Suarez v. Pueblo Intern., Inc., Civ.97-1467(SEC).
| Decision Date | 01 October 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. Civ.97-1467(SEC).,Civ.97-1467(SEC). |
| Citation | 67 F.Supp.2d 47 |
| Parties | Ramon M. SUAREZ, et al., Plaintiffs, v. PUEBLO INTERNATIONAL, INC., et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico |
Harry Anduze-Montano, San Juan, PR, for plaintiffs.
Lidia Gonzalez-Figueroa, Munoz, Bonetta, Gonzalez, Benitez & Peral, San Juan, PR, Victor P. Miranda-Corrada, San Juan, PR, for defendants.
Pending before the Court is defendants CaribAd, Inc. d/b/a The AdTeam ("CaribAd") and Pueblo International, Inc. ("Pueblo")'s motion for summary judgment (Docket # 107), which was duly opposed by plaintiffs (Docket # 117). Defendants argue that summary judgment should be entered in their favor because plaintiffs have failed to establish a prima facie case of age discrimination actionable under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. § 621, et seq., as required by the Supreme Court case of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). Defendants further maintain that plaintiffs' state law merits also warrant dismissal as they fail to state a cause of action. Upon examination of the relevant facts, the applicable law, and the arguments advanced by both parties, the Court finds that defendants' motion for summary judgment (Docket # 117) should be GRANTED.
The First Circuit has stated that:
[s]ummary judgment has a special niche in civil litigation. Its role is `to pierce the boilerplate of the pleadings and assay the parties' proof in order to determine whether trial is actually required.' Wynne v. Tufts University School of Medicine, 976 F.2d 791, 794 (1st Cir. 1992). The device allows courts and litigants to avoid full-blown trials in unwinnable cases, thus conserving the parties' time and money and permitting courts to husband scarce judicial resources.
McCarthy v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 56 F.3d 313, 315 (1st Cir.1995). According to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c), summary judgment should issue whenever "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). See also NASCO, Inc. v. Public Storage, Inc., 29 F.3d 28 (1st Cir.1994). It is not enough to conjure up an alleged factual dispute between the parties; to defeat summary judgment, there must exist a genuine issue of material fact. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).
For a dispute to be "genuine", there must be sufficient evidence for a reasonable trier of facts to resolve the issue in favor of the non-moving party. U.S. v. One Parcel of Real Property, 960 F.2d 200, 204 (1st Cir.1992). See also, Boston Athletic Assn. v. Sullivan, 867 F.2d 22, 24 (1st Cir.1989). By like token, "material" means that the fact is one that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law. Morris v. Government Development Bank of Puerto Rico, 27 F.3d 746, 748 (1st Cir.1994).
In determining whether to grant a summary judgment, the Court may not, however, weigh the evidence. Casas Office Machines, Inc. v. Mita Copystar America, Inc., 42 F.3d 668 (1st Cir.1994) Summary judgment "admits of no room for credibility determinations, no room for the measured weighing of conflicting evidence such as the trial process entails." Id.citing Greenburg v. Puerto Rico Maritime Shipping Authority, 835 F.2d 932, 936 (1st Cir.1987). Accordingly, if the facts permit more than one reasonable inference, the court on summary judgment may not adopt the inference least favorable to the non-moving party. Casas Office Machines, 42 F.3d at 684.
In ADEA cases, once a defendant files a motion for summary judgment, the issue before the Court turns "`not [on] whether [the plaintiff] was in fact fired because of his age, which remains to be determined at trial, but [on] whether [the question of whether he] was fired because of his age, is genuinely contestable'." Maldonado-Maldonado v. Pantasia Mfg. Corp., 956 F.Supp. 73 (D.P.R.1997), quoting Shager v. Upjohn Co., 913 F.2d 398, 403 (7th Cir. 1990).
Given the foregoing, we must examine the facts, as presented by the parties, to determine whether there is any genuine issue of material fact involved.
Defendant CaribAd is an advertising agency that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pueblo. As such, it provides advertising services to Pueblo's various divisions, including the Puerto Rico Division and the Blockbuster Division of Pueblo ("Blockbuster"). Plaintiff Ramón M. Suárez ("plaintiff") became the President of CaribAd on April 19, 1989 and held that position until his resignation on September 12, 1996. As President of CaribAd, plaintiff reported directly to the Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of Pueblo, William T. Keon III ("Keon"), who was also the President of Pueblo. At the time of his resignation, plaintiff was fifty-nine (59) years old and earned a yearly salary of one hundred ninety-four thousand fifty-four dollars and zero cents (194,054.00).
