Vazquez v. Navistar Int'l Transp., CAUSE NO. 2:09-CV-434 JD
| Decision Date | 30 March 2012 |
| Docket Number | CAUSE NO. 2:09-CV-434 JD |
| Parties | JOSE MIGUEL VAZQUEZ, Plaintiff, v. NAVISTAR INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORTATION, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana |
On March 24, 2010, plaintiff Jose Miguel Vazquez filed an amended complaint [DE 19] alleging that defendant Navistar, Inc. ("Navistar"): (1) discriminated against him on account of his Hispanic ethnicity in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981; (2) discriminated against him on account of his Hispanic ethnicity in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act; (3) retaliated against him in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981; (4) violated the Fair Labor Standards Act; and (5) violated Indiana's wage claims statute, I.C. 22-2-5 et seq. On May 16, 2011, Navistar moved for summary judgment against the plaintiff on all claims. [DE 44]. On June 15, 2011, Vazquez responded [DE 49], and on June 29, 2011, Navistar replied. [DE 50; DE 51]. On July 5, 2011, Vazquez moved for summary judgment against Navistar on his Fair Labor Standards and Indiana Wage Claim allegations. [DE 52; DE 53]. On August 2, 2011, Navistar responded [DE 54], and Vazquez never replied. Both parties' motions for summary judgment are ready for a ruling.
Navistar, based in Warrenville, Illinois, produces commercial trucks, mid-range diesel engines, IC brand school buses and Workhorse brand chassis for motor homes and stop vans. [DE 45-1 at 2]. Jose Miguel Vazquez, an Hispanic male, worked as a Level 5 Supplier QualityDevelopment Engineer for Navistar from January 2003 until November 18, 2008. [DE 45-1 at 6]. He was formally stationed at Navistar's Indianapolis engine plant, which produced diesel engines for the Ford Motor Company. [DE 45-1 at 6]. Vazquez worked in Navistar's Quality Control Central Quality Department, and his duties included traveling to various suppliers and verifying that those suppliers were delivering commodities that met Navistar's expectations. [DE 45-1 at 15]. He was tasked with ensuring that the suppliers were adhering to the terms of their respective contracts -which were significant, multi-million dollar contracts - and he operated largely under his own discretion. [DE 45-1 at 15-16]. Vazquez would compile reports on supplier activity and convey them to his superiors for review, but he exercised independent discretion "all the time." [DE 45-1 at 16].
While employed at Navistar, Vazquez was compensated as an exempt, salaried employee. He was paid bi-weekly and at the time of his termination he was receiving $2,594.12 per paycheck. [DE 45-1 at 2]. He received the same amount in salary regardless of the hours worked in a given pay period, and his salary was paid on a "current" basis, meaning the check he received at the end of a pay period corresponded to work done during that same pay period. [DE 45-1 at 2-3]. Despite this arrangement, Vazquez was also entitled to overtime pay, by the hour, for all hours worked beyond 45 in a given week. [DE 45-1 at 18]. Overtime pay was not paid on a current basis. It was paid on an arrears basis, meaning that overtime pay included in a check issued at the end of a given pay period corresponded to overtime work done during the previous pay period. [DE 45-1 at 2-3]. There was also a second sort of additional-time structure: "comp time." As Vazquez describes it, comp time, unlike overtime, was not specifically compensated over and above his salary, but an employee was entitled to make up for it with additional time off in the future. [DE 45-1 at 18].
In order to keep track of the various time and compensation structures, Navistar's Corporate Compensation Department issued a new policy via email on January 9, 2008, indicating that exempt employees, like Vazquez, were required to use electronic start and stop time sheets. [DE 45-1 at 30, 66-73; DE 45-1 at 6]. A training manual and a link to the time sheet program were sent in an additional email. [DE 45-1 at 6]. But Vazquez has no recollection of reading that email, or of learning of that policy, and suspects it may have been blocked by a spam filter. [DE 45-1 at 30-31]. He continued to enter his time into the system as total hours worked, using a "2-4-7" code. [DE 45-1 at 30]. The end result was that Vazquez began to receive paychecks compensating him with an hourly wage of $32.465 for every hour that he worked - not just overtime - in addition to his regular salary. [DE 45-1 at 7]. On November 6, 2008, Navistar became aware that Vazquez was incorrectly coding his time, and calculated that he had been overpaid in the preceding months by $48,570.06 gross. [DE 45-1 at 7]. Vazquez had never reported the discrepancy. [DE 45-1 at 7]After learning of Vazquez's failure to notify his superiors of the overpayments, Navistar decided to terminate Vazquez as an employee on November 18, 2008. [DE 45-1 at 7]. Vazquez now contends that his termination was motivated by a discriminatory animus, although he admits that he was overpaid by $20,000-$22,000 as a result of the timekeeping discrepancy during the course of 2008. [DE 45-1 at 27-28].
