Woods v. Daimlerchrysler Corp.

• Decision Date: 07 June 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-1066.,No. 04-1065.,04-1065.,04-1066.
• Parties: Michael WOODS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DAIMLERCHRYSLER CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 984

409 F.3d 984

Michael WOODS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DAIMLERCHRYSLER CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 04-1065.

No. 04-1066.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: January 10, 2005.

Filed: June 7, 2005.

Kristin Whittle Park, argued, St. Louis, MO, for appellant.

Gary M. Smith, argued, St. Louis, MO (Philip J. Mackey, on the brief), for appellee.

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

MURPHY, Circuit Judge.

After Michael Woods was terminated by DaimlerChrysler Corporation for unexcused absences from work, he filed this action alleging that his discharge violated the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). DaimlerChrysler moved for summary judgment, contending that Woods had not established a prima facie case under the Act and that his claim was untimely under a clause in their employment agreement. Woods moved for partial summary judgment to strike the company's contractual defense. The district court¹ granted both motions, and judgment was entered in favor of DaimlerChrysler. Both parties appeal. We affirm the judgment.

I.

In June 1999 Michael Woods was hired as an Industrial Engineering Supervisor at DaimlerChrysler's North Assembly Plant in Fenton, Missouri. After more than a year with the company, Woods was transferred to a lower ranked leader position in the assembly department and after that to Production Facilitator. This last transfer shifted him to evening hours; Woods viewed it as a demotion and conflict with his family life. Woods remained a Production Facilitator for the remainder of his employment with DaimlerChrysler, however, working first in the final assembly area and ultimately in the plant's trim department. He worked under a number of different supervisors; the last was Area Manager Sheila Franklin.

On Friday March 16, 2001, Sheila Franklin was working with some production facilitators to solve a problem with the assembly line when she noticed that Woods was not on the production floor. She subsequently saw him near his cubicle where Woods told her there had been nothing for him to do on the line. Franklin instructed him to assist another manager in a different part of the facility, but she learned later in the evening that he had not communicated with that manager and could not be located within the plant.

Woods does not dispute that on March 16 he left work without authorization four hours before the end of his shift. Under DaimlerChrysler Standards of Conduct, an employee's "[u]nexcused absence or tardiness from plant or workstation" constitutes grounds for discipline "up to and including discharge." Standard 3. An employee is not to leave his "work station, office or plant during working hours without permission or fail[] to return to work after lunch or relief without permission," and can be discharged for noncompliance. Standard 4. Woods says the reason he left work in the middle of his shift on March 16 was that he did not have a work assignment and he knew other employees were being laid off. He admits that Franklin had ordered him to assist another manager, but he contends he was unable to locate that person or anyone else who could provide him work. He acknowledges that after the March 16 incident, the plant Operations Manager told him that another unauthorized departure during work hours would be grounds for termination.

Five weeks later on Friday April 20, Woods again left work without permission. He alleges that on that evening Franklin was overly demanding, expecting him to address numerous quality defects on the production line and pressing him to complete paperwork with over forty trim department employees. When she walked through his area and noticed pieces of cardboard lying on the production floor, Franklin asked why he had not removed the trash. Woods told her he had not seen it because he had been gathering employee signatures. Franklin responded that Woods would not likely have been able to see the cardboard from inside his cubicle.

Woods considered Franklin's remark "tremendously unfair and inappropriate" and he testified in his deposition in this lawsuit that he had to get "out of there because she had me so upset." He described his reaction to her comment in the same deposition:

the lights went out and I felt like I was going to explode and either throttle her or have a heart attack or a stroke myself.... I just couldn't think straight. I was so upset.... I felt like I'd either throttle her or ... hurt myself.

There is evidence that he deposited his radio in Franklin's office before leaving the plant and that he told several employees that he "couldn't take it anymore" and had to leave or he would do something to Franklin. He did not seek permission to leave work from any supervisor, tell any manager he was leaving, or seek help at the plant's medical clinic.

