Suarez v. Pueblo International Inc.

• Decision Date: 07 September 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-2307,99-2307
• Citation: 229 F.3d 49
• Parties: (1st Cir. 2000) RAMON M. SUAREZ, ET AL., PLAINTIFFS, APPELLANTS, V. PUEBLO INTERNATIONAL, INC., ET AL., DEFENDANTS, APPELLEES. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 49

229 F.3d 49 (1st Cir. 2000)

RAMON M. SUAREZ, ET AL., PLAINTIFFS, APPELLANTS,

V.

PUEBLO INTERNATIONAL, INC., ET AL., DEFENDANTS, APPELLEES.

No. 99-2307.

United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit.

Heard September 7, 2000.

Decided October 11, 2000.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO.

Hon. Salvador E. Casellas, U.S. District Judge.

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Victor Miranda Corrada, with whom Harry Anduze Montano was on brief, for appellants.

Lidia Gonzalez, with whom Annette Nogueras and Munoz Boneta Gonzalez Arbona Benitez & Peral were on brief, for appellees.

Before Selya, Circuit Judge, Bownes, Senior Circuit Judge, and Stahl, Circuit Judge.

Selya, Circuit Judge.

This appeal rises, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of an age discrimination claim - but unlike many employment discrimination cases that are consumed by the summary judgment flames, it does not necessitate an exploration of the interstices of the complex burden-shifting framework commonly associated with such matters. See, e.g., McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-05 (1973) (crafting that framework for use in discrimination cases); Mesnick v. General Elec. Co., 950 F.2d 816, 823-24 (1st Cir. 1991) (extending this model to age discrimination cases). Resolving the appeal does, however, require us to contrast the sort of changes in working conditions that may work a constructive discharge with those that lead to nothing more than unpleasantness, hurt feelings, and wounded pride. In the end, we affirm the district court's entry of summary judgment in the employer's favor.

I. BACKGROUND

Following conventional summary judgment praxis, see, e.g., McCarthy v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 56 F.3d 313, 315 (1st Cir. 1995), we limn the facts in the light most congenial to the party opposing the motion for brevis disposition (in this case, the former employee).

Plaintiff-appellant Ramon M. Suarez was born in 1937. At age fifty-two, he became president of CaribAd, Inc., an advertising firm with offices in Hato Rey. CaribAd was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pueblo International, Inc. (Pueblo). Pueblo's core business involved the operation of supermarkets, and CaribAd provided advertising services to Pueblo and its various divisions and affiliates (as well as to unrelated enterprises) in Puerto Rico.

The appellant's work situation began to deteriorate in 1996 when his immediate superior, William T. Keon III (Pueblo's president and chairman of CaribAd's board of directors), decided to restructure Pueblo's Puerto Rican operations to stem mounting losses. Keon consulted with the chief executives of CaribAd's two largest in-house clients, namely, Edwin Perez (who ran Pueblo's supermarket operations in Puerto Rico) and Filiberto Berrios (the president of Pueblo's "Blockbuster" division). Perez and Berrios both criticized the quality of CaribAd's work product. In response, Keon wrote to the appellant on March 28, 1996, directing him to hire new creative talent. Expressing satisfaction with his existing staff, the appellant resisted.

At that juncture, Keon took the bull by the horns and decided to transfer most of CaribAd's employees from Hato Rey to Pueblo's corporate headquarters in Carolina.¹ Although Keon assured the appellant that he (Suarez) would remain in charge of all CaribAd activities and personnel, Keon emphasized that the appellant's principal responsibility henceforth would be the development of "third-party" business (i.e., business generated outside of Pueblo's corporate family). To facilitate this plan, Suarez and a receptionist would continue to occupy a free-standing office suite in Hato Rey, as well as having an office at Pueblo's facility in Carolina.²

From the appellant's viewpoint, the relocation came as a blow. His discomfiture increased when Keon, referring to the need to attract third-party business, told him that he would have to "sing and dance alone." He also took umbrage at Keon's statement to the effect that he would have to knock on doors like a traveling salesman. Finally, in what the appellant thought was an arbitrary and unreasonable demand, Keon ordered him to complete a three-page relocation report overnight.

Feeling isolated and deposed, the appellant developed a depressive illness. This culminated in a collapse, forcing him to take sick leave in June of 1996. The appellant's physicians advised him not to resume his duties in the near future, and he transmitted his doctors' notes to Keon. Keon sent flowers and a "get well" card, and repeatedly expressed his hope that the appellant would return to work as soon as possible.

