Klein v. Safelite Grp., Inc., Civil No. 16-726 (JHR/JS)

• Decision Date: 25 June 2018
• Docket Number: Civil No. 16-726 (JHR/JS)
• Parties: SHELBY KLEIN, Plaintiff, v. SAFELITE GROUP, INC. D/B/A SAFELITE AUTOGLASS, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

SHELBY KLEIN, Plaintiff, v. SAFELITE GROUP, INC. D/B/A SAFELITE AUTOGLASS, Defendant.

Civil No. 16-726 (JHR/JS)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

June 25, 2018

Hon. Joseph H. Rodriguez

OPINION

This matter is before the Court on motion of Defendant Safelite Group, Inc. for summary judgment pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. The Court heard oral argument on June 13, 2018 and the record of that proceeding is incorporated here by reference. For the reasons given during argument and those articulated below, Defendant's motion will be granted.

Background

Plaintiff Shelby Klein brought this lawsuit against her former employer Defendant Safelite Fulfillment, Inc. (incorrectly captioned as "Safelite Group, Inc. d/b/a Safelite Autoglass") asserting pregnancy discrimination under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination ("NJLAD") and retaliation under the Family and Medical Leave Act ("FMLA"), as well as violations of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Lilly Leadbeater Fair Pay Act of 2009. Through the instant motion, Defendant seeks summary judgment, arguing that Plaintiff was terminated on August 10, 2015 after years of poor performance as a store manager because she continued to perform poorly after being placed on a performance improvement plan.

Plaintiff began employment with Defendant in May of 1997 as a Customer Service Representative. She was promoted to Store Manager at Defendant's Pleasantville, New Jersey location in October of 2007. As Store Manager, Plaintiff was responsible for overseeing the daily operations of the employees at her store, inventory and payroll for her store, hiring and firing, providing high levels of customer service, developing and engaging her team, and ensuring that key performance indicators (KPIs) met or exceeded company goals.

One KPI is the Net Promoter Score ("NPS") which is a percentage that gauges customer delight based on surveys that are sent to customers—the higher percentage, the better. Defendant's minimum acceptable NPS is 87%. Another KPI is the employee engagement score which is based on People Opinion Surveys administered by a third-party. All associates fill out the People Opinion Surveys about their managers and the minimum acceptable engagement score is 85%. Another KPI is the Customer ServiceTracking ("CST") Quality score which measures the quality of the work that Technicians do on the job. Defendant's maximum acceptable CST Quality Store is 1.8%. The figure measures the quality of workmanship Technicians from a site perform by tracking any damages or other work that needs to be re-done after customer complaints.

Defendant maintains that Plaintiff demonstrated performance deficiencies as early as 2011. On Plaintiff's 2011 Performance Review, her supervisor at the time, Joe Vance, noted that Plaintiff had the worst NPS score in the Philadelphia Market. Vance also noted that Plaintiff fell short on budgeting goals and numerous KPIs and needed to make sure that her associates were getting the proper training and performing effectively on a daily basis.

In October of 2012, Keenan McCafferty became Operations Manager and Plaintiff's new direct supervisor. McCafferty testified that because he was new to the role and had limited personal knowledge of the Store Managers' performance, he gave all Store Managers in the Philadelphia Market including Plaintiff a rating of "meets expectations" on their 2012 reviews.

However, Plaintiff's KPIs dropped from 2012-2013. Throughout 2013, McCafferty had conversations with Plaintiff about her store's poorperformance and KPIs. On her 2013 annual review, McCafferty noted Plaintiff's low NPS score, high CST Quality score, failure to make budget, missing and unaccounted-for inventory, and poor employee engagement. Plaintiff's 2013 People Opinion Survey revealed a decline in her employee approval rating from 70% in 2012 to 50% in 2013; her Performance Excellence Index dropped from 79% in 2012 to 69% in 2013 and Consumer focus dropped from 81% to 69%.

In or around April of 2014, McCafferty moved into the District Manager position and Sambath Lok became the Operations Manager and Plaintiff's new direct supervisor. Similar to McCafferty, when Lok entered the Operations Manager role, he wanted to give all of his Store Managers a clean slate. However, by the middle of 2014, Lok had serious concerns regarding multiple areas of Plaintiff's performance that needed to be improved. Lok noticed that Plaintiff had missing and unaccounted-for inventory and had multiple discussions with her regarding this issue.

