Cezarez v. Burlington

• Decision Date: 18 October 1999
• Docket Number: No. 97-11135,97-11135
• Citation: 193 F.3d 334
• Parties: (5th Cir. 1999) RICHARD CASAREZ, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BURLINGTON NORTHERN/SANTA FE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 334

193 F.3d 334 (5th Cir. 1999)

RICHARD CASAREZ, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BURLINGTON NORTHERN/SANTA FE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 97-11135

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

October 18, 1999

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Before JOLLY, BARKSDALE and BENAVIDES, Circuit Judges.

BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge:

Appellant Richard Casarez ("Casarez") appeals the district court's judgment as a matter of law in favor of appellee Burlington Northern/Santa Fe Company ("Santa Fe"). We AFFIRM the district court's grant of judgment as a matter of law on the retaliation issue, REVERSE on the discrimination claim and REMAND for a new trial on the merits.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

Casarez, who is Hispanic, had worked at Santa Fe, ¹ for 20 years, receiving positive evaluations and performance-based bonuses, when Santa Fe promoted Casarez to the position of assistant superintendent in Euless, Texas on April 1, 1993. This management job entailed significant responsibilities and made Casarez second-in-command of the North Texas Division. Casarez's February, 1994 performance appraisal stated that he "met expectations," was "very safety motivated," "works long hours as needed," and "has good knowledge of the rules/train operations."

The following month, Santa Fe transferred Ronald Jackson ("Jackson"), Casarez's supervisor, to Illinois; Lewis Rees ("Rees") replaced Jackson as the superintendent of the North Texas Division on March 16, 1994. The next day, Santa Fe posted a notice requesting applications for the job of assistant superintendent in Euless, Texas, a position held on that date by Casarez.

Approximately one week after beginning work in Texas, Rees went on vacation. Instead of leaving Casarez in command, as had been the practice under Jackson, Rees brought in an assistant superintendent from Houston.²

On March 31, 1994, fifteen days after Rees replaced Jackson as superintendent, Rees drafted a memorandum criticizing Casarez's performance and purporting to place him on probation. Rees never showed this memorandum to Casarez, and, although he deposited the memorandum in Casarez's personnel file, Rees never placed Casarez on probation; indeed, Rees never gave Casarez any written or verbal warning before firing him on April 25, 1994.

On April 1, 1994, the Alliance facility opened. Alliance was a $ 100,000,000 state-of-the-art train yard in which Santa Fe consolidated a number of its operations in North Texas. Though he was second-in-command of the North Texas Division, Casarez was not on the Alliance planning committee, and Rees barred him from the safety committee. Moreover, Santa Fe did not move Casarez's computer to Alliance; when Casarez tried to use his subordinate's computer at Alliance, Rees told him to work elsewhere.

During the opening days of Alliance, Rees sent Casarez on a number of peculiar assignments. He directed Casarez to watch workers fix a sunkink-something about which Casarez knew little and had no authority to manage-on the very night Alliance opened. Rees dispatched Casarez to inspect the backs of chairs to ensure that they were safe to sit on. And Rees told Casarez to travel to Dallas to watch workers repair a derailment on a spur track. Additionally, though none of the other assistant superintendents worked shifts, Rees ordered Casarez to work nights. Further, and unlike other assistant superintendents, Rees required Casarez to stay on his shift until someone relieved him.

Rees then transferred Casarez to Zacha Junction, where Casarez's mandate was to speed up the departure of the trains. Though the train cars must be in a particular order when they carry hazardous materials, Casarez found that the lists provided to him of the train cars were repeatedly incorrect, a problem whose repair necessitated additional time-consuming labor.

On April 18, 1994, Casarez complained of race discrimination to Carol Beerbaum, who worked in Santa Fe's Human Resources department. That same day, Rees and Audrey Rierson ("Rierson") confronted Casarez about a "blue flag" violation. A blue flag on a train designates that workers are on, under or between moving parts, and that the train cannot be moved except in certain circumstances. Neither Rees nor Rierson could tell Casarez the date, engine or train on which this alleged violation occurred, but Casarez thought they might be referring to an incident involving train T-ALLA-1-14 on April 14, 1994. Upon reviewing that train's records, Casarez ascertained that no blue flag had been requested. When Casarez reported this to Rierson, Rierson told him not to worry because there had never been a blue flag.

Casarez was due to be promoted on April 24, 1994. The following day, Rees fired Casarez. Rees told Casarez that he was firing him for three reasons: (1) a lack of leadership skills and poor attendance during the opening of Alliance; (2) the "blue flag" violation; and (3) complaints Rees received about Casarez's conduct at Zacha Junction.

