Evers v. Alliant Techsystems, Inc.

• Decision Date: 11 May 2000
• Docket Number: N,No. 99-2799,99-2799
• Citation: 241 F.3d 948
• Parties: (8th Cir. 2001) HOWARD EVERS, APPELLANT, v. ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS, INC., APPELLEE. CHARLOTTE DEXTER, APPELLANT, v. ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS, INC., APPELLEE. o. 99-3118. . Submitted:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 948

241 F.3d 948 (8th Cir. 2001)

HOWARD EVERS, APPELLANT, v. ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS, INC., APPELLEE.

CHARLOTTE DEXTER, APPELLANT, v. ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS, INC., APPELLEE.

No. 99-2799, No. 99-3118.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS, FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT.

Submitted: May 11, 2000.

Filed: March 1, 2001.

Appeals from the United States District Court of Appeals for the District of Minnesota. [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Before McMILLIAN, Ross, and Wood, Jr.,¹ Circuit Judges.

Wood, Jr., Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-appellant Charlotte Dexter began working for Honeywell, Inc. ("Honeywell") in 1964. Plaintiff-appellant Howard Evers began working for Honeywell in 1979. In 1990, Honeywell spun off its defense business to Alliant Techsystems, Inc. ("Alliant"). Following the spin-off, both Dexter and Evers became Alliant employees. Dexter was laid off, effective April 22, 1993, in connection with a workforce reduction.² At the time of her termination, Dexter was fifty-four years old. Evers was also terminated as a part of the reduction in workforce. His termination was effective May 14, 1993. Evers was sixty-two years old at the time.

Both Evers and Dexter filed suit against Alliant alleging that they were terminated because of their age in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-34, and the Minnesota Human Rights Act ("MHRA"), Minn. Stat. § 363.³ The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Alliant in each case. Plaintiffs filed timely notices of appeal, and the cases were consolidated for argument and submission.⁴

I. Background

Dexter began working for Honeywell in 1964 as a switchboard operator. By 1976 or 1977, Dexter had risen to the position of Labor Relations Analyst. After being promoted to Labor Relations Representative, Dexter made a lateral move in 1983 to become a Cost Estimating Administrator in Honeywell's Underseas System Department. From 1989 until her layoff, Dexter's principal responsibility was to develop cost estimates for the sale of spare parts for the Mark 46 torpedo to the U.S. and foreign governments.

On December 8, 1992, Alliant CEO Toby Warson asked top administrators to prepare proposals for a reduction in administrative personnel. Each department head then received a memo providing a "projected headcount reduction" for his or her department. A short time later, Theresa Haugan, the manager to whom Dexter reported, was informed that she needed to terminate two employees. Haugan proceeded to assign ratings to her employees based on Alliant's Workforce Reduction Criteria, which contained the following five express criteria: (1) performance rating, (2) performance ranking, (3) critical skills, (4) cross-functional capabilities, and (5) leadership.

In making her evaluations under the Workforce Reduction Criteria, Haugan relied in part on the results of self-assessments that had been administered to the Cost Estimating Administrators under Haugan's supervision in the summer of 1992. These self-assessments were created with input from managers, human resource personnel, and the Cost Estimating Administrators themselves. Haugan compiled the information from the assessments and provided each Cost Estimating Administrator with a copy of the results in August 1992. Dexter's self-assessment resulted in a total score of 67, the lowest of all the Cost Estimating Administrators in Haugan's department. The next lowest point total was 101. In making her workforce reduction ratings, Haugan also relied on her own observations of each employee's work, information contained in each employee's personnel file, and input from other managers.⁵ After completing her ratings, in December 1992, Haugan met with all of her Cost Estimating Administrators and distributed copies of the ratings, "to show the Administrators where they ranked." Dexter did not approach Haugan with any concerns about her rating or ranking.

Based on her rating, Haugan ranked Dexter last of the nine employees in her job category and, as a result, selected Dexter and Pam Christopher, age thirty-five and the second lowest ranked Cost Estimating Administrator, for termination. Haugan's lay-off decisions were approved without change by higher management and Human Resources personnel.

Evers began working for Honeywell in November 1979 as a Liaison Engineer. In 1981, Evers became a Senior Design Engineer in the Underseas Systems Division, where he was part of the Torpedo Design Group. Evers remained in that position without promotion until his termination.

