Harris v. Richards Mfg. Co., Inc.

• Decision Date: 31 March 1981
• Docket Number: No. C-77-2700.,C-77-2700.
• Citation: 511 F. Supp. 1193
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Tennessee
• Parties: Clara M. HARRIS, Plaintiff, v. RICHARDS MANUFACTURING CO., INC., Defendant.

511 F. Supp. 1193

Clara M. HARRIS, Plaintiff, v. RICHARDS MANUFACTURING CO., INC., Defendant.

No. C-77-2700.

United States District Court, W. D. Tennessee, W. D.

March 31, 1981.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Barbara Dickey, Memphis, Tenn., for plaintiff.

David Copus, Linda Rosenzweig, Washington, D. C., for defendant.

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

HORTON, District Judge.

After hearing and reviewing all of the evidence and considering the arguments of counsel, the Court makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law in this case:

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. The defendant Richards Manufacturing Company Richards is a subsidiary of William Rorer, Inc., and employs approximately 775 employees in its plant in Memphis, Tennessee.

2. The plaintiff Clara M. Harris began work at Richards on November 18, 1968, as a packager in softgoods. At the time of her discharge, February 15, 1977, only one other black employee had worked at Richards longer than the plaintiff.

3. On October 4, 1971, plaintiff was promoted to printing press operator which was traditionally a man's job. One reason plaintiff sought the job was its higher pay. However, instead of being promoted to the $2.88 an hour wage male operators were paid, plaintiff received only a $.15 an hour raise. During the three years in that job, plaintiff never achieved the $2.88 an hour rate of pay. Sometime during 1974, plaintiff complained to her supervisor who told her to go and see the Personnel Director, Mr. Charles Force.

4. Plaintiff did speak with the Personnel Director, Mr. Force, who told her he would think it over. Approximately two weeks later, he informed plaintiff that she did not qualify for a raise. He did, however, give her a long questionnaire about her job with a request that she fill it out. Plaintiff did so. When plaintiff returned the questionnaire to the Personnel Director, he informed her she would not get a raise but told her of an opening in otology inspection for which she could bid. Plaintiff won the job in otology inspection and began that job in October of 1974. On plaintiff's personnel jacket she was classed as a "Final Inspector." The job bid and company terminology defined the job as "Inspector (Otology)."

5. At some point in 1975 plaintiff expressed an objection to her supervisor about a white woman, Mrs. Melba Dodson, who was being brought into otology inspection as a Utility Inspector for the black inspectors to train for the higher paying position she was slated to receive. The Court does find however that plaintiff did not bid on this job, because she felt it would not serve any purpose to do so. There were black co-workers who, plaintiff felt, should have been considered for the position.

6. Before the incident with the training of the Utility Inspector, an Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) inspector had toured the plant and told employees he was leaving a telephone number with personnel and if they had any complaints, they could request the number and contact him. After Melba Dodson came into her department, plaintiff decided she needed to speak with the government inspector and went to the black Assistant Personnel Director, Mr. Claude Smith, and requested the number. Mr. Smith told plaintiff that he did not have the number available as it was locked in a safe located in the office of the Personnel Director, Mr. Force. Due to her past experiences with Mr. Force, plaintiff testified she was reluctant to approach Mr. Force for the number and instead paid another employee $5.00 to divulge the number to her.

7. On January 19, 1976, plaintiff called the government inspector from her home and relayed to him her concerns about the pay and promotion practices of the defendant.

8. The next morning the government inspector called the defendant's personnel director, Mr. Force, and informed him that plaintiff had called him about a complaint and suggested the defendant try to handle it at the company level. The personnel director informed plaintiff's supervisor that he wished to speak with plaintiff.

9. On the afternoon of January 20, 1976, three or four minutes before the employees could leave work, the employees had their coats on and were standing by the door when plaintiff decided to sit back down at her inspection station and put her head down on her table while waiting for the shift buzzer to ring. Suddenly, her former supervisor, Mr. Pete Read¹ appeared and began shouting that he had caught her sleeping on the job and that Mr. Force wanted to see her and made her go to the office of the Personnel Director.