That hope never materialized. After exhausting his sick leave in July 1996, the appellant requested an additional five or six weeks of paid vacation. Keon refused to grant this request and again beseeched the appellant to return to his desk. The appellant refused to do so and remained absent from work for several more months. During that period, he failed to respond to Keon's repeated efforts to contact him.

Professing exasperation, Keon terminated the appellant's employment on December 4, 1996. Five days later, an "outside" advertising executive, Anibal Garcia, began work as CaribAd's "new business" manager. Some months thereafter, Garcia became the firm's chief executive officer.

Asserting the existence of an elaborate, age-based plot designed to render him obsolete, the appellant filed suit against Pueblo, CaribAd, Keon, and Perez.³ His complaint (which sought both compensatory damages and equitable relief) contained counts under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634 (ADEA), and various provisions of Puerto Rico law. However, it advanced no claims of disability discrimination or refusal to accommodate the sequelae of the appellant's collapse.

In due course, the district court declared itself unable to discern any proof of an adverse employment action and entered summary judgment for the defendants on the ADEA claim. The court simultaneously dismissed the supplemental claims without prejudice. This appeal ensued.

II. THE SUMMARY JUDGMENT STANDARD

We review orders granting summary judgment de novo. See Garside v. Osco Drug, Inc., 895 F.2d 46, 48 (1st Cir. 1990). In McCarthy, we delineated the manner in which the operative rule, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56, functions:

Once a properly documented motion has engaged the gears of Rule 56, the party to whom the motion is directed can shut down the machinery only by showing that a trialworthy issue exists. As to issues on which the summary judgment target bears the ultimate burden of proof, she cannot rely on an absence of competent evidence, but must affirmatively point to specific facts that demonstrate the existence of an authentic dispute. Not every factual dispute is sufficient to thwart summary judgment; the contested fact must be "material" and the dispute over it must be "genuine." In this regard, "material" means that a contested fact has the potential to change the outcome of the suit under the governing law if the dispute over it is resolved favorably to the non-movant. By like token, "genuine" means that the evidence about the fact is such that a reasonable jury could resolve the point in favor of the nonmoving party.

56 F.3d at 315 (citations and some internal punctuation marks omitted).

To make this assessment in a given case, we "must view the entire record in the light most hospitable to the party opposing summary judgment, indulging all reasonable inferences in that party's favor." Griggs-Ryan v. Smith, 904 F.2d 112, 115 (1st Cir. 1990). When carrying out that task, we safely can ignore "conclusory allegations, improbable inferences, and unsupported speculation." Medina-Munoz v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 896 F.2d 5, 8 (1st Cir. 1990). If no genuine issue of material fact emerges from this perscrutation, then the case may be ripe for summary adjudication.

III. ANALYSIS

The ADEA makes it illegal for an employer "to discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's age." 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1). Where, as here, an employee lacks direct evidence that the employer's actions were motivated by age animus, the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework dictates the progression of proof. See Mesnick, 950 F.2d at 823.

The first step in this progression involves the employee's prima facie case. To climb this step, an employee suing under the ADEA for termination of employment must adduce evidence which, if believed, suffices to prove four facts: (1) that he was at least forty years old when he and his employer parted company; (2) that his job performance met the employer's legitimate expectations; (3) that he lost his position through an adverse employment action attributable to the employer (typically, a firing); and (4) that the employer had a continuing need for the services that he had been rendering. See, e.g., id.; Freeman v. Package Mach. Co., 865 F.2d 1331, 1335 (1st Cir. 1988); Menzel v. Western Auto Supply Co., 848 F.2d 327, 328 (1st Cir. 1988).⁴ In this instance, the first and fourth requirements are not in issue: the appellant was nearing sixty years of age in 1996, and others (first Keon and then Garcia) continued to oversee CaribAd's activities after he departed. So too the second requirement: the appellant functioned adequately as CaribAd's president for several years, and the defendants, though critical of certain aspects of his performance, do not claim for summary judgment purposes that he lacked the necessary skills to do his job. Thus, the focus here is on the third of the four prongs.

The district court found that the appellant had failed to show that he had been cashiered or, indeed, that his employer had taken any adverse employment action against him. The appellant attempts...