Cardoso v. Robert Bosch Corp.

• Decision Date: 14 October 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-4026.,04-4026.
• Parties: Ruben CARDOSO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ROBERT BOSCH CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

427 F.3d 429

Ruben CARDOSO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ROBERT BOSCH CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 04-4026.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued June 7, 2005.

Decided October 14, 2005.

Nathaniel Ruff (argued), Merrillville, IN, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Rachel B. Cowen (argued), Connelly, Sheehan & Harris, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before EASTERBROOK, KANNE, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

KANNE, Circuit Judge.

Ruben Cardoso, a Brazilian national and employee of Robert Bosch Corporation, was distressed to learn that he was being paid less than fellow employees in the purchasing department of Bosch's South Bend, Indiana, facility. Cardoso was even more distressed when his supervisor opined that the disparity was due to Cardoso's national origin. Brazilian he may be, but Cardoso's reaction was quintessentially American — he sued Bosch in federal court, alleging wage discrimination on the basis of his national origin in violation of Title VII. The district court granted summary judgment in Bosch's favor, and Cardoso appeals. Cardoso's case fares no better here. We affirm.

I. Background

In 1995, Bosch's Brazilian subsidiary hired Cardoso to work as an import coordinator in its purchasing group. In 1997, Bosch transferred Cardoso to the South Bend facility's purchasing department for a two-year training assignment. During this time, he remained an employee of the Brazilian subsidiary and continued to earn his Brazilian salary (equivalent to $32,500) plus a $20,000 stipend, which was set to expire upon completion of his assignment in the U.S.

At the end of his two-year assignment, Cardoso requested a permanent transfer to Bosch U.S. Bosch granted Cardoso's request, and Cardoso accepted a position as a buyer in its South Bend facility in November 1999. Bosch's human resources department determined Cardoso's annual salary for this position to be $54,900, based on the company's standard practice of comparing an incoming employee's experience and skills with the skills, experience, and salaries of current employees in the same position.

At the time of Cardoso's hire, there were three other buyers in the purchasing department. The purchasing department also employed senior buyers. Although the senior buyers performed duties similar to those of the buyers, senior buyers had more responsibility, discretion, and autonomy. For example, a buyer could do market research and make purchasing recommendations to a manager, whereas a senior buyer had authority to make the final purchasing decisions on his own. Accordingly, senior buyers were in a higher salary grade than buyers.

When Cardoso started his full-time position, there was one senior buyer in the department. Some time thereafter, Bosch posted on its company intranet listings for two senior buyer vacancies. It is undisputed that Cardoso did not apply for either of these positions. In late 2000 and early 2001, Bosch filled the positions with two applicants from outside the company.

Shortly thereafter, Jim Turza, one of Cardoso's fellow buyers, told Cardoso that Bosch had just hired people into the purchasing department at higher salaries than either of them were making. Turza was upset about this turn of events, which he perceived to be unfair. Turza emailed Frank Gaba, the director of purchasing and the buyers' supervisor, to complain about the situation and to demand to be reclassified as a senior buyer with a correspondingly higher salary. Gaba denied Turza's request.

Cardoso was so emotionally distraught at hearing the news that he took a few days off from work. In April 2001, Cardoso confronted Gaba about the matter. According to Cardoso, Gaba theorized that Cardoso had been hired at a lower salary than other buyers, explaining, "[B]ecause you're Brazilian . . .[,] [Human Resources] think[s] that if you were in Brazil, you would not be making as much money as you are already making here."

A week later, Gaba called Cardoso to his office. As Cardoso recalls it, Gaba informed him that he had spoken with Edmund Buehl, one of Bosch's North American vice presidents, and convinced Buehl to "adjust [Cardoso's] salary to the level of the other ones." Gaba assured Cardoso that the salary adjustment would take place within two months. Seven months passed, and Cardoso's salary remained the same. He confronted Gaba in November 2001. Gaba denied Cardoso's recollections of the earlier conversation.

