Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory
| Decision Date | 23 August 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-7474.,No. 02-7378.,02-7378.,02-7474. |
| Citation | 381 F.3d 56 |
| Parties | Clifford B. MEACHAM, Thedrick L. Eighmie, and Allen G. Sweet, individually and on behalf of all persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross-Appellants, James R. Quinn, Ph.D., Deborah L. Bush, Raymond E. Adams, Wallace Arnold, William F. Chabot, Allen E. Cromer, Paul M. Gundersen, Clifford J. Levendusky, Bruce E. Palmatier, Neil R. Pareene, William C. Reynheer, John K. Stannard, David W. Townsend, and Carl T. Woodman, Consolidated-Plaintiffs-Appellees, Hildreth E. Simmons, Jr., Henry Bielawski, Ronlad G. Butler, Sr., James S. Chambers, Arthur J. Kaszubski, David J. Kopmeyer, Christine A. Palmer, Frank A. Paxton, Janice M. Polsinelle, Teofils F. Turlais, and Bruce E. Vedder, Consolidated-Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. KNOLLS ATOMIC POWER LABORATORY, a/k/a Kapl, Inc., Lockheed Martin Corporation, and John J. Freeh, both individually and as an employee of KAPL and Lockheed Martin, Defendants-Appellants-Cross-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, David Homer, United States Magistrate Judge.
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Margaret A. Clemens, Nixon Peabody LLP, Rochester, NY (John E. Higgins, Nixon Peabody, LLP, Albany, NY, on the brief), for Defendants-Appellants-Cross-Appellees.
John B. DuCharme, Berger & DuCharme, LLP, Clifton Park, NY, for Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross-Appellants.
Laurie A. McCann, Daniel B. Kohrman, AARP Foundation Litigation; Melvin Radowitz, AARP, Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae AARP in support of Plaintiffs.
Stephen A. Bokat, Robin S. Conrad, Ellen Dunham Bryant, National Chamber Litigation Center, Washington, DC; Mark S. Dichter, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, Philadelphia, PA; Grace E. Speights, Anne M. Brafford, Jonathan C. Fritts, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, LLP, Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America in Support of Defendants.
Nicholas M. Inzeo, Acting Deputy General Counsel, Philip B. Sklover, Associate General Counsel, Vincent J. Blackwood, Assistant General Counsel, Barbara L. Sloan, Attorney, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in support of Plaintiffs.
Jennifer Bosco, National Employment Lawyers Association, San Francisco, CA; Cathy Ventrell-Monsees, Chevy Chase, MD, for Amicus Curiae National Employment Lawyers Association in support of Plaintiffs.
Before: McLAUGHLIN, JACOBS, and POOLER, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiffs are all former employees of defendant Knolls Atomic Power Laboratories ("KAPL") who lost their jobs in the course of an involuntary reduction in force ("IRIF"). As all of the plaintiffs are over forty, they are protected under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"). See 29 U.S.C. § 631(a). They sued KAPL, its president, John Freeh, and its parent company, Lockheed Martin Corporation, alleging age discrimination under both federal and state law. In particular, they claimed that KAPL designed and implemented its workforce reduction process to eliminate older employees and that, regardless of intent, the process had a discriminatory impact on ADEA-protected employees. The jury rejected plaintiff's intentional discrimination claim but found that a facially neutral policy had a discriminatory impact on older employees and that KAPL could have accomplished its legitimate business goals by a method that was not discriminatory in its impact. The jury also found that defendants KAPL and Lockheed Martin acted willfully. Magistrate Judge David R. Homer, refused to set aside the verdict but ordered a new trial on damages for emotional suffering unless certain plaintiffs agreed to a reduction of those damages.
On appeal, KAPL attacks the verdict on several grounds. First, it urges that we reexamine and reject prior holdings of this court allowing an age discrimination claimant to proceed on a disparate impact theory. KAPL also contends that New York courts do not allow a disparate impact claim. Assuming the availability of a disparate impact claim to age discrimination plaintiffs, KAPL attacks the sufficiency of the evidence to support the disparate impact verdict because (a) the same practice — the IRIF—cannot be the basis for both a disparate treatment and a disparate impact claim; (b) plaintiffs did not sufficiently specify the contested employment practice; (c) plaintiffs' statistical evidence was inadequate and a portion of it was improperly admitted; (d) plaintiffs offered no evidence of an equally effective and no more costly alternative to the IRIF procedures; and (e) there was no competent evidence of willfulness. Finally, KAPL urges that portions of the damages award must be reduced or entirely set aside.
