Wilmington v. J.I. Case Co.

• Decision Date: 09 June 1986
• Docket Number: Nos. 85-1615,85-1939,s. 85-1615
• Parties: 40 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1833, 40 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 36,410, 55 USLW 2023, 20 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1217 Jimmie WILMINGTON, Appellee, v. J.I. CASE COMPANY, Appellant. Jimmie WILMINGTON, Appellee, v. J.I. CASE COMPANY, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 909

793 F.2d 909

40 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1833,

40 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 36,410, 55 USLW 2023,

20 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1217

Jimmie WILMINGTON, Appellee, v. J.I. CASE COMPANY, Appellant.

Jimmie WILMINGTON, Appellee, v. J.I. CASE COMPANY, Appellant.

Nos. 85-1615, 85-1939.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Feb. 10, 1986.

Decided June 9, 1986.

David J. Parsons, Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

Walter D. Braud, Rock Island, Ill., for appellee.

Before HEANEY and BOWMAN, Circuit Judges, and TIMBERS, ^* Senior Circuit Judge.

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.

J.I. Case Company (Case) appeals from the judgment entered on the jury's verdict for plaintiff Jimmie Wilmington in this 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1981 civil rights suit. The jury found that Case intentionally subjected Wilmington, a former employee, to discriminatory terms and conditions of employment because of his race, and that Case intentionally discharged him because of his race. The jury awarded Wilmington $400,000 in actual damages and $40,000 in punitive damages. The District Court ¹ denied Case's post-trial motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, a new trial, or remittitur of damages, and entered judgment for Wilmington. The court further awarded Wilmington $35,721.25 in attorneys' fees under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988, and $5,575.08 in costs for his expert witness under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1920. We affirm the District Court's judgment with the direction that the attorneys' fee award is to be applied toward the amount due Wilmington's attorneys under their contingent fee agreement, not in addition to the amount due under that agreement.

I.

Wilmington began working in Case's Bettendorf, Iowa farm implement manufacturing plant in 1972. After attending in-house training, he became a welder in Department 895 and welded parts used in tractor cabs. His primary assignment was to weld the cab frame structural posts forming the forward right and left corners of the cab enclosure. From 1979 until his discharge on August 31, 1981, his supervisor was a white foreman named Clyde Krupa, who in turn reported to a white general foreman named John Carson. Wilmington was one of about six black welders in Department 895 and the only black welder of the thirty-five welders under Krupa's supervision.

Welders could earn incentive pay by producing welded parts in less time than the standard set for that task. From 1979 through at least August 1981, the standard for Wilmington's job was 100 posts in 6.107 hours. If he welded 100 posts in less than 6.107 hours, he earned incentive pay. Otherwise, he earned the base rate for his labor grade. To determine which employees were entitled to incentive pay, Case relied primarily on the honor system. All welders were required to report their productivity each day by submitting a labor card listing part number, hours worked, and number of parts welded. The foremen regularly conducted audits to check each employee's honesty. These audits consisted of counting the audited employee's completed pieces throughout the day.

Many welders would produce pieces in excess of what they reported and hold them over to apply them to their total for another day to earn incentive pay. This accumulation of finished but unreported pieces was called a "kitty." Such kitties commonly existed despite company prohibitions and without management awareness because Case had few inventory control records once the unwelded parts were brought from storage to the plant floor. A record was made when parts were delivered to the "in" temporary storage space on the plant floor. From that point on, the only written records of how the parts progressed through the production process were the labor cards that employees submitted. Although a lift truck operator usually delivered the parts to the welders as needed, the welders sometimes took the parts from "in" storage themselves. The lift truck operator did not record how many posts he delivered to Wilmington on any particular day, or how many Wilmington took from "in" storage. Nor did the employees who ground Wilmington's welds keep track of how many posts they received from him at any particular time. When a grinder sent the posts to the subassembly line, again no one recorded the move.

