Hill v. Lockheed Martin Logistics Mgmt

• Decision Date: 05 January 2004
• Docket Number: No. 01-1359.,01-1359.
• Citation: 354 F.3d 277
• Parties: Ethel Louise HILL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LOCKHEED MARTIN LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellee, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Amicus Supporting Appellant. Chamber of Commerce, of the United States; Equal Employment Advisory Council, Amici Supporting Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

354 F.3d 277

Ethel Louise HILL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LOCKHEED MARTIN LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellee, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Amicus Supporting Appellant.

Chamber of Commerce, of the United States; Equal Employment Advisory Council, Amici Supporting Appellee.

No. 01-1359.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: May 7, 2003.

Decided: January 5, 2004.

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ARGUED: Ronald A. Rayson, Knoxville, TN, for Appellant. Susan R. Oxford, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae Commission. Andreas Neal Satterfield, Jr., Haynsworth, Baldwin, Johnson & Greaves, L.L.C., Greenville, SC, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: David A. Burkhalter, II, Knoxville, TN, for Appellant. Nicholas M. Inzeo, Acting Deputy General, Philip B. Sklover, Associate General, Lorraine C. Davis, Assistant General, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae Commission. Stephen A. Bokat, Robin S. Conrad, Ellen D. Bryant, National Chamber Litigation Center, Inc., Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae Chamber of Commerce; Ann Elizabeth Reesman, Katherine Y.K. Cheung, Mcguiness, Norris & Williams, L.L.P., Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae Council.

Before WIDENER, WILKINSON, NIEMEYER, LUTTIG, WILLIAMS, MICHAEL, MOTZ, TRAXLER, KING, GREGORY, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge TRAXLER wrote the majority opinion in which Judges WIDENER, WILKINSON, NIEMEYER, LUTTIG, WILLIAMS, and SHEDD joined. Judge MICHAEL wrote a dissenting opinion in which Judges MOTZ, KING and GREGORY joined.

OPINION

TRAXLER, Circuit Judge:

Ethel Louise Hill brought this action against her former employer, Lockheed Martin Logistics Management, Inc. ("Lockheed"), claiming that she was wrongfully terminated from her employment because of her sex and age and in retaliation for her complaints of such discrimination. Hill alleged violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Civil Rights Act of 1991, see 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 2000e to 2000e-17 (West 1994 & Supp.2003) and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 621 to 634 (West 1999 & Supp.2003), as well as state law claims for such discrimination under the New York Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law § 290 to 301. We granted en banc review to decide whether the district court properly granted Lockheed's motion for summary judgment. We affirm.

I.

Ethel Hill was hired by Lockheed as an aircraft sheet metal mechanic in 1987. In this capacity, she worked as part of a contract field team assigned to perform modifications to military aircraft at various military bases in the eastern United States, pursuant to contracts between Lockheed and the United States government. Thomas Prickett was Lockheed's program manager in charge of the contract field teams and Archie Griffin was the East Coast senior site supervisor for Lockheed, but they were rarely present at the individual military jobsites. Rather, Hill and the other aircraft mechanics were directly supervised by a "lead person" or "point of contact" at each military base, who reported to Griffin in the line of authority. The lead person was also responsible for enforcing the standard operating procedures ("SOP") of Lockheed and ensuring that the military contracts were satisfactorily performed at the jobsite.

In addition to the mechanics and the direct supervisor, Lockheed assigned a safety inspector to each military jobsite. Specific aircraft modifications scheduled to be performed under the military contracts were set forth in modification work orders ("MWOs"). The safety inspector was charged with checking the modifications to ensure that they had been completed in accordance with the required specifications. However, the inspector had no supervisory authority over the mechanics, nor any authority to discipline them. Like the mechanics, the safety inspector reported to and worked directly under the supervision of the lead person.

