Taylor v. United Parcel Service, Inc.

• Decision Date: 30 December 2008
• Docket Number: No. 07-31000.,07-31000.
• Parties: Elton TAYLOR, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED PARCEL SERVICE, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

554 F.3d 510

Elton TAYLOR, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED PARCEL SERVICE, INC., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 07-31000.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

December 30, 2008.

Virginia M. O'Leary, O'Leary & Associates, Darlene Carole Robinson (argued), Robinson & Associates, Oakland City, CA, for Taylor.

Kim Maria Boyle (argued), MaryJo L. Roberts, Phelps Dunbar, New Orleans, LA, for Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Before DAVIS, CLEMENT and ELROD, Circuit Judges.

W. EUGENE DAVIS, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff-Appellant Elton Taylor ("Taylor") appeals from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendant-Appellee United Parcel Service, Inc. ("UPS"), dismissing Taylor's claims of discriminatory and retaliatory failure to promote and discriminatory and retaliatory pay disparity. We vacate and remand.

I. BACKGROUND

Taylor worked for UPS in Louisiana from 1975 until his retirement in 2004. Prior to filing this suit on March 19, 2003, Taylor, an African-American, was a member of a class action lawsuit filed June 17, 1994, alleging race discrimination in employment by UPS. Morgan v. United Parcel Service of America, Inc., 143 F.Supp.2d 1143 (E.D.Mo.2000), aff'd, 380 F.3d 459 (8th Cir.2004), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 999, 125 S.Ct. 1933, 161 L.Ed.2d 773 (2005). Specifically, Taylor was a member of the pay and promotion class and gave deposition testimony on behalf of the class. All claims in that class action were dismissed via summary judgment on June 26, 2000, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed on August 30, 2004.

While the Morgan dismissal awaited final determination on appeal, Taylor filed a Title VII charge on January 16, 2003 with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). On March 19, 2003, he filed suit in the district court under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, Louisiana state law, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., alleging that UPS had denied him promotion on the basis of race and retaliation since at least 1993, denied him equal pay on the basis of race and retaliation since November 1991, and provided a hostile work environment. The biggest difference between the claims asserted in the Morgan class action and this suit is Taylor's addition of the retaliation claims, which allegedly are related to his participation in Morgan.

UPS's structure in the United States consists of various "Regions" across the country, which are then subdivided into "Districts." Each District contains several "Divisions," which in turn contain "Centers" that are responsible for delivery and pickup of packages. Center Managers report to Division Managers, who report to the District Manager in their district. UPS maintains approximately 32 Centers in the Gulf South District, which includes Louisiana.

During Taylor's tenure at UPS he worked in a variety of positions within the Gulf South District. In June 1992, he was promoted to Center Manager, which calls for Salary Grade 16 on the UPS pay scale. Taylor provided summary judgment evidence through his expert, Dr. J. Rody Borg, that he was paid less than other Grade 16 white managers as a group, less than other black managers as a group, and, most significantly, less than two specific white managers with like tenure and evaluations.

Furthermore, Taylor claims that he was denied promotion from Center Manager to Division Manager, a Grade 18 position. To be promoted to the position of Division Manager, a Center Manager must be placed on the UPS Gulf South District's "Ready Now" list. Decisions about whom to place on the "Ready Now" list are made at the discretion of UPS managers at the Gulf South District. Ultimately, Taylor attributes his comparatively lower pay and his denial of a Division Manager promotion to race discrimination and retaliation by UPS for his testimony in the Morgan class action.

In April 2005, UPS filed its first motion for summary judgment, seeking to dismiss all of Taylor's claims. In early 2006, the district court denied the motion with respect to Taylor's discriminatory and retaliatory pay disparity claims but granted the motion as to his promotion and hostile work environment claims. Taylor v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 421 F.Supp.2d 946, 956 (W.D.La.2006). A central part of the court's analysis concerned the statutes of limitations for the various claims and the extent to which the Morgan class action tolled the statute of limitations on those claims. Id. at 950-51. The district court found that tolling ceased on Taylor's claims in 2000, when the Eastern District of Missouri dismissed the Morgan class claims, rather than in 2004, when the Eighth Circuit affirmed that dismissal. Id. On that basis, taking into account the ordinary one-year limitation period for promotion claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and state law, as well as the applicable limitation period for his Title VII claims, the district court dismissed all of Taylor's promotion claims arising before March 2002 (one year prior to filing this suit) without further discussion. Id.

