Williams v. Vitro Services Corp., 97-2518

• Decision Date: 01 July 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-2518,97-2518
• Citation: 144 F.3d 1438
• Parties: 77 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 297, 11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 1537 J.R. Rudy WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. VITRO SERVICES CORPORATION; Tracor Flight Systems, Inc.; Tracor, Inc., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1438

144 F.3d 1438

77 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 297,

11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 1537

J.R. Rudy WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. VITRO SERVICES CORPORATION; Tracor Flight Systems, Inc.;

Tracor, Inc., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 97-2518.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

July 1, 1998.

John Barry Kelly and Bradley S. Odom, Pensacola, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Edmund Joseph McKenna, Tampa, FL, Ralph Alan Peterson, Pensacola, FL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida.

Before BIRCH, Circuit Judge, and HILL and KRAVITCH, Senior Circuit Judges.

BIRCH, Circuit Judge:

In this employment discrimination action filed pursuant to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq., J.R. Williams appeals the district court's order granting summary judgment in favor of Vitro Services Corporation ("Vitro"), Tracor Flight Systems ("Flight Systems"), and Tracor, Inc. ("Tracor"). For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of Vitro with respect to Williams' claim of discriminatory discharge and in favor of Flight Systems with respect to Williams' failure-to-hire claim. We therefore reverse as to both claims raised on appeal.

I. BACKGROUND

Vitro, Flight Systems, and Tracor are related companies that function as defense contractors for the United States government. Williams began working for Vitro in 1961 as a mission support coordinator. Williams worked in a variety of capacities within Vitro over the course of the next twenty years. In 1982, after losing its contract with the United States Air Force, Vitro terminated Williams as part of a reduction in force (RIF). In 1984, however, Vitro rehired Williams as an administrative manager; at the time Vitro rehired Williams, he was approximately forty-nine years old.

In 1989, Williams became Manager of Administration of the Corporate Office. In 1994, Vitro bid on a government project for the United States Army that would have required the company to relocate some of its personnel to Arizona. According to Vitro, had Vitro successfully obtained this contract, Williams, at age sixty, would have received a promotion in both rank and salary. Vitro did not obtain the contract, however, and in 1995, pursuant to what Vitro denominates a second RIF, Vitro offered Williams a severance package. Williams did not accept the terms of the severance package and Vitro terminated him in 1995.

At approximately the same time that Vitro terminated Williams, two positions at Flight Systems became available. According to Flight Systems, Williams notified Richard Cannon, the vice president and general manager of Flight Systems, that he would be interested in these positions if they were consolidated into one job, a suggestion that Cannon apparently declined to follow. By the time Williams formally applied for the Flight Systems' positions, the decisions regarding whom to hire had already been made. Williams contends that Flight Systems refused to consider him for either position after learning that Williams did not intend to retire in the foreseeable future. Williams further submits that Flight Systems continued to search for candidates to fill the two vacant positions for several weeks after Williams submitted his application, thereby giving rise to an inference of intentional discrimination.

Williams filed suit against Vitro, Flight Systems, and Tracor under both the ADEA and the Florida Civil Rights Act of 1992, Fla. Stat. Ann. § 760.10. The district court determined that Williams had failed to establish a prima facie case of age discrimination based on either direct or circumstantial evidence with respect to his termination; specifically, the court found that Williams had not shown that he was qualified for any available position within Vitro at the time of his termination. The court further noted that, even assuming that Williams had presented a prima facie case with respect to Vitro, he nonetheless had failed to rebut Vitro's proffered legitimate, non-discriminatory justification for his termination. The court also found that although Williams had established a prima facie case of age discrimination as to Flight Systems' failure to hire him, he had failed adequately to call into doubt with probative evidence Flight Systems' stated reasons for its decision. ¹ On appeal, Williams no longer contends that he has set forth direct evidence of age discrimination. He does submit, however, that the district court erred in concluding that there is insufficient evidence in the record to support a jury question regarding his circumstantial allegations of age discrimination against both Vitro and Flight Systems.

