Debs v. Northeastern Illinois University

• Decision Date: 06 August 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-3665,97-3665
• Citation: 153 F.3d 390,1998 WL 452343
• Parties: 77 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1466, 73 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,477, 128 Ed. Law Rep. 1015 Sheldon DEBS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NORTHEASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY and Board of Governors of State Colleges and Universities, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 390

153 F.3d 390

77 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1466,

73 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,477, 128 Ed. Law Rep. 1015

Sheldon DEBS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NORTHEASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY and Board of Governors of

State Colleges and Universities, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 97-3665.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 13, 1998.

Decided Aug. 6, 1998.

Arthur R. Ehrlich (argued), Jonathan C. Goldman, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Michael P. Doyle (argued), Office of the Attorney General, Civil Appeals Division, Chicago, IL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before RIPPLE, KANNE, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

KANNE, Circuit Judge.

Sheldon Debs brought this action against Northeastern Illinois University ("Northeastern") and the Board of Governors of State Colleges and Universities alleging that the defendants discriminated against him on the basis of age in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq., and that defendants engaged in retaliatory conduct after he filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3. The district court granted the defendants' summary judgment motion. Debs appeals; we affirm the decision of the district court.

I. HISTORY

We recite the facts here essentially as the district court stated them in Debs v. Northeastern Ill. Univ., No. 96 C 3494, 1997 WL 610334 (N.D.Ill. Sept. 29, 1997). Northeastern employed Debs as the chief operating engineer in the heating plant from 1988 until his demotion and transfer in 1995. During the relevant time period Debs was 55 years old and had the most seniority among the employees in the heating plant.

On April 27, 1994 some of the subordinate employees in the heating plant filed a formal grievance against Debs and his assistant chief engineer, Steve Mack. The grievance alleged that Debs and Mack had physically and verbally harassed subordinate employees and had required these employees to work under dangerous conditions. The grievance sought the immediate removal of Debs and Mack from their respective positions, purportedly for the benefit and safety of the student body, faculty, and staff.

In July 1994, the Board of Governors Universities System Office and the administration at Northeastern authorized Robert J. Ruiz & Associates to commence an investigation of several allegations of improper conduct involving the management and staff of the heating plant. The investigation focused on alleged irregularities in the promotion of an employee from fireman to engineer, the alleged copying of a Civil Service System examination for the position of plant operating engineer, and the allegation by a plant fireman that disciplinary actions against him were retaliatory. Catherine Taylor, the investigator, summarized the results of this investigation in an August 1994 report ("Taylor report"). Taylor concluded that Debs' employment relationship with several of his subordinates was in shambles as a result of both active and passive negative activity and leadership by Debs. Taylor opined that Debs was directly responsible for the situation and therefore was unfit to continue effectively as head of the heating plant unit. Taylor recommended that Northeastern relieve Debs and Mack from any authority for the management of the heating plant.

David Dunn, counsel for Northeastern, advised Northeastern concerning Debs' discipline. Dunn reviewed the Taylor report and also conducted his own investigation into the allegations. Dunn recommended that Northeastern discharge Debs. Based on his experience with University Civil Service disciplinary proceedings, Dunn recommended that the charges be limited in scope and not include all of the allegations levied against Debs. Northeastern accepted Dunn's recommendation to limit the scope of the charges for discharge and instructed him to prepare the charges accordingly. Thus, some of the original allegations against Debs were wholly omitted from the discharge action.

The first step in Northeastern's process of discharging an employee is serving the employee with a notice, after which the employee is allowed to present evidence in an attempt to reach reconciliation before charges are filed. On August 18, 1994, Gloria Carter, Director of Personnel at Northeastern, served Debs with a Notice of Intent to Initiate Charges for Discharge. As alleged by the Notice, Northeastern sought Debs' discharge because he had assisted his brother-in-law, James Murphy, in obtaining a promotion by falsely representing Murphy's job qualifications, later attempted to cover up his dishonesty to appear as a mistake, and failed to disclose or falsified facts known to him regarding this incident thereby hindering Northeastern's investigation. Debs, Debs' attorney, and Carter met on August 23, 1994. At this meeting Debs' attorney stated that Debs would file a charge of discrimination if Northeastern discharged him.

