Hill v. Lockheed Martin Logistics Management, Inc.

• Citation: 314 F.3d 657
• Decision Date: 07 January 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-1359.,01-1359.
• Parties: Ethel Louise HILL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LOCKHEED MARTIN LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 657

314 F.3d 657

Ethel Louise HILL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LOCKHEED MARTIN LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 01-1359.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued December 5, 2001.

Decided January 7, 2003.

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ARGUED: Ronald A. Rayson, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellant. Andreas Neal Satterfield, Jr., Haynsworth, Baldwin, Johnson & Greaves, L.L.C., Greenville, South Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: David A. Burkhalter, II, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellant.

Before MICHAEL and TRAXLER, Circuit Judges, and GOODWIN, United States District Judge for the Southern District of West Virginia, sitting by designation.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge MICHAEL wrote the opinion, in which Judge GOODWIN joined. Judge TRAXLER wrote a dissenting opinion.

OPINION

MICHAEL, Circuit Judge.

Ethel Louise Hill sued her former employer, Lockheed Martin Logistics Management, Inc. (Lockheed), claiming that she was fired because of her sex and age and that she was reprimanded and ultimately fired in retaliation for her complaints of discrimination. Hill asserts her claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq.; and the New York Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law § 290 et seq. Hill appeals the district court's award of summary judgment to Lockheed on all of her claims.¹ We conclude that Hill has proffered direct evidence of sex and age discrimination in the statements of her safety inspector, who substantially influenced the company's decision to fire her. We also conclude that Hill has proffered sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact about whether certain reports by her inspector — reports that led to her reprimands and discharge — were issued in retaliation for her discrimination complaints against the inspector. We therefore reverse the summary judgment entered in favor of Lockheed and remand the case for trial.

I.

Because Ethel Hill was the nonmovant in the summary judgment proceedings, we state the facts in the light most favorable to her, drawing all justifiable 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). When Lockheed fired Hill in May 1998, she was almost fifty-eight years old and had worked for Lockheed as a sheet metal mechanic for over eleven years. Hill is a high school graduate who received additional training at technical schools in the areas of airframe construction and the x-raying of aircraft. Hill Dep. at 9-10. When Lockheed hired Hill in April 1987, she had over thirteen years of experience as a sheet metal mechanic in the aircraft industry. Hill Dep. at 13-19. During her eleven years with Lockheed, Hill was assigned to contract field teams that were responsible for working on government jobs. J.A. 61. These field teams traveled to various military bases to perform modification work on military aircraft. J.A. 62, 64-65. Over the years, Lockheed assigned Hill to work at a number of military bases, including ones at Savannah, Georgia (Hunter Army Airfield); Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Eustis, Virginia; and Fort Drum, New York. She also worked at National Guard installations in New Jersey and Puerto Rico. J.A. 230. Most of the jobs lasted for less than six months, and Hill was assigned to some of these bases several times. J.A. 230-31. Hill traveled so much for Lockheed that she eventually bought a recreational vehicle, using it as her home while she was on job assignments. Id.

Hill's last job for Lockheed was at Fort Drum, New York, beginning in January 1998 and ending in May 1998 when she was fired. Hill performed her work on this assignment without incident for about a month, but trouble began when a man named Edward Fultz was designated as her safety inspector sometime in February 1998. Hill had worked under Fultz on a Fort Drum job just three years earlier. On the earlier job Hill overheard Fultz say that he did not like to have women working under him. J.A. 234. And during the three months in 1998 when Fultz was her inspector at Fort Drum, Fultz made many derogatory comments about Hill's sex and age. On several occasions Fultz referred to her as a "useless old lady." J.A. 240A. One time he said that Hill was a useless old lady and that she needed to go home and retire. J.A. 240B. Another time Fultz said that Hill was "useless and they need[ed] to retire her." Id. He also called her a "damn woman," J.A. 241A, and "a troubled old lady," J.A. 245. Fultz was responsible for disciplinary action against Hill that led directly to her dismissal by Lockheed.