II. DISCUSSION

We review de novo the district court's order granting summary judgment. See Arrington v. Cobb County, 139 F.3d 865, 871 (11th Cir.1998). Summary judgment is appropriate where there is no genuine issue of material fact. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). "Where the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the nonmoving party, there is no genuine issue for trial." Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986) (citation and internal quotation omitted). On a motion for summary judgment, we must review the record, and all its inferences, in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. United States v. Diebold, Inc., 369 U.S. 654, 655, 82 S.Ct. 993, 994, 8 L.Ed.2d 176 (1962).

In an employment discrimination case, "the plaintiff must produce sufficient evidence to support an inference that the defendant employer based its employment decision on an illegal criterion." Alphin v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 940 F.2d 1497, 1500 (11th Cir.1991) (quoting Halsell v. Kimberly-Clark Corp., 683 F.2d 285, 290 (8th Cir.1982)). At the summary judgment stage, our inquiry is "whether an ordinary person could reasonably infer discrimination if the facts presented remained unrebutted." Id. (quoting Carter v. City of Miami, 870 F.2d 578, 583 (11th Cir.1989)). Once a plaintiff has established a prima facie case and has put on sufficient evidence to allow a factfinder to disbelieve an employer's proffered explanation for its actions, that alone is enough to preclude entry of judgment as a matter of law. Combs v. Plantation Patterns, 106 F.3d 1519, 1532 (11th Cir.1997), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 685, 139 L.Ed.2d 632 (1998).

This circuit has adopted a variation of the test articulated by the Supreme Court for Title VII claims in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), for cases arising under the ADEA. Mitchell v. Worldwide Underwriters Ins. Co., 967 F.2d 565, 566 (11th Cir.1992). In order to make out a prima facie case for an ADEA violation, the plaintiff must show that he (1) was a member of the protected age group, (2) was subject to adverse employment action, (3) was qualified to do the job, and (4) was replaced by a younger individual. See Benson v. Tocco, 113 F.3d 1203, 1207-08 (11th Cir.1997). These criteria are slightly different in both an RIF case and where a position is eliminated in its entirety; in these instances, the plaintiff establishes a prima facie case by demonstrating (1) that he was in a protected age group and was adversely affected by an employment decision ², (2) that he was qualified for his current position or to assume another position at the time of discharge, and (3) evidence by which a fact finder reasonably could conclude that the employer intended to discriminate on the basis of age in reaching that decision. Id. at 1208.

A. Termination by Vitro

Williams submits that the district court erred in finding that he had failed to demonstrate his qualification for a position at the time of the second RIF and, consistent with this determination, dismissing his claim against Vitro for failure to establish the second prong of his prima facie case. Vitro responds that, even assuming for purposes of this discussion that Williams properly established the requisite elements of his prima facie case, he has failed to rebut the legitimate, non-discriminatory reason proffered by Vitro to justify his termination.

We conclude, at the outset, that the district court erred in dismissing Williams' discriminatory discharge claim on the grounds that he failed to show that he was qualified for a position that became available at the time of his termination. As previously noted, our case law expressly holds that, where a plaintiff contends that his position has been consolidated or reassigned to other employees, as has been alleged in this case, he may establish a prima facie case by demonstrating that he was qualified for his current position or to assume another position at the time of discharge, see Benson, 113 F.3d at 1208; these elements are plainly phrased in the disjunctive, and failure to show qualification for both the current job and a second, vacant position is not fatal to the plaintiff's prima facie case.

Vitro, however, urges that we presume a lack of discriminatory motive in this case based on the fact that the same actor was involved in the decision to hire, promote, and terminate Williams. In support of this proposition, Vitro points to the following facts: Richard Manley, now the president of Vitro and the individual primarily responsible for Williams' termination, rehired Williams following his first termination in a Vitro RIF; at the time that Manley brought Williams back to Vitro, Williams was already within the protected age classification under the ADEA. In 1989, Manley promoted Williams and, several years later, approved a proposed bid on a defense contract that, if successful, effectively would have resulted in Williams' continued employment in a new project. ³ The record therefore indicates that the same individual who acted as the final...