Casarez filed suit in the Western District of Texas in April, 1996. Pursuant to Santa Fe's motion, the court transferred venue to the Northern District of Texas. The district court held a trial on September 8 and 9, 1997. At the close of Casarez's case-in-chief, the district court granted Santa Fe's Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(a) motion for judgment as a matter of law.

Casarez timely filed his appeal.

II. Standard of Review

We review de novo a district court's decision to grant judgment as a matter of law pursuant to Rule 50(a). See Murray v. Red Kap Indus., 124 F.3d 695, 697 (5th Cir. 1997). Judgment as a matter of law is proper where "there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for [a] party." Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 50(a)(1). Of course, "we view the entire trial record in the light most favorable to the non-movant, drawing reasonable inferences in its favor." Burch v. Coca-Cola Co., 119 F.3d 305, 313 (5th Cir. 1997).

We test the sufficiency of the evidence under the standard enunciated in Boeing Co. v. Shipman, 411 F.2d 365 (5th Cir. 1969) (en banc), overruled on unrelated grounds, Gautreaux v. Scurlock Marine, Inc., 107 F.3d 331, 336-38 (5th Cir. 1997) (en banc), which is the same standard the district court employs. See Atkin v. Lincoln Property Co., 991 F.2d 268, 270 (5th Cir. 1993). Under Boeing, "there must be a conflict in substantial evidence to create a jury question." 411 F.2d at 375. Substantial evidence is "evidence of such quality and weight that reasonable and fair-minded men in the exercise of impartial judgment might reach different conclusions." Id. at 374; see also Krystek v. University of S. Mississippi, 164 F.3d 251, 255 (5th Cir. 1999).

III. Race Discrimination Claims

Under the McDonnell Douglas-Burdine framework, ³ the parties dance an adversarial three-step, in which: (1) the plaintiff proves his prima facie case by a preponderance of the evidence; (2) the defendant rebuts the presumption of intentional discrimination arising from the prima facie case by articulating legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for the challenged action; and (3) the plaintiff counters by offering evidence that the legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons are really a pretext for discrimination. See St. Mary's Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 506-08, 125 L. Ed. 2d 407, 113 S. Ct. 2742 (1993); see also Rhodes v. Guiberson Oil Tools, 75 F.3d 989, 992 (5th Cir. 1996) (en banc); Walton v. Bisco Indus., Inc., 119 F.3d 368, 370 (5th Cir. 1997).

In Rhodes, we held that even if a plaintiff offered evidence of pretext, a verdict in his favor would still be subject to sufficiency of the evidence review. 75 F.3d at 993. We distilled this holding in the following two prong test: whether "the evidence taken as a whole (1) creates a fact issue as to whether each of the employer's stated reasons was what actually motivated the employer and (2) creates a reasonable inference that [race] was a [motivating] factor in the actions of which the plaintiff complains." Id. at 994.

The district court acknowledged that Casarez proved his prima facie case by a preponderance of the evidence. Santa Fe, in turn, carried its burden by articulating, in the pre-trial order, three legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for firing Casarez: (1) Casarez's poor leadership and absences from work; (2) the "blue flag" incident; and (3) complaints Rees received about Casarez's work at Zacha Junction. At that point in the case, the presumption of intentional discrimination arising from Casarez's prima facie case disappeared. But Casarez offered evidence of pretext. First, he claimed he was not absent from work during the opening days of Alliance; on the contrary, he testified that he worked 10 and 12 hour days. Though Rees did not see Casarez, had he needed him, Rees could have contacted Casarez by radio, beeper or telephone, but he did not. Moreover, Casarez argued that he had no chance to demonstrate leadership, as Rees refused to leave Casarez in charge while he was on vacation, and because Rees assigned him menial tasks to perform.

Second, Casarez argues that the "blue flag" incident never happened. Casarez testified that he never saw a blue flag on the train. He further testified that records required to be kept by federal law revealed that no one requested a blue flag on the train. Additionally, he insists that despite the absence of the blue flag, he never ordered the trains to move.

Finally, Casarez maintains that he had no altercations with workers at Zacha Junction. Rees never told him that complaints had been made about him, and no investigation ever occurred. In short, Casarez has offered evidence sufficient to show that Rees could not have been motivated by the reasons he gave for firing Casarez because those reasons were groundless. We therefore hold that Casarez has met the first prong of the Rhodes inquiry.

We now...