In late 1992, Mitch Erikson, the head of the Mechanical Design Unit, which included the Torpedo Design Group, instructed his managers to rank their employees consistent with the Workforce Reduction Criteria and to make layoff recommendations. Scott Lenberg, Evers' manager, completed Evers' rating. After the ratings were completed, Evers' ranked last among engineers in his grade, EN22, receiving only nine of twenty-five possible points. Jim Belling, age thirty-three, ranked last among EN23 engineers.⁶ Based on these rankings, together with a discussion by the managers, Evers and Bellings were selected for termination.

II. Analysis

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Fisher v. Pharmacia & Upjohn, 225 F.3d 915, 919 (8th Cir. 2000). Summary judgment is appropriate when the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, indicates that there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id.

Age discrimination may be established under either a disparate impact or a disparate treatment theory.⁷ Evers and Dexter bring claims under both theories. We turn first to the disparate impact claims. Under a disparate impact approach, the plaintiff does not need to prove intentional discrimination. Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U.S. 977, 987 (1988). "[T]he necessary premise of the disparate impact approach is that some employment practices, adopted without a deliberately discriminatory motive, may in operation be functionally equivalent to intentional discrimination." Id.

A plaintiff in a disparate impact case must first establish a prima facie case of disparate impact by identifying a specific employment practice and then presenting statistical evidence of a kind and degree sufficient to show that the practice in question caused the plaintiff to suffer adverse employment action because of his or her membership in a protected group. Watson, 487 U.S. at 994. If the plaintiff succeeds in making this prima facie showing, the burden then shifts to the employer to produce evidence demonstrating a legitimate business reason for the challenged practice. Id. at 997-98.⁸ If the employer successfully establishes a business justification the plaintiff may still prevail by demonstrating that a comparably effective alternative practice would produce a significantly smaller adverse impact on the protected class. Id. at 998; Minn. Stat. § 363.03, subd. 11.

Appellants point to three facially-neutral employment practices in an attempt to establish a prima facie case. Specifically, appellants challenge (1) Alliant's lay-off guidelines and ranking process, (2) Alliant's budgeting process, and (3) the overall reduction in force.

With respect to the lay-off guidelines and ranking process, both Evers and Dexter challenge the guidelines and ranking system in general. We assume without deciding that appellants can establish a prima facie case of disparate impact. Alliant points to the need to keep its best employees as a business justification for its criteria and ranking process. Appellants counter that Alliant had no legitimate reason for using subjective criteria and for failing to include such considerations as seniority and historical performance in rating its employees. These arguments, however, fall under the less discriminatory alternative prong, because appellants are actually asserting that a less discriminatory rating system could be devised. Appellants point out that Alliant's "original ranking procedures" included "protections for older employees" and argue that, instead of eliminating these protections from its lay-off criteria, Alliant could have left these protections intact or replaced them with other similar protections. It is clear that a system with built-in protection for older employees would result in less of an adverse impact on older workers. However, appellants provide no evidence that such a system would be comparably effective in achieving Alliant's legitimate goal of retaining the best employees. Without such evidence, appellants' claims fail.

Dexter further maintains that the ranking process was faulty because Haugan relied in part on the "largely-inapplicable self-assessment[s]," failed to consult with Dexter's prior manager, and gave Dexter ratings that directly contradicted her prior evaluations. This claim fails at the prima facie case stage because Dexter cannot show a statistical disparity resulting from Haugan's practices, including the use of the self-assessments. Haugan was responsible for ranking only the nine Cost Estimating Administrators who worked below her. In Haugan's ranking, three of the top four rated Cost Estimating Administrators were over forty years old. The bottom five rated employees, with the exception of Dexter, were all under forty years old. There is no evidence that Haugan's application of the rating procedures resulted in a disparate impact on older employees.

Appellants next argue that Alliant's budgeting process was discriminatory because Alliant directed its supervisors to reduce their departmental budgets by a certain dollar amount and gave them head count reductions as well. Appellants contend that "the obvious alternative would have been for Alliant to set a monetary budget, but not a 'suggested headcount' reduction." However, before reaching alternatives, ap...