Haywood v. Lucent Technologies, Inc., 00 C 4445.
| Decision Date | 01 November 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 00 C 4445.,00 C 4445. |
| Parties | Cherry HAYWOOD, Plaintiff, v. LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES INC. Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
James William Holman, Law Offices of James W. Holman, Naperville, IL, for Plaintiff/Counter-defendants.
Sari M. Alamuddin, Charles Clark Jackson, Ian H. Morrison, Seyfarth Shaw, Chicago, IL, for Defendant/Counter-claimant.
Before the court is defendant Lucent Technologies Inc.'s motion for summary judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c). For the following reasons the court grants defendant's motion for summary judgment.
Cherry Haywood ("Haywood") brought this suit against Lucent Technologies, Inc. ("Lucent") pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. ("Title VII"). In Count I, Haywood alleges that Lucent retaliated against her for filing an EEOC claim in February 1999 and discriminated against her because of her race. In Counts II and III, Haywood alleges that Lucent intentionally inflicted emotional distress upon her. In Count IV, Haywood alleges a complaint for slander against Lucent.2 In order to understand this court's opinion, one must be aware of a number of facts. For the sake of clarity, a recitation of these facts is in four parts. Part A discusses Haywood's employment history in Lucent's Switching and Access Systems ("SAS") organization and her first EEOC claim. Part B discusses Haywood's reassignment to Spencer Foote's Wireless organization and her 1999 mid-year review. Part C discusses Haywood's reassignment into Robert Schulman's3 application-engineering group and her 1999 year-end review. Part D discusses Haywood's termination, her second EEOC claim, and her current lawsuit.
Lucent hired Haywood on August 26, 1996. In December 1997, Haywood began working as a project manager in the SAS organization and reporting to Steve Smith ("Smith"). Smith's group was part of the AT & T Customer Business Unit, which was headed by Barbara Lax ("Lax"). Haywood's primary responsibility was to develop a plan for Y2K problems with Lucent equipment in AT & T's telephone network. In the spring of 1998, Barbara Wolf ("Wolf") became Haywood's new supervisor.
In July 1998, Wolf gave Haywood a generally unfavorable mid-year performance review. Haywood was told that management was not satisfied and that her performance was not meeting expectations. On July 29, 1998, Haywood and Wolf met with Smith to discuss Haywood's performance. During the meeting, Haywood and her managers disagreed about Haywood's performance. Smith stated that he felt Haywood's work product had not met expectations. Haywood stated that she felt her job was not sufficiently defined and that she met all objectives.
In September 1998, Haywood made an internal complaint of race discrimination to Lucent's Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Group ("EO/AA Group") because she felt management ignored her. She explained that she thought this treatment was discriminatory because the department was predominantly white and male. Yolanda Escalante ("Escalante"), an employee of Lucent's EO/AA Group, investigated Haywood's complaint and found no evidence of retaliation or harassment based on Haywood's race. Escalante recognized, however, that relations between Haywood and her managers were strained and recommended training on interpersonal relations and management skills for her managers. Escalante also found that management had not adequately defined Haywood's objectives or sufficiently documented their concerns about Haywood's performance. As a result, Escalante recommended that management give Haywood a performance rating of "satisfactory/having met all objectives" for 1998 and that Haywood's managers help her transfer to another department. In accordance with Escalante's recommendation, Haywood received a satisfactory performance rating for 1998.
On February 11, 1999, Haywood filed a charge of discrimination with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), alleging that while she was working in Lax's department, she was subjected to adverse treatment based upon her race in that she was excluded from department functions, not acknowledged or communicated with, subjected to constant nitpicking, given an untimely performance review and unclear objectives, and subjected to racially offensive remarks. Haywood also alleged that she was harassed and denied promotional opportunities in retaliation for complaining about race discrimination. On May 28, 1999, the EEOC dismissed Haywood's EEOC charge, finding insufficient evidence to support Haywood's claims.
