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Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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.. FILED 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALSunited State5 Court of Appeals 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

RICHARD A. TAYLOR, ) 

) 

Plaintiff-Appellant, ) 

) 

v. ) 

) 

MANOR CARE I, INCORPORATED, doing ) 

business as Four Seasons Nursing Center,) 

) 

Defendant-Appellee. ) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Tenth Circuit 

APR -51991 

&OBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 90-2127 

(D.C. No. 88-1310-JC) 

(D. N.M.) 

Before LOGAN, MOORE, and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the .determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

Plaintiff appeals the district court's order of May 30, 1990, 

entering summary judgment in favor of defendant on plaintiff's 

claim of age discrimination under the Age Discrimination in 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppal. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 90-2127 Document: 010110031862 Date Filed: 04/05/1991 Page: 1 
Employment Act, 29 u.s.c. §§ 621-634. Defendant hired plaintiff 

in September of 1986 to be the food service manager in a nursing 

home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Defendant discharged plaintiff 

in September of 1987, at the age of forty-seven, and replaced 

plaintiff with a woman who was under the age of forty. 

A plaintiff can establish a prima facie case of age 

discrimination by showing: 

"(l) he is within the protected age group, (2) he was 

doing satisfactory work, (3) he was discharged despite 

the adequacy of his work, and (4) his position was 

filled by a person younger than he." Cockrell v. Boise 

Cascade Corp., 781 F.2d 173, 177 (10th Cir. 1986). The 

burden of production then shifts to the employer to show 

a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the 

challenged action. Id. The plaintiff retains the 

ultimate burden of persuasion, which he may carry 

directly by proving that age was more likely than not a 

determinative factor in the employment decision, or 

indirectly by establishing that the employer's proffered 

explanation is mere pretext. Furr v. AT & T 

Technologies, Inc., 824 F.2d 1537, 1542 (10th Cir. 

1987). 

Cooper v. Asplundh Tree Expert Co., 836 F.2d 1544, 1547 (10th Cir. 

1988). 

Defendant moved for summary judgment on the ground that 

plaintiff's work was unsatisfactory, which prevented him from 

either establishing a prima facie case or rebutting the legitimate 

reason defendant articulated for discharging plaintiff. In 

support of its motion, defendant submitted materials that showed 

the following. Plaintiff received an oral reprimand on 

February 12, 1987, for not having his department within budget, a 

problem for which h~ had been couns e led previously. Plaintiff 

received another oral reprimand on February 18th for not having 

his budget in line and for the unsanitary condition of the kitchen 

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Appellate Case: 90-2127 Document: 010110031862 Date Filed: 04/05/1991 Page: 2 
\ 

) 

and storage areas. On April 4th and 5th, a member of the quality 

assurance department conducted a review of plaintiff's department. 

Plaintiff received a failing score on the review; he was counseled 

and told his score would have to improve. 

Following a complaint about his having deleted soup from a 

patient's meal without substituting another item, plaintiff was 

given a written warning on April 22, 1987, that any further 

incidents of this type would result in his termination. Plaintiff 

then received a barely passing score on his June quality assurance 

review, and again was told he would have to improve his score. On 

August 12, 1987, plaintiff received another written warning due to 

his failure to contribute adequately to care plans, his 

inappropriate response to people who tried to assist him, and his 

failure to communicate resident dining room changes to his staff 

in a timely manner, as directed by the administrator, which caused 

confusion when changes were made. On September 8, 1987, plaintiff 

again failed a quality assurance review. Defendant discharged 

plaintiff on September 11, 1987, on the ground that he had 

"violated 3 or more rules under minor and major offense categories 

[in the employee handbook] within a 12 month period." See rec. 

vol. I, doc. 32, exh. G. 

