Melendez–ortiz v. Wyeth Pharm. Co.

• Citation: 775 F.Supp.2d 349
• Decision Date: 01 February 2011
• Docket Number: Civil No. 08–1676(JAG).
• Parties: MELENDEZ–ORTIZ, et al., Plaintiff(s)v.WYETH PHARMACEUTICAL CO., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

775 F.Supp.2d 349

MELENDEZ–ORTIZ, et al., Plaintiff(s)

v.WYETH PHARMACEUTICAL CO., Defendant.

Civil No. 08–1676(JAG).

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

Feb. 1, 2011.

Anibal Escanellas–Rivera, Escanellas & Juan, San Juan, PR, for Plaintiff(s).Ana B. Rosado–Frontanes Anabel Rodriguez–Alonso, Schuster & Aguilo LLP, San Juan, PR, for Defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

JAY A. GARCIA–GREGORY, District Judge.

Pending before the Court are Wyeth Pharmaceutical Co.'s Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket No. 25) and a Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation (Docket No. 81) advising that the motion be granted. For the reasons set forth below, the Court hereby ADOPTS the Report and Recommendation in its entirety and accordingly GRANTS the summary judgment.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Humberto Meléndez–Ortiz (“Meléndez” or “Plaintiff”) was born on November 2, 1957. Starting in 1996, he worked at Wyeth Pharmaceutical Co.'s (“Wyeth” or “Defendant”) manufacturing plant in Guayama, first as a temporary employee, then as a regular employee as of January 5, 1998, when he was 40. (Docket Nos. 24, ¶¶ 1–3, 5; 31–2, p. 4–5). He received a copy of the Wyeth Employee Manual when he started his job and received an updated copy whenever Wyeth modified it. (Docket No. 24, ¶ 4). Meléndez was originally hired as a Packaging Operator in Wyeth's Oral Contraceptives (“OC”) unit, one of several business units at the plant. He subsequently became the second-shift Manufacturing Material Handler in OC, then successfully applied to transfer to the first shift in 2002, when he was 45. ( Id., ¶¶ 1, 3, 6, 7). Each Wyeth business unit has its own Material Handlers. From his transfer up until his termination, Plaintiff was the sole first-shift Material Handler in OC. (Docket No. 24, ¶ 8). His job responsibilities included loading pallets of products, transferring bins of materials, stocking and maintaining operators' supplies and equipment, and recording data on production documents. His position was “indirect,” meaning he had no direct contact with the medication being manufactured. ( Id., ¶¶ 9–10). From late 2006 onward, Meléndez's supervisor was Alex López, the Senior Manufacturing Team Leader for the OC first shift, who reported to manager Javier Morales. (Docket Nos. 24, ¶ 13; 24–3, ¶ 4; 39–2, ¶ 4; 50–6, ¶¶ 3, 4, 6).

On June 23, 2006, Meléndez received a warning in writing ¹ from Morales for failing to correctly monitor and document the temperature of a batch of oral contraceptive tablets, which is one of his responsibilities under the ‘recording data on production documents' heading of his job description. (Docket Nos. 24, ¶ 11; 24–4, 31–3). On April 20, 2007, he received a written warning from López and Morales for failing to document steps in the temperature monitoring process for another batch of oral contraceptive tablets. The second warning cautioned further disciplinary action, including termination, if Meléndez's performance did not improve. A manufacturing investigation report (“MIR”) was generated for each incident. ² (Docket Nos. 24, ¶¶ 11–12; 24–5; 31–4). Meléndez testified in his deposition that he signed the warning only after López threatened him with termination if he did not sign it. (Docket No. 31–2, pp. 22–23).

Wyeth rates employees' performance on a scale from 1 (“significantly below expectations”) to 5 (“significantly above expectations”). Meléndez received an overall performance rating of 3 (“meets expectations”) for the year 2006. (Docket Nos. 24, ¶ 14; 39–2, ¶ 2). On December 21, 2007, López and Meléndez discussed Meléndez's 2007 performance evaluation, which rated his performance a 2 (“below expectations”) overall and a 1 in the areas of “First Time Quality” and “Attendance.” López notes, in the “First Time Quality” field, documented several errors Meléndez had made and that two MIRs had resulted from Meléndez's failure to follow proper procedures: one report corresponding to the April 2007 warning, and another for which there is no evidence that Plaintiff received a warning. Meléndez's “Attendance” rating reflected at least 21 unplanned absences. Meléndez, who testified that he got upset and left the room during the discussion with López, left the evaluation's employee comment box empty. (Docket Nos. 24, ¶¶ 14–18; 24–6; 31–2, pp. 25–31; 31–5).

Luis Seguí, a Wyeth employee from 2005 until February 2008, worked with Meléndez. (Docket No. 39–2, ¶ 5). During his deposition, Seguí testified that since mid–2007, López referred to Meléndez jokingly as an “old man” and “old fart,” comments which Seguí found mocking and offensive. (Docket Nos. 39–2, ¶¶ 6, 7; 50, ¶ 6; 60–3, p. 6–7). Ismael González, a temporary employee who worked with Meléndez until December 2006, testified in his deposition that in the presence of supervisors, Wyeth employees would make jesting comments that Meléndez was an old man and an old lady, and that González, who was much younger than Meléndez, was going to replace him. According to Gonzalez, the supervisors' only response was to laugh at the comments, which González felt were “out of place.” (Docket Nos. 39–2, ¶¶ 10, 12; 60–4, pp. 3, 4, 10).