Keon was appointed the President of Pueblo on October 18, 1995, and on or around December of 1995, he also became Chairman of the Board of Directors. Mr. Edwin Pérez ("Pérez") was appointed President of Pueblo's Puerto Rico Division in March of 1996, after the former president, Mr. Héctor Quiñones ("Quiñones") resigned. Prior to his appointment as President of Pueblo's Puerto Rico Division, Pérez had been the President of Amigo Supermarkets, one of Pueblo's main competitors in Puerto Rico, where he had enjoyed much success in building up the company.
In 1993, the Organización Diego Cisneros ("ODC") acquired all the holdings and interests of Pueblo International, Inc. During the summer of 1995, the ODC attempted to sell Pueblo in an effort to avoid further losses. However, in December of 1995 it was determined that improving the business through a management program would create more value than could be acquired through a sale.
Defendants assert, and plaintiffs do not contest, that Keon became President of Pueblo at a time when it was going through a very difficult economic situation which was compounded by losses in its market share in both Puerto Rico and the United States as well as by an inability to service its debt. Thus, Pueblo was in need of a major overhaul in its operations in order for the same to become a profitable company once again.
Among the first actions taken by Keon upon his arrival at Pueblo was the institution of company-wide manpower hiring freeze and reduction of labor overhead. That was not enough to solve the company's economic problems and the Pueblo Xtra stores in Florida had to be closed. The hiring freeze had to be continued past April of 1996 as Pueblo's economic problems persisted.
Keon avers that in furtherance of the objectives set by the Pueblo stockholders to maximize profitability at all levels of the Company, beginning in November or December of 1995, Keon required that CaribAd aggressively develop the third party business; at that time, about 97% of CaribAd's revenues came from the Pueblo and Blockbuster accounts. Furthermore, at the end of October, 1995, Keon determined that an overhaul of CaribAd's creative element was required since, in his opinion, Pueblo's advertising program was outdated.
As part of the revamping process of the advertising, Keon determined that he had to get personally involved in all aspects of Pueblo's advertising. To that end, he continuously held conferences with plaintiff and Mr. Román Mayer ("Mayer"), who acted as the Creative Director for CaribAd, to discuss the recovery plan for Pueblo.
On November 1, 1995 Keon and Quiñones met with plaintiff to inform him that the quality of the product generated by CaribAd's creative staff needed to improve. This became a source of contention between Keon and plaintiff, as on the several occasions that this was brought to plaintiff's attention, plaintiff insisted that everything was fine and that he was happy with the in-house creative person at the agency.
When Pérez assumed the presidency of Pueblo's Puerto Rico Division, he determined that in order for his tenure at Pueblo to be as successful as it was at Amigo, he would take a hands-on approach in Pueblo's marketing and advertising strategies.
Keon, Pérez, and Filiberto Berríos ("Berríos"), President of Blockbuster, a division of Pueblo International, were all in agreement that the creative output of CaribAd needed to improve and that in order for that to occur, outside creative talent needed to be brought in. Defendants assert that Berríos was dissatisfied with CaribAd's work for Blockbuster and due to that fact, retained the services of the Badillo Nazca advertising agency to do part of Blockbuster's advertising. After Pueblo, Blockbuster was CaribAd's largest client. By plaintiff's own admissions, however, he insisted that he was happy with the creative personnel at CaribAd. Keon, Pérez, and Berríos all aver that they felt that plaintiff refused to accept the basic fact that they, as CaribAd's biggest clients, and not the agency head, were the ones to determine whether CaribAd's creative output was up to par.
When Pueblo was bought by ODC in 1993, the Cisneros group would periodically hold meetings with the senior management of Pueblo's subsidiaries and divisions; these were originally called Committee Meetings, and were later called Operating Meetings. At these meetings, senior management would meet with the President to discuss business-related matters. Plaintiff, in his position of President of CaribAd, was invited to participate in said meetings.
On March 20, 1996 Keon notified the senior management staff that an Operating Meeting would be held on March 26, 1996, and that among the items to be discussed...
To continue reading
Request your trial
- Gonzalez v. United States
-
Alvarez v. Delta Airlines, Inc.
...settled trend of endorsing summary judgment in employment discrimination cases when appropriate. See e.g., Suarez v. Pueblo International, Inc., 67 F.Supp.2d 47 (D.Puerto Rico 1999); Santiago Clemente v. Executive Airlines, 7 F.Supp.2d 114 (D.Puerto Rico 1998). Likewise, the United States C......