Hidalgo v. Overseas-Condado Ins. Agencies, Inc., Civil No. 94-1311(SEC).

• Decision Date: 20 June 1996
• Docket Number: Civil No. 94-1311(SEC).
• Citation: 929 F. Supp. 555
• Parties: Manuel T. HIDALGO, Plaintiff, v. OVERSEAS-CONDADO INSURANCE AGENCIES, INC., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

929 F. Supp. 555

Manuel T. HIDALGO, Plaintiff, v. OVERSEAS-CONDADO INSURANCE AGENCIES, INC., Defendant.

Civil No. 94-1311(SEC).

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

June 20, 1996.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Enrique M. Bray-Leal, San Juan, PR, for Plaintiff.

Jorge E. Pérez-Díaz, Pietrantoni Méndez & Alvarez, Hato Rey, PR, for Defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

CASELLAS, District Judge.

This is an action for damages and equitable relief brought pursuant to the Age Discrimination and Employment Act (ADEA) 29 U.S.C. § 621, et. seq. Plaintiff also invokes supplemental jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367 for the state law claims, 29 L.P.R.A. § 146, in which he seeks compensation for employment discrimination based on age.

Pending before the Court is defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket # 6). Plaintiff Manuel T. Hidalgo ("Mr. Hidalgo") alleges that he was dismissed by defendant Overseas-Condado Insurance Agencies, Inc. ("Overseas-Condado") solely due to his age, in violation of ADEA and Puerto Rico law. Defendant argues that it terminated plaintiff's position due to legitimate business reasons. After a careful examination of the applicable law and the parties' arguments, defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED (Docket # 6).

Factual Background

In 1982, Royal Insurance Int. Ltd. ("Royal") purchased the Condado Insurance Agency ("Condado"), an independent insurance agency. (See Unsworn Declaration under Penalty of Perjury of Mr. Victor Ríos, hereinafter "Ríos Declaration," Docket # 6, Exhibit A, ¶ 2) At the time of Condado's purchase Mr. Manuel Hidalgo was President and part owner of Condado. Id. Immediately after the purchase, Royal retained plaintiff under contract to continue as President of Condado. Id.

In 1987 Condado merged with Overseas Insurance Agency. The new company became Overseas-Condado Insurance Agencies (Overseas-Condado). Id. at ¶ 4. As part of the reorganization, defendant created a division called the Condado Division and continued to retain Mr. Hidalgo under contract, now as President of the Condado Division. Id. In 1993, defendant eliminated the Condado Division, as well as Mr. Hidalgo's position. Id. at ¶ 5. According to Mr. Victor Ríos, Royal and Overseas-Condado eliminated the Condado Division for two reasons. First, the revenue from placement of insurance policies by the Condado Division declined from $984,257.00 in revenues in 1990 to $848,660.00 in 1992. This decline in sales, alongside with the cost of operating the Condado Division, prompted defendant to conclude that the division was not profitable.

The second reason, according to Mr. Ríos, was that several insurance agents and brokers who placed policies with Royal complained that the Condado Division, and especially Mr. Hidalgo, interfered with some of its clients. These actions apparently affected Royal's business relationship with these independent brokers and agents, who were responsible for a substantial part of Royal's business.

Defendant alleges that although it could have eliminated the Division and Mr. Hidalgo's position in 1992, it postponed the decision until September of 1993 to enable Mr. Hidalgo to qualify for retirement benefits. In March 29, 1993, defendant informed plaintiff that his contract would not be renewed and that he would become eligible for retirement on September 1, 1993. (Ríos Declaration, Exhibit A, ¶¶ 6-8; Exhibit B, Memo from Victor Ríos to Manuel Hidalgo)

On September 1, 1993, defendant eliminated the Condado Division, as well as Hidalgo's position. Plaintiff Hidalgo alleges that the elimination of his position in 1993 was motivated solely due to his age, since plaintiff refused to retire. (Amended Complaint, ¶¶ 14-15, Docket # 19). Prior to the commencement of this action, plaintiff filed a complaint with the EEOC and the Department of Labor and Human Resources of Puerto Rico. On December 30, 1993, the Department of Labor and Human Resources of Puerto Rico issued his Notice of Right to Sue, which plaintiff received on January 15, 1994. On March 10, 1994, plaintiff initiated this action.

Summary Judgment Standard

As noted by the First Circuit, summary judgment has a special niche in civil litigation. Its role is "to pierce the boilerplate of the pleadings and assay the parties' proof in order to determine whether trial is actually required." Wynne v. Tufts University School of Medicine, 976 F.2d 791, 794 (1st Cir.1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 1030, 113 S.Ct. 1845, 123 L.Ed.2d 470 (1993). The device allows courts and litigants to avoid full-blown trials in unwinnable cases, thus conserving the parties' time and money and permitting courts to husband scarce judicial resources. McCarthy v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 56 F.3d 313, 314-315 (1st Cir.1995).