Part of the controversy in this lawsuit is over whether or not Vazquez received all the pay to which he was entitled when he parted ways with Navistar on November 18, 2008. Vazquez received a paycheck on October 17, 2008, that included his salary for hours worked from October 6, 2008, through October 19, 2008, and his compensation for overtime worked during the September22, 2008, through October 5, 2008, pay period. [DE 45-1 at 3]. He also received a paycheck on October 31, 2008, that included his salary for hours worked from October 20, 2008, through November 2, 2008, and compensation for overtime worked during the October 6, 2008, through October 19, 2008, pay periods. [DE 45-1 at 3]. But on November 14, 2008, Vazquez received a paycheck for $0. Navistar attributes this to an accounting error, and it reissued a paycheck on November 19, 2008, including Vazquez's salary for hours worked from November 3, 2008, through November 18, 2008. [DE 45-1 at 3]. Although his brief on summary judgment disputes it [DE 49-2 at 3], Vazquez acknowledges that he received the reissued paycheck after disputing the zeroed out one with Human Resources. [DE 45-1 at 37]. Vazquez does claim he never received a check for the days he worked between the conclusion of the final pay period and the date of termination, but it is uncontested that he was terminated on the final day of the pay period ending on November 18, 2008, and was compensated for that pay period.
Vazquez complained internally about discriminatory treatment at Navistar on two occasions in 2005, roughly three years prior to his termination. First, at a class presented by Human Resources on Navistar's Code of Conduct and Anti-Harassment Policy sometime in 2005, Vazquez complained that he felt the policies were excessively specific and supervisors were able to get around them. [DE 45-1 at 19]. Second, over the 2005-2006 holiday season, Vazquez felt he was being forced to work through the holidays - and to instruct his suppliers to work through the holidays - because he was Hispanic, and non-Hispanic members of his group were not being treated the same way. [DE 45-1 at 19-20]. Vazquez complained about this in a voice mail to a corporate director named Steve Zike,and shortly thereafter the Director of Vazquez's unit was let go. [DE 45-1 at 20]. Vazquez felt the remedy was insufficient, because he was still required to work that holiday season. [DE 45-1 at 20].
Vazquez also feels he was subjected to instances of discrimination beyond the two situations about which he internally complained. He was occasionally sent to Mexico to follow up on Navistar suppliers' quality engineering work being done there, because Navistar trusted Vazquez more than the quality engineers working in Mexico. [DE 45-1 at 21]. He was sometimes asked to translate conversations with Spanish-speaking suppliers, because Vazquez was the only one present who spoke Spanish and English. [DE 45-1 at 21]. And one of his supervisors, a Steve Branson, would sometimes make racial slurs at meetings, such as calling Hispanics "wetbacks" or "spics", calling Italians "greaseballs", and making derogatory comments about German and Asian individuals. [DE 45-1 at 21]. Vazquez never made any other harassment complaints, however, because he was worried that "three strikes" would be bad for him. [DE 45-1 at 20].
On September 21, 2009, Vazquez filed a charge of discrimination with the Michigan City Human Rights Commission alleging that he was terminated because of his race. [DE 1 at 7]. The charge was forwarded to the EEOC for processing. [DE 1 at 6]. On September 30, 2009, the EEOC dismissed Vazquez's charge because it was not timely filed, and gave Vazquez his notice of right to sue. [DE 1 at 8]. On December 30, 2009 - cutting the 90 day filing requirement very close - Vazquez filed his complaint in the court, later superseded by the amended complaint currently under attack on summary judgment. In its motion for summary judgment, Navistar argues, first, that Vazquez's Title VII claims are time-barred; second, that Vazquez has not made out a prima facie case for discrimination under either Title VII or 42 U.S.C. §1981; and, third, that he has been paidall wages to which he is entitled, so the FLSA and Indiana Wage Claims Act counts fail as a matter of law. In Vazquez's motion for summary judgment, he argues that he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law on the FLSA and Wage Claims issues. The court now addresses these arguments sequentially.
Summary judgment is proper where 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 the moving party is entitled...
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