Hexcel Corp. v. Labor Comm'n

• Decision Date: 21 April 2022
• Docket Number: 20200514-CA
• Citation: 510 P.3d 310
• Parties: HEXCEL CORPORATION, Petitioner, v. LABOR COMMISSION and Michael Pickard, Respondents.
• Court: Utah Court of Appeals

510 P.3d 310

HEXCEL CORPORATION, Petitioner,

v.LABOR COMMISSION and Michael Pickard, Respondents.

No. 20200514-CA

Court of Appeals of Utah.

Filed April 21, 2022

Matthew M. Durham and Vaughn G. Pedersen, Salt Lake City, Attorneys for Petitioner

David J. Holdsworth, Sandy, Attorney for Respondent Michael Pickard

Judge Ryan M. Harris authored this Opinion, in which Judges Michele M. Christiansen Forster and David N. Mortensen concurred.

Opinion

HARRIS, Judge:

¶1 Hexcel Corporation (Hexcel) fired Michael Pickard, ostensibly because Pickard was caught napping during work hours. But just a few months earlier, Pickard had injured himself while working, and since then had been trying to get Hexcel to accommodate his injuries; Pickard believed that Hexcel fired him not because of his short nap but because it did not want to deal with his injuries. After an evidentiary hearing, an administrative law judge (the ALJ) sided with Pickard and awarded him damages, concluding that Hexcel fired Pickard out of discriminatory or retaliatory motives and that its stated reasons were pretextual. The Labor Commission (the Commission) affirmed the ALJ's award.

¶2 Hexcel now seeks review of that decision, challenging both the pretext determination as well as the amount of damages awarded. We decline to disturb the Commission's pretext determination, but we conclude that the Commission erred in its calculation of damages and remand the matter to the Commission for recalculation of those damages.

BACKGROUND¹

¶3 Hexcel owns a manufacturing facility in West Valley City, Utah. This facility operates 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, and is fenced and guarded and not generally open to the public. Hexcel hired Pickard, a maintenance electrician, in 2012. Pickard's duties required him to perform scheduled (and sometimes emergency) maintenance and repairs on machinery and equipment, and he often used a company truck as needed to drive from place to place within Hexcel's campus. Pickard was often asked to work twelve-hour shifts, sometimes at night, and sometimes for several days in a row. The work was physically taxing, typically requiring Pickard to carry heavy tools, walk moderately long distances, and work hands-on with various machinery. But Pickard generally performed his duties well and had received regular pay increases.

¶4 When it hired Pickard, Hexcel provided him with a copy of the company's policies and procedures, which included the company's Standards of Conduct and Work Rules. As relevant here, the company's policies included a ban on "[s]leeping during work time," a rule the parties refer to as "the Sleeping Rule." Hexcel later explained that the Sleeping Rule was grounded in safety concerns rather than productivity concerns: Hexcel worried that, if evacuation of the facility became necessary, sleeping employees might not be able to hear the alarms.

¶5 For the first few years of Pickard's employment, however, Hexcel made no serious effort to enforce the Sleeping Rule. That changed in January 2017, when Hexcel—in response to a "disturbing increase in the number" of napping employees—sent a memorandum to its employees stating its intent to start enforcing the Sleeping Rule and clarifying that "any future violation" of the rule "will result in termination."

¶6 After that memorandum was issued, several employees inquired as to whether the company intended to forbid naps during breaks. In response, Pickard's direct supervisor (Manager) stated that employees could nap during their breaks, so long as they did so in the designated breakroom. Other employees were informed that naps during breaks would not be punished even if they occurred outside the breakroom. In the ALJ's view, Hexcel's interpretation of the Sleeping Rule was "evolving," and it did not ever reduce to writing the rule's "evolutions and modifications." In particular, "[n]o supervisor ever addressed ... the question of whether an employee was permitted to nap while taking a break in a company truck." And even after the January 2017 memorandum, Hexcel's enforcement of the Sleeping Rule was far from uniform, and "some employees continued to nap at their desks without consequence."

¶7 In June 2017, Pickard was working a twelve-hour night shift—6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.—along with a coworker (Coworker) with whom Pickard was friendly. During a twelve-hour shift, Hexcel employees were entitled to take one hour's worth of breaks, usually a fifteen-minute break sometime near the three-hour mark, a half-hour lunch break near the halfway point, and another fifteen-minute break around the nine-hour mark. However, employees were generally allowed the flexibility to adjust the timing of their breaks as needed to meet the workload.

