James G. Swiggum v. Ameritech Corp., 99-LW-4389
| Decision Date | 30 September 1999 |
| Docket Number | 98AP-1031,99-LW-4389,No. 98AP-1040,98AP-1040 |
| Parties | James G. Swiggum et al.,Plaintiff-Appellee Cross/Appellant v. Ameritech Corporation et al.,Defendants-Appellants, [William Rectanus,Plaintiff-Appellant]. |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Law Offices of Russell A. Kelm, and Russell A. Kelm, for appellee cross/appellants James G. Swiggum, and appellant William Rectanus.
Duvin, Cahn & Hutton, Lee J. Hutton, Robert M. Wolff, and David W. Neel, for appellants Ameritech et al.
APPEAL from the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas.
This is an appeal by defendants, Ameritech Corporation, Ameritech Network Services, Inc., Ameritech Services, Inc., and The Ohio Bell Telephone Company (collectively "Ameritech"), from a judgment of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas following a jury verdict finding in favor of plaintiff, James Swiggum, on Swiggum's claim of age discrimination. Swiggum has filed a cross-appeal from the trial court's decision and entry granting defendants' motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict as to the jury's award of punitive damages. Plaintiff William Rectanus has filed an appeal from the trial court's ruling on plaintiffs' motion to compel discovery.
On July 28, 1995, plaintiffs Swiggum and Rectanus (collectively "plaintiffs") filed a complaint naming as defendants Ameritech Corporation, Ameritech Services, Inc. and The Ohio Bell Telephone Company. The complaint alleged that plaintiffs had been terminated from their employment with defendants on the basis of age, race and sex. Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on June 20, 1996, alleging claims for emotional distress.
On February 4, 1997, defendants filed motions for summary judgment against the plaintiffs. Plaintiffs subsequently filed separate memorandums in opposition to defendants' motions for summary judgment.
By decision and entry filed July 25, 1997, the trial court sustained in part and overruled in part defendants' motions for summary judgment. Specifically, the court sustained defendants' motion for summary judgment as to plaintiffs' claims for race discrimination and gender discrimination, but overruled defendants' motion for summary judgment as to plaintiffs' age discrimination claims.
Plaintiffs' age discrimination claims were tried before a jury beginning on September 8, 1997. The evidence adduced at trial indicates that plaintiff Swiggum was born on May 13, 1944. Swiggum, who has a master's degree in civil engineering, began working for Ameritech's predecessor, Wisconsin Bell, Inc. ("Wisconsin Bell"), in the late 1960's as an outside plant engineer. He worked at Wisconsin Bell until November 1987, and the last position he held there was as division manager for outside plant engineering.
In 1987, Swiggum began working for Ohio Bell as a division manager. His responsibilities included the Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Youngstown areas, which constituted the 216 area code at that time. In 1991, Swiggum obtained a fifth level position as a general manager working out of Columbus, and he became responsible for the areas served by the 614, 513 and 419 area codes. In 1992, his title was changed to vice president of network operations for the state of Ohio. Swiggum's final position with Ameritech was as General Manager of Network Operations, East.
On January 30, 1995, Swiggum, at age fifty, was terminated from his position. Swiggum's supervisor at the time was Robert Knowling. Swiggum was replaced on an interim basis by Helen Reedy, a forty-eight year old. Sean Boyle was eventually named to fill Swiggum's former position; Boyle was either forty-one or forty-two years of age at the time he assumed Swiggum's former position.
Plaintiff William Rectanus was born on April 3, 1945. Rectanus began working at Ohio Bell in 1966 as an installer. He later became an engineering assistant and was subsequently promoted to management. On May 24, 1995, Rectanus, age fifty, was terminated from his employment with Ameritech. Rectanus' supervisor at the time of his termination was Charles Hempfling. George Benskey replaced Rectanus; Benskey was approximately forty-five years of age at the time he assumed Rectanus' duties.
