Wills v. Walmart Assocs., Inc.

• Decision Date: 21 March 2022
• Docket Number: CASE NO. 20-80611-CIV-ALTMAN/Reinhart
• Citation: 592 F.Supp.3d 1203
• Parties: Marcellus WILLS, Plaintiff, v. WALMART ASSOCIATES, INC., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida

592 F.Supp.3d 1203

Marcellus WILLS, Plaintiff,

v.WALMART ASSOCIATES, INC., Defendant.

CASE NO. 20-80611-CIV-ALTMAN/Reinhart

United States District Court, S.D. Florida.

Signed March 21, 2022

Entered March 22, 2022

Jason Saul Remer, Remer & Georges-Pierre, PLLC, Miami, FL, Daniel H. Hunt, Miami, FL, for Plaintiff.

Laura Hutchings Alrutz, FordHarrison LLP, Jacksonville Beach, FL, Amy Reisinger Turci, Ford Harrison, LLP, Jacksonville, FL, for Defendant.

ORDER

ROY K. ALTMAN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Marcellus Wills, a store manager at Walmart, demonstrated an unacceptable tendency to yell at the women who worked for him—often in front of others, sometimes in the presence of awe-struck customers. Once, he screamed at an older female employee on the salesfloor—spewing expletives (like "fuck")—as several customers watched in horror. An unrelated Walmart employee who witnessed this incident would later write that Wills had treated the woman "[like] less than a person." Anxious and disenchanted, the woman stepped down from her role at Walmart. Another time, he berated a different female subordinate, throwing merchandise angrily at the ground and shouting with "nothing but total anger in his voice." In her deposition, this woman would testify that "I have never been so humiliated."

After Wills abused this woman a second time, she pulled a supervisor aside and asked helplessly: "What can I do?" A third woman recounted how Wills "blew up" at her because of a mess he'd observed in her part of the store. A fourth woman complained that she found Wills threatening, but she refused to file a written complaint because she was afraid that he'd retaliate against her. A fifth person called Walmart's anonymous ethics hotline and reported that Wills was a bully. And several other employees said that Wills had warned them against complaining about him (or "his store") to management. Unsurprisingly, when Walmart heard about all this, it fired him.

Naturally, Wills responded by blaming (and suing) Walmart for his troubles. In this lawsuit, Wills claims that he was terminated—not for his egregious workplace misconduct—but because he took a few weeks of FMLA leave and because he is black. But no reasonable jury would agree with him. Walmart, after all, granted Wills's requests for FMLA leave in full , and there's no evidence that Wills's termination had anything to do with that leave. As for Wills's race, although Wills testified that his market manager subjected him to some harsh treatment (which included, among other things, a few racially-tinged comments), Wills hasn't tied his market manager's views on race (whatever they were) to his termination—which, as we'll soon see, resulted from an entirely separate investigation, conducted by a different supervisor, into Wills's aggressive behavior towards women. Walmart's motion for summary judgment is GRANTED .

THE FACTS ¹

Marcellus Wills started working at Walmart in 2010 as a customer service manager. See Defendant's Statement of Material Facts [ECF No. 54] ("Defendant's SOF") ¶ 1; Plaintiff's Response Statement of Material Facts [ECF No. 75] ("Plaintiff's SOF") ¶ 1 ("Undisputed."). Over the years, Wills moved up the ranks: first to assistant manager, then to co-manager, and finally (in 2015) to store manager. Defendant's SOF ¶ 1; Plaintiff's SOF ¶ 1 ("Undisputed."). Wills's store was in the geographic region Walmart called "Market 108," which encompassed eleven stores across South Florida—from Palm Springs to Pompano Beach. Defendant's SOF ¶ 1; Plaintiff's SOF ¶ 1 ("Undisputed."). Wills is black. Defendant's SOF ¶ 1; Plaintiff's SOF ¶ 1 ("Undisputed.").

In June 2018, three or so years into Wills's tenure as store manager, James Reinard (who's white) took over as market manager of Market 108—becoming Wills's direct supervisor. See Defendant's SOF ¶¶ 1–2; Plaintiff's SOF ¶¶ 1–2 ("Undisputed."). When Reinard stepped in, his supervisor—regional general manager Jaime Fernandez—assigned him the task of lifting his stores’ "operational standards." Defendant's SOF ¶ 3; Plaintiff's SOF ¶ 3 ("Undisputed."); see also Deposition of Jaime Fernandez [ECF No. 54-3] ("Fernandez Depo.") at 50:7–11 ("So, Jimmy [Reinard] went into the market and he was assigned on market to raise the standards. Because we had a, you know, a good group of stores that were not, where they should be from an operational standards standpoint.").

