Schnabel v. Abramson

• Decision Date: 01 August 1999
• Docket Number: Docket No. 99-9385
• Citation: 2000 WL 1676601,232 F.3d 83
• Parties: (2nd Cir. 2000) PHILIP H. SCHNABEL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. GARY ABRAMSON and LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF ORANGE COUNTY, INC., Defendants-Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 83

232 F.3d 83 (2nd Cir. 2000)

PHILIP H. SCHNABEL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. GARY ABRAMSON and LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF ORANGE COUNTY, INC., Defendants-Appellees.

Docket No. 99-9385

August Term, 1999

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

Argued: June 19, 2000

Decided: November 08, 2000

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Colleen McMahon, Judge) granting defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismissing plaintiff's claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621 et seq. We affirm the judgment, concluding that: (1) defendant Legal Aid Society is not a "state actor" amenable to suit under § 1983; and (2) though plaintiff established a prima facie case of discrimination, and offered evidence that defendants' legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for firing him were pretextual, his ADEA claim properly was dismissed because he did not present sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that these reasons were a pretext for unlawful discrimination.

Affirmed.

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Michael H. Sussman, (Stephen Bergstein, on the brief), Goshen, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Eric C. Stuart, Hedinger & Lawless, L.L.C., New York, NY, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before: MINER, MCLAUGHLIN, and CABRANES, Circuit Judges.

Jose A. Cabranes, Circuit Judge:

This case presents two questions: (1) whether the Legal Aid Society of Orange County ("Legal Aid") is a state actor amenable to suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ("§ 1983"); and (2) whether, in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 120 S. Ct. 2097 (2000), a district court still may grant a defendant's motion for summary judgment on a claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621 et seq., when a plaintiff has established a prima facie case of discrimination and offered evidence that defendants' legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for firing him were pretextual. We answer "No" to the first question and "Yes" to the second, and thus affirm the decision of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Colleen McMahon, Judge) to grant defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismiss plaintiff's claims.

BACKGROUND

The following facts are not disputed unless otherwise indicated. Plaintiff-appellant Philip Schnabel was hired in November 1994 as an investigator by defendant Legal Aid and, in particular, by defendant Gary Abramson, Legal Aid's Chief Attorney. Schnabel replaced Steven Sherlock, a 28-year-old who had resigned in August 1994-after five years in the position-in order to attend law school.¹ At the time Schnabel, a lawyer and retired police officer, was hired, he was 60 years old, while Abramson was 51.

Over three years later, at a meeting of the Legal Aid Board of Directors on December 3, 1997, Abramson recommended that Schnabel be discharged and replaced by Sherlock, who had completed law school (but failed the July 1997 bar examination), in light of Sherlock's "superior ability in dealing with clients and eliciting information from witnesses." No one on the Board objected to the recommendation; Schnabel's age was not discussed at the meeting.

On December 4, 1997, Abramson met with Schnabel and asked him to resign; Schnabel refused. The two men offer differing accounts of the meeting, with Schnabel claiming in a letter written the next day that Abramson

without notice or warning, attempted to coerce me by demanding that I resign my position as investigator so that he could hire a young man who had resigned over three years ago, prior to my hiring, and who wished to be re-hired. I refused and informed Mr. Abramson that his act was illegal and could subject both him and [Legal Aid] to liability. Mr. Abramson candidly acknowledged that his act constituted a primae [sic] facie age discrimination case, that he had no complaints about my work, but wanted to re-hire the young man and would compose a letter claiming that I was fired for cause and place it in my file, if I refused to resign.

Abramson sent a letter to Schnabel the next day in which Abramson noted that he was "rehiring [Schnabel's] predecessor whose work was far superior." Abramson explained that he had written an accompanying memorandum setting forth the reasons for the decision only because Schnabel "want[ed] an explanation," and added that he "would have preferred for you to have resigned, as I asked. I would not have chosen writing derisively to or about you. . . . Instead, your reaction to my request was to consider immediately how you might profit from suing."