By this time, Plaintiff had become pregnant. She testified that in July or August of 2014, Lok made a comment about her hormones. Specifically, Plaintiff testified that Lok asked her if it was Plaintiff's "hormones talking" in response to a statement about Lok's tendency to visit her store despitetelling Plaintiff that he would not be there on that given day. Plaintiff reported the comment to McCafferty.

Despite Lok's verbal coaching, Plaintiff's October 2014 inventory was again unacceptable. Plaintiff's store was also experiencing numerous quality issues in 2014, as there was an excessive amount of damages occurring to customers' vehicles. Plaintiff allegedly was failing to make sure that her Technicians had the right tools and equipment for their mobile jobs. Additionally, Lok observed engagement issues with Plaintiff's associates. Lok received numerous complaints from associates in Plaintiff's store, which experienced significant turnover in 2014 in that at least six Technicians left Plaintiff's store either voluntarily or involuntarily.

Plaintiff was the only Store Manager in the Philadelphia Market to receive an overall rating of "4- does not meet expectations" on the 2014 annual review. Plaintiff's 2014 review noted her unacceptable NPS and CST Quality scores as well as her failure to competently control expenses. Lok stated on Plaintiff's annual review that she had more below average results in 2014 and KPIs that did not meet or exceed Company standards. Lok testified that Klein was in need of significant improvement before leaving on maternity leave, and he had expressed as much to her through verbal coaching.

In November of 2014, Plaintiff requested and received 12 weeks of maternity leave under the FMLA, from November 17, 2014 through February 18, 2015. After giving birth, Plaintiff did not experience any lingering medical conditions relating to her past pregnancy or childbirth.

The results of Plaintiff's 2014 People Opinion Surveys came out while Plaintiff was out on her leave of absence and revealed the Plaintiff's engagement score dropped further from 50% in 2013 to 44% in 2014. Plaintiff was placed on a performance improvement plan ("PIP") which was delivered to her two days after she returned from her leave of absence.

Lok continued to provide Plaintiff with verbal coaching after issuing her the PIP. Employee engagement issues continued in 2015, however, and another four associates in Plaintiff's store voluntarily left their employment and a fifth associate announced that he was quitting. While Plaintiff was out on maternity leave, her store's KPIs improved but they dropped again once Plaintiff returned to work.

Given the continued turnover and Plaintiff's failure to improve her KPIs, Lok recommended to McCafferty that Defendant separate her employment; McCafferty agreed. In consultation with Regional People Business Partner Greg Byrd, McCafferty made the ultimate decision to terminate Plaintiff's employment effective August 10, 2015.

Management's decision and reasoning was reflected in an email from McCafferty approximately a month before Plaintiff returned from leave:

From: McCafferty, Keenan

Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2015 4:52 PM

To: Byrd, Greg

Cc: Laski, Jonathan; Lok, Sambath

Subject: Shelby Klein

Greg,

Here is the information you asked me to put together. I also put last year's numbers into the worksheet. As far as this year her NPS isn't the lowest however she was on maternity leave in Jan and Feb. The scores for those 2 months were 88.8 and 92.7. Since her return this location has been dropping in NPS every month and they had the lowest CSTQ for the first 2 months of the year as well. Now they are at the bottom in CST since her return. As you know her engagement for the past 2 years have been extremely low. In 2014 her score was 50% and in 2015 it went down to 30%. We put her on a PIP this year and were going to pulse survey in July but in looking at her numbers and also feedback we are getting from technicians in her store they feel she is aggressive and really doesn't want to hear them. We have also sent multiple techs to her location from other stores in our market and they all say they don't want to go back down there if they don't have to. They seem to feel as though there is no team work nor commitment from Shelby. We also have managers and people within our market who have said aloud they don't understand why she is still here. The managers feel that the Pleasantville Location at times keeps the entire market from hitting certain sales goals. What also has been frustrating to the market is that when we move resources down to help the location her techs all call out of work and the help that was sent down gets stuck trying to get all the additional work done or possibly have to reschedule customers.

It is mine and Sam's feeling that Shelby has gone as far as she can in her management career. We have lost many techs out ofthat location in the past 2 years and we can't continue the same pattern with losing our people.

Keenan

(Safelite000107.)

After briefing was completed on the instant motion, and well after the close of discovery, Plaintiff was granted leave to supplement the record with a certification from Defendant's former employee, Greg Manning, who also has brought suit against Safelite and a certification from another former employee, Nicholas Walters, who sought to join Manning's suit but was denied. Manning...