Roberts v. Swift and Co.
| Decision Date | 25 April 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 4-00-CV-90366.,4-00-CV-90366. |
| Citation | 198 F.Supp.2d 1049 |
| Parties | Reed E. ROBERTS and Miguel Chavarria, Plaintiffs, v. SWIFT AND COMPANY, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Iowa |
Jeffrey C. Peterzalek, Waterloo, IA, for plaintiffs.
Russell L. Samson, Rebecca B. Parrott, Des Moines, IA, for defendant.
The Plaintiffs, Reed Roberts and Miguel Chavarria, filed this lawsuit for employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Iowa Civil Rights Act ("ICRA") on July 17, 2000. The allegations arise out of Plaintiffs' discharge from employment at the Marshalltown facility of Defendant, Swift & Company ("Swift"). Now before the Court is Defendant's motion for summary judgment, which is resisted by Plaintiffs. For the foregoing reasons, the motion is granted in part and denied in part.
The defendant, Swift, operates a pork processing plant in Marshalltown, Iowa. Plaintiffs Reed Roberts, an African American male, and Miguel Chavarria, a Mexican male, were two of nine individuals discharged from employment at Swift on July 17, 1998. In addition to Mr. Roberts and Mr. Chavarria, Swift terminated four white males and three white females. Five of the nine terminated employees were production supervisors; Mr. Roberts and Mr. Chavarria were the only minority supervisors terminated.
Swift's decision to terminate nine employees in July 1998 arose out of a collaborative analysis by Swift's corporate office and management personnel at the Marshalltown plant. Fifteen to thirty days prior to the plaintiffs' discharge, Mike Weber, Vice President and General Manager of the Marshalltown plant, had a conversation with Bernie Prozcek, Vice President of Operations at Swift's corporate office in Greeley, Colorado, regarding the need to reduce expenses at the Marshalltown plant. The need was identified through a joint analysis by members of management at the Marshalltown plant and the corporate office in which the overall expenses and the number of employees in management positions at the Marshalltown plant were compared with other Swift plants. The corporate office provided no specified criteria to reduce expenses, so as one part of the overall cost reduction effort, Mr. Weber personally decided to cut non-bargaining unit personnel, which included the plaintiffs' positions.
Mr. Weber stated that his decision regarding which employees would be terminated in the cost reduction effort was guided by "no given, specific criteria" other than the number of management personnel on each production line and "how well . . . the line was doing." To determine "how well the line was doing," Mr. Weber looked at yields, profitability of the line, efficiency of the line, the management person's teamwork and ability to get along with others. Mr. Weber's stated reason for terminating Mr. Roberts was that Mr. Roberts was one of two supervisors on the ham production line. Jenny Mora, a white female, was retained to supervise the ham line. Based on the above criteria, Mr. Weber believed that Ms. Mora was the more "qualified" supervisor.
Mr. Weber decided that Mr. Chavarria would be terminated because he, like Mr. Roberts, was one of two supervisors on his production line. Mr. Weber also considered that Mr. Chavarria had production problems arising out of Mr. Chavarria's dissatisfaction with his assignment to a particular area of the production line. The supervisor retained on the loin line, Don Box, was white.
When making the decision to terminate Mr. Roberts, Mr. Weber "was informed of ... how well [Roberts] worked with other supervisors and how well he was a team player." Specifically, Mr. Weber stated that he was informed that Mr. Roberts "didn't always get along with his superior." It is unclear who informed Mr. Weber of Mr. Roberts' inability to "get along." Performance evaluations for each of the plaintiffs were done by their immediate supervisor, Mitch Fricke. Nonetheless, Mr. Weber testified that he did not receive assistance or input from Ms. Mora or Mr. Fricke when deciding which employees would be terminated.
The Personnel Change Notice issued to the plaintiffs by Swift cited a Reduction in Force ("RIF") as the reason for termination. Mr. Roberts was told that his termination "had nothing to do with [his] job performance ... [or] seniority. . . ."
