Moore v. Nutrasweet Co.

• Decision Date: 15 November 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92 C 1046.,92 C 1046.
• Citation: 836 F. Supp. 1387
• Parties: Anna Richo MOORE, Plaintiff, v. NUTRASWEET COMPANY, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

836 F. Supp. 1387

Anna Richo MOORE, Plaintiff, v. NUTRASWEET COMPANY, Defendant.

No. 92 C 1046.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, E.D.

September 23, 1993.

As Corrected November 15, 1993.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Vicki Lafer Abrahamson, Darlene A. Vorachek, Chicago, IL, for plaintiff.

Richard C. Robin, Edward C. Jepson, Jr., C. Elizabeth Belmont, Chicago, IL, for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

SHADUR, Senior District Judge.

Anna Richo Moore ("Richo")¹ has sued The NutraSweet Company ("NutraSweet"), alleging racial discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981 ("Section 1981") and both race-based and sex-based discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e to 2000e-17 ("Title VII"),² as well as asserting a detrimental reliance claim under Illinois law (over which this Court has supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367). NutraSweet now moves for summary judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P. ("Rule") 56. For the reasons stated in this memorandum opinion and order, NutraSweet's motion is granted in its entirety and this action is dismissed with prejudice.

Submissions of the Parties

This District Court's General Rule ("GR") 12(M) requires every Rule 56 movant to submit a statement of assertedly uncontested facts, with citations to the record in support of each fact alleged. GR 12(N) requires the nonmovant to respond point by point, with citations to the record in support of (1) any claimed dispute as to the movant's version of the facts and (2) any additional facts that the nonmovant chooses to assert. Here the parties have tendered those submissions (and more³) and have briefed the issues thoroughly.

Relevant aspects of the parties' submissions will be referred to in this way:

1. NutraSweet's Memorandum in Support of Its Motion for Summary Judgment: "D.Mem. —";

2. Richo's "Answer" to D.Mem.: "P.Mem. —";

3. NutraSweet's Reply: "D.R. Mem. —";

4. GR 12 submissions: "D. 12(m) ¶—," "P. 12(n)(1) ¶—," "P. 12(n)(2) ¶—" and "D. 12(n)(2) ¶—"⁴; and

5. Exhibits accompanying the parties' submissions: "P.Ex. —" and "D.Ex. —."

Though the parties' eagerness to do battle over every sentence has made it extraordinarily difficult for this opinion to set forth the background to this dispute in any straightforward fashion, this Court has gone through their submissions in painstaking detail in an attempt to do so. Except as made clear by the text of the opinion, the use of a GR 12 citation without any other reference to the record indicates that the opposing party has not disputed the assertion (or sometimes that a purported dispute is a nit-pick that reflects a claimed distinction without any real difference — see n. 5).

Summary Judgment Standard

In an effort to demonstrate the existence of material fact issues that would preclude summary judgment, Richo's experienced counsel has waded through and produced volumes of paper (deposition excerpts and documents as well as lengthy memoranda), fighting tooth and nail over every asserted fact.⁵ To be sure, NutraSweet bears the burden of establishing the lack of a genuine issue of material fact (Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2552-53, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986)), but that requirement does not destroy Rule 56's "utility as a vehicle for the final disposition of lawsuits without the need for an evidentiary hearing" (Wilcox v. Niagara of Wisconsin Paper Corp., 965 F.2d 355, 356 (7th Cir. 1992)). Neither sheer bulk (see Matsushita Elec. Indust. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986)) nor the existence of a disputed fact of one kind or another necessarily suffices to defeat a summary judgment motion, for a "genuine" issue does not exist unless record evidence would permit a reasonable factfinder to adopt the nonmovant's view (Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)), and only facts that would prove outcome-determinative under the substantive law are "material" (Pritchard v. Rainfair, Inc., 945 F.2d 185, 191 (7th Cir.1991)).

For those purposes this Court is "not required to draw every conceivable inference from the record — only those inferences that are reasonable" — in the light most favorable to nonmovant Richo (Bank Leumi Le-Israel, B.M. v. Lee, 928 F.2d 232, 236 (7th Cir. 1991)). To be sure, while "this general standard is applied with added rigor in employment discrimination cases, where intent is inevitably the central issue" (McCoy v. WGN Continental Broadcasting Co., 957 F.2d 368, 370-71 (7th Cir.1992)), that does not negate the potential for summary judgment in such cases (Washington v. Lake County, 969 F.2d 250, 254 (7th Cir.1992)). Moreover, "a plaintiff facing the prospect of summary adjudication cannot `sit back and simply poke holes in the moving party's summary judgment motion'" (Young In Hong v. Children's Memorial Hosp., 993 F.2d 1257, 1261 (7th Cir. 1993)).