Lockheed contends that it fired Hill under its Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). The SOP allows for, but does not require, termination when an employee receives three written reprimands within one year and at least one of the reprimands involves a suspension. Hill received a written reprimand in September 1997, another with a three-day suspension in April 1998, and a third in May 1998. Hill was fired after the third reprimand. She contends that she was fired because of her sex and age and that she was also reprimanded and discharged in retaliation for making complaints to her supervisor, Richard Dixon, about Fultz's discriminatory conduct.

Hill does not challenge her first written reprimand, which she received in September 1997 while working on a job at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She does take issue with the second and third ones, which were issued at Fort Drum in 1998. Sometime before her second written reprimand (the first one at Fort Drum), Hill made the first of several verbal complaints to Dixon about Fultz. J.A. 242-43. When Hill specifically mentioned Fultz's sex and age discrimination during her second complaint, Dixon told her he did not want to hear about it and that she should ignore Fultz and go back to work. J.A. 242-43. Discrimination complaints at Lockheed are supposed to be investigated because the company's SOP prohibits an employee from discriminating against or harassing fellow employees. J.A. 112, 195. The first violation of the anti-discrimination policy results in a written reprimand, the second a three-day suspension, and the third subjects the violator to termination. J.A. 112. Hill's discrimination complaints were not investigated, apparently because Dixon claims that Hill did not mention discrimination, but only complained that Fultz was yelling at her and picking on her.

In any case, Hill received her second written reprimand (and the resulting three-day suspension) on April 22, 1998, after she had complained to Dixon about Fultz. This second disciplinary action against Hill was based on a misplaced pair of four-inch diagonal cutters. Under Lockheed's tool control policy, an employee must account for her tools at all times and must report missing tools to her immediate supervisor. Hill had three pairs of identical four-inch cutters, and an Army employee found a pair of Hill's cutters on a maintenance stand on April 14, 1998. J.A. 125. The Army employee took the cutters to Fultz, who then gave them to Dixon. J.A. 249A-50. Later that same day, Fultz reported something to Dixon that (according to Hill) was untrue, and this led Dixon to believe that Hill was lying about the misplaced cutters. Fultz told Dixon that he checked Hill's toolbox at the end of her shift and asked her where her extra cutters were. According to Fultz, Hill replied, "I told Richard [Dixon] I took [them] home." J.A. 125, 250 51. Hill, however, asserts that she did not have any such encounter or exchange with Fultz. J.A. 261. Dixon, who had only Fultz's report, believed that Hill had lied to Fultz because she had not said anything to Dixon about her cutters. J.A. 250. Fultz's report also made Dixon think that Hill was less than forthcoming the next morning when he showed her the misplaced cutters and asked if they were hers. Believing that all of her cutters were accounted for, Hill simply acknowledged that the cutters had her number on them. J.A. 77-78. Because Fultz had not questioned her about missing cutters, she was blindsided by Dixon's question. Specifically, when Dixon asked her about the cutters, she was not aware that her third pair had been mislaid at the jobsite. J.A. 77. In sum, Fultz's report to Dixon, which was untrue according to Hill's evidence, led Dixon to believe that Hill had lied about the misplaced cutters. This belief prompted Dixon to give Hill a written reprimand and a three-day suspension. Dixon admits that he took this disciplinary action against Hill only because he thought she had lied about the cutters. J.A. 251A, 253.

After Hill returned from her three-day suspension at the end of April 1998, she complained again to Dixon that Fultz was discriminating against her. Dixon then talked to Fultz about Hill's complaints, J.A. 246A-46B, and Fultz reacted with noticeable anger towards Hill, J.A. 245. Immediately, Fultz began writing a series of discrepancy reports on Hill, issuing at least one every workday. These discrepancy reports, known as "201s," document worker error, classifying it as minor, major, or critical. Fultz wrote up Hill twice on Thursday, April 30, 1998, three times on Friday, May 1, 1998, and once on Monday, May 4, 1998. Fultz himself marked each of Hill's errors as "minor," and Hill said they were "nit-picky and trivial." J.A. 83. The discrepancy reports were for matters such as failure to burnish low voltage power supply mounting holes and using the wrong screws in an antenna fairing assembly. J.A. 127. (With respect to the screws, Hill contends that she was instructed to use the only long screws left in the supply kit. J.A. 83-84.) Dixon, the supervisor, had no control over whether a discrepancy report was written. Dixon Dep. at 29-30. Dixon could, however, check a...