Within five months of the plaintiffs' termination, Swift had restored the number of supervisory positions on the ham and loin lines to two. In December 1998, Jim Balm, a white male, was hired from outside Swift to act as production supervisor on the loin line, the position formerly held by Mr. Chavarria. About this same time, Mitch Fricke, a white male, was given the position of production supervisor on the ham line, the position formerly held by Mr. Roberts. Prior to this change, Mr. Fricke served as Mr. Roberts' General Foreman and immediate supervisor. Within a month of their termination, Swift offered the plaintiffs new supervisory positions. These offers were made after the plaintiffs filed complaints with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.
Mr. Roberts was first employed by Swift from 1989 until February 1994. Mr. Roberts was promoted from production employee to production supervisor in January 1990 and continued in that capacity until he left Swift in February 1994 to pursue employment at another business establishment. In 1995, Mr. Roberts returned to Swift when he was offered a position as production supervisor and his income requirements were accommodated. In 1996, Mr. Roberts received a "superstar bonus" in the form of a $1,500 salary increase reserved for the top supervisors in the plant. At the time of his termination in 1998, he was a production supervisor in the ham boning department.
On or about May 1997, Mr. Roberts requested that Swift move him from second shift to first shift so he could spend more time with his child. The move was allowed. Subsequently, Mr. Roberts asked that Swift place him on the cut floor instead of the boning floor so he would not have to work on Saturdays. This request was denied. Mr. Roberts testified that he was assigned to the boning floor, while two less qualified white male supervisors were given first-shift cut floor positions.
Mr. Roberts was involved on a number of occasions in confrontations with his superiors and other employees. On one occasion, Mr. Roberts arrived at work for the second shift and approached Dave Feeback, a first-shift General Foreman, and asked, "How many hogs did you guys cut?" Mr. Feeback responded, Mr. Roberts then said, In February 1998, Mr. Roberts refused to work with Nora Earney and requested that he be allowed to work with a male employee. Mr. Roberts claims that Ms. Earney had admitted to him that she had hidden weight tickets in order to sabotage the yield analysis of another employee and that he did not trust her to work on his line. On April 6, 1998, during a verbal confrontation arising out of tense working conditions, Mr. Roberts called Monica Halverson, an hourly employee, a "fat fuck" when she asked him to move out of her way.
Mr. Roberts was also documented several times for poor work quality. On May 8, 1998, Mr. Roberts had production problems on the butt line. On May 13, 1998, while Mr. Roberts was running the butt line, the line suffered a loss of $10,000. On May 20, 1998, while running the butt line, Mr. Roberts failed to weigh the product as required.
Mr. Chavarria, a non-resident alien authorized to work in the United States, was employed by Swift from August 1993 to July 1998. He was terminated for fighting on June 5, 1997 and was reinstated on June 13, 1997. On September 11, 1997, Mr. Chavarria was promoted to production supervisor in the loin boning department and continued working in that capacity until his termination in July 1998.
At some time after he became a loin line supervisor, the lion line was split between two supervisors. Mr. Chavarria was assigned to the packaging end of the loin line and another supervisor was assigned to the production end. Mr. Chavarria did not adjust well to working on the packaging end of the loin line. He requested that he be assigned to the production end. His request was granted, but his work did not improve and he was transferred back to the packaging end of the loin line. On May 26, 1998, Mr. Chavarria was called to a meeting to discuss this poor performance and was advised by Tony Harris, Swift's Human Resource Director, and Mr. Weber, that "if his personal job performance did not improve he would be released from his job." On that same date Mr. Weber instructed Mr. Chavarria that he "should not give up simply because he did not like the idea of primarily supervising the packaging end of the loin line."
Mr. Roberts testified that he was treated "differently" by Mr. Weber than similarly situated white supervisors. Mr. Roberts testified that he was required to work more Saturdays than other supervisors, was denied shift changes that other less qualified white supervisors were given, and was threatened more often with the loss of his job than his white counterparts. Mr. Roberts testified that he never personally witnessed Mr. Weber make a derogatory comment regarding African Americans or any other race or national origin. Nevertheless, Mr. Roberts offered testimony regarding incidents that allegedly show Mr. Weber's discriminatory animus against African Americans and his...
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