Hutson v. McDonnell Douglas Corp.

• Decision Date: 24 August 1995
• Docket Number: No. 95-1236,95-1236
• Citation: 63 F.3d 771
• Parties: 68 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1209, 66 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 43,739 James F. HUTSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. McDONNELL DOUGLAS CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 771

63 F.3d 771

68 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1209,

66 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 43,739

James F. HUTSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. McDONNELL DOUGLAS CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 95-1236.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted June 16, 1995.

Decided Aug. 24, 1995.

Terry A. Bond, Clayton, MO, argued, for appellant.

Thomas C. Walsh, St. Louis, MO, argued (Timothy A. Garnett and Elizabeth A. Bousquette, on the brief), for appellee.

Before WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge, HANSEN, Circuit Judge, and MAGNUSON, ^* District Judge.

MAGNUSON, District Judge.

In this appeal, James Hutson challenges the district court's ¹ decision granting summary judgment against him in his age-discrimination action against the McDonnell Douglas Corporation (McDonnell Douglas). We affirm.

I

Hutson began working for McDonnell Douglas during the 1960s. Over the years, Hutson was employed in a variety of positions; in 1988, he volunteered to work on the "A-12" program for McDonnell Aircraft Company and was transferred accordingly. Hutson's role in the A-12 program involved making purchases of supplies and materials used in constructing aircraft. In 1991, the Department of Defense terminated the A-12 contract, and McDonnell Douglas therefore instituted a substantial layoff of employees. Hutson was initially one of the employees targeted for layoff, but, rather than being terminated, was reassigned to work on the A-12 "termination project". Hutson's new duties involved negotiating settlements with the many suppliers whose contracts McDonnell Douglas no longer needed in light of the termination of the A-12 program.

In 1992, McDonnell Douglas consolidated its component companies, including McDonnell Aircraft Company, into two entities known as McDonnell Douglas Aerospace-East and McDonnell Douglas Aerospace-West. In conjunction with that consolidation, the company decided to further reduce the number of its employees. In addition, McDonnell Douglas asserts, and Hutson does not contest, that there was a diminished need for employees in the A-12 termination project as the various supplier contracts were resolved.

In order to effectuate its 1992 employee-reduction goal, McDonnell Douglas instituted a program called "Relative Assessment Scoring". Under this program, individual managers were asked to assign rankings to their employees with respect to a variety of specific factors, including present performance, past performance, merit pay increases, responsibility, experience, leadership, education and training, and personal commitment. Each ranking corresponded to a specific number of relative assessment "points", the sum of which constituted the employee's overall relative assessment score. The relative assessment program weighted present performance much more heavily than past performance: only 10 relative assessment "points" were available for past performance, while 26 were available for present performance.

Daryl Yochum, Hutson's supervisor, completed a relative assessment for Hutson, as he did for the ten other employees under his supervision. Based on Yochum's rankings, Hutson's total relative assessment score was 37 out of a possible 100 points. This score placed Hutson fifth from the bottom of some 155 employees at his grade level working in procurement. After the relative assessment scoring was completed, Yochum recommended to his superior, Jack House, that Hutson be designated for layoff, and House concurred. Hutson was then laid off; he was 53. The only other person under Yochum's supervision released was Deborah Parent, then 31.

Throughout this litigation, Hutson has relied upon five pieces of circumstantial evidence to support his claim of age discrimination. First, Hutson points out, correctly, that his evaluations at McDonnell Douglas were almost uniformly positive. In 1987, for example, Hutson received two ratings of "Competent", in 1988 and 1989, he was rated as "Superior", and for 1990 he received a rating of "Meets Expectations".

Second, Hutson relates that after he received notice of the company's intent to terminate him during the first round of layoffs but before he was reassigned to the A-12 termination project, he wrote a letter to the chairman of McDonnell Douglas complaining that his scheduled layoff was unfair and possibly discriminatory. Hutson asserts that his reassignment to the A-12 termination project was a direct result of this letter. Moreover, Hutson contends that when he returned to work, his then-supervisor Norm Tuffli congratulated him on the success of his opposition to the layoff, stating that: "He was glad that I had written that letter because they can't push the old people around in this place like they're doing." (Joint App. at 154.)

