Proud v. Stone
| Decision Date | 23 September 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-2443,90-2443 |
| Citation | 945 F.2d 796 |
| Parties | 59 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 301, 57 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 40,979 Warren A. PROUD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Michael P.W. STONE, Secretary of the Army, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Michael Jeffrey Kator, Kator, Scott & Heller, Washington, D.C., argued (Irving Kator, Jennifer R. Levin, on brief), for plaintiff-appellant.
Coleman Ray Sachs, Sp. Asst., U.S. Atty., Alexandria, Va., argued (Henry E. Hudson, U.S. Atty., Dennis Szybala, Asst. U.S. Atty., on brief), for defendant-appellee.
Before WILKINSON, WILKINS and NIEMEYER, Circuit Judges.
This case presents the recurrent situation in which a former employee alleges that the same individual who hired him discharged him only several months later for discriminatory reasons. Because the plaintiff has failed to overcome the significant burden that such a plaintiff faces in making out a claim of discriminatory discharge, we affirm the judgment of the district court dismissing the action.
Plaintiff Warren A. Proud submitted to the Department of the Army in 1984 an application for employment that included his date of birth. This application was forwarded to Robert W. Klauss, the Central Accounting Officer in charge of the Army's Central Accounting Division (CAD) in Ludwigsburg, Germany. Klauss considered seven applicants, including petitioner, for the position of Chief Accountant of the CAD, a grade UA-9 position. In making his selection, Klauss prepared a chart comparing the applicants which included a column noting the age of each. At that time, Proud was 68 years old, and the other six applicants were 63, 62, 56, 37, and 28 years of age, respectively. Judging Proud to be the most qualified for the position in terms of background, education, and experience, Klauss hired him as Chief Accountant.
Proud began his job on June 14, 1985. In late June of 1985, Jan Coriarty, an Accounting Technician in the CAD, resigned her position, and Proud agreed to temporarily assume her responsibilities for handling five funds for which CAD provided accounting services. Because Klauss became dissatisfied with Proud's handling of these funds, Klauss conducted counselling sessions with Proud on August 28, 1985 and September 11, 1985, to apprise Proud of the problems with his performance. At the second session, Klauss warned Proud that adverse action would be taken if there was not improvement within thirty days.
Detecting no improvement in Proud's performance, Klauss requested on October 16, 1985, that Proud be discharged. In his request, Klauss noted that Proud "failed to meet suspense dates"; "failed to follow directions"; "prepared documents that are shoddy, inaccurate and incomplete"; and "performed at a level below what is considered professional." The discharge became effective on October 28, 1985. Proud's position as Chief Accountant was not filled until April 23, 1987, when 32-year-old Kelly Marsden was promoted.
Proud filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in July 1987, alleging that his dismissal violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. § 633a. Upon the Army's motion, the case was transferred to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. At the close of plaintiff's evidence at trial, the district court granted the Army's motion for dismissal pursuant to Rule 41(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Proud now urges this court to reverse that ruling.
Proud offers an extended litany of contentions as to why his dismissal resulted from age discrimination. This lengthy list includes, inter alia, the following: he was never assigned the duties for which he was hired, so he could not have failed to meet his employer's legitimate expectations; he was replaced by an Accounting Technician and a Chief Accountant younger than he; due to inadequate training, he required a minimum of four months to reach a level of proficiency in performance of his assigned duties; he had difficulty in acquiring necessary data, thereby justifiably delaying his submission of reports past stated deadlines; some of the information submitted to him for inclusion in his reports was erroneous; the use of white-out and pencil in the preparation of his work, for which he was criticized, is considered standard accounting practice; there were no written procedures for him to follow; even though "lining out" of numbers in documents is a practice in conformity with applicable Army regulations, he was criticized for doing it; and similarly situated, younger employees who committed the same infractions had not been terminated.
In order to decide this case, we need not engage in a point-by-point rebuttal of each of plaintiff's manifold contentions. Instead, we examine the district court's ruling in light of the essential prerequisites for any plaintiff's recovery in an ADEA action. Any ADEA plaintiff must make the elementary showings that he is a member of the protected group and that he has suffered unfavorable employment action taken by an employer covered by the Act. Fink v. Western Elec. Co., 708 F.2d 909, 914 (4th Cir.1983). As the additional key requirement, a plaintiff must prove that age was "a determining factor" in the employer's decision to take the adverse action. Duke v. Uniroyal, Inc., 928 F.2d 1413, 1417 (4th Cir.1991).
In assessing whether Proud established that age was a motivating factor for his discharge, we focus on the undisputed fact that the individual who fired Proud is the same individual who hired him less than six months earlier with full knowledge of his age. One is quickly drawn to the realization that "[c]laims that employer animus exists in termination but not in hiring seem irrational." From the standpoint of the putative discriminator, "[i]t hardly makes sense to hire workers from a group one dislikes (thereby incurring the psychological costs of associating with them), only to fire them once they are on the job." Donohue & Siegelman, The Changing Nature of Employment Discrimination Litigation, 43 Stan.L.Rev. 983, 1017 (1991...
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