Quinones v. Buick

• Decision Date: 02 February 2006
• Docket Number: No. 05-2246.,05-2246.
• Citation: 436 F.3d 284
• Parties: Jose QUINONES, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. Houser BUICK, Defendant, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

436 F.3d 284

Jose QUINONES, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. Houser BUICK, Defendant, Appellee.

No. 05-2246.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Submitted January 11, 2006.

Decided February 2, 2006.

Steven R. Weiner on brief for appellant.

John C. Sikorski and Robinson Donovan, P.C. on brief for appellee.

Before LYNCH, Circuit Judge, CAMPBELL, Senior Circuit Judge, and HOWARD, Circuit Judge.

CAMPBELL, Senior Circuit Judge.

Appellant plaintiff Jose Quinones appeals from the granting of summary judgment for appellee defendant Houser Buick ("Houser") in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. We affirm.

I. Background and Facts

Quinones, a former automotive technician at Houser, sued Houser for national origin-based employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. ("Title VII"), and its state counterpart, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B, §§ 1-10 ("Chapter 151B"). Quinones voluntarily left his job in March 2003, but he alleges that the defendant's illegal discrimination against him as a person of Hispanic origin resulted in the "wrongful payment of wages."

Quinones filed his complaint in state court on May 17, 2004 and listed two causes of action: the Title VII claim and the Chapter 151B claim. On June 10, 2004, Houser removed the action to federal court. With the parties' consent, the case was assigned to a magistrate judge for all purposes, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c). The defendant moved for summary judgment, and the magistrate judge entered summary judgment in favor of the defendant on July 14, 2005 on the grounds that Quinones had not introduced evidence demonstrating pretext on the part of Houser. This appeal followed.

Contrary to the district court's local rule, Quinones failed to submit a concise statement of the material facts of record as to which he contended that there existed a genuine issue to be tried. U.S. Dist. Ct. Rules D. Mass., LR 56.1. Given his omission, the court deemed admitted a number of the facts set forth in the defendant's statement of facts. In its motion and accompanying statement of facts, Houser relied upon excerpts of Quinones' deposition; his answers to interrogatories; an affidavit from Quinones' supervisor, Kevin O'Connor; the deposition of another Houser employee, Jeremy Laduke; and the deposition of Angel Delrio, the owner of Quinones' current place of employment, St. James Custom Auto Body. Quinones filed an opposition to the defendant's motion for summary judgment that was one page in length and that cited no case law. Together with the opposition, Quinones also submitted a number of deposition pages and a personal affidavit. Compiled as described, the record reflects the following facts, which we view in the light most favorable to Quinones, the non-moving party. Roldan-Plumey v. Cerezo-Suarez, 115 F.3d 58, 61 (1st Cir.1997).

Quinones worked for Houser as an automotive technician on three separate occasions between February 27, 1990 and the day he quit, March 28, 2003. At all relevant times, he worked under O'Connor, Houser's collision repair manager, who is the only person Quinones contends to have discriminated against him on the basis of his Puerto Rican origin.

When, on March 25, 1999, Quinones began his third tenure at Houser, he asked to be placed on a flat rate pay scale. Thereafter he was not paid on an hourly basis as before but rather at the specific rate computed for each particular repair job. The precise details of how Houser computed the flat rate are not entirely clear from the record. Defendant's employees asserted, however, without contradiction, that Houser's computation of the flat rate involved examining both the estimate and the work order, and that a fast-working and knowledgeable employee could maximize his earnings by completing a job in fewer than the total number of hours Houser assigned to it and by then proceeding on to the next job. In his affidavit, Quinones asserted that under the flat rate system he earned approximately $28,000 per year in 2000 and 2001 and approximately $30,000 in 2002. Quinones went on to allege that Wayne Barnes, a white co-worker, received pay of $1,000 per week under the flat rate system, or about $52,000 a year. Because of this disparity, because he feels he was continuously underpaid, and because he says O'Connor made many slurs regarding his Puerto Rican background, Quinones contends that Houser discriminated against him on the basis of his Hispanic origin.