Third, in 1984, D.A. Jacobs, then-Director of Purchasing, circulated a memorandum asking for recommendations of "high potential" employees to be considered for management advancement. The memorandum specifically asked respondents to identify the age category of the high-potential employees and limited the number of employees per category. While the memorandum was not addressed or copied to Hutson, he nevertheless obtained a copy.

Fourth, in 1986, the Chairman of McDonnell Douglas distributed to employees a document entitled "Five Keys in Perspective". In this document, the President of McDonnell Douglas, John McDonnell, outlined his "own personal view of MDC's new management initiatives," and urged the adoption of a new corporate culture (Joint App. at 131.) Hutson emphasizes that on page 3 of McDonnell's manifesto, he writes that "there is a less direct but, I believe, equally powerful reason [for the new corporate culture]--namely, our ability to hire and retain the best young people. The work ethic and motivations of people, especially younger people, are changing. No longer are young people willing to put up with the type of rigid, seniority-based command structure that has been the normal organizational form." (Id. at 132.)

And fifth, Hutson presents a statistical analysis of McDonnell Douglas' layoffs conducted by Dr. James Evans, a professor of social sciences. Dr. Evans compared the rate of layoff for employees in the St. Louis area that were under 40 years of age with those 53 years of age and older, and determined that the former group of employees had a layoff rate of 8.63%, while the latter had a layoff rate of 26.23%. Based on these results, Dr. Evans concluded that the differing rates of layoff were consistent with systematic age bias.

Hutson initiated this suit against McDonnell Douglas in May of 1993, alleging violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. Sec. 621, et seq. In December of 1994, the district court entered summary judgment against Hutson. After first assuming that Hutson could make out a prima facie case of age discrimination under the Supreme Court's decisions in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), and Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981), and under this court's decision in Holley v. Sanyo Mfg., Inc., 771 F.2d 1161 (8th Cir.1985), the lower court ruled that Hutson had failed to adduce sufficient evidence of a genuine issue of material fact as to whether McDonnell Douglas' explanation for its treatment of Hutson, namely the reduction-in-force (RIF) and Hutson's poor relative assessment total, was a pretext for discrimination. The district court also rejected Hutson's claim that his case should be analyzed under the so-called "mixed motives" test of Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 109 S.Ct. 1775, 104 L.Ed.2d 268 (1989), concluding that Hutson had not shown that the action taken against him involved a mixture of legitimate and illegitimate motives. Hutson appeals from this decision.

II

In reviewing a district court's decision to grant summary judgment, this court applies the same standards as the district court. McLaughlin v. Esselte Pendaflex Corp., 50 F.3d 507, 510 (8th Cir.1995). Summary judgment is appropriate if the record "show[s] 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). Of course, the court must view the evidence provided in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party to determine whether that evidence does in fact create a genuine issue for trial. See Reierson v. Resolution Trust Corp., 16 F.3d 889, 891 (8th Cir.1994). The scope of review is de novo. Commercial Union Ins. Co. v. McKinnon, 10 F.3d 1352, 1354 (8th Cir.1993).

The touchstone of a claim of disparate treatment under the ADEA, as it is under a number of the other employment-discrimination statutes, is intentional discrimination against the plaintiff. See Serben v. Inter-City Mfg. Co., Inc., 36 F.3d 765, 766 (8th Cir.1994) (per curiam), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1402, 131 L.Ed.2d 290 (1995); Bethea v. Levi Strauss & Co., 827 F.2d 355, 357 (8th Cir.1987); Leichihman v. Pickwick Int'l, 814 F.2d 1263, 1269 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 855, 108 S.Ct. 161, 98 L.Ed.2d 116 (1987). There is, however, more than one method by which an employment-discrimination plaintiff can attempt to demonstrate intentional discrimination to the finder of fact. First and foremost, such a plaintiff may allege that there is direct evidence that the employer discriminated against the employee on the basis of a prohibited characteristic. In such a case, the plaintiff need not resort to alternative methods of proof but may instead choose to rely solely on the purported direct evidence to support the claim of intentional discrimination.

In recognition of the fact that explicit, inculpatory evidence of discriminatory intent is rare, see Gaworski v. ITT Commercial Finance Corp., 17 F.3d 1104, 1108 (8th Cir.) (" '[t]here will seldom be 'eyewitness' testimony as to the employer's mental processes' ") (quot...