Suggs v. ServiceMaster Educ. Food Management

• Decision Date: 02 January 1996
• Docket Number: No. 94-5596,94-5596
• Parties: 69 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1270 Sharon L. SUGGS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SERVICEMASTER EDUCATION FOOD MANAGEMENT, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 1228

72 F.3d 1228

69 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1270

Sharon L. SUGGS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SERVICEMASTER EDUCATION FOOD MANAGEMENT, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 94-5596.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Argued June 12, 1995.

Decided Jan. 2, 1996.

Richard L. Colbert (briefed), Rebecca L. Wells-Demaree (argued and briefed), Cornelius & Collins, Nashville, TN, for plaintiff-appellee.

Thomas J. Piskorski (argued and briefed), Elizabeth H. Skalitzky, Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson, Chicago, IL, for defendant-appellant.

Before: KEITH and BATCHELDER, Circuit Judges; ROSEN, District Judge. ^*

BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge.

The defendant employer appeals from the district court's judgment that the plaintiff was discriminatorily discharged, and from the court's order of reinstatement and award of damages. For the reasons that follow, we affirm in part but remand for clarification.

I.

This action originated when Sharon L. Suggs, a black female, filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) an employment discrimination charge against ServiceMaster Education Food Management ("ServiceMaster"), claiming that her termination was based on sex or race. After the EEOC issued Suggs a notice of right to sue, she timely filed suit in federal district court, claiming ServiceMaster had discriminated against her on the basis of her sex, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e. Following a two-day bench trial, the district court awarded judgment to Suggs and ordered ServiceMaster to reinstate her. The court awarded Suggs $100,460.03 in back pay from the time of her termination in January 1991 to the end of trial. In addition, the court's damage award required ServiceMaster to pay Suggs "additional backpay based on an annual salary of $44,409.63 for the period from the conclusion of trial on December 8, 1993, through the effective date of an offer of reinstatement by ServiceMaster to Ms. Suggs." ¹ ServiceMaster timely appealed both the district court's judgment in favor of Suggs and the court's award of damages.

II.

Suggs has a B.S. degree in food and nutritional sciences from Tuskegee Institute. ServiceMaster, a corporate/institutional food catering service, hired Suggs as an assistant-director in 1984. In 1988, she was promoted to director and was given responsibility for the ServiceMaster account at Tennessee State University ("TSU"). TSU was responsible for maintaining and repairing the equipment in its cafeteria. ServiceMaster personnel had no authority to make repairs to the equipment or physical plant. In September 1989, the health department closed the main campus cafeteria at TSU for several hours to correct significant problems with the facility conditions. Terry Van Booven, the ServiceMaster area manager to whom Suggs reported, conceded that the facilities were a "significant part" of the reason for the shut-down and that Suggs was not authorized to order repairs.

One week after the shut-down, Van Booven approved a four percent pay raise for Suggs. Van Booven then ranked the directors under his supervision according to the profitability of their facilities and quality of service provided to their clients. Suggs was ranked fifth among the twelve directors, higher than the other two female directors. Van Booven approved another four percent pay increase for Suggs in October 1990. He rated Suggs' performance in the area of client relations as "satisfactory" on her November 1990 evaluation. The next month, Suggs was informed that she would be removed from her position at TSU. ServiceMaster determined that Suggs was "over-qualified" for an assistant-managerial position, but she was considered qualified to handle the same size or slightly smaller account than the TSU account. Suggs was terminated on January 17, 1991, and was given ten days' severance pay. According to her employment contract, Suggs would have been eligible for severance pay only if she had performed her job adequately. In a letter to Suggs, ServiceMaster stated that "major issues concerning [her] separation from ServiceMaster ... were: (1) client dissatisfaction; (2) continuing unresolved operational problems; [and] (3) failure to meet financial and budget commitments."