Wills felt the shift. As Wills testified, "[i]t was just almost as if [Reinard] was just trying to set a tone with us. A very stern tone in the way of, you know, getting -- like me to get your you know, you need to get your you know, your stores together because they are mediocre." Deposition of Marcellus Wills [ECF No. 54-1] ("Wills Depo.") at 42:10–17. And Wills didn't respond well to these changes. Wills "hated the change initiatives; he was very vocal against things like that. Negative body language -- disruptive sometimes with outbursts." Deposition of James Reinard [ECF No. 54-2] ("Reinard Depo.") at 13:11–14.

Despite Wills's objections, Reinard didn't view Wills as a "problem"—at least not yet. Plaintiff's SOF ¶ 5; see also Reinard Depo. at 19:13–17 (Reinard testifying that he "thought [he] could train [Wills's unprofessional conduct] out of him and develop [him]"). In September 2018, in fact, months after taking the market-manager position, Reinard viewed Wills as a promising candidate for promotion. Id. at 18:12–13 ("Q: And why were you offering him a promotion? A: Because he did a good job."). The promotion was for a store-manager position at a higher-volume store—a position that offered a higher salary and a bigger bonus structure. Defendant's SOF ¶ 6; Plaintiff's SOF ¶ 6 (not disputing this point); see also Reinard Depo. at 18:3–8 ("[I]t would be a promotion, it would be more money. A bigger bonus structure. It would be a good opportunity for him to take on a more ... challenging store.").

Reinard took Wills to lunch at Troy's BBQ to offer him the position. As Wills put it, "[we] went to lunch at Troy's BBQ," and Reinard "tried to pressure me into taking a store manager position at a different location[.]" Pl.’s Resp. to Def.’s Interrogs. [ECF No. 57-1] ("Interrogatories") at 4; see also Wills Depo. at 55:21–24 ("[H]e was ... trying to pressure me into taking the -- the store manager position at Pompano Beach Florida[.]"). Although Reinard was pushing to promote Wills to a better role with better pay, Wills testified that Reinard's offer was speckled with racial undertones. Here's Wills's description of that conversation:

So again, when James Reinard made the comments to me as far as that I needed to conform as a black man and I felt -- again, I -- I felt a high sense of -- of fear intentionally coming from him because, again, he made the comment that as a black man, I needed to conform and I needed to prove myself to him and [regional manager] Jaime [Fernandez]. And he said, you know, for me proving myself to him and Jaime, you know, that's how I could be in the inner circle of trust. And he said that the only thing that matters to him is what his -- his manager thinks, which is Jaime -- what Jaime thought about him as well.

From that comment, he then also how he described and talked about his previous associates, saying that they really didn't matter. He knew that they didn't like him and that they hated him and so what, he was still able to get promoted. And he made the -- the comment as well like, you know, it's about who you know, and, you know, those relationships. Again, that was something that I wasn't used to hearing. And when -- when he was saying those comments and trying to pressure me into taking the -- the store manager position at Pompano Beach Florida, 1517, when [Warren] Wright was fired, I felt very, very scared.

Wills Depo. at 55:11–25.

While he didn't say so in his deposition, Wills attested elsewhere that Reinard told him, during that lunch, that Reinard's "former black associates ... did not like him [Reinard]," but that he didn't care about "those people." Interrogatories at 4 (emphasis added). "After this conversation," Wills "felt extremely uncomfortable around Mr. Reinard[.]" Id. Wills also testified that he was "taken aback" by the job offer "as far as, you know, yes, he was offering the position, but I didn't formally go through [the hiring] process [for the promotion]." Wills Depo. at 58:19–59:2.

Wills ultimately turned down the promotion. Wills testified that, "[t]he next day, [Reinard] called me that morning, and he told me that he was going into a meeting with Jaime and that he was you know, he said, ‘I want to know now what is your decision.’ " Id. at 56:5–9. In response, Wills told Reinard: "I kindly decline[.] I -- I can't take this store." Id. at 56:10–11. Reinard didn't take this well. According to Wills, Reinard "began shouting that, you know you know, ‘[p]eople like you won't get an opportunity like this and, you know, you're’ – ‘you are going to’ – ‘you know, you are going to regret, you know, not taking this opportunity.’ " Id. at 56:12–17. Wills testified that Reinard then "hung up the phone on [him]." Interrogatories at 4.

Wills's relationship with Reinard devolved from there. On the day after Thanksgiving, for instance, two months after Wills turned down the promotion, they had an argument about the state of the store. When Reinard walked in, the salesfloor was—as Wills paints it—something of a mess: "[A]t this point, I -- the previous day, I worked about 14 hours and came right into my store that morning and started to try to put the store back together. And so we have to move pallets around and put the apparel racks back together." Wills Depo. at 150:4–10. Seeing this, Reinard went up to Wills and "beg[a]n to yell and shout at him on the sales floor right near the front end between apparel," saying (at one point): "Are you stupid or slow of understanding what I want and what the company wants?" Plaintiff's SOF ¶ 18. Wills says that he...