Samaan v. Gen. Dynamics Land Sys., Inc.

• Decision Date: 31 August 2016
• Docket Number: No. 15-2277,15-2277
• Parties: Said B. Samaan, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc., Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

835 F.3d 593

Said B. Samaan, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc., Defendant–Appellee.

No. 15-2277

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: July 26, 2016

Decided and Filed: August 31, 2016

ARGUED: David L. Haron, Haron Law Group, PLC, Farmington Hills, Michigan, for Appellant. Thomas A. Cattel, Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, PLLC, Birmingham, Michigan, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: David L. Haron, Haron Law Group, PLC, Farmington Hills, Michigan, for Appellant. Thomas A. Cattel, Benjamin A. Anchill, Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, PLLC, Birmingham, Michigan, for Appellee.

Before: GILMAN, WHITE, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

RONALD LEE GILMAN, Circuit Judge.

Said B. Samaan is a former employee of General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc. (General Dynamics or the Company), which designs, develops, and manufactures combat systems for various customers, including the U.S. Army. General Dynamics suspended Samaan without pay after he voiced concerns to Army personnel that the Company was submitting fraudulent claims for payment on one of its Army contracts. Although General Dynamics does not dispute the relative timing of these two events, it denies any causal relationship.

Believing otherwise, Samaan filed the instant suit against General Dynamics following his subsequent resignation. Samaan claimed, among other things, that the Company retaliated against him for exposing its allegedly fraudulent conduct. When General Dynamics asserted that Samaan's employment agreement required the arbitration of his claims, the parties agreed to arbitrate. The arbitrator subsequently held a hearing on General Dynamics's motion for summary disposition, after which he issued an award in favor of the Company. Samaan then filed a motion in the district court to vacate the arbitration award. The court denied the motion. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual background

Samaan, who had been employed as an engineer with General Dynamics since 1977, came to believe that the Company was using the wrong shock-and-vibration testing methods on Stryker armored vehicles developed for use by the Army in Afghanistan and Iraq. The use of the allegedly incorrect testing methods led, in turn, to General Dynamics submitting purportedly erroneous reports detailing the shock-and-vibration specifications for the vehicles.

Samaan alleged that, on numerous occasions between 2004 and 2010, he raised his concerns with the shock-and-vibration testing and the corresponding reports to various General Dynamics personnel. According to Samaan, General Dynamics failed to take appropriate action to remedy these deficiencies. He therefore “filed a formal claim of data misrepresentation, fraud, and retaliation” with the Company's Human Resources Department in the fall of 2010.

General Dynamics allegedly gave Samaan his first poor performance evaluation in January 2011. Samaan contends that he was then told that his evaluation “would improve if he would ‘forget’ about the testing misrepresentation and fraud.” He responded by filing a second complaint with the Human Resources Department. In addition, Samaan escalated his concerns about the shock-and-vibration testing—this time to the president, vice president, and general counsel of General Dynamics. But they declined to alter the testing. General Dynamics contends that it responded to Samaan's “concerns by conducting multiple detailed investigations, and determined at the end of each of those investigations that [his] allegations were unfounded and that its shock and vibration testing procedures were appropriate under the Army's testing standard.”

In May and June 2011, dissatisfied with the responses that he had received inside General Dynamics, Samaan voiced his concerns regarding the testing to the Army's liaison to the Company at the Army's Aberdeen Test Center. On June 9, 2011, after Samaan informed personnel at General Dynamics of his discussions with the liaison, he was “suspended without pay pending an investigation into his complaints and objections.” General Dynamics asserts that it launched the investigation after learning that Samaan had violated Company policy by sending sensitive corporate information to two personal email accounts belonging to himself and his son. Samaan subsequently resigned on July 1, 2011, after the Human Resources Department allegedly notified him that it would be recommending his termination.

