stanley Biggers is an African-American man who Koch Foods employed as a maintenance supervisor at its chicken processing plant. Plaintiff began his job as a maintenance employee with Koch Foods' predecessor, Sylvest Farms, in July 1999. When Koch Foods purchased Sylvest Farms in May 2006, Plaintiff continued his employment in that position with Koch Foods. In October 2009, he was promoted to maintenance supervisor for the first shift, a position he held until he was terminated by Koch Foods in January 2017.

In his role as maintenance supervisor, Plaintiff reported to the maintenance manager. From October 2009 to May 2016, the maintenance manager at Koch Foods was Buck Kornemann, a Caucasian male. Plaintiff testified that during the roughly nine-and-a-half-year period in which he reported to Kornemann, he never felt that Kornemann discriminated against him or harassed him based on his race. (Pl. Exhibit 1, at 100:5-10).

Plaintiff's problems began when Kornemann was replaced by Tim Burke in May 2016. Like Kornemann, Burke is a Caucasian male. Plaintiff testified that when Burke became his supervisor, his day-to-day routine "changed completely." Id. at 113:12. In addition to requiring maintenance supervisors to submit daily activity logs (called "pass downs") via email, Burke communicated more frequently via email and performed more plant walk-throughs than Kornemann had. Id. at 108:23-109:10.

Not long after Burke started at Koch Foods, he began to question Plaintiff's job performance. On July 14, 2016, Plaintiff attended a meeting with plant manager Johnny Gill, then-human resources manager Shawn Collins, and Burke. At that meeting, Burke presented Biggers with a memorandum entitled "Action items of improvement" outlining areas where Plaintiff's job performance was deficient. (Def. Exhibit 11). Burke felt that Plaintiff had failed to submit pass down reports that were sufficiently detailed, properly delegate work to his maintenance employees, promptly complete "simple tasks" assigned by Burke, perform regular walk-throughs of the plant to identify items in need of repair, and leave the plant clean and orderly at end of his shift. Id. at 2. Plaintiff signed the memorandum, noting "Some of the statement is not true." Id.

Plaintiff testified that, although he cannot remember exactly when, sometime after Burke was hired he began referring to maintenance employees on the first shift as "boys." (Pl. Exhibit 1, at 251:7-20). Plaintiff can recall no more than five separate instances of Burke referring to maintenance employees as boys. Plaintiff testified that after hearing him use the word "about three times" he approached Burke and asked him to avoid using the word, but Burke continued using the word to refer to maintenance employees.¹ Id. at 252:2-5.

The next instance occurred after that confrontation, which prompted Plaintiff to mention it to Gill. Id. at 253:17-254:6. Plaintiff recalls a final instance after his discussion with Gill. Id. at 255:7-17. Plaintiff cannot recall any instances of Burke using the word "boys" to refer to maintenance employees after that. Id. at 256:1-6.

Plaintiff testified that Burke used the word only to refer to the maintenance employees collectively. When asked how Burke used the word, Plaintiff recalled that "it was ... something he wanted done. He say: I need the boys to do – that's the way he use it, I need the boys to do it, and I need you boys; that's the way he used the term." Id. at 253:1-11. Plaintiff affirms that he never heard Burke use the word in any other way: "if he used it, that's the way it comes out." Id. at 253:14-16. When asked if he had ever heard Burke use boys in any other way, Plaintiff replied "No." Id. at 253:12-14. There were four Caucasians and seventeen African-Americans on Plaintiff's shift. Id. at 256:12-16. Plaintiff testified that, to his knowledge, no employees on his shift complained about Burke referring to them as boys. Id. at 257:6-11.

Plaintiff first complained about Burke to Plant Manager Gill. Though he cannot recall exactly when, Plaintiff complained to Gill specifically about Burke's use of the word "boys" to refer to maintenance employees:

Q. And when you told -- After he used -- he said I need to get you boys to do this, and you went to Johnny, how much time elapsed between when you went to -- when he said that and you went to Johnny?

