Merchants FoodService v. Rice
| Decision Date | 01 March 2019 |
| Docket Number | 1170282 |
| Citation | 286 So.3d 681 |
| Parties | MERCHANTS FOODSERVICE, a foreign corporation v. Denny RICE |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Cecily L. Kaffer of The Kullman Firm, P.C., Mobile, for appellant.
James J. Dailey, Mobile; and Thomas M. O'Hara of O'Hara Watkins, LLC, Daphne, for appellee.
Merchants FoodService, a foreign corporation ("Merchants"), appeals from a final judgment entered by the Mobile Circuit Court following a jury verdict in a retaliatory-discharge action filed by Denny Rice. The jury awarded Rice compensatory damages of $314,862.88 and punitive damages of $944,588.64. We affirm.
Merchants owns and operates a wholesale-food delivery business throughout the southeastern United States. Rice began working for Merchants in October 2012 as a delivery driver in its Mobile, Alabama, shuttle yard. The Mobile yard is in Merchants' Clanton division, which coordinates deliveries in Alabama for the company. Merchants' largest customer in the Mobile area was the Mobile School System. Rice was injured on the job, and, when he returned to work following his injury, Josh Averhart was the Clanton division's transportation manager. Immediately below Averhart was Rice's immediate supervisor, Brian Maryland.
On July 24, 2014, after Rice had finished his own deliveries, Rice decided to help another driver, Joe Paige, finish his deliveries. Rice drove his personal vehicle to help Paige unload food at Murphy High School in Mobile. The delivery for Murphy High School was 600 cases, and Paige testified that this required a driver to travel up and down the delivery ramp 40 to 50 times to complete the delivery. According to Paige, the ramp on the Merchants' truck trailer that day did not fit the trailer. When that is the case, Merchants instructs its drivers to secure the ramp with straps, but, according to Paige, the straps have difficulty holding the weight of the cases, the cart, and a driver. On one of Rice's trips, as he was climbing up the ramp, a strap broke loose, causing Rice and the ramp to hit the ground. Rice landed awkwardly and jammed his neck and his back. Paige telephoned Maryland to report the accident. Rice attempted to work the next day, but with his injuries he was not able to perform any heavy lifting.
Rice saw a physician, who placed him on work restrictions. Because the restrictions prevented Rice from commercial driving or heavy lifting, there was no position at the Mobile shuttle yard for Rice to perform. As a result, Rice was on leave from work for approximately four and one-half months, and he received full worker's compensation benefits during that period. Rice regularly informed Maryland of his medical condition and return-to-work status during his absence. During Rice's absence, Merchants hired another driver to make deliveries from the Mobile shuttle yard.
On Wednesday, December 3, 2014, Rice's physician released him to return to work effective Monday, December 8, 2014. That same day, Rice provided Maryland with his physician's return-to-work clearance form, and, according to Rice, Maryland told him that he would get with a supervisor and place Rice back on the work schedule. Rice talked with Maryland again on December 7, 2014, and Maryland told Rice that he and Averhart wanted to meet with Rice at the Mobile shuttle yard at 5:30 a.m. the following morning, which was around Rice's usual starting time for making deliveries. On December 8, 2014, at 5:30 a.m., immediately after Rice got out of his vehicle at the Mobile shipping yard, Averhart and Maryland met Rice, and Averhart terminated Rice's employment with Merchants. According to Rice, Averhart told Rice that "[a]t this point we have more drivers than we do routes and we don't need you [any] more."
Rice testified that, after he was fired, he felt shocked, "like somebody had sucker punched me right in the face." He said he felt a lot of self-doubt, a lot of stress, and he was "was up at night trying to figure out how I'm going to take care of this, how am I going to fix this, how am I going to pay the bills until [I get a job]." At times, he would wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat, and then he would pace up and down the hallway. Rice testified that he developed trust issues as a result of the firing. He also stated that he supports his fiancée Michelle and her two daughters and that he became a lot more irritable toward them after he lost his job. He stated that he and Michelle had planned to get married in 2015 but that their plans were indefinitely postponed because of his trust issues.
