Reyher v. Champion Intern. Corp.

• Decision Date: 14 September 1992
• Docket Number: Nos. 91-2393,91-2430,s. 91-2393
• Citation: Reyher v. Champion Intern. Corp., 975 F.2d 483 (8th Cir. 1992)
• Parties: 61 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1675, 59 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 41,756, 23 Fed.R.Serv.3d 826 Robert F. REYHER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHAMPION INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant. Robert F. REYHER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHAMPION INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 483

975 F.2d 483

61 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1675,

59 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 41,756, 23 Fed.R.Serv.3d 826

Robert F. REYHER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.CHAMPION INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant.

Robert F. REYHER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.CHAMPION INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.

Nos. 91-2393, 91-2430.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted March 12, 1992.

Decided Sept. 14, 1992.

John Milton Mason, Minneapolis, Minn., argued (David R. Abrams, on the brief), for appellant.

Gary Lawrence Huusko, St. Paul, Minn., argued (Neil Convery, on the brief), for appellee.

Before JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge, FLOYD R. GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge, and LOKEN, Circuit Judge.

LOKEN, Circuit Judge.

After a four-day trial, a jury found that Champion International Corporation had willfully violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA),29 U.S.C. §§ 621-34, in demoting employee Robert Reyher.The jury awarded Reyher $132,679 in compensatory damages, and judgment was entered for that amount.Following various postjudgment motions, the district court awarded Reyher an additional $123,372 in liquidated damages, $54,495 in prejudgment interest, and $85,425 in attorney's fees and costs.Both parties appeal.We conclude that Reyher's motions for liquidated damages and prejudgment interest were untimely and reverse those awards.Otherwise, we affirm.

I.

Champion argues that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support the jury's verdict.Therefore, we will summarize that evidence viewed most favorably to Reyher.

When Champion acquired the Hoerner-Waldorf Company in 1977, Reyher was fifty-four years old and held two high-level positions: "V.P. Eastern Area Manager," with supervisory responsibility for six paper plants in the company's Container Division, and "V.P. General Manager" of one of those six plants, in Birmingham Alabama.In Reyher's six years as Area Manager, four of five money-losing plants became profitable.Nonetheless, Reyher felt shortchanged by his 1978 bonus and said as much to a superior, who chuckled and responded, "At your age, you shouldn't be rocking the boat."

In the summer of 1978, Champion demoted Reyher and the five other Container Division Area Managers.Champion consolidated the six areas into three new areas, headed by three new executives who were younger than the Area Managers they replaced.In 1980 and 1981, further reorganization resulted in the reinstatement of Reyher's former area and the promotion of three new people into Area Manager positions.Reyher testified that he was qualified for these positions, but each job went to a younger executive.Reyher remained the plant manager at Birmingham until late 1982, but his compensation decreased during this period.

Despite conditions that Champion described as "the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression," the company pressured its plant managers for increased production.Reyher received personal evaluations critical of the low volume of business in his plant.On October 11, 1982, Reyher was removed as Birmingham plant manager at the age of fifty-nine "because of poor performance."The plant's sales manager, younger and less experienced than Reyher, was promoted to take his place.Reyher was told "to go home and stay close to the phone."Three months later Champion offered, and Reyher accepted, a sales position at the Tupelo, Mississippi corrugated plant, working only on individual accounts assigned by Champion.

Reyher described most of these assigned accounts as nonperforming "dogs" that other salesmen would no longer "waste their time on."At least twice Reyher visited a newly assigned account only to find an abandoned building, and several other companies assigned to him did not exist.When Reyher had some success with accounts in Jackson, Mississippi, Champion took those accounts away from him.From the time he began the Tupelo job, his compensation was systematically decreased.In early 1986, Reyher thought he had reached agreement to transfer to a job at the plant in Memphis, Tennessee, until the Champion Area Manager "called [me] back and said that because of my age and the fact that it would involve a move which would be expensive, that I was not going to be considered."A few days later, Reyher retired.

In March 1983, three days after he accepted the Tupelo job, Reyher filed an age discrimination complaint with the EEOC, charging that his 1978 and 1982 demotions were calculated "to reduce [Champion's] pension liabilities by demoting older employees to lower paying positions as they approach retirement age or provoke them into resigning with the same pension cost reduction their ultimate goal."Reyher commenced this lawsuit in December 1983, and the trial commenced in November 1990.At the close of the evidence, the district court granted a directed verdict dismissing Reyher's 1978 demotion claim as time barred but submitted the 1982 demotion claim to the jury.The jury found that Reyher's age was a determining factor in his 1982 demotion, that Champion willfully demoted him on the basis of age, and that he sustained compensatory damages of $132,679.