During her last eight months of employment with Lockheed, Hill received three written reprimands under Lockheed's SOP: (1) a reprimand issued by Ronald Souders, the lead person at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, for a violation of Rule 4 of the SOP — "[u]nsatisfactory quality or quantity of work" — under a MWO assigned to Hill in September 1997; (2) a reprimand and disciplinary suspension issued by Richard Dixon, the lead person at Fort Drum in New York, for Hill's violation of Lockheed's tool control safety policy in April 1998; and (3) a reprimand issued by Dixon at Fort Drum for another violation of Rule 4 of the SOP under several MWOs assigned to Hill in April and May 1998. J.A. 112.

Lockheed's SOP 3.4.2 provides that "[a]n employee who receives a combination of two written reprimands not involving a suspension and one involving a suspension (not necessarily on the same rule) will be subject to discharge." J.A. 110. Thus, after Hill's third reprimand became warranted, Dixon contacted Griffin to obtain guidance on how to proceed and was told to follow the SOP. Dixon then forwarded the disciplinary paperwork to Griffin, who along with Prickett made the decision to terminate Hill under the provisions of the SOP. Hill was fifty-seven years old at the time. Her position was ultimately filled by a forty-seven-year-old male mechanic.

In June 1998, Hill filed a charge of discrimination and retaliation with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, charging sex and age discrimination and retaliation. She was issued a right-to-sue letter in April 1999. Hill then filed this action under Title VII, the ADEA, and the New York Human Rights Act, alleging that she was terminated by Lockheed "because of" her sex and age and in retaliation for her complaints of discrimination.¹ Hill acknowledges that Souders and Dixon, the lead persons on the Fort Bragg and Fort Drum jobsites respectively, acted without a discriminatory or retaliatory motive in issuing the three reprimands, and she does not dispute that she violated the standards and rules referenced in each reprimand. Hill also does not dispute that the three reprimands subjected her to termination under SOP 3.4.2, nor does she allege that Griffin or Prickett acted with a discriminatory or retaliatory motive when they made the decision to terminate her. Rather, Hill's allegation that she was discharged because of her sex and age is grounded in her claim that Ed Fultz, the safety inspector at Fort Drum, harbored a discriminatory animus against her, as evidenced by his calling her a "useless old lady" who needed to be retired, a "troubled old lady," and a "damn woman," on several occasions while they were working together. J.A. 240-241A, 245. According to Hill, this discriminatory animus, along with Fultz's desire to retaliate against her when she complained to Dixon about his comments, led Fultz to report admittedly valid infractions that resulted in her second and third reprimands and which, when combined with her Fort Bragg reprimand, served as the basis for her termination under SOP 3.4.2.

Concluding that Hill failed to present sufficient evidence to support her claims of discrimination and retaliation by Lockheed's decision-makers, who terminated Hill without any such improper motivations, the district court granted Lockheed's motion for summary judgment. On appeal, a divided panel of this court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment, holding that "Hill ha[d] proffered direct evidence of sex and age discrimination in the statements of [Fultz], who substantially influenced the company's decision to fire her" and that "Hill ha[d] proffered sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact about whether [Fultz's] reports ... were issued in retaliation for her discrimination complaints against [him]." See Hill v. Lockheed Martin Logistics Mgmt., Inc., 314 F.3d 657, 659 (4th Cir.2003). A majority of the active circuit judges thereafter voted to vacate the panel decision, and the court reheard the appeal en banc.

II.

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. See Higgins v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 863 F.2d 1162, 1167 (4th Cir.1988). Summary judgment is appropriate "if 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 a judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(c); see Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). We construe the evidence in the light most favorable to Hill and draw all reasonable inferences in her favor. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).

III.

Title VII makes it "an unlawful employment practice for an employer ... to discharge ... or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's ... sex." 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e-2(a)(1) (emphasis added). The ADEA similarly forbids "an employer ... to discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's age." 29 U.S.C.A. § 623(a)(1) (emphasis added).

A.

Generally speaking, a plaintiff may avert summary judgment and establish a claim for intentional sex or age discrimination through two avenues of proof.

First, a plaintiff may establish a claim of discrimination by demonstrating through direct or circumstantial evidence that sex or age discrimination motivated the employer's adverse employment decision. The employee, however, need not demonstrate that the prohibited characteristic was the sole motivating factor to prevail, so long...