Gerlach v. Michigan Bell Tel. Co.

• Decision Date: 15 September 1980
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 77-71715.
• Parties: Delores GERLACH, Hilda S. Howard, Barbara A. Fetter, Dawn M. Jones, Marianne L. Tittl, Rosemary Kurr, Mary M. Cline, June D. Timpf, Barbara J. Baker, Nellie Reiter, Elaine Graul, Kathleen Swantek, Irene Wojewodzic, and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. MICHIGAN BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY, a Michigan Corporation, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

501 F. Supp. 1300

Delores GERLACH, Hilda S. Howard, Barbara A. Fetter, Dawn M. Jones, Marianne L. Tittl, Rosemary Kurr, Mary M. Cline, June D. Timpf, Barbara J. Baker, Nellie Reiter, Elaine Graul, Kathleen Swantek, Irene Wojewodzic, and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. MICHIGAN BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY, a Michigan Corporation, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 77-71715.

United States District Court, E. D. Michigan, S. D.

September 15, 1980.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Elaine Grand Stulberg, Sommers, Schwartz, Silver & Schwartz, P. C., Southfield, Mich., for plaintiffs.

Virginia F. Metz, Butzel, Long, Gust, Klein & Van Zile, Detroit, Mich., for defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING IN PART, DENYING IN PART PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR LEAVE TO AMEND COMPLAINT

PATRICIA J. BOYLE, District Judge.

This is an action seeking relief for various alleged sexually discriminatory employment practices and policies of Defendant, Michigan Bell Telephone Company. Defendant, Michigan Bell Telephone Company, is a Michigan corporation with its principal office in Detroit. Plaintiffs are women who are or have been employed as Engineering Layout Clerks by Michigan Bell Telephone Company.¹ Plaintiffs' claim in the proposed amended complaint (Second Amended Complaint) is that they are being denied compensation privileges and opportunities in employment on the basis of their sex in that, on the one hand, they have been segregated and classified on the basis of sex in such a way as to deny or tend to deny them job opportunities, which by a series of employment policies and practices thwart their transfer into higher paid but less valuable craft jobs (Count I); and on the other hand, they are not being paid the true value of their work to the employer on a comparable basis with men in the craft classifications (Count II). Further, Plaintiffs claim that Defendant maintains a discriminatory promotion and transfer system (Counts III and IV). This matter presently comes before the Court on Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment as to Count I of the First Amended Complaint and Plaintiffs' Motion for Leave to Amend Complaint (to file a second amended complaint).

The Engineering Layout Clerk classification is a predominantly female, clerical or non-craft classification. The Field Assistant classification was a traditionally all-male craft classification until October of 1973 when a female was promoted to the position. The pay scale for Field Assistants is higher than that paid Engineering Layout Clerks. The management position of Plant Engineer was primarily filled by males who were first trained in the job of Field Assistant.

Plaintiffs, as Engineering Layout Clerks, analyze data related to the performance of a "job order," such as the installation of telephone poles. The job functions of Engineering Layout Clerks include: originating finished drawings for job orders from a Field Engineer's notes, recording material and labor costs on job orders and estimates, performing detail drawings on estimates, posting commercial estimate figures, and making schematic drawings. Each Engineering Layout Clerk performs her work at a specific office maintained by the Defendant to serve a local geographic area. The supervisory responsibility for the Engineering Layout Clerk's work is vested in an Engineering Layout Supervisor.

The Field Assistant position was phased out on or about March 1, 1976. Persons formerly employed in the job classification of Field Assistant performed the following duties: obtaining field engineering data for the preparation of job orders and estimates involving outside plants, performing miscellaneous routine work in connection with cost computations and the preparation of job orders and estimates, and occasionally, under close supervision, preparing plans for estimates and job orders. At least a portion of the Field Assistant's work was performed outside at the actual plant site. The supervisory responsibility for the Field Assistant's work was vested in a Plant Engineer.

Delores Gerlach and thirty-three other women classified as Engineering Layout Clerks filed written charges against Michigan Bell Telephone Company with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on June 4, 5, and 11, 1973. They charged that Michigan Bell Telephone Company discriminated against them in that their job was substantially similar to the Field Assistant classification and that the male members of that classification received higher wages. On September 12, 1975, the Commission, after deferring to the state agency for the required time and the state agency having made no findings, found reasonable cause to believe that Michigan Bell Telephone Company had committed a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On or about May 6, 1977, Plaintiffs were advised that Michigan Bell Telephone Company had not achieved compliance with Title VII, and that Plaintiffs were entitled to initiate a civil action in federal district court within ninety days.