In 1993, Ameritech initiated a program termed "Breakthrough." James Eibel, a former vice president of operations for Ameritech, testified that Breakthrough came about as a result of competition in the telephone services industry following the breakup of AT&T. Prior to Breakthrough, the "culture" at Ameritech was "of being entitled to customers," and Ameritech employees had a mindset of being "entitled to their jobs." (Tr. Vol. IV, 172.) Around the time of Breakthrough, "the company knew that it was going to be a completely competitive industry going forward, that kind of culture just would not make it in the competitive world." (Tr. Vol. IV, 172.) In response to this attitude, Ameritech's Chairman, Bill Weiss, initiated Breakthrough, a program geared to change the culture of entitlement to a "competitive culture, and at the same time reduce costs and improve service to what was needed to do to be competitive." (Tr. Vol. IV, 172.)
Breakthrough also involved a reorganization of the company. At the time of AT&T's breakup in 1984, the chairman chose to keep Ameritech's structure in five separate state operations, with each entity retaining their own staffs, operations and sales marketing. With the advent of Breakthrough, the new structure of the company consisted of twelve business units that operated across state lines. These new units consisted of: Ameritech Consumer Services, Ameritech Custom Business Services, Ameritech Enhanced Business Services, Ameritech Small Business Services, Ameritech Telephone Industry Service, Ameritech Information Industry Services, Ameritech Long-distance Services, Ameritech Pay Phone Services, Ameritech Cellular Services, Ameritech Advertising Services, Ameritech Leasing Services and Ameritech Network Services. (Defendants' Exhibit J.)
The Breakthrough process required workers to re-apply for positions within the company. Positions were filled according to "tiers." Because there were more employees than positions available, Breakthrough also resulted in a reduction in work force. Once a manager was chosen to head an organization, the manager was given an organization chart of the positions designated to report directly to that manager. According to plaintiff Swiggum, there were a fixed number of slots available. Swiggum testified that the central theme of Breakthrough was to "reduce the force as far as possible without disrupting service." (Tr. Vol. II, 12.) During the Breakthrough process, Eibel selected Swiggum for the position of General Manager of Network Operation East.
Eibel conducted an annual performance review of Swiggum for 1993. In the summary of performance, Eibel indicated that Swiggum "did an excellent job of organizing, selecting managers and launching his organization." (Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 2.) Under the heading of "Major Strengths," Eibel listed Swiggum's "[t]echnical knowledge of the business and understanding of customer requirements," as well as "organizing and planning." Id. Under the heading of "Developmental Needs," Eibel listed "[b]ecoming a true breakthrough manager that leads aggressively towards achievement of revolutionary goals requiring risk, tough love and compassion." Id.
Eibel also prepared an annual performance review summary for 1994. In the summary of performance, Eibel indicated that Swiggum "had good results in many areas including craft and management downsizing but failed to meet his committed budget performance and experienced several execution errors by his team that negatively affected customer service." (Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 1.) Eibel indicated that, for the upcoming year (1995), "Mr. Swiggum needs to improve in budget management and in service execution." Id. Eibel listed Swiggum's strengths as his knowledge of the business and personal commitment to customer services, as well as the fact that he was a team player. Eibel also listed the following developmental needs: "Service execution improvement, effectively forge into the tough personnel decisions breakthrough leaders must make without directions from their boss," and "[l]eadership in meeting established objectives."
At trial, Eibel testified that Swiggum did a good job as far as "re-engineering," and (Tr. Vol. IV, 208.) Regarding Eibel's evaluation that Swiggum needed to improve his budget management and service execution in 1994, Eibel testified that he was under the impression that Swiggum "knew that when I said that if there wasn't any improvement I would have to take some action." (Tr. Vol. IV, 208.)
In November of 1994, Robert Knowling replaced Eibel and became Swiggum's supervisor. Knowling was thirty-nine years of age at the time he replaced Eibel to head up the network switching organization. When he took over this position, Knowling was offered performance appraisals by Eibel but Knowling declined to look at them; Knowling indicated that he wanted to form his own impression of the workers.
In early December of 1994, power outages occurred in Michigan and in Cincinnati. Knowling testified that, when he contacted Swiggum regarding the Michigan outage, Swiggum was not aware of the incident. Sean Boyle, a network reliability general manager, informed Knowling of the Cincinnati outage.
Around the time of these incidents, Knowling had a conversation with Jackie Woods, the president of Ohio Bell. Woods indicated that she was not pleased with the level of service and "she was not pleased with the effort of Jim Swiggum relative to partnering...
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