Criley v. Delta Air Lines, Inc.

• Decision Date: 11 July 1997
• Docket Number: D,No. 175,175
• Citation: 119 F.3d 102
• Parties: 74 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 522, 71 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 44,832, 21 Employee Benefits Cas. 1933 David M. CRILEY; Ronald G. Fitch; David E. Jones; Constantine G. Vlahakis, individually and on behalf of all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DELTA AIR LINES, INC.; Air Line Pilots Association International, Defendants-Appellees. ocket 96-7110.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 102

119 F.3d 102

74 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 522,

71 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 44,832,

21 Employee Benefits Cas. 1933

David M. CRILEY; Ronald G. Fitch; David E. Jones;

Constantine G. Vlahakis, individually and on

behalf of all other persons similarly

situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DELTA AIR LINES, INC.; Air Line Pilots Association

International, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 175, Docket 96-7110.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued Nov. 27, 1996.

Decided July 11, 1997.

Leonard N. Flamm, New York City (Norman Mednick and Maria D. Beckman, New York City, On the Brief), for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

William H. Boice, Atlanta, GA (Stephen E. Hudson, Kilpatrick & Cody, Atlanta, GA., On the Brief; Stuart H. Bompey and Ira G. Rosenstein, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, New York, N.Y., Of Counsel), for Defendants-Appellees.

Before: WALKER and LEVAL, Circuit Judges, and STANTON, District Judge. ¹

PER CURIAM:

Plaintiffs, who are former pilots of Pan Am World Airways, Inc., appeal the summary dismissal of their claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621 et seq. ("ADEA"). The pilots contend that when the defendant Delta Air Lines, Inc. took over the faltering Pan Am shuttle Delta's hiring selection of Pan Am pilots was age biased. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Jack B. Weinstein, Judge ) granted summary judgment to defendants, finding that, after two years of discovery, there was no showing that Delta practiced age discrimination. ²

The plaintiffs were all aged 55 and older at the time of the shuttle transfer. They allege that, in hiring shuttle pilots from Pan Am, Delta used a seniority system that disadvantaged senior pilots and that it deliberately withheld seniority information in order to discourage older pilots from qualifying for the shuttle jobs. Plaintiffs also claim that Judge Weinstein should have recused himself from their case because his previous decisions evidence age bias. We find no basis for recusal and agree with Judge Weinstein that the record before the district court raised no genuine factual issue of discrimination on Delta's part. We therefore affirm.

The essential underlying facts are as follows. In early 1991, Pan Am filed for bankruptcy. On July 27, 1991, Pan Am and Delta entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement ("APA"), through which Pan Am sold to Delta certain assets, including Pan Am's shuttle routes and the Airbus A-310 and Boeing 727 aircraft used on those routes. Under the terms of the APA, Delta promised to hire at least 700 Pan Am pilots to fly the shuttle routes. The APA provided that those pilots "must be fully trained and currently qualified in the Boeing 727 or Airbus A-310 categories ... as of November 1, 1991" and would be hired in "seniority order by category." The APA further stipulated that "[a]ny training of [Pan Am's] pilots required to make them fully trained and currently qualified in the applicable Airbus A-310 or Boeing 727 categories ... shall be the responsibility of and undertaken at the expense of [Pan Am]." The Bankruptcy Court approved the APA in August 1991. Pan Am Corp. v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 175 B.R. 438, 447 (S.D.N.Y.1994). Delta ultimately hired 774 former Pan Am pilots.

None of the plaintiff-pilots were qualified to fly the shuttle planes as of November 1991. They allege, however, that their lack of qualification was the result of the discriminatory way the shuttle jobs, and the necessary training, were offered. They allege that the seniority system adopted under the APA for the shuttle jobs and the manner in which information about that system was provided were calculated to discourage older pilots from switching from Pan Am to Delta. Delta explains that, as required by the APA, Pan Am pilots who were qualified to fly the A-310s and 727s as of November 1 were hired in the order of their overall seniority as ranked by Pan Am. Plaintiffs, however, allege that while the seniority system used may be clear now, at the time Pan Am pilots had to decide whether to retrain, Delta deliberately fostered confusion about how seniority would be calculated under the APA in order to discourage senior, older, Pan Am pilots from transferring to Delta.

According to plaintiffs, pilots were asked to make snap decisions that would affect their futures without information about how the choice to move to Delta would affect salary, seniority status, and retirement benefits, and with the understanding that acceptance of the training would involve forfeiture of the chance for continued employment with Pan Am. There is no evidence that younger pilots were offered training in any more congenial manner. Plaintiffs argue, however, that because older, more senior, pilots had more to lose, they would be unlikely to make the jump, which was the effect Delta hoped to produce.

Plaintiffs maintain that Pan Am pilots should have been hired according to "simple system-wide seniority," the method advocated by the pilots' union after the APA was signed. Under this system, pilots would have been eligible for hiring strictly on the basis of their total seniority with Pan Am without regard to their qualification to fly the Airbus and 727 airplanes Delta was taking over. According to plaintiffs, hiring on an overall seniority basis would have been a rational decision, because pilots are routinely retrained on different aircraft and the training needed by most of the senior pilots was minimal, since the planes they flew were larger and more complicated than the shuttle planes.

Under the ADEA, once plaintiffs have satisfied the minimal requirements of the prima facie case and the defendant has articulated a non-discriminatory reason for the challenged action, plaintiffs must prove the real reason for the challenged action was age. See Woroski v. Nashua Corp., 31 F.3d 105, 108 (2d Cir.1994). To defeat a properly supported motion for summary judgment in an age discrimination case, plaintiffs must "show that there is a material issue of fact as to whether (1) the employer's asserted reason for [the challenged action] is false or unworthy of belief and (2) more likely than not the employee's age was the real reason." Id. at 108-09.

Plaintiffs contend that Delta's real reason for rejecting overall seniority and instituting the seniority plan provided by the APA (and the reason plaintiffs allegedly did not receive clear information about that plan) was age bias. Delta, however, has offered unrebutted age-neutral explanations for its decision to reject the "system-wide seniority transfer" proposal promoted by plaintiffs. First, Delta asserts that it was reasonably concerned to hire a pilot force capable of immediately staffing the shuttle at the point that Delta took it over, which naturally entailed hiring pilots who were currently qualified to fly those planes. Moreover, Delta asserts, and plaintiffs have not effectively contradicted, that the use of system-wide seniority, irrespective of qualification for the equipment, would have required Delta to hire more pilots than it needed.

Plaintiffs seek to rebut Delta's age-neutral proofs by pointing to a variety of unconnected fragments of evidence in...