Marx v. Schnuck Markets, Inc.

• Decision Date: 07 February 1996
• Docket Number: No. 94-3436,94-3436
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit
• Parties: 67 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 43,903, 131 Lab.Cas. P 33,335, 3 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 134 Gerald MARX, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SCHNUCK MARKETS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.

Page 324

76 F.3d 324

67 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 43,903, 131 Lab.Cas. P 33,335,

3 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 134

Gerald MARX, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SCHNUCK MARKETS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 94-3436.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

Feb. 7, 1996.

Stephen J. Dennis of Dennis, Stanton and Redlingshafer, L.L.C., Fairway, Kansas, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Dennis G. Collins, Mary Beth Ortbals, and Lisa K. Boyer of Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale, P.C., St. Louis, Missouri, and Nancy Landis of Spencer Fane Britt & Browne, Overland Park, Kansas, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before SEYMOUR, Chief Judge, McKAY, and LUCERO, Circuit Judges.

LUCERO, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-appellant Gerald Marx, a grocery store employee, appeals from the trial court's order granting summary judgment to defendant-appellee on his retaliation claim under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219, and his discrimination claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. ¹ We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I.

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!" ² Plaintiff's wife, Mrs. Terri Lynn Marx, began employment with defendant on February 25, 1991, under the name "Ms. Green." At that time, plaintiff had been married to her for more than nine months. Notwithstanding defendant's informal policy of not hiring the spouse of a current employee, plaintiff applied for a job with defendant three days after his wife began her employment.

On his application and all other necessary forms, plaintiff listed his marital status as "divorced." He omitted any reference to Mrs. Marx. On his Federal IRS W-4 form he declared that he was "single." Plaintiff contends that he did this because the store manager encouraged him to conceal his marital status.

Defendant tells us that it was ignorant of the couple's true marital status, when it hired plaintiff as a dairy/frozen sales person in March, 1991, and that the couple created their own dilemma: Should the couple pretend not to know each other, or should they present some explanation to their co-employees? They chose the latter approach.

The plot of the story, we are told, was a simple one. Plaintiff and his wife would pretend to fall in love, move in together, become engaged, and ultimately announce their marriage. As "subsequently married" employees, plaintiff and his wife would likely be allowed to continue working for defendant.

At first, the plan went well. The Marxes pretended to have begun dating as co-employees. In sequence, they announced to their co-workers their courtship, engagement, and ensuing marriage. Plaintiff changed his emergency contact person with defendant to "Ms. Green," his "fiancee." Mrs. Marx told her fellow employees she wanted to marry plaintiff and have a baby.

The plan resulted in complicating consequences. Plaintiff's male co-workers threw a bachelor party to help Marx and another affianced employee celebrate their "last hours of freedom." ³ Their co-employees also hosted a surprise wedding shower for the couple. There was, of course, no wedding. Unbeknownst to their fellow employees, that ceremony had already occurred.

In the interim, plaintiff advanced to "associate of the month" and in August, 1992, he was promoted to dairy/frozen foods manager. In October, 1992, plaintiff's wife reported to defendant that she believed defendant was failing to pay overtime in accordance with federal law. Defendant promptly conducted an investigation of its wage and hour practices. It developed and circulated an employee overtime survey, approved by the United States Department of Labor, to allow employees to claim any unpaid overtime. Two weeks later, defendant fired Mrs. Marx, citing falsifications on her application for employment and on other official documents. Mr. and Mrs. Marx responded by filing a class action suit based on defendant's failure to pay overtime.

In November, 1992, defendant began citing plaintiff for deficiencies in his job performance. The record contains numerous handwritten entries detailing plaintiff's omissions in stocking and pricing defendant's merchandise through January, 1993.

Defendant mailed the overtime surveys to its current and former employees in December, 1992 and January, 1993. In February, 1993, defendant's management received a complaint from one of plaintiff's co-employees that plaintiff had harassed her about completing the survey. Within three days, defendant questioned plaintiff about his co-worker's complaint against him and instructed plaintiff to complete a questionnaire concerning the incident. Plaintiff responded in writing that he did not remember anything about the events described in the questionnaire. Believing plaintiff had lied, defendant demoted him to stock clerk and transferred him to a different store.

