Bryant v. Yorktowne Cabinetry, Inc., 4:07CV00036.
| Decision Date | 21 April 2008 |
| Docket Number | No. 4:07CV00036.,4:07CV00036. |
| Citation | 548 F.Supp.2d 239 |
| Parties | Patsy A. BRYANT, Plaintiff, v. YORKTOWNE CABINETRY, INC., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia |
Seth Michael Land, Wells H. Byrnes, Clement & Wheatley PC, Danville, VA, for Plaintiff.
Elizabeth Hope Cothran, Thomas Richard Bagby, Woods Rogers PLC, Roanoke, VA, James Brendan Sherman, Wessels & Pautsch, P.C., Minneapolis, MN, for Defendant.
Before me is Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment and Plaintiff counsel's Motion to Withdraw as Counsel. For the reasons below, I will GRANT Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment.1
Construing the facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party means that I largely rely on Patsy A. Bryant's account without judging her credibility, as revealed in her deposition testimony and affidavit. Defendant has also provided its own testimony from depositions, and I must accept this evidence where it is undisputed.
Bryant began working for Yorktowne in the maintenance department of Yorktowne's manufacturing facility on December 21, 2005, and was terminated from her employment on November 3, 2006. Bryant held various non-manufacturing jobs prior to her employment with Yorktowne (including farming, painting, security, construction, and animal control positions) and did not possess a post-secondary degree. On June 16, 2006, Bryant was promoted to the position of Area Lead in the finishing department at Yorktowne, primarily working the second shift.
In both August and September of 2006, Bryant asked Ms. Anne Coins, the Human Resources Manager ("Goins"), to be promoted to Line Lead. She claims she had already been performing the duties of a Line Lead for several months, bereft of the title and commensurate salary accorded to that position in the company hierarchy. There were only two Line Leads at the time, both for the first shift, and both of them were male — Gary Jones and Richard Parker. Bryant sought to be the Line Lead for the second shift in the finishing department. Due to the lack of a Line Lead for second shift, Bryant claims to have assumed those duties as a de facto Line Lead from June to September of 2006. It is disputed whether there was an opening for a second shift Line Lead. Bryant claims that David Harmon, a Group Lead (a higher position in the company than Line Lead), told her that there was such an opening and that she should apply for it because she was already doing the job. Yorktowne strenuously insists that there was no such opening until roughly two months after Bryant's termination, when it unquestionably began hiring new Line Leads for the second shift.
According to Bryant, when she spoke with Goins in August 2006 about promotion to Line Lead, Goins told Bryant that she was not ready for the position. A month later, in September, when Bryant again approached Goins about the position, Goins told her that Line Leads had to have college degrees in order to be considered. Bryant then asked about taking college course work, and Goins told Bryant to speak to her again when Yorktowne had started a educational benefits program. Bryant claims that she was told the same story by Cheryl Crews, a fellow Area Lead who applied for a Line Lead position at the same time, and was also told that she would need a college degree. Bryant also claims to have had a conversation with Richard Parker (Line Lead, first shift) in which he said, with regard to her becoming a Line Lead, to "forget it," and that Bryant was not "built right," which she took to mean was because of her sex.
At some point in October 2006, Bryant was named "Area Lead of the Year" and given a plaque commemorating her award. It is disputed how often Bryant was absent from work, but it appears undisputed that on October 23, 2006, Bryant was informed by a written warning and a meeting with a supervisor that she had accumulated 5 attendance points for absenteeism.
On October 25, Goins asked Bryant to access the company electronic time-attendance records system and print out a list of all the time taken by its plant employees relating to vacation and sick time. Bryant's records were changed in the system with certain sick days becoming vacation days. It is undisputed that this changing of records which were already in the system alerted the company's Information Technology ("IT") department, the employees of which promptly informed Yorktowne's management.
A group of four managers or supervisors then confronted Bryant in a meeting, where they accused her of altering company records without permission. Bryant claims that she always admitted to making the changes, but that she had tacit approval from Goins, because Goins was aware of the errors that she was actually correcting in the system with respect to her sick days and vacation days. Yorktowne insists that Bryant initially denied making the changes, and that the company had conclusively determined that someone using Bryant's login had made the changes. Regardless, in deposition testimony, Bryant admitted to making two of the three changes she was accused of, but she claims that they were made at the direction of Goins, who has denied giving such an order in her own deposition testimony.2
Bryant specifically admits that she changed a vacation day to a sick day twice in the system, in each of the months of September and October, 2006. A vacation day that she took in May was erased from her attendance records, but Bryant claims she does not know how that happened. She also claims that more than one person had access to her password for data entry into the system, including Mike McElrath. It is notable that after the change to Bryant's records, she had four "attendance points" rather than five. After earning five or more attendance points for tardiness or missing work, employees become ineligible for promotion, according to uncontested company policy.3
Around October 25, 2006, Bryant was suspended and Yorktowne began an investigation into her alleged changing of company records in the time-attendance system. The decision-makers for the suspension, and for Bryant's eventual termination on November 3, 2006, were Anne Goins, Seth Neuhauser, and Bob Thompson, although it appears that Mike McElrath was present as well. On November 3, Bryant was terminated and ceased employment with Yorktowne.
On May 20, 2007, Bryant filed a "Charge of Discrimination" form with the Virginia Council on Human Rights and the EEOC. It is the unchallenged testimony from Bryant that a staff member of the EEOC typed her Charge for her.4 The charge stated the following particulars in the "explanation" section:
(1) I was an Area Leader and had been employed by [Yorktowne] since December 29, 2005. In approximately September 2006, I was denied promotion to the Line Lead position in the Human Resources Office and educational benefits to attend college. On November 3, 2006, my employment was terminated.
(2) [Anne Goings], Human Resources Manager, told me that I was not qualified for the Line Lead position because I do no [sic] have a college degree. My employment was terminated after I was accused of falsifying company documents.
(3) I believe I was denied promotion to Line Lead and educational benefits because of my sex, female, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended. I believe I was discharged in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended.
On June 23, 2007, upon the request of Bryant, the EEOC issued a "Right to Sue" letter.
Bryant filed suit against Yorktowne on September 5, 2007, in this Court, alleging both that Yorktowne failed to promote her to a Line Lead position based on her sex, and also that it had discriminated based on sex in terminating her employment, both in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"). Bryant appears to have dropped her initial EEOC claim of disability discrimination, as well as her claim that she was discriminated against when she was denied educational benefits for attending college, since these claims do not appear in her complaint.
Summary judgment is appropriate when no genuine issue exists as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. FED.R.CIV.P. 56(c). A genuine issue of a material fact exists "if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 247-248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). In making this determination, "the court is required to view the facts and draw reasonable inferences in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party." Shaw v. Stroud, 13 F.3d 791, 798 (4th Cir.1994) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 813, 115 S.Ct. 67, 130 L.Ed.2d 24 (1994); Felty v. Graves-Humphreys Co., 818 F.2d 1126, 1129 (4th Cir.1987). Nevertheless, where the record taken as a whole cannot lead a rational trier of fact to find for the nonmoving party, no genuine issue exists for trial and summary judgment is appropriate; that is, the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). Additionally, "the mere existence of a scintilla of evidence in support of the plaintiff's position will be insufficient; there must be evidence on which the jury could reasonably find for the plaintiff." Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505.
Plaintiff has pressed two claims in this case: (1) that Yorktowne discriminated against her on the basis of sex when it twice denied her promotion to the Line Lead position: and (2) that Yorktowne discriminated against her on the basis of sex when it suspended her from her job, and shortly thereafter, terminated her employment.5 In...
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