The existence of a kitty and periodic shipments of welded posts from Wilmington's booth to the grinder made it difficult to establish a correct count of how many posts Wilmington produced within any particular time frame. For example, one might count twenty welded posts on the pallet near his booth at time X and an hour later find twenty-five welded posts, indicating five more posts had been welded. In the interim, however, the twenty posts could have been sent to the grinder, and twenty-five more welded. ² The actual count might be forty-five, although it would look as if only twenty-five had been completed. Thus, unless one watched as Wilmington welded each post, the counting was complicated.

Wilmington's welding ability, according to the testimony at trial and as reflected in Case's records, was remarkable. Before Case raised the standard to 100 posts in 6.107 hours, Wilmington regularly exceeded Case's production standards by three or four hundred percent. Concurrent with the implementation of the 6.107 standard, he received a "buy-out" cash bonus to compensate him for the new, more stringent standard. The bonus, based on his prior productivity, was the highest of any incentive worker in the plant. Moreover, after the standard was implemented, he regularly produced 100 welded posts in about four hours, for efficiency ratings averaging 150 percent. His speed was attributable in part to an innovation he devised which reduced the number of clamps needed to hold the post in place during welding from thirteen to one. He also increased his efficiency by completing one particular weld on a large batch of posts before beginning the other welds. According to his testimony, he completed this preliminary task each morning before his official starting time.

Despite Wilmington's proficiency, during his employment at Case he received a variety of disciplinary warnings for violating company rules, some of which resulted in suspensions from work. His supervisors regularly cited him for not wearing his safety glasses, for being out of his work area (eventually resulting in a one-day suspension), for excessive absences, for a fight with another employee (seven-day suspension), for loitering, for destruction of a company sign (three-day suspension), and for parking improperly in the company lot. His performance evaluations reflect some of these problems; however, many of them were typical of a fair number of the other employees. Wilmington filed several grievances concerning the discipline he received, all of which were resolved in favor of Case. In addition, on September 29, 1980, he filed a grievance alleging that Krupa had discriminated against him on the basis of race, and on June 17, 1981, about two months before Case discharged him, he filed a discrimination complaint with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.

The events leading to Wilmington's discharge focus on the week of August 17, 1981, which was the first week of production after the plant's annual one month shutdown for inventory. Krupa decided to audit Wilmington that week and passed by his booth periodically each day as well as at the end of the shift to count Wilmington's posts. Krupa's totals day by day were 50, 0, 50, 100, and 44, for a total of 244. Wilmington's labor cards reflected daily totals of 100, 0, 100, --, and 44, for a total of 244. He did not submit a labor card for Thursday because he claimed he did not weld due to a broken machine. Because the daily variances between Wilmington's cards and Krupa's counts affected the amount of incentive pay Wilmington received, he would have earned about $39 more under his count than under Krupa's. Although the dollar amount was not large, Case considered the alleged falsification of labor cards a serious breach of company rules. Case indefinitely suspended Wilmington on August 23, 1981.

One week later, Case fired Wilmington despite the union's efforts on his behalf. The union had conducted its own count of posts welded that week and reached a total for Wilmington of 244 or 245. The union filed two grievances for him, one contesting whether there was just cause for Case to fire him, and the other alleging racial discrimination. Only the just cause grievance was arbitrated and the arbitrator found that Case had just cause to fire Wilmington because he had falsified his labor cards.

After his discharge, Wilmington filed this suit alleging racial discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1981. In his complaint, Wilmington claims that Case followed a pattern and practice of discrimination based on race which adversely affected his status as employee and which denied him equal opportunities for increased pay, promotion, or other advancement. In addition, he claims that during his employment Case intentionally subjected him, because of his race, to different terms and conditions of employment concerning the discipline administered for infraction of company rules. He also claims that Case intentionally discharged him on the basis of his race. ³ The case was tried to a jury, which found in Wilmington's favor and awarded him substantial damages. The District Court denied Case's post-trial motions and entered judgment on the jury verdict. Case appeals from that judgment, raising thirteen points of error, which we group into several categories for the purposes of discussion.

II.

Case first claims that the District Court erred in not granting a j.n.o.v. or a new trial on the basis that the evidence is not sufficient to support the jury's verdict. Our analysis of this issue is based on a careful review of all the evidence presented at trial in light of our determination, as discussed below, that the District Court did not err in its...