Zampierollo-Rheinfeldt v. Ingersoll-Rand de Puerto Rico, Inc.

• Decision Date: 28 May 2021
• Docket Number: No. 20-1356,20-1356
• Parties: Giorgio ZAMPIEROLLO-RHEINFELDT, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. INGERSOLL-RAND DE PUERTO RICO, INC. ; Trane Puerto Rico, Inc.; Trane Puerto Rico, LLC, Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

999 F.3d 37

Giorgio ZAMPIEROLLO-RHEINFELDT, Plaintiff, Appellant,

v.INGERSOLL-RAND DE PUERTO RICO, INC. ; Trane Puerto Rico, Inc.; Trane Puerto Rico, LLC, Defendants, Appellees.

No. 20-1356

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

May 28, 2021

Miguel Simonet-Sierra, with whom Dora L. Monserrate-Peñagarícano, Richard J. Schell, Guaynabo, PR, and Monserrate Simonet & Gierbolini, LLC were on brief, for appellant.

Mariel Y. Haack, with whom Edwin J. Seda-Fernández, San Juan, PR, and Adsuar Muñiz Goyco Seda & Pérez-Ochoa, P.S.C were on brief, for appellees.

Before Howard, Chief Judge, Thompson and Barron, Circuit Judges.

THOMPSON, Circuit Judge.

Trane Puerto Rico, LLC and its parent company, Ingersoll-Rand de Puerto Rico, Inc. (collectively "Trane") terminated the employment of Giorgio Zampierollo-Rheinfeldt ("Zampierollo") after thirty-three years of service. Zampierollo filed suit against Trane alleging wrongful termination of his employment under state law, and age discrimination under federal and state law. After discovery, Trane successfully moved for summary judgment on all of Zampierollo's claims and to exclude two documents from the summary judgment record. Zampierollo now appeals the district court's granting of both motions. We agree with Zampierollo that the district court erred by excluding the two documents from the summary judgment record. We also find that the record contains direct evidence from which a reasonable jury may conclude that Zampierollo was terminated because of his age. We therefore reverse the district court's order excluding the two documents, vacate the district court's entry of summary judgment, and remand for further proceedings.

I. Background

A. Factual Background

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, construing the record in the light most favorable to the nonmovant and resolving all reasonable inferences in that party's favor. Ocasio-Hernández v. Fortuño-Burset, 777 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2015).

Trane is a heating and air conditioning systems and services provider that does business around the world. In 1980, Zampierollo, at the age of twenty-two, began working with Trane as a Sales Engineer in Trane's Puerto Rico office. Zampierollo received several promotions over the course of his employment with Trane. In 2000, Trane promoted him to District General Manager, the highest-ranking position at the Puerto Rico office. In that capacity, Zampierollo oversaw the operations of Trane's Puerto Rico office.

By 2012, William Sekkel was the President of Trane's Latin America region. That year, Trane divided the region into four districts -- Brazil, Mexico, Cono Sur, and North Latin America -- each with its own Vice President, and Guillermo Feria became Vice President of the North Latin America district, which included the Puerto Rico office. Zampierollo reported directly to Feria.

At some point in 2012, Sekkel, who was older than Zampierollo, retired from the company, and María Blasé became the new President of the Latin America region. In September 2012, Blasé and Feria visited the Puerto Rico office and met with Zampierollo to discuss the operations there. Blasé told Zampierollo about her goal to reduce the company's selling, general, and administrative ("SG&A") expenses, including those at the Puerto Rico office.

In 2013, Feria retired from the company. In mid-May of that year, Enrique Flefel ("Flefel"), who had been the Business Leader¹ of Trane's Chile office, was promoted to Vice President of the North Latin America region. Hence, Flefel, who was eight years younger than Zampierollo, became Zampierollo's direct supervisor.