Facts

This section will provide the background of Richo's conflict with NutraSweet in what should be sufficient detail to illuminate the issues. Some additional particulars are set forth as necessary in the later text of this opinion.

NutraSweet's Legal Department

NutraSweet manufactures, sells and distributes among other items a sweetener ("aspartame") and a fat substitute ("Simplesse") that are used in food and beverages (D. 12(m) ¶ 1). It has its own legal department, which at all times relevant to this litigation was run by Vice President-General Counsel Linda Gohlke ("Gohlke," a white female) and Deputy General Counsel Steven Goldberg ("Goldberg," a white male). Their department included attorneys in three positions: Directors, Senior Attorneys and Attorneys (P. 12(n)(2) ¶ 9).

Richo (a black female) is a May 1986 graduate of DePaul University Law School.⁶ After receiving her diploma she worked at Peterson, Ross, Schloerb & Seidel and was admitted to practice in 1987 (D 12(m) ¶¶ 15-16).⁷

During the summer of 1988 Richo decided to seek work in a corporate in-house legal department and utilized a search firm to facilitate her career move (id. ¶ 17). Toward the end of 1988 a member of that search firm told Richo of an opening in NutraSweet's legal department (id. ¶ 18). Richo, who was interested in the position, then met with Goldberg and another attorney for an initial interview (id. ¶ 19). Having passed that hurdle, Richo was called back for a second round of interviews in early 1989. Before that second session Richo notified NutraSweet that she was pregnant, and in the course of the interviews she said she was expecting the baby during August 1989 (id. ¶ 20).

During that second set of interviews Richo met with Gohlke (id. ¶ 22), who said that she was looking to hire a black person into the legal department (id.; D. Ex. 1: Richo Dep. 151-52).⁸ Ultimately Richo received an offer to start at $70,000, an increase over what she was then making. At no point during the interview process did bonus eligibility arise, nor did any recruiter or anyone from NutraSweet mention that Richo was eligible for or would receive a bonus (id. 168, 309). Richo accepted NutraSweet's offer and joined NutraSweet's legal department on April 24, 1989 (D. 12(m) ¶ 2).

At that time NutraSweet's legal department was divided into three groups: Litigation and Regulatory Law ("Litigation"), Commercial Law ("Commercial") and Patent and Intellectual Property ("Patent") (id. ¶ 3). Because each party focuses on the structure and personnel of those departments, this opinion turns to each department briefly.

Before Richo joined Litigation, it comprised just two lawyers, Senior Attorney Jack Silhavy ("Silhavy") and Attorney Gwenda Burkhardt ("Burkhardt") (id. ¶ 4). Silhavy (a white male) graduated from Loyola University School of Law in 1981 and joined NutraSweet on October 20, 1986 after having worked for three firms, most recently spending a three-year stint at Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon (id. ¶ 5). Burkhardt (a white female) graduated from John Marshall School of Law in January 1982. Before coming to NutraSweet on November 12, 1986, she had been employed for 4½ years as an attorney at Vedder, Price, Kaufman & Kammholz (id. ¶ 6). On April 1, 1990 Silhavy received a promotion and became Director of the Litigation department (id. ¶ 7).⁹ Richo and Burkhardt became responsible to him, and he reported to Goldberg (id.).

At the time of Richo's hire, Patent comprised three white male attorneys (id. ¶ 9). Its Director was John Sanders ("Sanders"), a 1980 graduate of John Marshall with prior experience in three major companies' patent departments (id.; D.Ex. O).¹⁰ Sanders supervised Jeff Hoster ("Hoster"), who graduated from University of Illinois College of Law in 1983 and had spent four years at Exxon (D.Ex. 26), and Craig Bell ("Bell"), a 1980 University of Pennsylvania School of Law graduate who had previously worked as an associate in a law firm and as an assistant district attorney (D.Ex. 18). Bell left NutraSweet shortly after Richo joined, and Attorney Andrew Solomon ("Solomon," a white male), who had graduated from University of Missouri School of Law in 1985 and had then worked as a law firm associate, joined soon thereafter (D. 12(m) ¶ 10; D.Ex. 30).

Commercial comprised four attorneys when Richo began to work in the legal department. Its Director was Cathy Anderson ("Anderson," a white female), a 1976 graduate of Loyola who had joined NutraSweet in 1986 (D. 12(m) ¶ 11; P.Ex. U; D.Ex. 17). Christine Karbowiak ("Karbowiak," a white female)¹¹ was a Senior Attorney who had joined NutraSweet's legal department in 1986. She had graduated from University of Illinois in 1978 and, before joining NutraSweet, had worked as a law firm associate and at Searle, which until 1986 had been NutraSweet's "sister company" (P. 12(n)(2) ¶¶ 12-13). Also in Commercial were Senior Attorney Carmela Zammuto ("Zammuto," a white female), who had graduated...