10. When plaintiff arrived in Mr. Force's office he requested to know why she had called the government inspector. Mr. Force told plaintiff that she should bring all her complaints to him and stop calling the government. Plaintiff testified that she was intimidated by this confrontation and told Mr. Force that she had no complaints. At that point Mr. Read said he had a complaint. He reported that he had discovered plaintiff sleeping on the job and that he wanted plaintiff fired. However, a reprimand was never issued about plaintiff's alleged sleeping on the job. Plaintiff was admonished to stop going to the government with her complaints and was told that the company handled its own problems within the company. Plaintiff's supervisor told her she was a revolutionary, had problems and needed a psychiatrist. Plaintiff then went home.

11. Plaintiff ultimately decided that calling the government inspector did her no good, for after each time she called, he would contact the defendant about her call and it was causing problems for her at work. So plaintiff went to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and filed a charge of discrimination against the company on January 20, 1976. The charge was based upon harassment in retaliation for making complaints to government officials about discrimination. Official notice of this charge was received by defendant on March 1, 1976.

12. Sometime in early 1976, plaintiff's supervisor, Jimmie Mason², had given a deposition to the EEOC during its investigation of the charge of employer discrimination. Also, in early 1976, Mr. Mason was interviewed by a representative of the AEC relative to plaintiff's complaints. Mr. Mason admitted that the "news got back around to me" that plaintiff had complained to the AEC, a few days before he was interviewed by the AEC agent.

13. During the month of April two memos were written by Mr. Mason to Mr. Force in regard to Clara Harris. On April 20, 1976, Mr. Mason wrote a two page memo detailing alleged complaints he had received from two of plaintiff's co-workers about problems they had getting along with Mrs. Harris. Yet Mr. Mason admits that he had never written a memo, dealing with co-worker's complaints about any other of his employees but that he felt the situation with plaintiff warranted such a memo. These co-workers were not called as defense witnesses at trial. On April 26, 1976, Mr. Mason wrote a second memo reporting that plaintiff had not worked scheduled overtime on two occasions in April, once when she had an appointment with her hairdresser and once when she was scheduled to play with the firm's ball team in a ballgame. The Court finds from the testimony that white co-workers with plaintiff had been excused on occasions when they presented the same type of excuses for not wishing to work overtime. After plaintiff's discrimination complaints were known to supervisors, the defendant apparently increased the amount of overtime scheduled for plaintiff to work and thus attempted to prevent her from participating in activities with her co-workers.

14. The 1976 charge with the EEOC resulted in a determination in August, 1976. Plaintiff chose not to sue upon the charge after she was issued a right to sue letter.

15. During her years in otology inspection, plaintiff occasionally worked on Saturday inspecting other product lines such as the orthopedic line, as had another less senior otology inspector, Margie Davis.

16. The inspection section of the defendant's plant was not separated from the manufacturing section until 1973. Therefore when plaintiff was a packager, she was still in the inspection department and it is possible that plaintiff occasionally inspected orthopedic goods while she was listed as a packager in inspection. When plaintiff was promoted to final inspector for otology in 1974 the inspection department, then referred to formally as product control, was divided into 3 segments:

1) Orthopedics/Hardgoods — Final inspection of bone implants and screws and other prosthetic devices with the naked eye in hygienic conditions.

2) Otology — Final inspection of small inner ear implants under a microscope under hygienic conditions.

3) Floor Inspection — Inspection of otological and orthopedic products while in the process of manufacture. The partially machined goods are inspected as they come off the machines and are often greasy or dirty. This is also referred to as in-process inspection.

17. Sometime in November or December 1976, the 90 day time period within which plaintiff could file her right to sue letter and begin a private suit against defendant, expired.

18. In early February 1977, plaintiff again filed a complaint with the successor agency to the Atomic Energy Commission, the United States Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA).

19. On February 9, 1977, plaintiff again filed a charge of discrimination against defendant with the EEOC and alleged the defendant discriminated against black employees in promotional and training opportunities and maintained a discriminatory wage differential based upon race and sex.

20. Plaintiff told two co-employees that she had filed such a charge.

21. On the day that plaintiff filed the charge with the EEOC, her supervisor Jimmie Mason placed a memo in her personnel file stating that plaintiff had refused to work overtime on Saturday, February 7³ 19...