Plaintiffs brought suit in the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on July 13, 1977. The complaint alleged discrimination on the basis of sex in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, 29 U.S.C. § 206(d), the Michigan Civil Rights Act, M.C.L.A. § 37.2101 et seq., the Michigan Fair Employment Practices Act, M.C.L.A. § 423.301 et seq., and Defendant's common law duty, derived from the Michigan Penal Code, M.C.L.A. § 750.556, not to discriminate against women in the payment of wages.

On October 21, 1977, Defendant moved to dismiss all but six of the Plaintiffs from the Equal Pay Act cause of action and to dismiss the Plaintiffs' claims for compensatory and punitive damages under each of their state causes of action, or in the alternative, to dismiss each of the state causes of action for lack of pendent jurisdiction.

On November 18, 1977, Plaintiffs filed their first amended complaint. On January 20, 1978, Plaintiffs moved for default judgment on their cause of action under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and on their cause of action under the Equal Pay Act of 1963 as to the six women not addressed in Defendant's motion to dismiss.

In a Memorandum Opinion and Order by the Honorable Charles W. Joiner, dated April 4, 1978, the Defendant's motion to dismiss Plaintiffs' claims under the Michigan Civil Rights Act, the Michigan Fair Employment Practices Act, and common law tort for lack of pendent jurisdiction was granted. The Defendant's motion to dismiss all but six of the Plaintiffs from the Equal Pay Act cause of action was treated as a motion for summary judgment and granted as to any plaintiff who worked in an "establishment" maintained by the Defendant which did not concurrently employ a Field Assistant.² The Plaintiffs' Motion for Default Judgment was denied.

Plaintiffs' claims remaining after the April 4, 1978, order were based on Title VII and the Equal Pay Act. In the original complaint, Count I, designated as a Title VII wage rate claim, alleged that Defendant discriminated against Plaintiffs in compensation in that either the two classifications of Engineering Layout Clerk and Field Assistant required equal work, or if the two jobs were not equal, the Engineering Layout Clerk classification required work of equal or greater value than the classification of Field Assistant. Count II, designated a Title VII promotional claim, alleged that few Engineering Layout Clerks had been promoted to Plant Engineer and that the ones that had been promoted were required to gain prior experience as Engineering Layout Supervisors. Count III, designated as the Equal Pay Act claims, alleged that as the two classifications of Engineering Layout Clerk and Field Assistant required equal work, the wage differential between the two classifications could not be based on any factor other than sex.

On June 2, 1978, two motions for summary judgment were filed on behalf of Defendant. The first sought to dismiss all of the claims of two of the named Plaintiffs based on their deposition testimony that they did not have personal claims of either wage or promotion discrimination against Defendant.³ The second summary judgment motion sought dismissal of the promotion claims of seven of the named Plaintiffs.⁴ Hearing dates were not set on these motions.

On October 27, 1978, a third motion for summary judgment was filed on behalf of Defendant. This motion, presently before the Court in conjunction with the motion for leave to amend the complaint, seeks to dispose of all of the Plaintiffs' wage claims under both Title VII and the Equal Pay Act.⁵ Those portions of the motion accepted and presented as relevant to the present issue contend that, under the Bennett Amendment to Title VII, no Title VII pay violation can be established unless the Court finds that Defendant has violated the Equal Pay Act.

On December 13, 1978, Plaintiffs moved for an order compelling discovery and an adjournment of the hearing on Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment. On December 29, 1978, Plaintiffs' Motion for Order Compelling Discovery and Motion for Adjournment of Hearing on Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment was heard by this Court.⁶

At the December 29, 1978, hearing, Plaintiffs contended that the answers to seven questions⁷ were necessary in preparing their response to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiffs explained that in Count I, Paragraph 25, of their first amended complaint they were asserted both an equal pay claim and a comparable worth claim.⁸ Plaintiffs stated that they intended to abandon their equal pay claims, effectively eliminating all of Count III and that portion of Count I of their First Amended Complaint alleging an equal pay claim. However, they alleged that the proposed discovery to ascertain the answers to their seven questions was relevant to the factual substance of their comparable worth claim. Defendant asserted that the...