In the accompanying memorandum sent to Schnabel, Abramson offered the purported reasons why he decided to fire Schnabel. Specifically, Abramson cited: (1) Schnabel's "fundamental disdain" for Legal Aid clients, due to his "lengthy experience as a police chief" in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, which manifested itself in Schnabel's "preference, despite our insisting otherwise, that you deal with [clients] and witnesses by phone rather than face to face"; (2) Schnabel's "difficulty following instruction," notably his taking leave without approval and his failure to search in person for a requested business registration document, after which an attorney had to conduct the search himself; (3) Schnabel's exercise of "horrendous" judgment in "turn[ing] over a tape and a statement obtained from a client to an assistant District Attorney who asked you for them. That material and your grand jury testimony about obtaining it were used to indict the woman we represent for perjury"; and (4) Schnabel's "inept[ ]" performance, including his service of court papers by fax despite an instruction to serve personally, a misstep that led to an (ultimately unsuccessful) motion to dismiss the relevant action for improper service.

Schnabel filed a complaint initiating this action on February 26, 1998, asserting a claim against Legal Aid under § 1983 and a claim against both Legal Aid and Abramson under the ADEA. Following discovery, defendants moved for summary judgment pursuant to FED. R. CIV. P. 56. After the parties had briefed and argued the motion, the District Court granted it orally immediately after argument. The judgment dismissing the action was entered on November 8, 1999, and this appeal followed. We review de novo the District Court's decision, applying the same standards as did the District Court. See, e.g., Carlton v. Mystic Transp., Inc., 202 F.3d 129, 133 (2d Cir. 2000). For the reasons stated below, we affirm.

DISCUSSION

I. The § 1983 Claim

The District Court's decision was based on Lefcourt v. Legal Aid Society, 445 F.2d 1150 (2d Cir. 1971), and Graseck v. Mauceri, 582 F.2d 203 (2d Cir. 1978), in which we held that the dismissal of a staff attorney by the Legal Aid Society of New York did not constitute state action. Plaintiff cannot and does not attempt to distinguish Lefcourt and Graseck; instead, plaintiff argues that the Supreme Court's subsequent decisions in Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 513 U.S. 374 (1995) (concluding that Amtrak is a state actor), and Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507 (1980) (implicitly finding that a public defender is a state actor when making hiring and firing decisions on behalf of the state), place the continued vitality of Lefcourt and Graseck in substantial doubt. Our decisions in Lefcourt and Graseck relied in significant part on the "lack of governmental control over or interference with" legal aid societies' affairs "notwithstanding the receipt of substantial government funds" by the societies, Graseck, 582 F.2d at 208; neither of the intervening Supreme Court decisions cited by plaintiff even implies that this is no longer a legitimate factor to consider. We therefore reaffirm the validity of our conclusion in Lefcourt and Graseck that a legal aid society ordinarily is not a state actor amenable to suit under § 1983. Accordingly, we affirm the District Court's dismissal of the § 1983 claim in this matter.

II. The ADEA Claim

We have explained that we analyze ADEA claims "under the same framework as claims brought pursuant to Title VII." Woroski v. Nashua Corp., 31 F.3d 105, 108 (2d Cir. 1994). First, a plaintiff must establish a prima facie case of age discrimination. See id. Once the plaintiff has made out a prima facie case, the employer is required to offer a legitimate, nondiscriminatory business rationale for its actions. See id. If the employer articulates such a reason, the plaintiff has the burden of proving that his age was the real reason for his discharge. See id.

A. A Prima Facie Case?

Despite defendants' protests to the contrary, we conclude that plaintiff has established a prima facie case of age discrimination. We have stated that "[i]n order to establish a prima facie case of age discrimination under the standard enunciated in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), a plaintiff must show (1) that he was within the protected age group, (2) that he was qualified for the position, (3) that he was discharged, and (4) that the discharge occurred under circumstances giving rise to an inference of age discrimination." Id. (internal quotation marks and parallel citations omitted). Furthermore, "[t]he burden of proof that must be met to establish a prima facie case is minimal." Hollander v. American Cyanamid Co., 172 F.3d 192, 199 (2d Cir. 1999).

Plaintiff has met this minimal burden. First, plaintiff was over sixty years old when he was fired, and thus fell within the protected age group. See 29 U.S.C. § 631(a). Second, plaintiff had extensive law enforcement experience. He was a police officer for the State and then City of New York for a total of nineteen years, then served as a police chief in four different locales between 1978 and 1993, before being admitted to the New York Bar. A jury easily could...