Turner v. Honeywell Federal Mfg. & Technologies

• Decision Date: 17 July 2003
• Docket Number: No. 02-3818.,02-3818.
• Citation: 336 F.3d 716
• Parties: William O. TURNER, Appellant, v. HONEYWELL FEDERAL MANUFACTURING & TECHNOLOGIES, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 716

336 F.3d 716

William O. TURNER, Appellant, v. HONEYWELL FEDERAL MANUFACTURING & TECHNOLOGIES, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, Appellee.

No. 02-3818.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: May 12, 2003.

Filed: July 17, 2003.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied: September 15, 2003.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Mark A. Buchanan, argued, Kansas City, MO (Michael R. Fletcher, Daniel W. Craig and Kirk D. Holman, on the brief), for appellant.

William C. Martucci, argued, Kansas City, MO (Karen K. Cain, on the brief), for appellee.

Before WOLLMAN and BEAM, Circuit Judges, and NANGLE,¹ District Judge.

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

William O. Turner appeals the district court's² grant of summary judgment in favor of Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies, LLC, (Honeywell) on his claims of racial discrimination brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. We affirm.

I.

Honeywell manages a facility at which non-nuclear war reserve materials are manufactured under contract with the United States Department of Energy (DOE). Turner, a fifty-eight-year old African-American man, was hired by Honeywell as a machinist trainee in April 1967, following his honorable discharge from the United States Air Force. Over the next decade, Turner was promoted to successive production planner positions, in which he gained significant purchasing and manufacturing experience. Also during this time, Turner received a bachelor's degree in business administration, with an emphasis in labor and industrial relations, from Central Missouri State University. In 1982, Turner received a master's degree in business administration, with a concentration in business management, from Central Michigan University.

In 1976, Turner was promoted to buyer associate. He held this position until 1979, when he was upgraded to buyer. Later that year, Turner was promoted to the first-level management position of purchasing supervisor within the purchasing division. This was the last promotion Turner received while employed by Honeywell. Turner resigned his employment at Honeywell in 2000 and has since been employed as a contract specialist for the United States Marine Corps.

During his twenty-one year tenure as a purchasing supervisor/manager in Honeywell's purchasing division, Turner gained both production and non-production experience. Turner occasionally performed responsibilities of the second-level management positions in addition to satisfying the requirements of his position. Turner received numerous performance evaluations from his supervisors, the majority of which were positive and indicated exceptional performance. Beginning in 1991, however, the performance evaluations increasingly were critical of his interpersonal and leadership skills. Turner was described in evaluations as "antagonistic, defensive, arrogant, [and] vindictive and ... [as] rely[ing] on the power of his position rather than teamwork and consensus building to accomplish his responsibilities." A 1992 Performance Appraisal recommended that Turner improve relationships with peers, as did subsequent annual evaluations.

The end of the Cold War contributed to a decline in demand for defense reserve materials in the 1990s. Consequently, DOE considered closing Honeywell's facility. To enable it to remain open, Honeywell underwent significant corporate restructuring, reducing its workforce from approximately 8,000 to 3,000 employees. These reductions and restructuring changes affected each of Honeywell's divisions.

During the course of the restructuring, four second-level management positions opened and were filled. Honeywell has an established process for posting job opportunities and hiring employees. The process provides business-needs exceptions from the general rule requiring posting. Honeywell's formal process does not govern hiring in such situations, which include "reclassification of an associate who is already doing the work of the new classification[;] lateral movement of an associate with the same classification as the job opportunity and who is within the same division as the job opportunity[;] university recruiting and external searches[; and] movement of associates to address business issues; such moves to be approved by the President or Vice President."

Four second-level managerial positions form the basis of Turner's failure-to-promote claims: (1) manager of material, filled in November 1997; (2, 3) manager of purchasing operations, filled in February 1996 and again in December 1997; and (4) manager of logistics, filled in February 1998. The positions were not posted and were filled pursuant to the business-needs exception to the posting requirement. Honeywell's then-president Karen Clegg authorized the decisions not to announce the positions and approved the hiring of all four individuals, all of whom are white males. Management explained that the exception applied because the positions composed a "major functional realignment, [the] reorganization of the procurement division that included purchasing...." The record indicates that the employees who were hired had not been aware that they were being considered for the positions.