In January 2002, Cardoso filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and then, after receiving a right-to-sue letter, filed a complaint in federal court, alleging that Bosch discriminated against him on the basis of his national origin. Although the precise nature of Cardoso's complaint was less than clear, the district court interpreted the complaint as alleging that Bosch discriminated by denying him a promotion to senior buyer and that the failure to promote resulted in a pay disparity. The district court granted summary judgment in Bosch's favor, finding that his complaint was timebarred because the acts complained of took place outside the 300-day filing period. See, e.g., Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 122-23, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002); Dasgupta v. Univ. of Wisconsin Bd. of Regents, 121 F.3d 1138, 1140 (7th Cir.1997).

II. Discussion

Our review of the grant of summary judgment is de novo. See Davis v. Con-Way Transp. Cent. Express, Inc., 368 F.3d 776, 782 (7th Cir.2004). We construe all facts and inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, Cardoso. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). Summary judgment is appropriate when the record as a whole indicates that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Cerutti v. BASF Corp., 349 F.3d 1055, 1060 (7th Cir.2003). We may affirm summary judgment on any ground supported in the record, so long as that ground was adequately addressed in the district court and the nonmoving party had an opportunity to contest the issue. See, e.g., Box v. A & P Tea Co., 772 F.2d 1372, 1376 (7th Cir.1985) (collecting authority).

Generously construed, Cardoso's allegations boil down to just one claim: disparate pay on account of his Brazilian national origin.¹ The parties vigorously dispute whether, as the district court concluded, Cardoso's disparate pay claims are time-barred. In essence, the parties disagree over what event started the clock on Cardoso's 300-day window to file an EEOC charge. E.g., Morgan, 536 U.S. at 122-23, 122 S.Ct. 2061. Cardoso argues that our decision in Reese v. Ice Cream Specialties, Inc., 347 F.3d 1007 (7th Cir.2003), controls and requires that we reverse the district court's judgment. Bosch responds that the district court properly applied Dasgupta to find that Cardoso's claims were time-barred, and in any event, Cardoso's claims are also time-barred under Reese.

We shall cut right to the chase, however. Even if Cardoso's claims are not time-barred, Cardoso's case does not succeed on the merits — which were well ventilated both in the district court and here — and thus summary judgment was properly granted in Bosch's favor.

Cardoso's claims arise under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it unlawful for an employer "to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's. . . national origin." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). Title VII plaintiffs may offer either direct or indirect proof of discrimination using the venerable burden-shifting method in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). Cardoso proceeds under both methods, and we turn first to Cardoso's direct evidence.

Direct evidence is essentially an "outright admission" that a challenged action was undertaken for one of the forbidden reasons covered in Title VII. See Davis, 368 F.3d at 783; see also Jordan v City of Gary, 396 F.3d 825, 832 (7th Cir.2005). Cardoso claims that Gaba's explanation (given some seventeen months after Cardoso's hire) for Cardoso's lower salary — "[B]ecause you're Brazilian" — is the smoking gun that directly proves rampant anti-Brazilianism at Bosch. Cardoso is wrong. It is undisputed that Gaba did not make the decision to hire Cardoso or to set his salary at a particular level, nor did he even have input into these decisions. Although Gaba was Cardoso's supervisor in the purchasing department, the hiring and salary decisions were made by Edmund Buehl and persons in Bosch's human resources department. Because Gaba was not the decisionmaker in question, his statement will not suffice as direct evidence of discrimination on Bosch's account. See Davis, 368 F.3d at 783 ("A decisionmaker is the person responsible for the contested decision.") (citation omitted); see also Rozskowiak v. Vill. of Arlington Heights, 415 F.3d 608, 612-13 (7th Cir.2005) (concluding that a nondecisionmaker's comment that plaintiff "would probably be losing [his] job because [he] was a stupid Polack" was unrelated to plaintiff's termination); Swanson v. Leggett & Platt, Inc., 154 F.3d 730, 733 (7th Cir.1998) (in ADEA case, nondecisionmaker's comment that age was a factor in termination was not an admission of discrimination).

Moreover, Cardoso's argument that Gaba was somehow "involved" in the process does not carry the day. Cardoso in particular focuses on what he claims was Gaba's "admission" that he convinced Buehl to adjust Cardoso's salary upward. Gaba and Bosch deny this contention, but even if we assume that Gaba interceded on Cardoso's behalf and later denied it when the expected raise did not come through, this is far from direct evidence of discrimination. At most, it is direct evidence that Buehl reneged, but does not say anything about the reasons why....