Plaintiff responded by filing this suit, in which he alleged age discrimination. Shortly after an amendment to his complaint adding a claim under the FLSA, defendant took plaintiff's deposition. By the time of his deposition, defendant had become aware of plaintiff's misrepresentations concerning his marital status. The tangled web began to unravel.

Defendant took full advantage of plaintiff's depositions to subject him to withering examination concerning his previous fabrications. Plaintiff was asked about the wedding shower. He admitted attending the shower in April, 1992, but claimed it was for his co-employee and otherwise could not remember its purpose, anything that was said, any photographs or any other significant details of the party. He did admit that it seemed like the party was for "some wedding or something," but stated he did not pay much attention to it. Plaintiff's statements are contradicted by affidavits of more than twenty of his fellow employees. They state that plaintiff could not have failed to know that he was attending a wedding shower for himself and Mrs. Marx.

The record reveals numerous other instances of what defendant calls plaintiff's "pinnochion" behavior. On June 27, 1994, the day before the pretrial conference in this case, defendant fired plaintiff for lying. During the pretrial conference the next day, plaintiff expanded his FLSA claim to include a claim of retaliatory firing.

II.

We review de novo whether defendant is entitled to summary judgment. Durham v. Xerox Corp., 18 F.3d 836, 838 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 80, 130 L.Ed.2d 33 (1994). It is well settled that summary judgment is appropriate only if there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.

III.

We turn first to plaintiff's ADEA claim. ⁴ A plaintiff demonstrates a prima facie case of age discrimination by showing that (1) he was within the protected age group; (2) he was doing satisfactory work; (3) he was discharged despite the adequacy of this work; and (4) he was replaced by a younger person. Cockrell v. Boise Cascade Corp., 781 F.2d 173, 177 (10th Cir.1986). Once the plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, the burden shifts to the defendant to articulate a facially nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment decision. Randle v. City of Aurora, 69 F.3d 441, 451 (10th Cir.1995) (citing McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-03, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824-25, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973)). "At the summary judgment stage, it then becomes the plaintiff's burden to show that there is a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether the employer's proffered reason for the challenged action is pretextual--i.e. unworthy of belief." Id. (citing Ingels v. Thiokol Corp., 42 F.3d 616, 622 (10th Cir.1994)).

In Randle, through en banc consideration of footnote 17, id. at 452 n. 17, we settled the plaintiff's burden at the summary judgment stage. An ADEA cause of action qualifies for the same analysis. If the defendant has advanced a facially nondiscriminatory motive for the discharge, to avoid dismissal on summary judgment the plaintiff must present evidence that the nondiscriminatory reason advanced by the defendant "was pretextual--i.e., unworthy of belief." Id. at 451. If a civil rights plaintiff proffers such evidence, the motion for summary judgment must be denied. Id. at 452 n. 17. Our task, then, is to determine where plaintiff's ADEA claim fits in the Randle topography.

The district court determined, for summary judgment purposes, that plaintiff established a prima facie case of discrimination. In response, defendant advanced two nondiscriminatory justifications: (1) with regard to his demotion, that plaintiff lied on the questionnaire submitted to him after the "harassment" incident, and (2) with regard to his firing, that plaintiff lied on his employment application, in statements to his fellow employees concerning his marital status, and during depositions taken in this case. Defendant having advanced these facially nondiscriminatory reasons, the issue remaining for our determination is whether plaintiff proffered evidence that the reasons asserted by defendant are pretextual. Id. at 451. "A plaintiff demonstrates pretext by showing either 'that a discriminatory reason more likely motivated the employer or ... that the employer's proffered explanation is unworthy of credence.' " Rea v. Martin Marietta Corp., 29 F.3d 1450, 1455 (10th Cir.1994) (emphasis supplied) (quoting Texas Dep't of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 256, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1095, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981)).

In deciding whether the plaintiff's proffered evidence of pretext is adequate to avoid summary judgment, we next survey the ridge created by footnote 14 of Randle. (In doing so, we sympathize with practitioners who must labor over footnotes in our decisions--with which this opinion is itself burdened--to determine the contour of the divide.) Footnote 14 denotes the rule that if a civil rights plaintiff concedes that the real...