Gordon, the man who replaced Suggs as director of the TSU account after Suggs was terminated, testified that Van Booven told him "a woman shouldn't have been running the magnitude of complex like that," and that it was time to show that a man could run the operation better. The production supervisor for the TSU account testified that he overheard a conversation between Van Booven and Gordon in which Van Booven said that "since [Suggs] was gone ... [Van Booven] thought the operation was run better with a man in charge." When ServiceMaster lost the TSU account to another company in June 1991, ServiceMaster offered the male production supervisor of the TSU account three different director positions, in New York, Kentucky, and North Carolina. Gordon's employment with ServiceMaster ended when the TSU account was lost. ServiceMaster did not offer Gordon a position elsewhere, and he accepted a job offer to work as assistant manager of the TSU account for the company that had replaced ServiceMaster at TSU.

Bryant, a male director who had been ranked below Suggs, was promoted to area manager in 1992. Herman, who had been ranked last among the twelve directors, was promoted and transferred when he lost the account for which he was responsible. Neither of the female directors who had been ranked with Suggs remained at ServiceMaster at the time of trial. After being demoted and placed under the direction of another (male) manager, one of the women directors had resigned. The other woman director had also left ServiceMaster and had been replaced by a man.

III.

A. The district court did not err in finding that Suggs had been discharged in violation of Title VII.

To prevail on her individual disparate treatment claim of discriminatory discharge, the plaintiff must prove the following elements: she belongs to a protected class; she was qualified for her position; she was discharged by the defendant; and after she was discharged, she was replaced with a similarly qualified person or her employer sought a similarly qualified replacement, see McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), who was not a member of her protected class; and her treatment differed from that accorded to otherwise similarly-situated individuals outside her protected group. Shah v. General Electric Co., 816 F.2d 264, 267-68 (6th Cir.1987). After a bench trial, the district court made extensive findings of fact and analyzed the evidence presented under the framework of McDonnell Douglas, finding that the female plaintiff in this case was indisputably a member of a protected class, that she had been terminated by the defendant and replaced by a man, and that she had demonstrated that she was qualified for the position from which she had been discharged. The court found that ServiceMaster had met its burden of introducing evidence of nondiscriminatory reasons for Suggs' discharge after Suggs had established a prima facie case of discrimination in violation of Title VII. However, the district court concluded from a preponderance of the evidence that ServiceMaster's proffered reasons for removing Suggs from her position and terminating her employment were a pretext to mask unlawful discrimination.

Since this case proceeded to trial on the merits, on review, this Court does not revisit the McDonnell Douglas analysis of whether the plaintiff established a prima facie case of discrimination. Rather, we proceed directly to the ultimate question of whether the plaintiff carried her burden of proof of discriminatory discharge. See Wilson v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 932 F.2d 510, 513-14 (6th Cir.1991); Brownlow v. Edgecomb Metals Co., 867 F.2d 960, 963 (6th Cir.1989); Simpson v. Midland-Ross Corp., 823 F.2d 937, 942 (6th Cir.1987). We will not disturb the district court's finding of intentional discrimination unless it was clearly erroneous, and we must give due regard to the trial court's opportunity to judge the credibility of the witnesses. Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573-74, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985); Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a). In this case, after reviewing the evidence presented, the district court credited the evidence supporting Suggs' claim that the reasons stated by ServiceMaster for her discharge--client dissatisfaction, operational problems and failure to meet financial and budget commitments--were pretextual.

The evidence does not support a claim that ServiceMaster's client TSU was dissatisfied with Suggs in particular. Although ServiceMaster's contract with TSU provided that the client could request removal of ServiceMaster employees from the TSU account, no TSU official ever made such a request, and Suggs' manager had, only weeks before her termination, given her a satisfactory rating on client satisfaction. Competent evidence in the record concerning "operational problems" points to the TSU facility itself, rather than to Suggs' management, as the principal source of those problems. Suggs had no authority to order repairs to the facility, which, because of its deplorable condition, was eventually demolished. As to Suggs' purported failure to meet financial and budget commitments, the evidence indicated that the problems regarding TSU's non-payment of overdue invoices had been ongoing for many years prior to Suggs' promotion to director of the account. She had recently been evaluated favorably for profitability. Suggs received merit raises throughout her period of employment with ServiceMaster. Suggs' manager had consistently rated her performance favorably and had recently approved another increase in her salary. When she was terminated, Suggs was given...