The State University Civil Service System Merit Board ("Merit Board") rejected the charges for discharge against Debs. Following this rejection, the Board of Governors and Northeastern consulted with Dunn to determine whether they could pursue further disciplinary action. Dunn subsequently sent a letter to Debs' counsel summarizing the entirety of the evidence against Debs (not just those charges levied in the discharge hearing) and requesting that Debs consider a voluntary resignation. The letter cited twenty-seven incidents of alleged misconduct.

In the interim, several other employees implicated in the Taylor report, including Steve Mack and James Murphy, accepted Northeastern's invitation to resign in lieu of defending charges of discharge. Debs, however, refused to resign, and on March 3, 1995, Northeastern served him with a Notice of Demotion. To support the demotion proceeding against Debs, Dunn used some of the evidence that he had originally recommended omitting from the discharge proceeding. The Notice stated that, due to a series of incidents occurring in 1993 through 1994, the administration at Northeastern had lost confidence in Debs' integrity as an employee and his ability to supervise his employees effectively. The Notice cited that Debs had engaged in a course of abusive conduct toward several of his subordinates which warranted his demotion. It also advised Debs that many of the incidents giving rise to the demotion charge had been described more particularly in the letter to Debs' counsel.

Debs appealed his demotion to the Merit Board, but the Merit Board upheld the demotion in a ruling dated September 19, 1995. The Merit Board found that the record sufficiently supported Northeastern's charges against Debs and established just cause for demotion. The Merit Board concluded that:

[d]uring 1993 and 1994, [Debs] was continuously and constantly guilty of: (a) hostile and abusive conduct toward employer and other employees; (b) failure to demonstrate truth and veracity; (c) oppressive management conduct; poor judgment; unprofessional, abusive, and harassing conduct toward Employer, co-workers, and particularly his subordinates; (d) failure to cooperate or take reasonable actions to address the constant and recurring employee problems that adversely affected the success of his supervisory responsibilities and efforts.

The Merit Board thus ordered that Debs be demoted effective March 3, 1995 from chief operating engineer at the heating plant to operating engineer at the Center for Inner City Studies ("the Center"). Debs contends that this transfer was in violation of Northeastern's policy which requires an employee's consent prior to any transfer. The Center is located in a high crime area fifty miles from Debs' residence, and Northeastern assigned Debs to the late shift which ended at 11:00 p.m.

After the Merit Board rejected the discharge charges, but before Northeastern initiated the demotion procedures, Debs filed a claim of age discrimination with the EEOC. Following the issuance of his right to sue letter on March 15, 1996, Debs filed a complaint in district court alleging that his attempted termination and eventual demotion were the result of age discrimination and in retaliation for filing the EEOC charge.

In support of his claim for age discrimination, Debs alleges that his supervisor, Joe Kish, asked him on several occasions prior to the disciplinary proceedings when he thought he was going to retire. Debs also alleges that Kish made statements to him about how Debs was too old to continue working in the heating plant. These statements represent the totality of Debs' evidence regarding age animus.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of Review

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, drawing our own conclusions of law and fact from the record before us. See Thiele v. Norfolk & Western Ry. Co., 68 F.3d 179, 181 (7th Cir.1995). Summary judgment is proper where "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). In determining whether a genuine issue of material fact exists, courts must construe all facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and draw all reasonable and justifiable inferences in favor of that party. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). However, neither "the mere existence of some alleged factual dispute between the parties," Anderson, 477 U.S. at 247, 106 S.Ct. 2505, nor the existence of "some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts," Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 586, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986), is sufficient to defeat a motion for summary...