A. I didn't -- I don't remember exactly. But I didn't -- When he say – I didn't stop doing exactly what I'm doing just to make a special trip to go find Johnny; might have been passing through the office there and saw Johnny. In a respectful way, no anger or nothing, I just say: Johnny, you probably need to speak to Tim, because I spoke with him and it's not doing any good. He have a tendency to call us boys. And then I said, I don't appreciate it, and I imagine nobody else does either. And Johnny say: Well, that's just the way he talk.

Id. at 254:7-255:1. Plaintiff said that after this complaint "nothing was done."² Id. at 178:9.

Though Plaintiff does not remember exactly when, at some point in July or August 2016 he complained to HR Manager Sheri Gonzalez, telling her he believed Burke was targeting and harassing him. Id. at 159:21-160:2. He told her "I'm being harassed, I'm being targeted. The only thing I can think of is race." Id. at 174:10-14. Gonzalez did not ask for specific examples of targeting or harassment or names of witnesses, and Plaintiff did not provide any. Id. at 174:22-175:8. When asked what prompted him to complain to Gonzalez, Plaintiff testified that he and Burke simply could not get along:

A. Because I was just -- I worked there eighteen years, now, at the time, it was seventeen going on eighteen. I get along with basically anybody and everybody. And I even asked him, I said, Tim, what's the problem? I go to work, I try to be happy, I try to be joyful all day. But it got to the point where I was frustrated all day long. So I said, I'm not going to keep coming to work working like this. So I went to HR, that's when I say I talked to Sheri.

Q. Right. But what was -- What was the straw that broke the camel's back for you to go to Sheri?

A. Because that I couldn't get no understanding with him, and everything that I did, it was a problem with it. No matter what, if I did exactly what he said do, because I knew if I didn't it was a problem. So I did exactly what he asked me to do, the best way I could, but it was still a problem.

Id. at 160:5 – 161:2. After hearing his complaint, Gonzalez told plaintiff that further complaints about Burke should be made directly to HR Director Michael Carow.³ Id. at 175:7-10.

Sometime in November 2016, Plaintiff complained to Carow, telling him that Burke was harassing him and targeting him for termination. Id. at 235:10-20. Again, Plaintiff did not provide any specific examples of racial discrimination. He told Carow that "Tim was ... targeting me, and I'm being harassed, and I don't know what – it's got to be racial, because I do everything he tell[s] me to do." Id. at 240:12-17.⁴ He did not provide examples of harassing behavior, id. at 243:10-13, or names of witnesses to the harassing behavior. Id. at 244:17-23.

On November 4, 2016, Plaintiff entered into a Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") with Koch Foods. (Pl. Exhibit 7). The MOU noted many of the same deficiencies as the July memorandum, and contained instructions for improvement. The MOU noted that further violation of those instructions would "be grounds for progressive disciplinary action, up to and including termination." Id. at 2.

The events that would trigger Plaintiff's termination began in early November 2016, when Burke began reminding Plaintiff that he needed to replace wheels on picking line one. (Pl. Exhibit 1, at 233:15-19). In his deposition, Plaintiff testified that in the weeks after Burke first issued the reminder, "[w]e changed wheels every day and on the weekend." Id. at 233:21-22. He explained that maintenance employees change wheels "constantly" and that they are "constantly breaking, two or three hundred wheels a day ... you can't change them all." Id. at 228:5-8. Instead, he thought Koch Foods should have ordered a replacement chain. Plaintiff told Burke: "Tim, that's a bad chain, you [are] going to need another chain." Id. at 227:20-21. On January 9, 2017, Burke arrived at the plant and noticed broken wheels "all over the line." (Def. Exhibit 25; Pl. Exhibit 4, 355:20-356:1). At that point, Burke called for a replacement chain to be installed the following weekend, which forced him to cancel the installation of the "big bird stunner." (Def. Exhibit 25 at 3).

On January 10, 2017, Burke sent a memorandum to Carow explaining the situation. (Def. Exhibit 26 at 3). The next day, Carow met with Plaintiff and Burke to discuss Plaintiff's recent performance. Plaintiff...