Houser denied that Quinones had produced any evidence that he was not correctly paid under the flat rate system. Houser relied on its employees' depositions and affidavits to the effect that flat rate compensation is a challenging system that places a burden on the employee to understand and utilize it adroitly if he wishes to maximize his compensation. Properly utilized, the flat rate system was said to have the potential to reward employees in excess of an hourly rate system. To maximize earnings on a flat rate scale, however, an employee must complete jobs rapidly, be well-organized, and have a good understanding of how the different repair jobs are estimated and billed. Laduke testified that Barnes was known as an especially capable and productive flat rate employee, while Quinones "had a really hard time gripping" the system. Although he did quality work, Quinones worked more slowly and, from defendant's perspective, did not understand the way the jobs were billed. In his own affidavit, Quinones denied that he did not understand the flat rate system.

O'Connor sat down weekly with the body shop employees, including Quinones, to go over the work diaries he required them to keep. The diaries included their time cards and pay. Quinones did not produce in the instant case any kind of itemization of work in support of his claim that he was incorrectly paid under the flat rate system, nor does the record contain evidence, as distinct from Quinones' general charges, that Barnes was ever unfairly or excessively paid. Houser asserts that the absence of itemization by Quinones reflected his general inability to grasp Houser's system.

The record does contain statements by Quinones that O'Connor often made comments in his presence demeaning his Puerto Rican heritage. O'Connor denies this but concedes that he may have once told Quinones, "you are a white man in a Puerto Rican body." He says he made the comment "in jest." O'Connor also stated in his affidavit that Quinones told him, "all you Irish are alcoholics." In his brief on appeal, Quinones characterizes his relationship with O'Connor as including "either good natured joking or discriminatory comments."

In his answers to interrogatories, Quinones alleged that his Puerto Rican guests were treated differently from the guests of white employees but at his deposition was unable to state specific dates when such incidents occurred and did not name any of the visitors of white employees who were treated differently. Quinones also alleged, in answers to interrogatories, that he was paid improperly based on the hours that he worked, attaching work orders to his answers. It would be impossible, however, for a fact-finder to determine from what Quinones presented whether or not he was underpaid or whether Houser improperly calculated what was due to him. The information on these subjects is simply incoherent and incomplete. Houser says that Quinones confuses estimates with work orders and points out that he never complained formally of underpayment during the almost four years that he worked under the flat rate system.

Quinones alleges, but without documentation or necessary specifics, that he and other Hispanic employees were forced to work from estimates that cheated them out of time actually spent repairing a vehicle. But Quinones could remember only one other employee, George, who was allegedly underpaid, and was unable to recall George's last name. According to Quinones at his deposition, George was an hourly employee, not a flat rate employee. Quinones further claimed that he heard O'Connor make racist comments to "several other Hispanic employees" but could not recall the names of those employees. Quinones did not file a claim for unpaid wages with the Wage and Hour Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, §§ 148, 150.

Quinones now works at St. James Custom Auto Body, where Delrio, his boss, pays him an hourly rate because, Delrio testified in his deposition, he believes that flat rate compensation causes misunderstandings between employees and employers.

In his one-page opposition to the motion for summary judgment, Quinones cited excerpts of three depositions: his own, that of Laduke, and that of Terry Mille, another Houser employee. The excerpts from Quinones' deposition reflect his testimony that at management request, he had assisted another employee with his work and that he was the only Hispanic employee in a high-paying job at the company. The Laduke deposition excerpt reflected Laduke's testimony that he was able to negotiate with Houser to keep his seniority when Houser purchased his former employer. The Mille deposition excerpt reflected Mille's testimony providing the names of the employees working in the office and on the floor. Quinones characterizes the testimony as Mille's stating that Quinones was the only Hispanic employee. Mille did not articulate that point but rather testified when asked about three specific employees that they are white. Mille did not testify that any other employee besides Quinones was Hispanic.

Quinones' personal affidavit acknowledges that Wayne Barnes was a fast auto body man but states that Quinones was a better body man because his work was not returned for corrections as frequently and because Quinones frequently repaired imperfect work done by Barnes. Quinones testified that he is able to "produce work in a competent...