Garner v. Arvin Industries, Inc.

• Decision Date: 20 April 1995
• Docket Number: No. 1:93CV19SNL.,1:93CV19SNL.
• Citation: 885 F. Supp. 1254
• Parties: Salena GARNER, Plaintiff, v. ARVIN INDUSTRIES, INC., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

885 F. Supp. 1254

Salena GARNER, Plaintiff, v. ARVIN INDUSTRIES, INC., Defendant.

No. 1:93CV19SNL.

United States District Court, E.D. Missouri, Southeastern Division.

April 20, 1995.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

David C. Howard, St. Louis, MO, for plaintiff.

Kenneth J. Yerkes, John R. Maley, Barnes and Thornburg, Indianapolis, IN, for defendant.

MEMORANDUM

LIMBAUGH, District Judge.

Plaintiff has filed this age discrimination action alleging that she was terminated from her position, as part of a reduction-in-force (RIF), on the basis of her age. She alleges that her employment termination was in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. This matter is before the Court on the defendant's motion for summary judgment (# 17), filed September 21, 1994. Responsive pleadings have been filed, as well as numerous other pleadings, in connection with the instant motion.¹ This case was recently reset for trial to the Court's trial docket of November 13, 1995.

Courts have repeatedly recognized that summary judgment is a harsh remedy that should be granted only when the moving party has established his right to judgment with such clarity as not to give rise to controversy. New England Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Null, 554 F.2d 896, 901 (8th Cir.1977). Summary judgment motions, however, "can be a tool of great utility in removing factually insubstantial cases from crowded dockets, freeing courts' trial time for those that really do raise genuine issues of material fact." Mt. Pleasant v. Associated Elec. Coop. Inc., 838 F.2d 268, 273 (8th Cir.1988).

Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c), a district court may grant a motion for summary judgment if all of the information before the court demonstrates that "there is no genuine issue as to material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Poller v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 368 U.S. 464, 467, 82 S.Ct. 486, 488, 7 L.Ed.2d 458 (1962). The burden is on the moving party. Mt. Pleasant, 838 F.2d at 273. After the moving party discharges this burden, the nonmoving party must do more than show that there is some doubt as to the facts. Matsushita Elec. Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 586, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1355-56, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). Instead, the nonmoving party bears the burden of setting forth specific facts showing that there is sufficient evidence in its favor to allow a jury to return a verdict for it. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510-11, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 324, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2553, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986).

In passing on a motion for summary judgment, the court must review the facts in a light most favorable to the party opposing the motion and give that party the benefit of any inferences that logically can be drawn from those facts. Buller v. Buechler, 706 F.2d 844, 846 (8th Cir.1983). The court is required to resolve all conflicts of evidence in favor of the nonmoving party. Robert Johnson Grain Co. v. Chem. Interchange Co., 541 F.2d 207, 210 (8th Cir.1976). With these principles in mind, the Court turns to an examination of the facts.

Plaintiff had been employed by the defendant beginning in 1975. Early in her employment, she had been an union-employee working as a dispatcher. Approximately, the last ten years of her employment had been as a non-union employee working in the maintenance area of the Engineering Department as a clerk.

Defendant Arvin Industries is comprised of several divisions, including the Arvin North American Automotive Division. The Arvin North American Automotive Division has a production facility in Dexter, Missouri. Plaintiff was employed, during the relevant time-period, at this production facility in Dexter, Missouri.

The Dexter plant produces automobile exhaust systems: mufflers, tailpipes, manifolds, and catalytic converters. These products are original automobile equipment sold directly to the automobile manufacturers for installation in new cars. During the relevant time-period approximately 65% of the defendant's products were sold to General Motors, the remaining 35% sold to Ford and Toyota. During the relevant time-period, defendant employed approximately 750 persons at its Dexter facility. Defendant's Exhibits A and B — Affidavits of Richard Hendricks and Greg Edwards.

In 1991 defendant instituted a division-wide RIF necessitated by negative economic conditions in the automobile industry. In August 1991, Phil Davis (Dexter plant manager) attended an division-wide meeting of defendant's automotive plant managers at defendant's headquarters in Indiana. He, along with the other plant managers, were told that a division-wide RIF was to be implemented immediately for cost reasons. Defendant's Exhibit D — Deposition of Phil Davis. Davis was instructed to reduce twenty (20) non-union salaried positions at the Dexter facility. Although he was not given specific instructions or criteria regarding the selections for the RIF, he was told that the elimination of these positions would be permanent. Davis Deposition. The plant managers were given nine (9) days to prepare a list of eliminated positions to be submitted to defendant's headquarter's personnel.

