Case Title: McDevitt v. Bill Good Builders

Citation: 

Docket Number: a-123-01

State: new-jersey

Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Date: 2003-03-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
Plaintiff had been a painter at the Philadelphia Naval yard for thirty years when he retired in 1990 at age sixty-two. Subsequently, plaintiff went to work for defendant, a company that specialized in home restoration projects. Defendant terminated plaintiff effective October 31, 1997, allegedly due to downsizing. In fact, defendant reduced its overall workforce and subcontracted its painting work to spray painting companies. Plaintiff specialized in hand painting. Plaintiff filed suit, basing his claim, in part, on defendant s retention of one foreman/painter, younger than himself. In addition, plaintiff alleged that the company s president, Bill Good, had on at least one occasion told him that he was getting too old for this type of work. Moreover, plaintiff recounted a conversation he had with another employee, Wendy Haddock, who told him that she had asked Good s secretary, Nancy Cockrell, the reason for plaintiff s termination and that Cockrell responded by saying that plaintiff was too old. Haddock also informed plaintiff that Good was in the room when the statement was made and that, although he did not say anything, he nodded his head in agreement. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. Plaintiff asserted that he met the four-prong McDonnell Douglas test and thus had established a prima facie age discrimination cause of action. In addition, plaintiff argued that he had demonstrated direct evidence of a discriminatory termination consisting of Good s statement that plaintiff was too old for the job and Good s nodding assent to Cockrell s statement that plaintiff was terminated because he was too old. Plaintiff contended that under Price Waterhouse, he was entitled to have his case presented to a jury with the burden of persuasion shifted to defendant to prove that plaintiff would have been terminated notwithstanding the impermissible consideration of his age. Defendant argued that the company did not keep any painters and that plaintiff was not entitled to a shift of the burden of persuasion under Price Waterhouse, asserting that Good s head nod did not meet the required standard for directness of poof and, moreover, that Good s alleged earlier comment was nothing more than a stray remark. The trial court granted summary judgment to defendant, determining from the record that a reasonable jury would find that plaintiff was terminated due to a reduction in force. The Appellate Division affirmed, concluding that plaintiff had failed to make a prima facie showing of the fourth prong of McDonnell Douglas. Further, the Appellate Division concluded that it was highly questionable whether the alleged head nod would constitute an adoptive admission. The Supreme Court granted plaintiff s petition for certification. HELD: Plaintiff failed to establish that defendant retained a sufficiently younger worker in the same position as himself and, therefore, failed to meet the fourth prong of the McDonnell Douglas test. If warranted by the attendant circumstances, a nod of the head can qualify as an affirmative expression of agreement constituting an adoptive admission under Price Waterhouse, but such a conclusion cannot be reached from the record, requiring a Rule 104 hearing. 1. Under Price Waterhouse, when a plaintiff produces evidence that an employer placed substantial reliance on a proscribed discriminatory factor in making its decision to take an adverse employment action, the burden of persuasion shifts to the employer to prove that even if it had not considered the proscribed factor, the employment action would have occurred. The discriminatory basis for the adverse employment action is best demonstrated by direct evidence. What constitutes direct evidence is a matter of some dispute, with a number of federal courts taking diverse positions. This Court recognizes and favors the approach applied by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Fekete v. Aetna, Inc., 308 F.3d 335, 337 n.2 (3d Cir. 2002): i.e., a court must consider whether a statement made by a decision maker associated with the decision making process actually bore on the employment decision at issue and communicated proscribed animus. In other words, the qualitative nature of the proofs must determine whether a plaintiff has direct evidence of discrimination. (Pp. 8-11) 2 Statements made by third parties that are adopted by the party, by word or by conduct, are admissible. N.J.R.E. 803(b)(2). A hearsay statement qualifies as