Following the termination of his employment with Merchants, Rice did not immediately begin looking for work because he knew that it was not a good time of the year for drivers to be hired. To meet expenses, Rice had to withdraw $20,000 from his 401(k) retirement account. Rice then studied for and took Alabama Department of Transportation tests to add further endorsements to his commercial driver's license ("CDL") so that he would be qualified to pull double-trailers and to transport hazardous substances. He knew that the added endorsements would make him a more marketable commercial driver. Rice also reached out to contacts in his field, including a friend who worked at Estes Express Lines ("Estes").
In the spring of 2015, Rice applied for and obtained a job with Estes. Rice testified that, during his interview with Estes before he secured the job, most of his time was spent discussing the termination of his employment with Merchants. Rice testified that that experience contributed to his belief that his termination from Merchants could harm his future employability if he were unable to remain with Estes.
Rice began working for Estes on March 30, 2015. Estes pays its drivers by the hour. When he was initially hired by Estes, Rice earned $20.35 per hour. Eventually, he received a raise to $24.33 per hour. For Estes, Rice works an average of 50 hours per week or more. It is undisputed that Rice works 18 hours or more per week more for Estes than he did for Merchants, meaning that Rice works 936 hours more per year with Estes than he did with Merchants. During his first full year with Estes, Rice earned a total of $49,000.
Merchants does not pay drivers by the hour. Instead, it pays based on a productivity formula consisting of cases delivered, number of delivery stops, mileage, and whether the full load is actually delivered. At trial, Rice testified that he worked an average of 32 hours per week for Merchants. Rice testified that he typically got off work in the early afternoon at one or two o'clock and that he had planned before he was injured to start a side business mowing lawns. Rice further testified that it was not possible to have such a side business with the extra hours he works for Estes.1 According to Merchants' records, on average Rice earned $911.43 per week. According to Rice, his effective hourly rate at Merchants was $28.48 per hour. During his last full year with Merchants, Rice earned a total of $42,000.
On February 6, 2015, Rice sued Merchants in the Mobile Circuit Court alleging retaliatory discharge. Following discovery, on June 2, 2017, Merchants filed a motion for a partial summary judgment concerning the issue of "frontpay." Frontpay refers to future earnings awarded in lieu of being reinstated to a former position. In its motion, Merchants conceded that, if Rice had been discharged for filing a worker's compensation claim, he would be entitled to seek compensation for the earnings he would have received between the date his employment was terminated by Merchants (December 8, 2014), and the date he was hired by Estes (March 30, 2015) -- a total of $14,582.88. Merchants disputed, however, that Rice was entitled (1) to an award of any future earnings from the date he began working for Estes through a date just before the trial began (June 9, 2017)2 -- a total Rice calculated to be $14,824.00 -- or (2) to an award of future earnings from the date of trial through Rice's estimated date of retirement at age 65 (April 1, 2031) -- a total Rice calculated to be $190,855.71. Merchants argued that, as a matter of law, Rice was not entitled to recover any future earnings because "he makes more money in his new job than he did with Merchants." In other words, Merchants asserted that "Alabama's law makes clear that because [Rice] currently takes home more money [with Estes] than while employed by Merchants, he has suffered no future lost wages or actual future economic damages that could entitle him to a front pay award."
The trial court heard Merchants' argument on its motion for a partial summary judgment before the trial began, and it concluded:
On June 6, 2017, Merchants filed a motion in limine in which it sought, among other things, to exclude former Merchants employee John Nims from testifying at trial. Nims worked for Merchants as a driver at the Pensacola, Florida, shuttle yard. On May 12, 2014, he was injured on the job, and, like Rice, he was placed on restriction from work by his physician for an extended period. During Nims's absence, Merchants hired another driver at the Pensacola shuttle yard to perform deliveries. On January 8, 2015, Nims was cleared to return to work for Merchants. Nims's employment was terminated on the day he returned to work, for the same reason that had been given to Rice, i.e., Merchants no longer had a position open for him because it had hired another driver to fill his position. Merchants did not attempt to place Nims in another position in the company. Nims filed a retaliatory-discharge action against Merchants that eventually was settled, with Merchants admitting no fault.
In its motion in limine,...
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