Upon returning to Dexter, Davis held a staff meeting with his six (6) department heads to announce the RIF. Attending this meeting, along with others, was Robert Willis, the Dexter plant engineering manager. Davis instructed his staff that because the people selected for the RIF would not be replaced "they needed to select people who would affect the operation of the plant the least." Davis Deposition, pg. 43. Since he had only been at the plant approximately eighteen (18) months, Davis gave full responsibility to his department heads to make the selections because "they knew the people better ... they had to run their department, and they have to know who they need to have to do the job, and so they selected the people." Davis Deposition, pg. 48.

At the time of the RIF, plaintiff's department head was Robert Willis. Two people reported directly to Willis: Tom Holt, the maintenance general foreman; and Phil LeBeau, the chief project engineer. Plaintiff reported directly to Holt, the other two clerks (Nora Hardin and Resa Foushee) reported directly to LeBeau. Including Holt and LeBeau, a total of seventeen people were under Willis' supervision. At the time of the RIF, Willis was age 50, Holt was age 46, and Plaintiff was age 58. Only two other employees under Willis' supervision were over age 50.

At the time of the RIF, plaintiff's primary duties consisted of entering work orders into the defendant's computer system, reading air-compressor meters, general office filing, running errands into Dexter, maintaining a "return goods" list and issuing notices of same, printing out open work orders, and answering the telephone. Plaintiff's Exhibit 1 — Plaintiff's Deposition; Holt Deposition; and Willis' Deposition. She performed all of these tasks satisfactorily.

The Dexter RIF resulted in the elimination of nineteen (19) non-union salaried positions. Of these 19 positions, five (5) persons were placed in "bargaining unit positions".² Thus, a total of fourteen (14) positions were permanently eliminated. Plaintiff's position was selected as one of the 19 positions eliminated by the RIF. She was one of the three (3) oldest employees³ in Willis' department. All three of these employees lost their jobs in the RIF.

Of the fourteen (14) terminated employees, eight (8) were under the age of forty (40); while six (6) were over the age of forty (40). Of the six over the age of 40, three (3) were over the age of 50.

Holt submitted plaintiff's name to Willis for consideration. Willis gave final approval for plaintiff's employment termination. Plaintiff was given personal notice of her selection for termination by Holt and Willis. She was offered the opportunity to return to a "bargaining unit position" but she declined the offer.

Final approval of the plaintiff's termination, as well as of the other thirteen (13) employees at the Dexter facility, was made after Richard Hendricks, defendant's divisional Vice-President for Human Resources, evaluated the Dexter facility's proposed RIF list for impact upon employees over the age of forty (40). He determined that the average age of salaried and non-exempt employees at the Dexter facility would actually increase slightly, i.e. increase average age to age 40, after the proposed RIF. Hendrick's Affidavit.

Plaintiff contends that out of the fourteen (14) persons selected for permanent employment termination, three (3), including herself, were over the age of fifty (50). She further contends that her job duties were assumed by a younger employee, Resa Foushee. Defendant contends that plaintiff's statistical pool is too small to support her contention of discrimination, that in fact more employees under the age of 40 were let go than those over the age of 40, and that plaintiff's job responsibilities were distributed among several of defendant's employees.

An age discrimination case may proceed to trial in one of two ways: one way involves the use of direct evidence of age discrimination; the other way utilizes indirect methods of proof of age discrimination. Williams v. Valentec Kisco, Inc., 964 F.2d 723 (8th Cir.1992); Beshears v. Asbill, 930 F.2d 1348, 1353 (8th Cir.1991); Blake v. J.C. Penney, 894 F.2d 274, 278 (8th Cir.1990). When a plaintiff produces direct evidence, such as statements by decisionmakers clearly showing that age was a motivating factor in the employment decision; or at least significant circumstantial evidence showing a specific link between the discriminatory animus and the challenged employment decision, the burden-shifting standards established by Price-Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 109 S.Ct. 1775, 104 L.Ed.2d 268 (1989), come into play. Stacks v. Southwestern...