Coates v. National Cash Register Co.

• Decision Date: 01 July 1977
• Docket Number: 75-0095.,Civ. A. No. 75-0094
• Citation: 433 F. Supp. 655
• Parties: George C. COATES, Plaintiff, v. NATIONAL CASH REGISTER COMPANY, Defendant. Woodie L. SMITH, Plaintiff, v. NATIONAL CASH REGISTER COMPANY, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia

433 F. Supp. 655

George C. COATES, Plaintiff, v. NATIONAL CASH REGISTER COMPANY, Defendant.

Woodie L. SMITH, Plaintiff, v. NATIONAL CASH REGISTER COMPANY, Defendant.

Civ. A. Nos. 75-0094, 75-0095.

United States District Court, W. D. Virginia.

July 1, 1977.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Gary L. Bengston, Danville, Va., for plaintiffs.

C. Stuart Wheatley, Clement, Wheatley, Winston, Ingram & Majors, Danville, Va., Donald B. Harden, Fisher & Phillips, Atlanta, Ga., for defendant.

OPINION

GLEN M. WILLIAMS, District Judge.

After having complied with the administrative procedures under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), as amended, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621 et seq., the plaintiffs filed these cases in this court on November 20, 1975, alleging violations of the ADEA. They contended that their discharges from employment with the National Cash Register Company (NCR) on May 2, 1975 were improperly based upon their ages. The company asserted that their discharges were motivated by factors other than age.

By agreement of counsel, the court consolidated these two cases for trial and ordered the impanelling of an advisory jury. Trial was held on January 17, 18 and 19, 1977 in the Danville Division of the Western District of Virginia.

In response to special verdict questions, the advisory jury found that both plaintiffs had been discharged at least in part because of their age, but that the discharges were not willful violations of the Act. Consequently, the jury determined that each plaintiff had suffered damages for loss of wages and benefits and for pain and suffering. The court then made its own findings which agreed with the jury's determination.

Findings of Fact

George C. Coates was fifty years of age at the time of his discharge and had about twenty-two years of service with NCR. Woodie L. Smith was forty years of age at the time of his discharge and had been employed by NCR for about eighteen years. Both had received merit pay increases just prior to their discharges. The branch manager stated that plaintiffs were good employees right up to the day they were discharged.

Both men were employed as field engineers in the Danville office of NCR. Field engineers maintain and repair NCR equipment under maintenance agreements and on a "cash and charge basis". Coates had also performed some supervisory functions, such as assigning and dispatching engineers upon client requests.

NCR conducted training courses on how to service their various types of equipment. Usually a field engineer participated in a training program on a particular machine at the request of NCR. Occasionally an engineer received training he specifically requested. However, all training depended on the need for expertise on a certain machine at the engineer's branch office and on the schedule and size of the training classes.

Certain courses had prerequisites, and a request for training would be denied if the engineer had not had the prerequisite. The basic electricity course was required before an engineer could train on electro-mechanical equipment, and basic electronics was a prerequisite to electronic machines.

At the time of their discharges, Coates was trained on fifteen types of mechanical machines and had almost completed the Basic Electronics Course. He had requested this course as early as 1965 and had received three parts of it at one time but was required to return it before the last part ever arrived.

Smith was trained on sixteen mechanical machines and two electro-mechanical bookkeeping machines. He had also received the Programmed Instruction Basic Electricity Course in 1967 and the Basic Electronic Course in 1975. Smith had requested training on electronic banking machines on numerous occasions since he already serviced most of the mechanical proof machines and knew the customers.

A number of younger men in the Danville office were requested by NCR to take training on electronic machines during the period when plaintiffs were requesting such training. The Danville branch manager during this period stated that the electronic training was given to the younger employees because: (1) they had personally requested it; and (2) certain electronic machines were placed in their respective territories so they needed the training to continue serving their clients. Three employees who had received this training during that period repudiated the testimony of the branch manager. They testified that the company directed or requested them to take the training. Furthermore, they could not recollect any changes in the composition of the machine populations in their territories that would have justified this training.