In response to defendant's motion for summary judgment, 

plaintiff presented deposition testimony from the administrator of 

the Albuquerque facility which showed that Carol Chute, who 

conducted the September quality assurance review, was the food 

service manager from a sister facility in Santa Fe, rather than a 

member of the quality assurance department, and had never 

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Appellate Case: 90-2127 Document: 010110031862 Date Filed: 04/05/1991 Page: 3 
performed a review for the administrator before. The deposition 

also showed that Ms. Chute's report on the September review 

contained several errors, and that the administrator would not 

have fired plaintiff at that time if he had received a passing 

score on his September review. Plaintiff also presented an 

affidavit of Joyce Hutchinson, a nutritional consultant at the 

Albuquerque facility. She averred that "[d]uring the course of 

carrying out [her] duties, she found the performance of Richard 

Taylor as food service manager for Four Seasons Nursing Center was 

adequate and met the standards of the industry," and that "Richard 

Taylor was performing his job satisfactorily." See rec. vol. I, 

doc. 34, exh. C. 

In reply, defendant presented further deposition testimony of 

the administrator, which . showed that even though Ms. Chute had 

never conducted a quality assurance review for him, she was 

qualified to do so, and that any errors in her report were 

corrected before plaintiff was terminated and the score was still 

below passing. The administrator also testified that .he could 

have terminated plaintiff without the September review report, 

based on plaintiff's prior warnings and notices. Furthermore, the 

administrator testified that Ms. Hutchinson's contract with the 

facility was for only eight hours a month and only a portion of 

that time was spent with plaintiff, that she was not qualified to 

provide an overall rating for plaintiff, and that she previously 

had found plaintiff's performance deficient in numerous respects. 

The district court entered summary judgment in favor of 

defendant on the basis that "plaintiff has completely failed to 

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Appellate Case: 90-2127 Document: 010110031862 Date Filed: 04/05/1991 Page: 4 
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I 

) ' 

offer any evidence that age was a factor in the decision to 

terminate him," and that "no reasonable jury could find that the 

plaintiff was satisfactorily performing his job." See rec. vol. 

I, doc. 37 at 6, 7. We review the grant of summary judgment de 

novo, applying the same standard as the district court under 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. Abercrombie v. City of Catoosa, 896 F.2d 

1228, 1230 (10th Cir. 1990). Rule 56 provides that summary 

judgment should be "rendered forthwith if the pleadings, 

depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, 

together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no 

genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is 

entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." 

56(c). 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 

Under the foregoing standard, "the mere existence of some 

alleged factual dispute between the parties will not defeat an 

otherwise properly supported motion for summary judgment; the 

requirement is that there be no genuine issue of material fact." 

Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 247-48 

(1986)(emphasis in original). Furthermore, 

the plain language of Rule 56(c) mandates the entry of 

summary judgment, after adequate time for discovery and 

upon motion, against a party who fails to make a showing 

sufficient to establish the existence of an element 

essential to that party's case, and on which that party 

will bear the burden of proof at trial. In such a 

situation, there can be "no genuine issue as to any 

material fact," since a complete failure of proof 

concerning an essential element of the nonmoving party's 

case necessarily renders all other facts immaterial. 

The moving party is "entitled to a judgment as a matter 

of law" because the nonmoving party has failed to make a 

sufficient showing on an essential element of [his] case 

with respect to which [he] has the burden of proof. 

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.. 

Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23 (1986). 

The parties agree that plaintiff's satisfactory performance 

was an essential element of his prima facie case, on which he 

would have borne the burden of proof at trial. Defendant produced 

substantial evidence that plaintiff's performance was 

unsatisfactory. The only evidence plaintiff produced to establish 

that his performance was not unsatisfactory was the affidavit of 

Ms. Hutchinson. 1 Ms. Hutchinson's affidavit, however, made only 

conclusory statements about plaintiff's performance; it did not 

"set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue 

for trial," as required by Rule 56(e). The district court, 

therefore, properly concluded that the evidence was not such that 

a reasonable jury could return a verdict in favor of plaintiff, 

see Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. at 248, and entered 

swmnary judgment for defendant. 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

District of New Mexico is AFFIRMED. 

Entered for the Court 

Bobby R. Baldock 

Circuit Judge 

1 The other evidence plaintiff produced concerned whether the 

true reason defendant discharged him was his allegedly 

unsatisfactory performance. This evidence was relevant to the 

issue of pretext for discharge, but not to the issue of whether 

plaintiff's performance was, in fact, satisfactory, an element of 

plaintiff's prima facie case. 

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