According to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c), a summary judgment motion should be granted when the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. NASCO, Inc. v. Public Storage, Inc., 29 F.3d 28 (1st Cir. 1994). "By its very terms, this standard provides that the mere existence of some alleged factual dispute between the parties will not defeat an otherwise properly supported motion for summary judgment; the requirement is that there is no genuine issue of material fact." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).

For a dispute to be "genuine," there must be sufficient evidence to permit a reasonable trier of fact to resolve the issue in favor of the nonmoving party. U.S. v. One Parcel of Real Property, 960 F.2d 200, 204 (1st Cir.1992). See also, Boston Athletic Ass'n v. Sullivan, 867 F.2d 22, 24 (1st Cir. 1989). By like token, "material" means that the fact is one that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law. Morris v. Government Development Bank of Puerto Rico, 27 F.3d 746, 748 (1st Cir.1994).

Moreover, this Court may not weigh the evidence. Casas Office Machines, Inc. v. Mita Copystar America, Inc., 42 F.3d 668 (1st Cir.1994). Summary judgment "admits of no room for credibility determinations, no room for the measured weighing of conflicting evidence such as the trial process entails." Id. (citing Greenburg v. Puerto Rico Maritime Shipping Authority, 835 F.2d 932, 936 (1st Cir.1987)). Accordingly, if the facts permit more than one reasonable inference, the court on summary judgment may not adopt the inference least favorable to the non-moving party. Casas Office Machines, 42 F.3d at 684.

Upon close examination of the record, the Court concludes that plaintiff's complaint must be dismissed, since he has failed to adequately plead a prima facie case pursuant to the ADEA. Furthermore, plaintiff has failed to prove that defendant's business decision to eliminate plaintiff's job was a pretext for illegal discrimination.

I. Plaintiff Has Failed To Adequately Plead a Prima Facie Case Under The ADEA

In ADEA discrimination lawsuits, plaintiffs bear the ultimate burden of proving that their ages were the determinative factor in their discharge. In other words, "they would not have been fired but for their age." LeBlanc v. Great American Ins. Co., 6 F.3d 836, 842 (1st Cir.1993). See also Pages-Cahue v. Iberia Lineas Aereas de España, 82 F.3d 533, 536 (1st Cir.1996) At least where there is little overt evidence of age discrimination, the case usually follows the ritualized burden-shifting paradigm presented in McDonnell Douglas v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-805, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824-1826, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973); Pages Cahue, at 536. Mesnick v. General Electric Co., 950 F.2d 816, 823 (1st Cir.1991), cert. denied, 504 U.S. 985, 112 S.Ct. 2965, 119 L.Ed.2d 586 (1992).

Pursuant to the McDonnell Douglas test, plaintiff must open with a prima facie showing of certain elements which suggest age discrimination. Accordingly, plaintiff is required to make a prima facie showing: 1) that he or she fell within the ADEA's protected age group — that is, more than forty years of age; 2) that plaintiff met the employer's legitimate job performance expectations; 3) that he experienced adverse employment action and; 4) that plaintiff was replaced by a person with roughly equivalent job qualifications. Vega v. Kodak Caribbean, Ltd., 3 F.3d 476, 479 (1st Cir.1993). If the termination of the employment is part of a reduction in the work force, as is the case in the present litigation, plaintiff must establish that defendant did not treat age neutrally or retained younger persons in the same position. LeBlanc, 6 F.3d at 842; Goldman, 985 F.2d at 1117.

Once plaintiff establishes the prescribed prima facie case, he creates a presumption that the employer engaged in impermissible age discrimination. LeBlanc, 6 F.3d at 842; Goldman v. First Nat'l Bank of Boston, 985 F.2d 1113, 1117 (1st Cir.1993). However, to rebut this presumption, the employer need only "articulate a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for the employee's termination." LeBlanc, 6 F.3d at 842; Goldman 985 F.2d at 1117. Once the employer meets this burden in an age discrimination case, however, "the McDonnell Douglas presumption `drops out of the picture.'" St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 113 S.Ct. 2742, 125 L.Ed.2d 407 (1993); LeBlanc, 6 F.3d at 843. The trier of fact must then simply conclude, based on the evidence, whether the employer's decision to terminate the plaintiff was motivated by intentional age discrimination. LeBlanc, 6 F.3d at 843.

Plaintiff meets the first prong of the prima facie showing, since he is 65 years old, within the scope of the protected age group (Complaint, ¶ 4, Docket # 1). Defendant also accepts, for purposes of the summary judgment motion, that the plaintiff also met the employer's legitimate job performance expectations and that he experienced adverse employment action (...