Williams v. Cobb Cnty. Farm Bureau, Inc.

• Decision Date: 02 November 2011
• Docket Number: No. A11A0904.,A11A0904.
• Citation: 11 FCDR 3266,718 S.E.2d 540,312 Ga.App. 350
• Parties: WILLIAMS v. COBB COUNTY FARM BUREAU, INC. et al.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

11 FCDR 3266

312 Ga.App. 350

718 S.E.2d 540

WILLIAMS

v.COBB COUNTY FARM BUREAU, INC. et al.

No. A11A0904.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

Oct. 14, 2011.Reconsideration Denied Nov. 2, 2011.

Dennis, Corry, Porter & Smith, George H. Connell, Jr., for appellant.

James, Bates, Pope & Spivey, Duke Riley Groover, Marty Kyle Senn, Downey & Cleveland, Joseph C. Parker, Marietta, Kelley E. Webb, for appellees.

ANDREWS, Judge.

Charles Williams appeals from the trial court's grant of summary judgment to Cobb County Farm Bureau, Inc., Russell Smith, and Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company. Williams sued Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company for age discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA); sued Russell Smith for intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and tortious interference with employment relations; sued both Cobb County Farm Bureau and Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company as vicariously liable for the acts and omissions of defendant Smith; and sued for punitive damages against all defendants. After reviewing the record, we conclude that defendants were entitled to summary judgment on Williams's claims and affirm.

The record shows that Williams was a district sales manager for Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company (“company”). Russell Smith is a radio broadcaster and a farmer. He serves as a volunteer member of the board for Cobb County Farm Bureau. Cobb County Farm Bureau is a not-for-profit corporation that provides various services to Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company. The company pays a fee to Cobb County Farm Bureau in exchange for office space, management and clerical support.

This case arose when Williams was asked to help develop a plan to increase the sale of life insurance policies for the company. A meeting to present the plan was scheduled and was attended by representatives from the different Georgia Farm Bureaus around the State. Russell Smith attended as a representative from Cobb County Farm Bureau. George Hoyle, one of Williams's co-workers, made the presentation. After the presentation, several people expressed displeasure with the life insurance plan.

There was testimony that Smith stated that “all we're doing is laundering money through Southern Farm Bureau.” According to Hoyle's affidavit and Williams's deposition, however, Smith accused the people responsible for the plan of being “crooks” and “money launderers.”

After the meeting, Williams sent an e-mail from his company e-mail address to his 14 agency managers, the company's director of sales, and the sales staff in the company's Macon office. The e-mail stated in pertinent part:

We have a lot of outside meddling and a couple of people with axes to grind and one radical % $#% $% &% sending emails to our leadership trying to do us damage. If we have to call on the KKK I think several of you know where we can find some poles already soaking and ready to burn and I have several volunteers who have ski mask [sic] and a few pick ax handles they are read [sic] to limber up!

Williams admitted that he was referring to Smith as the “one radical % $#% $% &%.” Williams was suspended with pay the Monday morning after he sent the e-mail and was fired one week later.

Williams filed this suit, and all defendants moved for summary judgment. The trial court granted the motions, and this appeal followed.

Summary judgment is proper when the evidence, construed in the nonmovant's favor, shows that no issue of material fact remains and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. A defendant may prevail on summary judgment “by showing the court that the documents, affidavits, depositions and other evidence in the record reveal that there is no evidence sufficient to create a jury issue on at least one essential element of plaintiff's case.” Lau's Corp. v. Haskins, 261 Ga. 491, 405 S.E.2d 474 (1991). We review the trial court's grant or denial of summary judgment de novo. See Carter v. Parish, 274 Ga.App. 97, 616 S.E.2d 877 (2005).

1. In his first enumeration of error, Williams contends that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment on his age discrimination claim against the insurance company. Williams has submitted no evidence, however, to support his claim of age discrimination beyond the fact that he was 67 years old, was fired, and was replaced by a younger employee.

The current law is that to support a claim of age discrimination a plaintiff must show that, but for his age, he would not have been fired. Moreover, the burden never shifts to the employer to prove a non-age related reason for the firing. See Gross v. FBL Financial Svcs., 557 U.S. 167, 129 S.Ct. 2343, 2351, 174 L.Ed.2d 119 (2009). The undisputed deposition testimony was that management agreed that there was no choice but to terminate Williams after he sent the offensive e-mail from his company e-mail address.

Further, Williams's argument on appeal in support of this enumeration that Smith somehow influenced the company to fire Williams after he sent the e-mail, contributes nothing in support of an age discrimination claim. Accordingly, there is no merit to this enumeration.

2. Next, Williams claims that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to Smith on Williams's claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress, false light invasion of privacy, and tortious interference with Williams's employment relationship. In support of these claims, Williams submitted George Hoyle's affidavit stating that Smith got up at the meeting and referred to Williams, Hoyle, and others responsible for the plan to increase life insurance sales as being guilty of “money laundering.” The affidavit also stated that it was announced at a Georgia Farm Bureau meeting that Williams was fired because Smith threatened to go public with Williams's e-mail if the company did not fire Williams.

(a) Intentional infliction of emotional distress. In order to support this claim, a plaintiff

must show that [he] suffered severe emotional distress as a result of intentional or reckless conduct that is extreme and outrageous. The alleged conduct must be so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community. Whether conduct rises to the requisite level of outrageousness to sustain a claim is a question of law.

(Punctuation and footnotes omitted.) Law v. Harris, 295 Ga.App. 628, 628–629, 673 S.E.2d 14 (2009).

Williams has submitted no evidence that would support this claim. As appellees point out, Smith never mentioned Williams by name when he allegedly referred to the group in favor of this life insurance plan as “crooks” performing “money laundering.” Moreover, Williams has failed to submit any evidence showing that he suffered any emotional distress. In his deposition, Williams testified that he was in an “okay mood” after the meeting and nobody ever came up to him after the meeting and said they thought he was a crook or was laundering money. In fact, Williams's only claim of distress was “I told you, I didn't sleep good and focused on the situation continually. I think that's damage enough.”

That is not sufficient to show “severe emotional distress.”

[E]motional distress includes all highly unpleasant mental reactions such as fright, horror, grief, shame, humiliation, embarrassment, anger, chagrin, disappointment, worry, and nausea. It is only where it is extreme that liability arises. The law intervenes only where the distress inflicted is so severe that no reasonable [person] could be expected to endure it.

(Citation and punctuation omitted.) Peoples v. Guthrie, 199 Ga.App. 119, 121, 404 S.E.2d 442 (1991). See also Martin v. North...