Woods left approximately one and a half hours before the end of his shift, drove home, removed his contact lenses, and went to bed. He did not tell his wife about the incident that evening and he does not recall mentioning it to her over the weekend. He says he called his physician's office on Saturday but was unable to get an appointment until Monday afternoon, April 23. Woods recalls behaving normally over the weekend, and his wife apparently noticed nothing unusual. He says that by Monday he felt more depressed than anxious, "worried about what [he] needed to do or whether it was safe for [him] to go back to work."

On Monday, April 23, Woods left a voicemail message around 6:00 a.m. for Michele Wyatt, Human Resources (HR) Administration Supervisor, saying that he would be seeing a physician that afternoon. He saw Dr. Edward Heidbrier then and received a prescription for an antidepressant and anxiety medication. Although Woods apparently did not have the prescriptions filled, he did use some physician samples of the antidepressant. The doctor gave him a note which Woods mailed the next day; DaimlerChrysler records show it was received on April 30. The doctor's entire message was that "Mr. Woods has been advised to remain off of work pending further evaluation and treatment. He is to follow up with me in 1 week."

On Tuesday morning around 6:00 a.m., Woods left Wyatt a second brief voicemail message, reporting that he had seen his physician and would be mailing his note. Neither in this voicemail message nor the first did Woods give any information about what might be wrong with him or why he had been advised not to work. Wyatt nevertheless prepared a Salary Lost Time Report indicating that Woods would be absent on a "Disability Absence Plan" beginning April 23 for an "unknown" illness. The "return to work date" was left blank.

Senior HR Manager Ron Wander wrote to Woods about his absence on Tuesday April 24, the day of the second 6:00 a.m. voicemail. In this letter Wander told Woods:

It is the employee's responsibility to follow DaimlerChrysler's Standards of Conduct. You were scheduled to work on Friday, April 20th and left the plant without permission. Your absence from the plant is unsubstantiated and unauthorized.

You must report immediately to Michele Wyatt on or before Friday, April 27, 2001. Failure to do so shall result in disciplinary action up to and including discharge.

Woods received the letter on April 27, the day set by Wander as the deadline to report to Wyatt. Despite the letter's threat of discharge for noncompliance, Woods made no attempt to report to Wyatt as directed or to contact her about it. He says he thought he had already done enough by leaving the two voicemail messages and mailing the doctor note, but he did nothing to confirm that or to clarify what was expected of him.

On April 30 he wrote a letter to Wander saying that he had left work early on April 20 because he "was so stressed that I felt my health and well-being were at risk." He indicated he wanted to continue working for the company "in a role that is healthy and rewarding for myself, my family, and the corporation," but he did not indicate when he planned to resume work. Instead he said that he would "like to meet with the appropriate person(s) on the morning of Monday, May 7, 2001 to discuss my future with the corporation." He enclosed another copy of the previously forwarded note from Dr. Heidbrier, along with a second note from him dated April 30 which stated only that "Mr. Woods is advised to remain off work until 5/6/01." He also enclosed a March 28, 2001 note from Dr. Michael Borts, which had been written after Woods' first unexcused absence from work. In that note Dr. Borts said Woods suffered from chronic sinusitis and should avoid irritants such as cigarette smoke; it is not clear from the record whether this note had previously been submitted to the company.

Woods returned to the plant on May 7 for the first time after his early departure on April 20. He talked to HR Manager Ron Wander and Michele Wyatt, again recounting why he had left work but offering no substantiation for his excuse or documentation that his continued absence was due to a serious health condition. Wander then gave Woods a letter informing him that he was being suspended pending further investigation, for having left work on March 16 and April 20 without permission in violation of the company Standards of Conduct 3 and 4. Wander told Woods that he would be notified when the company had completed its inquiry into the matter.

Later that day, Woods wrote another letter to Wander. In this letter he said that he had left work on April 20 in a "state that precluded rational consideration of other options" and that the "same state of mental and physical distress prompted [his] physician to immediately prescribe medical treatment combined with time away from the workplace upon seeing him as early as his schedule permitted on Monday, April 23, 2001." He asked for "regular layoff benefits" if there were "no longer a position ... in which [his] skills and...