B. Procedural background

1. Proceedings prior to arbitration

In September 2011, Samaan filed a complaint against General Dynamics in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Samaan alleged, in his capacity as a relator, that General Dynamics had “presented claims for payment to the United States knowing such claims were false,” in violation of the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729 –33, based on the purportedly erroneous shock-and-vibration specifications detailed in its reports to the Army. In his personal capacity, Samaan alleged that General Dynamics had retaliated against him in violation of the FCA, the Michigan Whistleblowers' Protection Act (WPA), Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 15.361 –69, and Michigan public policy. Samaan never submitted the complaint to the U.S. Attorney General for consideration of whether to intervene in Samaan's relator claim. He subsequently filed an amended complaint, adding claims of age discrimination under both federal and Michigan law, but removing his claim as a relator under the FCA.

In March 2012, General Dynamics filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint or, in the alternative, to stay the action and compel arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. §§ 1 –16. General Dynamics supported its motion by arguing that, as a condition of Samaan's employment, he was required to arbitrate his claims against the Company. During a hearing on General Dynamics's motion in May 2012, Samaan agreed to arbitrate the claims set forth in his amended complaint. The district court then entered an order granting General Dynamics's motion, dismissing the amended complaint without prejudice, and retaining jurisdiction in accordance with the FAA for the purpose of “confirming, vacating or correcting any arbitration award and enforcing the parties' arbitration agreement.”

2. Proceedings during arbitration

Samaan and General Dynamics subsequently executed, through counsel, a written arbitration agreement (the Agreement). The Agreement named James J. Rashid, a former state-court judge in Michigan, as the sole arbitrator, and it delineated procedures for discovery, dispositive motions, and an “arbitration hearing.” With respect to dispositive motions, the Agreement contemplated “a hearing ordered by the Arbitrator ... as the Arbitrator deems necessary.” As for the arbitration hearing, the parties could present documentary evidence as well as witnesses who would be subject to both direct and cross-examination. The Agreement further mandated that the “award shall be made no later than 30 days from the date of the closing of the hearing.”

In July 2013, following approximately 12 months of discovery, General Dynamics filed a motion for summary disposition with Judge Rashid. After Samaan filed a response to the motion and a sur-reply to General Dynamics's reply, Judge Rashid held a hearing on the Company's motion on November 18, 2013. The hearing was neither recorded nor transcribed. Despite the absence of any record evidence concerning the content of the hearing, Samaan's appellate brief advances the following narrative of the proceedings:

Samaan estimates [that the hearing] lasted ten minutes total. Oral arguments briefly focused on Samaan's claim of age discrimination. Each party spoke for approximately five minutes. The arbitrator spent the next thirty minutes focused on two subjects. First, he insisted Samaan “must settle” because the arbitrator could not or wished not to conduct a trial. Second, the arbitrator reflected on his own career disappointment when he was circuit judge in Wayne County, Michigan. He recalled that he was transferred unceremoniously from one court to another. Samaan understood that the arbitrator was attempting to use his own personal experience as an example, urging Samaan to follow suit by accepting his constructive discharge and moving on.

Samaan alleges that during the brief oral arguments, the arbitrator declared that he had already reviewed General Dynamics' Briefs and the accompanying documents that were submitted in paper format. However, the arbitrator stated that he had not had a chance to review Samaan's briefs and documents that were submitted because they had been submitted electronically. Shortly thereafter, the arbitrator stated that the case was too legally “complicated” for him....

General Dynamics disputes the accuracy of Samaan's recollection. In particular, the Company does not recall Judge Rashid ever saying that the case was “too complicated” for him or that he had not read Samaan's briefs.

On May 17, 2015, Judge Rashid issued a seven-page award granting General Dynamics's motion for summary disposition. Judge Rashid first evaluated two elements common to each of Samaan's legal theories—namely, whether Samaan had demonstrated “an adverse employment action and that the legitimate non-discriminatory reasons given for his termination are pretext.” With respect to the adverse employment action, Judge Rashid concluded that there was no genuine dispute of material fact that Samaan's poor performance evaluation failed to qualify as an adverse employment action because there was no evidence that the evaluation impacted Samaan's compensation. Judge Rashid further concluded that there was no genuine dispute that Samaan's resignation did not qualify as an adverse employment action because General Dynamics's conduct was not “so severe that a reasonable person in the employee[']s place would feel...