Although the Puerto Rico office was profitable, Flefel believed that its SG&A expenses were too high, and its sales were below target. He thus asked Zampierollo to take cost-reducing measures, such as renegotiating the office's lease agreement, lowering the cost of employee benefits, and cutting the marketing budget. Zampierollo successfully implemented some cost-reducing measures, such as the extension of a tax exemption for the office lease, which reduced the office's SG&A expenses by $500,000. According to Flefel, however, the cost reductions obtained were not enough, and he decided to also implement a reduction in force. The reduction in force would come together with a "new structure" for the Puerto Rico office. As part of this reduction in force and reorganization, Flefel decided to eliminate Zampierollo's position and create two heads at the same level: a Business Leader, who would be dedicated to business and revenue (sales), and an Operations Leader, focused on fulfillment and operation of the office. This two-headed structure was similar to the one already in place at Trane's Chile office before Flefel was promoted to Vice President of the Latin American region.² Flefel also decided to eliminate the position of Operations Manager, one Construction Project Manager position, and one Administrative Assistant position. At the time, a fifty-five-year-old occupied the position of Operations Manager, a fifty-one-year-old held the position of Construction Project Manager, and a woman in her mid-twenties occupied the Administrative Assistant position. Blasé and Trane's Human Resources Leader for the North Latin America region approved Flefel's reorganization plan. The management of the Puerto Rico office, including the Puerto Rico District Finance Leader, did not participate in the decision. Trane projected that the elimination of the four positions selected for the reduction in force would bring savings in salary of approximately $525,000 per year.

After reviewing the organizational chart and several Human Resources documents regarding current employees, Flefel selected Sergio Sanjenis for the position of Business Leader and Juan Carlos Teruel for the position of Operations Leader. Sanjenis and Teruel are ten and sixteen years younger than Zampierollo, respectively. On September 23, 2013, Flefel informed Zampierollo of his termination, effective as of September 30, 2013. Zampierollo was fifty-five years old at the time. On September 30, 2013, the remaining three employees impacted by the reduction in force were terminated. That same day, Flefel informed the Puerto Rico office employees about the organizational changes. Zampierollo's duties were distributed between Sanjenis and Teruel, with Flefel's support. Both Sanjenis and Teruel received a salary increase upon assuming their new roles. The changes also required the hiring of additional management personnel: a Logistics Manager and a Parts Manager. By November 7, 2013, Trane had already contemplated hiring for these two new positions, and it filled the positions in March and June 2014.³

B. Procedural History

On May 23, 2014, Zampierollo filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") against Trane alleging age-based discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621 - 634. Seven months later, the EEOC issued a right-to-sue letter. Thereafter, on March 18, 2015, Zampierollo filed a complaint against Trane in the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico.

In his complaint, Zampierollo asserted claims for: (1) age discrimination under the ADEA; (2) age discrimination under Puerto Rico's general antidiscrimination statute, Act No. 100 of June 30, 1959, P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 29, §§ 146 – 151 ("Law 100"); and (3) unjust discharge under Puerto Rico's Unjust Discharge Act, Act No. 80 of May 30, 1976, P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 29, §§ 185a – 185m ("Law 80"). After discovery, Trane moved for summary judgment, seeking the dismissal of all claims. Zampierollo filed an opposition to Trane's motion for summary judgment accompanied by several supporting documents. In response, Trane moved to strike two of those documents on the grounds that they had been produced to Trane after the discovery cut-off date and that they had not been properly authenticated.⁴

On February 21, 2020, the district court issued two opinions and orders. In the first, the district court granted Trane's motion to strike the documents submitted by Zampierollo as Exhibit 5 (the Chile office "Business Overview") and Exhibit 10 (the Puerto Rico office "2013 Financial Summary") of his opposition to summary judgment. Zampierollo-Rheinfeldt v. Ingersoll-Rand de P.R., Inc., No. 15-1255-RAM, 2020 WL 881011, at *7 (D.P.R. Feb. 21, 2020). The district court precluded Zampierollo from using these documents under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(c)(1) because Zampierollo had disclosed them to Trane after the discovery cut-off date and, according to the court, Zampierollo had failed to show that his belated disclosure of the documents was substantially justified or harmless. Id. at *4-7.

In its second opinion and order, the district court granted Trane's motion for summary judgment. Zampierollo-Rheinfeldt v. Ingersoll-Rand de P.R., Inc., No. 15-1255-RAM, 2020 WL 882174, at *13 (D.P.R. Feb. 21, 2020). Analyzing Zampierollo's age discrimination claims under the familiar burden-shifting framework set forth in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-05, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), the district court determined that Zampierollo had failed to establish the fourth prong of a prima facie case of age discrimination -- i.e., that Trane "either failed to treat age neutrally or that [it] replaced him with a younger employee." Id. at *8, *12. The court reasoned that Zampierollo had not been replaced because his position as District General Manager had been eliminated and his functions had been redistributed amongst Sanjenis and Teruel, who had "absorbed [Zampierollo]'s duties in addition to other duties and responsibilities that were assigned to them as part of their new roles as Business Director and Services Operations Leader, respectively." Id. at *8. The court also determined that Trane's reduction in force was "age-neutral facially and as applied." Id. at *10...