The district court next considered the three remaining promotion claims, those that arose on or after March 18, 2002. Applying the modified McDonnell Douglas framework,¹ the district court found that Taylor had failed to make out a prima facie case of discrimination with respect to two of those promotion claims because the employees promoted in Taylor's place were also African-American. Id. at 951-52. As to the third promotion, the district court found that Taylor had failed to rebut UPS's explanation that he was not promoted because he was not on the "Ready Now" list for promotion and thus had failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact regarding discrimination. Id. at 952-53. The district court thus dismissed all of Taylor's discriminatory promotion claims.

For the retaliatory promotion claims, the district court found that Taylor had failed to establish any causal link between his alleged protected activity (such as his involvement in the Morgan class action in 1999 and 2000) and UPS's failure to promote him in the period from March 2002 to the filing of this suit. Id. at 953-54. Specifically, the court found that Taylor presented no summary judgment evidence that the relevant UPS decision makers knew of his involvement with the Morgan class action, and Taylor otherwise presented no evidence of causation. Id. at 954. The district court found that the time between his involvement in the Morgan action and his claims for the period beginning March 2002 was simply too long to independently support an inference of causation. Id. Accordingly, the district court dismissed all of his 2002-2003 retaliatory failure to promote claims.

Finally, the district court found that Taylor had failed to present proper evidence to support a hostile work environment claim, so it dismissed that claim as well. Id. at 955-56. In light of those dismissals, only the discriminatory and retaliatory pay claims remained. As explained in Part IV-A of this opinion, given the four-year statute of limitations applicable to those claims, the district court found that they had been tolled during the entire Morgan class action and so were potentially viable back to March 1993. Id. at 954-55. In its 2006 ruling, the district court found that genuine issues of material fact remained as to the pay claims and denied UPS's motion for summary judgment with respect to them. Id. at 955.

UPS filed a second motion for summary judgment in February 2007, seeking the dismissal of the pay claims. In granting this motion, the district court concluded that Taylor had failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact regarding discriminatory or retaliatory pay disparity because the only evidence he presented to prove his claim was the testimony of his proffered expert, Dr. Borg. The district court characterized Dr. Borg's testimony as "based solely" on statistics and regression analysis, which it found insufficient. Taylor v. United Parcel Service, Inc., No. 03-516, 2007 WL 4180473, at *2 (W.D.La. Nov. 21, 2007). Accordingly, the district court granted UPS's motion and dismissed Taylor's remaining claims.

On appeal, Taylor challenges the district court's orders granting summary judgment with respect to his promotion and pay disparity claims; he does not challenge the dismissal of his hostile work environment claim.

II. JURISDICTION

The district court had federal question jurisdiction over this suit pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343. We have jurisdiction over the district court's final judgment dismissing all of Taylor's claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

"We review the district court's rulings on summary judgment motions de novo, employing the same analysis as the district court." Allstate Ins. Co. v. Disability Servs. of the Southwest Inc., 400 F.3d 260, 262-63 (5th Cir.2005). Pursuant to FED.R.CIV.P. 56(c), summary judgment "should be rendered if the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law."

IV. STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS AND TOLLING

A. The Consequences of the Tolling Period Selection

The most important question before us is the extent to which the Morgan class action tolled the statute of limitations governing Taylor's claims. The district court correctly determined that Taylor's non-Title VII promotion claims are subject to a one-year statute of limitations, Taylor v. Bunge Corp., 775 F.2d 617, 618 (5th Cir.1985), LA. CIV.CODE ANN. art. 3492, while his non-Title VII pay disparity claims are subject to a four-year statute of limitations, White v. BFI Waste Services, LLC, 375 F.3d 288, 291-92 (4th Cir.2004), 28 U.S.C. § 1658. Thus, those are the key periods we examine.

UPS argues, as the district court found, that Taylor's claims were...