We affirm the verdict, holding that the arguments not waived by KAPL lack merit.
Our description of the background for this appeal is drawn from the trial testimony and exhibits as well as stipulated facts—viewed in light of the applicable standards of review, the limited number of issues on appeal, and questions concerning KAPL's preservation of certain issues. Because the jury ruled in KAPL's favor on the disparate treatment claim and plaintiffs question this verdict only in the alternative, we do not discuss facts relevant to it. Because the standard of review for denial of judgment as a matter of law ("JMOL") requires us to credit the testimony that favors plaintiffs and does not allow us to reverse the jury's verdict based on evidence the jury could have rejected, we do not set out, except in general terms, defendants' refutation of plaintiffs' witnesses' testimony. See Tolbert v. Queens Coll., 242 F.3d 58, 70 (2d Cir.2001). And, because of the waiver issues, we address at some length the arguments defendants made in their motions for summary judgment and JMOL.
KAPL manages and operates the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, a research and development facility owned by the United States, under a contract with the Department of Energy ("DOE"). Its work is jointly funded by DOE and the United States Navy's Nuclear Propulsion Program (collectively, "NR"), and consists of designing advanced nuclear propulsion systems, providing training to sailors to operate them, and overseeing maintenance, repair, refueling and decommissioning.
NR pays KAPL on a cost-plus basis for the work it performs. To control costs, NR, in consultation with KAPL, sets an annual staffing limit for the lab.1 This limit is designed to adequately staff the work KAPL contracts to perform for NR. KAPL must stay within this ceiling.
For fiscal year 1996, NR set KAPL's staffing level at 108 jobs below the previous year's level. In addition, NR assigned KAPL new work that KAPL alleges required it to make thirty-five new hires. In combination, the staffing level reduction and the need for new hires required KAPL to eliminate 143 existing jobs. Thus, KAPL designed and implemented a Workforce Reduction Plan ("WRP") providing the following methods to both pare the existing work force and acquire employees with unmet critical skills: (1) a voluntary separation plan ("VSP") offering a $20,000 separation incentive for employees with at least twenty years of service; (2) transfers where possible to accommodate hiring needs; (3) retraining to allow existing employees to perform new skills; (4) an involuntary reduction in force; and (5) new hiring only when necessary for critical skills. KAPL consistently estimated that the average voluntary separation would cost it less than the average involuntary termination.
Prior to issuing the final workforce reduction plan, KAPL considered allowing all employees to participate in the VSP. KAPL's human resources manager, Donald Burek, estimated that between 200 and 250 people would have elected to participate in such a plan. According to Freeh, KAPL rejected the idea of a VSP open to all employees except those with critical skills because, after speaking with other employers who had implemented such plans, he was concerned that denying the severance payment to persons with critical skills would cause a morale problem.
KAPL warned its employees that it could disapprove a VSP application on the basis of business needs. The company, in fact, denied at least one application because the employee had skills critical to the company.
By November 16, 1995, KAPL had completed the VSP process and allowed 107 employees to participate. The company then began to implement the IRIF component of its overall plan to reduce the workforce. Before the IRIF started, Burek made several different projections concerning its impact on the workforce by age group. The estimates of the participation by workers over forty in the IRIF ranged from 70% on the high end to 30% on the low end.
Initially, managers throughout KAPL determined which sections were facing an increased workload and which skills were excess. The particular sections, subsections, and units that would be impacted by the IRIF were determined by their staffing budgets. That is, if a section was over budget, it undertook an IRIF. If it was under budget, there was no IRIF even if workers in the section had skills that had been determined to be "excess."
Over-budget managers were instructed to select employees for the IRIF by listing "all employees in [their] group[s] on [a] matrix"; ranking them between zero and ten for performance, flexibility, and criticality of their skills; and giving up to ten points for company service. Managers were to rate performance based on an average of the two most recent performance appraisals. The tests for making a flexibility determination were whether the employee's "documented skills [could] be used in other assignments that [would]...
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