On December 6, 1990, after receiving the jury verdict, the district court issued its written "Judgment in a Civil Case" which provided "[t]hat judgment is hereby entered in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant in the amount of $132,679.00."Both parties then filed postjudgment motions within the ten-day period required by Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e).Reyher moved "pursuant to Rule 59" for an order granting him a partial new trial on his dismissed 1978 demotion claim and "amending the judgment" to vacate dismissal of that claim.Champion moved for JNOV or a new trial and also moved to stay execution of the judgment.Reyher opposed the motion to stay; the district court granted the stay but required Champion to post a $125,000 bond.

On February 13, 1991, more than two months after entry of judgment, Reyher filed a "Motion for Liquidated Damages, Attorney Fees, and Prejudgment Interest."On May 23, the district court ruled on all posttrial motions.After denying both parties' Rule 59 motions, the district court granted Reyher's February 13 motions for liquidated damages, prejudgment interest, and attorney's fees.The court rejected Champion's argument that these motions were untimely.Reyher's claim for liquidated damages under ADEA"is clearly a separate claim bringing Rule 54(b) into play,"the court explained, and therefore its December 6 judgment was not final because it did not include a Rule 54(b) certification.

II.

Champion first argues that the district court erred in denying its motion for judgment notwithstanding the jury's verdict.In resolving this issue, we extend the value of Reyher's evidence to its rational limit, and we disregard Champion's affirmative evidence unless it is "completely disinterested, uncontradicted, and unimpeached."Dace v. ACF Indus., Inc., 722 F.2d 374, 376 & n. 6(8th Cir.1983).We then determine whether, "giving [the employee] the benefit of all favorable inferences, there was sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding that age was a determining factor in the [employer's] decision."Morgan v. Arkansas Gazette, 897 F.2d 945, 949(8th Cir.1990).Nothing more than "reasonable inferences sustaining the position of the nonmoving party" need exist to affirm the district court's denial of JNOV.Gilkerson v. Toastmaster, Inc., 770 F.2d 133, 136(8th Cir.1985).

After carefully examining the record, once again "[w]e confess that the case is close," even under our deferential standard of review.Williams v. Valentec Kisco, Inc., 964 F.2d 723, 727(8th Cir.1992).See alsoMorgan, 897 F.2d at 951;Brooks v. Monroe Systems for Business, Inc., 873 F.2d 202, 204(8th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 853, 110 S.Ct. 154, 107 L.Ed.2d 112(1989);Bethea v. Levi Strauss & Co., 827 F.2d 355, 358(8th Cir.1987);Gilkerson, 770 F.2d at 136.Reyher's evidence raises an inference that Champion's 1978 and 1981 restructurings were an intentional, age-based housecleaning of the Area Manager ranks, replacing six older Area Managers with five younger ones.From that premise, the jury could rationally view Reyher's 1982 demotion to the Tupelo sales job as a continuation of Champion's practice of reducing its pension costs by driving older, unfavored executives into lower-paying jobs or out of the company altogether.While we can perceive other, perhaps more reasonable conclusions to draw from the evidence at trial, "our task is not to act as the trier of fact.Accordingly, we are compelled to conclude that there was sufficient evidence to support the jury's conclusion that age was a determining factor" in the 1982 demotion.Morgan, 897 F.2d at 951(citation omitted).

III.

However, Champion's attack on the remaining elements of Reyher's award has greater merit.The district court held that Reyher's February 13 postjudgment motions were timely under Rule 54(b).We disagree.

The district court's decree of December 6, 1990, awarding Reyher judgment in the amount of $132,679 was, on its face, a final judgment.Unlike the clerk's minute entry in Formby v. Farmers & Merchants Bank, 904 F.2d 627, 630(11th Cir.1990), the judgment was signed by the district court, was reflected on a separate document, and was entered on the district court's docket along with the notation, "Terminates Case."This judgment complied with Rule 58.Moreover, it was treated by both parties as a final judgment; each filed a Rule 59 motion to alter or amend within the prescribed ten days, and Reyher opposed Champion's motion to stay Reyher's ability to execute on his judgment.There was no request for a Rule 54(b) determination; Reyher only raised the Rule 54(b) issue when defending the timeliness of his February 13 motions.

"Rule 54(b) does not apply to a single claim action....It is limited expressly to multiple claims actions...