Training in electronic machines was becoming essential because, by 1975, NCR had phased out the manufacture of all mechanical machines except two. These two were to be phased out soon, leaving only electronic machines being manufactured. Younger men were often chosen for this training over the older employees because the older men were more experienced and useful to NCR. Even when older men were chosen, their usefulness to the company frequently made it impossible to schedule them for the course.

In late 1974, NCR sent out a confidential memorandum to all district managers. The memorandum dealt with the fact that many field engineers over fifty years of age had not received electronic training. This lack of training was causing morale problems among the older employees. The memorandum ordered the district manager to encourage their older workers to participate in the special training classes to be offered by the company beginning in December, 1974. Unfortunately, the Danville office never fully responded to the directives of the memorandum.

In 1974, the Lynchburg District (of which Danville is a branch office), failed to meet its profit budget. The Danville branch had performed worse than any other branch in the Lynchburg district. The Capital Regional Office decided, in conjunction with the Lynchburg office, that eight field engineers would have to be removed from the Lynchburg district. Each branch manager was directed to recommend persons for discharge, based on the criteria of eliminating any "misfits" and keeping only those men needed to service most of the existing machines and all of the new electronic equipment due to arrive.

Since the Danville branch manager did not feel that he had any "misfits", he discharged plaintiffs because they were the only field engineers in the office who had not received training on electronic machines. The Danville branch manager admitted that he would have made another decision if Smith had received electronic training prior to the discharge, and that it was not Smith's fault that he lacked this training. The manager agreed that plaintiffs were among the highest revenue producers in the office. He further conceded that by using the training level as a criteria, he was forced to discharge the two oldest men in the office while keeping on one man who was not qualified to work on 85% of the machines in the Danville area and another man who was only marginally qualified to service 85% of the machines. As a result of the discharges, NCR lost $1,700 worth of maintenance on a certain kind of machine that only the plaintiffs were trained to service.

The discharges had serious effects on the lives of both plaintiffs. Coates and his wife stopped seeing friends and family because of embarrassment. They had to live on his savings and her salary and were unable to afford vacations. He made numerous inquiries about other jobs but was unable to obtain any regular employment after his discharge.

Smith was unable to sleep and became very unresponsive to his family. While he did obtain other employment, he was forced to work night and day and still earned so little income that his oldest son took a part-time job. The family activities almost ceased. Mrs. Smith did not even attend her mother's funeral because of the lack of money and of her fear of leaving Mr. Smith alone.

On occasions, NCR offered to reemploy plaintiffs as field engineers in other locations. The first offer was made in October, 1975 for a position in the NCR offices in Washington, D. C. and Baltimore. These two offices were considered by field engineers to be the "graveyards" of NCR, so both plaintiffs declined to accept what they considered to be inferior positions. In the summer of 1976, plaintiffs received offers and discovered no openings actually existed. In fact, their inquiries created labor problems in the Hempstead, New York office. The union members there were angered that non-existent positions were being offered to field engineers from another area when their union had been trying to get their own laid-off engineers rehired. Later offers were made, but plaintiffs were understandably skeptical about NCR's intentions and remained adamant in their desire to be rehired in Danville.

Both plaintiffs received two weeks severance pay, a six-month continuation of company benefits and unemployment compensation. They notified the Secretary of Labor in writing within 180 days of their discharges of their intentions to bring suit against NCR under the ADEA.

Conclusions of Law

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act was intended, among other things, "to prohibit arbitrary age discrimination in employment". 29 U.S.C. § 621(b) (1975). In deciding whether plaintiffs had been discriminated against because of their age, this court also had to determine whether a jury could be impaneled, what standard should be employed by which to judge the discrimination, what kinds of damages were available to plaintiffs, and whether reinstatement was appropriate. The remainder of this opinion deals with these issues:

A. Jury Trial

Over the objection of the counsel for NCR, this court ordered the impaneling of an advisory jury. Since the trial in this case, the right to a jury trial under ADEA has been clarified in the Fourth Circuit. In Pons...