¶8 Sometime after 5:00 a.m., after they had been at work more than eleven hours, Pickard and Coworker drove company trucks back to the shop, where they began and ended their workday and where the breakroom was located. Upon arrival, Pickard exited his truck and entered the shop, assuming that Coworker would follow. But Coworker did not follow, because he fell asleep in his work truck and was discovered in that state by Manager.

¶9 Manager then instigated disciplinary action against Coworker for violating the Sleeping Rule. During the ensuing investigation, Pickard participated as a witness and confirmed both that he was aware of the policy and that the policy was known to "everyone." Pickard was under the impression, however, that employees could nap during their breaks if those naps occurred in the breakroom.

¶10 A few days later, Hexcel terminated Coworker for violating the Sleeping Rule. Coworker, however, had been employed by Hexcel for some twenty years and was a member of the local union, and he asked the union to challenge Hexcel's decision. The union agreed to do so, and later filed a grievance on his behalf. The union "aggressively" pursued the case, indicating during negotiations that, if necessary, it would take the matter to arbitration. Hexcel and the union eventually reached an agreement to settle Coworker's case; the settlement obligated Hexcel to reinstate Coworker pursuant to an arrangement that it referred to as a "Last Chance Corrective Action Agreement." Under this arrangement, Coworker was suspended without pay for several weeks, agreed to random drug testing for one year, would be ineligible for promotion for a period of time, and would be subject to termination for future violation of any of Hexcel's work rules. After his suspension, Coworker was reinstated under those terms, and worked for Hexcel until his retirement in November 2017.

¶11 In mid-June 2017, on the day of Coworker's termination, Pickard was helping Coworker load his tools into his truck prior to Coworker's departure. Coworker's tools were large and heavy, and some of them were contained in six-gallon buckets. While Pickard was carrying a bucket full of large wrenches to Coworker's truck, the tools shifted and tipped the bucket, causing Pickard's back to twist. He felt immediate pain, including a burning sensation down his back. He sought medical attention and was unable to return to work for nine days. During the time that Pickard was off work, Hexcel instructed him to use vacation time, pending medical evaluation of his injury. Under Hexcel's terms of employment, use of vacation time is considered an "incident," and any employee who incurs five incidents is subject to employment sanction, up to and including termination.

¶12 When Pickard returned to work, he informed Hexcel that his physicians had recommended certain work restrictions, including a limitation on standing, walking, and sitting more than "2 hours per shift."² Pickard also asked to be reassigned to an eight-hour day shift to better accommodate these restrictions; that request was denied, apparently because Hexcel claimed to be "short-handed" at the time. Manager informed Pickard that, if he could not work the scheduled shifts, he would have to use his vacation time. Pickard did not want to run the risk of generating additional "incidents," and therefore "returned to his regular schedule" of twelve-hour shifts, which alternated between night shifts and day shifts.

¶13 Pickard continued to receive medical treatment, including administration of prescribed pain and anti-inflammatory medication. After a few weeks, by early August, his condition had been upgraded to allow up to "3 hours per 8-hour shift" of sitting, standing, and walking. Pickard provided ongoing notice of his progressing condition to Hexcel.

¶14 At some point after he returned to work, Pickard attended a daytime training meeting. During that meeting, several employees dozed off and began to snore audibly. Pickard caught Manager's eye and directed his attention to the employees who appeared to be asleep. In response, Manager stopped the meeting, turned on the lights, and instructed everybody to stand up and stretch. After the meeting, Pickard spoke with Manager and expressed his view that, in light of what happened to Coworker, fairness required that these employees be terminated. But no employees were disciplined, let alone terminated, as a result of this event. Pickard also witnessed several other Hexcel employees sleeping during their shifts, and these employees were likewise not disciplined.

¶15 On August 21, 2017, Pickard was assigned to work his fourth straight night shift. His workload was heavy that night and he had been unable to take any breaks, even for lunch, until after 5:00 a.m. At approximately 5:15 a.m., Pickard parked his truck outside the shop—just feet away from the actual breakroom—and set an alarm for 5:45 a.m., so that he would have time to finish his daily paperwork before his shift ended. He then fell asleep in his truck. At 5:22 a.m., after napping for some seven minutes, he was discovered by Manager.

¶16 Manager later initiated disciplinary procedures against Pickard, and the incident was referred to Hexcel's human resources department...