In the Fall of 1998, after Lucent had rendered its findings on Haywood's internal EO/AA complaint, Haywood contacted Spencer Foote ("Foote"), an African-American who managed a department within Lucent's Wireless organization, to inquire about opportunities in his group. Haywood scheduled a meeting with Foote, but then failed to appear as scheduled.
In December 1998, Haywood again scheduled a meeting with Foote. This time, Haywood appeared. During her meeting with Foote, Haywood informed him that she had filed some type of charge against the SAS organization. Haywood then named as a reference Jim Foster ("Foster"), an African-American manager who had acted as an informal advisor to Haywood.
Foote arranged for Haywood to interview with one of his managers, Fred Krug ("Krug"), who supervised a group called project engineering. During the interview, Krug explained that as a project engineer, Haywood's duties would be similar to those she had performed as a project manager, but that she would be working with engineers to deploy Lucent equipment. In January 1999, Foote offered Haywood a position as a project engineer, and Haywood accepted Foote's offer. Krug gave Haywood and all other project engineers a specific list of nineteen job objectives, and Haywood spent the first two months of 1999 learning about cellular technology by reading and attending classes.
On February 1, 1999, Darlene Scott ("Scott") replaced Krug as manager of the project-engineering group. In March 1999, Scott asked Haywood to assist another employee in preparing a code of conduct for contractors providing services to Lucent. Scott found several deficiencies in Haywood's draft of this document. Haywood informed Scott that she had a contact in Lucent's legal department who would be able to review and approve the completed code of conduct. On April 2, 1999, Scott asked Haywood to attempt to obtain the legal department's approval for the code of conduct. The legal department ultimately declined to approve the document.
In April 1999, Haywood was assigned to work as a project engineer installing a Lucent switch on an AT & T Wireless project in Long Island, New York. One of Haywood's responsibilities on the Long Island project was to participate in regular conference calls between the team of engineers working on the project. Initially, plaintiff was assigned to work with a more experienced project engineer, Darlene Armenta ("Armenta"). Armenta's role was to help Haywood learn the project engineer role and to act as Haywood's mentor. In April 1999, Haywood sent Armenta a lengthy and angry e-mail, attacking her for attempting to usurp Haywood's role as the project engineer on the Long Island project. Haywood sent Scott a copy of this email, and Scott told her it was inappropriate. Later, Haywood sent Armenta an email apologizing for the harsh tone of her previous e-mail and any misrepresentations she made in it.
Around June 19, 1999, the first phase of the installation of the Lucent switch at the AT & T site on Long Island was completed. However, Haywood remained responsible for providing cost-tracking data for the Long Island project to her supervisor, completing her own expense vouchers, and clearing up a number of issues regarding the reporting of her time for the period from late May 1999 to mid June 1999.
When the time came to conduct midyear performance reviews for the project engineers, Scott sought advice on how to conduct the reviews from Melinda Jackson Douglas ("Douglas"), an African-American who was the department's human resource manager. Scott met with Douglas, who instructed her to appraise each employee's performance based on his or her stated job objectives and demonstrated performance using a series of behavioral characteristics known within Lucent as the GROWS behaviors.
To carry out her mid-year review of Haywood, Scott used the list of nineteen objectives that Krug previously gave to all project engineers, including Haywood. Scott asked Haywood and each project engineer to submit a list of accomplishments on a Form LT-151. The LT-151 listed each project engineer's nineteen objectives on the left side and provided space on the right side for the employee to state his or her accomplishments. In March 1999, Scott met with the project engineers to discuss the upcoming mid-year review.
On April 23, 1999, Haywood provided a completed Form LT-151 to Scott. Haywood and Scott then met to discuss Haywood's results. Scott gave Haywood the opportunity to revise her Form LT-151 before Scott completed her final mid-year evaluation, but Haywood chose not to revise the form. Based on the information Haywood provided and her own knowledge of Haywood's work, Scott assessed Haywood's performance using the GROWS behaviors as a guide. Scott summarized her assessment on a Form LT-153. Although it contained both positive and negative feedback, the review was critical in a number of areas, including...
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