Mills v. Ford Motor Co.

• Decision Date: 11 September 1986
• Docket Number: No. 85-5945,85-5945
• Citation: 800 F.2d 635
• Parties: 41 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1397, 41 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 36,556 Elizabeth Y. MILLS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 635

800 F.2d 635

41 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1397,

41 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 36,556

Elizabeth Y. MILLS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 85-5945.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued Aug. 8, 1986.

Decided Sept. 11, 1986.

Jon L. Fleischaker (argued), Kimberly K. Greene, Mark D. Wilson, Wyatt, Tarrant and Combs, Louisville, Ky., for defendant-appellant.

Frank E. Haddad, Harris J. Berman (argued), Louisville, Ky., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before MARTIN and JONES, Circuit Judges, and COHN, ^* District Court Judge.

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge.

Defendant Ford Motor Company appeals from a district court judgment finding that it discriminated against the plaintiff on the basis of sex in violation of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et seq. (1982). The issue on appeal is whether the district court properly applied the test for determining whether an employer has intentionally discriminated. We find that it did and affirm the district court's judgment.

Plaintiff Elizabeth Mills, a white female, was forty years old in 1977 when she was hired as a production supervisor in the body shop at Ford's Louisville Assembly Plant. Based on her performance in the body shop she received an evaluation rating her overall performance as "very good." Approximately three months after coming to Ford, she was transferred into the passenger division of the Trim Department as a line supervisor. When she was transferred there were approximately twenty male supervisors and no female supervisors in the department.

Ford evaluated the performance of its line supervisors on the following scale: Outstanding, Excellent, Satisfactory Plus, Satisfactory, Satisfactory Minus or Unsatisfactory. Mills received her first performance evaluation in October 1977. Her performance was rated as a "satisfactory plus," but the evaluation did indicate certain deficiencies in the areas of quality, costs, housekeeping, safety glass program and production.

In November 1977, the Trim Department began operating on two shifts instead of one. Each shift was allotted the same number of jobs per hour. Meanwhile, in July 1978, Ford brought in new supervisory personnel to implement a major model change in its passenger cars. Lou Renfro was demoted from Superintendent to General Foreman. He was replaced as Superintendent by Larry Pickles. Mills testified that Pickles rarely discussed any problems in her department with her; rather if she had problems, Pickles would discuss them with a male foreman who was not in charge of her department. On August 21, 1978, she received a second performance evaluation, signed by Pickles, which gave her an overall rating of satisfactory. This evaluation also indicated that she had certain deficiencies.

Ford began suffering economic problems. On April 24, 1979, Ford announced that its night shift in the passenger division of the Trim Department would be eliminated in three weeks. The Trim Department only operated a total of fifty-two working days from January 1, 1979 until June 1, 1979. The day following Ford's announcement that the second shift would be eliminated, Mills received a third evaluation. She was given a rating of unsatisfactory and was again considered deficient in the areas of costs, quality, production, housekeeping and safety. The evaluation further indicated that she would be given guidance and direction with a follow-up review in thirty days. Renfro, the General Foreman, and Pickles, the Superintendent, signed the evaluation.

From April 25, 1979 through June 1, 1979, Mills was on active duty as a supervisor for only seven days. She testified that she was given counseling for only five minutes during that period. A fourth and final evaluation of Mills was signed by Renfro and Pickles on June 1, 1979. Mills was again given an overall performance rating of unsatisfactory. The report indicated that Mills had received "continuous counseling and assistance for prolonged periods of time" and although she showed slight improvement, her performance remained far less than satisfactory. The report again criticized Mills' performance in the areas of cost, quality, housekeeping and safety. It also recommended that Mills be terminated. That recommendation was reviewed by Ford's Industrial Manager, Thomas Ryan, and by other Ford personnel in Dearborn, Michigan, and Mills was terminated sometime thereafter.

Ford had a policy where all supervisors who received two less than satisfactory performance ratings were terminated. In addition to Mills, five male production supervisors who received less than satisfactory performance ratings were also terminated.