From late 1999 through spring 2000, in an effort to comply with DOE's directive to reduce Honeywell's facility by one third, management transferred many responsibilities and job functions of Turner and his staff to another department. This transfer streamlined the procurement function and addressed numerous inventory initiatives. After these responsibilities were transferred, Turner retained his management position and many of his responsibilities.

As indicated above, Turner left Honeywell in 2000 and subsequently filed this lawsuit, in which he alleged that Honeywell had discriminated against him on the basis of his race by failing to promote him on four different occasions, by the terms and conditions of his employment, and by constructively discharging him. It is from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Honeywell on all claims that Turner now appeals.

II. Standard of Review

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, reading the record in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party and giving the nonmoving party the benefit of all reasonable inferences drawn from the record. Hannoon v. Fawn Eng'g Corp., 324 F.3d 1041, 1045-46 (8th Cir.2003); Gentry v. Georgia-Pac. Corp., 250 F.3d 646, 649 (8th Cir.2001) (citations omitted). Summary judgment is granted appropriately in cases in which "one party has failed to present evidence sufficient to create a jury question as to an essential element of its claim." Gentry, 250 F.3d at 649-50 (citing Whitley v. Peer Review Sys., Inc. 221 F.3d 1053, 1055 (8th Cir.2000) (citation omitted)). "We must ... keep in mind, [however,] as our court has previously cautioned, that summary judgment should be used sparingly in employment discrimination cases." Chock v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 113 F.3d 861, 862 (8th Cir.1997) (citing Crawford v. Runyon, 37 F.3d 1338, 1341 (8th Cir.1994)).

III. Argument

A.

Because Turner did not present direct evidence of discrimination, his discrimination claims are analyzed under the burden-shifting framework adopted in McDonnell Douglas Corporation v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 801-04, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). Hannoon, 324 F.3d at 1046; see also Johnson v. Arkansas State Police, 10 F.3d 547, 551 (8th Cir. 1993) (citing McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817). Under this framework, a plaintiff must "demonstrate a prima facie case of discrimination by showing that [ ]he is a member of a protected class, that [ ]he sought and was denied a promotion for which [ ]he was qualified, and that the promotion was given to another person who is not a member of the protected class." Lidge-Myrtil v. Deere & Co., 49 F.3d 1308, 1310 (8th Cir.1995). "The threshold of proof necessary to make a prima facie case is minimal...." Johnson, 10 F.3d at 551 (citations omitted).

The district court held that Turner failed to establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination under § 1981 because he failed to show both that he was qualified for the positions to which he was denied promotion and that "similarly situated employee[s] outside the protected group [were] promoted instead." Dotson v. Delta Consol. Indus., Inc., 251 F.3d 780, 781 (8th Cir.2001) (citing Rose-Maston v. NME Hosps., Inc., 133 F.3d 1104, 1109 (8th Cir.1998)). Turner contends that he was qualified for all four positions. Although none of the positions at issue were posted, nor were their specific qualifications enumerated, the district court determined, based on evidence presented by Honeywell, that teamwork and experience were required qualifications of the challenged positions and that experience with a collective bargaining agreement was an additional requirement of one of the positions. The district court concluded that because Honeywell employees testified that Turner lacked strong teamwork abilities and experience with bargaining unit employees and a collective bargaining agreement, Turner could not establish that he was qualified for the positions.

We agree with Turner that the district court applied a higher threshold of proof than is required by our cases and that it thus erred in finding that Turner had not established a prima facie case of racial discrimination. As will be seen, however, we agree with the district court that Turner failed to establish a question of fact concerning whether Honeywell's proffered non-discriminatory reason for failing to promote him was pretextual.

To prove that he was qualified for the positions for the purpose of establishing a prima facie case of racial discrimination Turner need not have shown, as the district court required, that he was more than minimally qualified for the positions. As we stated in McCullough v. Real Foods, Inc., 140 F.3d 1123, 1126 (8th Cir. 1998), "[plaintiff] must...