Seguí further testified that he thought Meléndez's workload was excessive. (Docket Nos. 39–2, ¶ 9; 60–3, p. 7). Gonzalez testified that the Material Handler work for the other shifts would fall to Meléndez since the tasks left for those shifts typically would not get done. (Docket Nos. 39–2, ¶ 10; 50, ¶ 10; 60–4, p. 5). According to Seguí and González, López would seek out Meléndez after the end of Plaintiff's shift, berate him for allegedly failing to perform all his tasks, and order him to go back and complete tasks Meléndez had left for the next shift to do. (Docket Nos. 39–2, ¶ 11; 50, ¶ 11; 60–3, p. 8; 60–4, pp. 6–7).

Meléndez complained orally to Wyeth's HR department about López's conduct and comments on several occasions, including around the summer of 2007; HR took no action. However, Meléndez never placed any complaints in writing as allegedly required by Wyeth's “Fair Treatment” policy. Meléndez stated in his deposition that he was not aware of the “in writing” requirement. (Docket Nos. 24, ¶ 27; 31–2, pp. 40, 48–50). He testified that the only person who allegedly discriminated and retaliated against him was his supervisor, López. (Docket Nos. 24, ¶ 31; 31–2, pp. 35, 51).

In anticipation of eliminating its oral contraceptive and hormone replacement medication product lines, Wyeth merged its OC and Hormone Replacement units into the “Women's Health Care” business unit in 2007. Later that year, Wyeth began planning a plant-wide reorganization, scheduled to commence in 2008 and run through 2010. (Docket Nos. 24, ¶¶ 19–20; 24–3, ¶¶ 5–6). As part of this process, Wyeth implemented the first of a series of reductions-in-force (“RIFs”) in early January 2008. Subsequent RIFs took place twice more in 2008 and twice in 2009.³ Wyeth's HR department and the heads of the business units identified which employees were to be terminated in the first RIF; López was not involved in the decisions. The RIF impacted Meléndez, who was 50 at the time, and eighteen other employees both older and younger than him. Other employees older than Meléndez, including another Manufacturing Material Handler, did not lose their jobs in the RIF. The affected employees were notified of their termination on January 14, 2008. López first learned of the decision to terminate Meléndez on that same date. (Docket Nos. 24, ¶¶ 21, 23, 26, 29, 30; 24–3, ¶¶ 7, 10, 11; 50–4, ¶ 4; 50, ¶ 23; 50–6, ¶¶ 5, 7, 8).

Wyeth employed six Material Handlers prior to the RIF. All except Meléndez received a 2007 overall performance rating of 3 or higher. Of the five others, all but one were younger than plaintiff; two were not yet 40 at the time of the RIF. These others were not eliminated in the RIF. (Docket Nos. 24, ¶¶ 24–25; 24–3, ¶ 12). The Material Handler position in the Women's Health Care unit was eliminated as a result of the RIF, which affected employees who had received an overall performance rating of 2 or lower for 2007 and whose positions were “indirect.” Plaintiff's termination letter gave the elimination of his position as the reason, without mentioning that his performance was considered. (Docket Nos. 24, ¶¶ 21, 22; 24–3, ¶¶ 8, 9; 39–2, ¶ 21; 39–7; 60–5).

After the RIF, Wyeth did not hire any new employees as Material Handlers in the Women's Health Care business unit. Rather, Wyeth re-tasked two Manufacturing Operators to do Meléndez's job functions on the first shift. Likewise, on the second shift, a Manufacturing Operator and a Manufacturing Technician were assigned Material Handler work since there had been no permanent Material Handler in that shift since Plaintiff's transfer to the first shift. Because these positions were “direct,” they were not affected by the RIF, which only targeted “indirect” positions. (Docket Nos. 24, ¶ 28; 31–2, pp. 14–15, 53; 50, ¶ 24; 50–4, ¶¶ 5, 7; 60–2, pp. 12–15; 60–3, pp. 12–14). González testified that he and other temporary workers were relocated to other business units during the January 2008 reorganization. (Docket Nos. 39–2, ¶ 15; 60–4, pp. 10–11).

Meléndez filed the instant complaint on June 20, 2008, alleging the following causes of action: age discrimination and retaliation pursuant to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq., (“ADEA”); age discrimination in violation of Law 100 of June 30, 1959, P.R. Law Ann. tit. 29, § 146 et seq. (2011) (“Law 100”); unjustified dismissal in violation of Law 80 of May 30, 1976, P.R. Law Ann. tit. 29, § 185a et seq. (2011) (“Law 80”); violation of Puerto Rico's general tort statute, Article 1802 of the Civil Code, P.R. Law Ann. tit. 31, § 5141 (“Article 1802”); and violations of Plaintiffs' civil rights under the Puerto Rico and federal constitutions. (Docket No. 1). The court subsequently dismissed Plaintiff's constitutional and Article 1802 clai...