Mills argued before the district court that the performance evaluations were completely fabricated and that she was terminated solely on the basis of her sex. The district court tried the case without a jury and agreed with Mills. Ford moved to reconsider the judgment on the ground that the district court improperly found sexual discrimination without requiring Mills to prove that there were similarly situated males who were treated differently. The district court vacated the original judgment and granted further discovery on the issue of comparable treatment. Following discovery, the district court again found that Mills suffered sexual discrimination and entered a judgment in her favor. She was awarded back pay in the amount of $100,715.38, attorney's fees, and reinstatement to her former position. Ford appeals from that judgment.

I.

A Title VII case of sexual discrimination must be analyzed under the three prong test articulated by the Supreme Court in Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981) and McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). A plaintiff carries the burden of establishing a prima facie case. 450 U.S. at 252-53, 101 S.Ct. at 1093-94. If she establishes a prima facie case, the defendant must then articulate a nondiscriminatory reason for its actions. Id. If the employer does this, the burden is again on the plaintiff to prove that the articulated reason was pretextual and not the true reason, either by showing that a discriminatory reason was the more likely motivation, or by showing that the articulated reason is unworthy of belief. United States Postal Service Board of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 716, 103 S.Ct. 1478, 1482, 75 L.Ed.2d 403 (1983); Grubb v. W.A. Foote Memorial Hospital, Inc., 741 F.2d 1486, 1493 (6th Cir.1984), vacated on other grounds 759 F.2d 546, cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 342, 88 L.Ed.2d 289 (1985); Grano v. Department of Development, 637 F.2d 1073, 1079 (6th Cir.1980). The plaintiff must ultimately prove that the defendant intentionally discriminated against her. 450 U.S. at 253, 101 S.Ct. at 1093.

Ford first challenges the district court's finding that Mills established a prima facie case of discrimination. Specifically, it argues that Mills never produced evidence of similarly situated males who were retained. The district court, in its opinion, considered and compared the performance records of five male supervisors who were fired because of unsatisfactory evaluations. It found that the performance records of all five supervisors were objectively worse than Mill's performance records. It also found that these supervisors received counseling before and after unsatisfactory reviews whereas Mills received, contrary to the information in the final performance evaluation, only five minutes of counseling. Ford does not vigorously dispute this finding but argues that records of these supervisors were not germane to the prima facie analysis--only records of male supervisors with comparable work records who were not discharged, it argues, should be considered.

Ford submits that Mill's prima facie case should be analyzed under the four step paradigm set forth in McDonnell Douglas. As that case dealt with a failure to hire claim rather than a discriminatory discharge claim, Ford admits that the only differing element in the paradigm is the fourth step. Ford suggests that the fourth element be adopted from other discriminatory discharge cases. Together, those four elements are:

1) that she belongs to a protected class,

2) that she was satisfactorily performing her job,

3) that despite this performance she was terminated, and

4) that she was replaced by a nonminority or workers with comparable work records were retained while she was terminated.

(Emphasis added). See Grubb v. W.A. Foote, 741 F.2d at 1493; Wade v. New York Telephone Co., 500 F.Supp. 1170, 1174 (S.D.N.Y. 1980). See also Becton v. Detroit Terminal of Consolidated Freightways, 687 F.2d 140, 141 (6th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1040, 103 S.Ct. 1432, 75 L.Ed.2d 791 (1983); Flowers v. Crouch Walker Corp., 552 F.2d 1277, 1281-82 (7th Cir.1977).

If the district court applied this prima facie test to this case in the manner suggested by Ford, Mills would be faced with an insurmountable burden. The bases for Mills' complaint of discrimination were the evaluations signed by Renfro and Pickles. She claims her unsatisfactory performance ratings were not correct and were only given because she was a woman. If she must prove that other similarly situated supervisors who also received unsatisfactory ratings were retained, she is faced with the task of proving that Ford did not uniformly adhere to its policy of dismissing unsatisfactory performers. That is not the appropriate inquiry here. She is not arguing that Ford did not dismiss other line supervisors who received unsatisfactory performance evaluations; she is arguing that she never should have received unsatisfactory ratings in the first place and that Renfroe and Pickles possessed a discriminatory motive when giving Mills her evaluations.

We believe that the district court analyzed the prima facie case properly in this case. The district court did not...