an adoptive admission if two criteria are satisfied. First, the party to be charged must be aware of and understand the content of the statement. Second, it must be clear that the party to be charged with the adoptive admission unambiguously assented to the statement. If warranted by the attendant circumstances, a nod of the head can qualify as an affirmative expression of agreement constituting an adoptive admission. In this case, proof of Good s nodding his head could constitute an adoptive admission if he heard and understood the alleged statement by Cockrell about the reason for plaintiff s termination and if the evidence demonstrates that the nodding was intended to convey agreement with that statement. A hearing should have been conducted to evaluate that proffer in accordance with the requirement of N.J.R.E. 104(a). Should the court determine that evidence of Good s head nod is admissible, it must then decide, based on the evidence adduced at the Rule 104 hearing, whether the adoptive admission, if made, satisfies the Price Waterhouse standard of direct evidence. (Pp. 11-16) The judgment of the Appellate Division is REVERSED and the matter REMANDED to the trial court for a Rule 104 hearing consistent with this opinion. . CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES COLEMAN, LONG, VERNIERO, ZAZZALI and ALBIN join in Justice LaVECCHIA s opinion. BERNARD McDEVITT, an individual, and THOMAS GALANTE, an individual, Plaintiffs-Appellants, and HARRY PIERCE, an individual, and HARRY BROWN, an individual, Plaintiffs, v. BILL GOOD BUILDERS, INC., a New Jersey Corporation, Defendant-Respondent, and JOHN DOES 1 THROUGH 10, INCLUSIVE, Defendants. Argued December 2, 2002 Decided March 5, 2003 On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division. Joseph T. Threston, III, argued the cause for appellants (Zabel & Associates, attorneys). Thomas H. Ehrhardt argued the cause for respondent. The opinion of the Court was delivered by LaVECCHIA, J. Plaintiff Bernard McDevitt brought this action against defendant Bill Good Builders, Inc. ( employer or "defendant"), under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C.A. 623a(1), alleging that his termination of employment at age sixty-nine was motivated by his age rather than by a legitimate reduction in force as the employer asserted. The Appellate Division, in an unreported opinion, affirmed the trial court s grant of summary judgment dismissing the complaint, and we granted plaintiff s petition for certification, 172 N.J. 357 (2002), to address the significant evidential issue raised. We agree with the lower courts that plaintiff failed to demonstrate a prima facie case of age discrimination under the four-pronged test of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802, 93 S. Ct. 1817, 1824, 36 L. Ed. 2d 668, 677-78 (1973). The question, rather, is whether, as plaintiff contends, he presented such direct evidence of discriminatory purpose as would entitle him, under the principles of Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 276, 109 S. Ct. 1775, 1796-97, 104 L. Ed. 2d 268, 304-05 (1994) (O Connor, J., concurring), to a shift of the burden of persuasion thereby requiring the employer to prove it would have taken the adverse employment action even without consideration of the proscribed factor. The asserted direct evidence was the head nodding by the employer s president, Bill Good ( Good ), who allegedly was present when his secretary, answering an inquiry by another employee as to why plaintiff was being terminated, said that he was too old. Plaintiff contends that Good s nodding of his head in response to his secretary s statement constituted an adoptive admission by a party, admissible pursuant to N.J.R.E. 803(b)(2), of his discriminatory purpose in terminating the employment. The issues before us are whether a nod of the head may constitute an adoptive admission and, if so, whether that adoptive admission, if made, meets the Price Waterhouse direct-evidence test. Clearly, if both these questions are answered affirmatively, the summary judgment dismissing the complaint was improvidently granted. The difficulty is that neither question can be answered on this record. Both require circumstantial resolution in a hearing pursuant to N.J.R.E. 104. Accordingly, we reverse the summary judgment and remand for the necessary hearing. BERNARD McDEVITT, an Individual, and THOMAS GALANTE, an individual, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. BILL GOOD BUILDERS, INC., a New Jersey Corporation, Defendant-Respondent. DECIDED March 5, 2003 Chief Justice Poritz PRESIDING OPINION BY Justice LaVECCHIA CONCURRING OPINION BY DISSENTING OPINION BY