Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-09-02567/USCOURTS-ca8-09-02567-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Aaron Drew Binkley
Appellant
Entergy Operations
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Garnett Thomas Eisele, United States District Judge for the

Eastern District of Arkansas.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 09-2567

___________

Aaron Drew Binkley, *

*

Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the Eastern

* District of Arkansas.

Entergy Operations, Inc., *

*

Appellee. *

___________

Submitted: March 8, 2010

Filed: April 26, 2010

___________

Before BYE, ARNOLD, and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

After Aaron Binkley brought this action for breach of contract and promissory

estoppel against his former employer, Entergy Operations, Inc., the district court1

granted summary judgment against him on both claims. Mr. Binkley appeals the

court's judgment against him on his promissory estoppel claim and we affirm.

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I.

We view the evidence favorably to Mr. Binkley, the non-movant, as we must

when reviewing a grant of summary judgment. Mason v. Correctional Med. Servs.,

Inc., 559 F.3d 880, 884 (8th Cir. 2009). After working for many years at Entergy's

Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO) facility, Mr. Binkley was terminated for falsifying his

time sheets. As was the custom at the facility, he would complete his time sheets

before the beginning of a pay period; he would then correct them if he was unable to

work part of the time or, if it was too late to make corrections, he would use his

vacation time to repay Entergy for the time that he had not worked. Mr. Binkley's

previous supervisor had approved his timekeeping methods.

During the meeting at which he was terminated, Mr. Binkley's immediate

supervisor, Howard Ridenour, and a human resources representative, Angela

Kindrick, told him that he could seek relief through Entergy's Issue Resolution Policy

(IRP) by presenting his "side" of the issue to a panel of employees and that if the panel

agreed with him he "could get [his] job back." They also told him that, in the

alternative, he could present his grievance through line management, which would

consist of Mr. Ridenour, Mr. Ridenour's supervisor, and Jeff Forbes, the vice president

in charge of ANO. Ms. Kindrick gave Mr. Binkley a copy of the IRP, which included

a statement that Entergy's unit heads were "responsible for Implementation of a Panel

decision." The IRP excluded from the "Issue Resolution program" terminations for

"potential or actual unethical or illegal behavior" and stated that the panel could not

"establish or alter Company policy ... or change work rules."

Mr. Binkley submitted the issue to a panel, asking for reinstatement and

removal of related records from his personnel file, and the panel notified him that it

had decided to "grant [his] requested resolution." Entergy, however, ultimately

decided not to follow the panel's decision: Ms. Kindrick and another human resources

employee told Mr. Binkley that Mr. Forbes was the final decisionmaker, and that he

had said that Mr. Binkley's termination was excluded from the IRP and questioned Mr.

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Binkley's trustworthiness based on the relevant time sheets. Employees could not

work at the ANO nuclear facility without first being certified as trustworthy. Human

Resources Director Becki Bressler attested in an affidavit that, after the panel made

its decision, Mr. Forbes told her that Mr. Binkley's termination came within an

exclusion from the IRP because it was for "potential or actual unethical or illegal

behavior," and she admitted to having mistakenly told Mr. Binkley that his issue was

"appropriate for review." Ms. Bressler added that Mr. Forbes told her that

reinstatement of Mr. Binkley was contrary to company policy regarding discipline and

absenteeism and that Mr. Binkley was not trustworthy.

II.

Mr. Binkley does not challenge the district court's rejection of his contract

claim, which was based on the written IRP. The court held that the IRP did not alter

Mr. Binkley's at-will employee status and therefore any right that he had to

reinstatement "would be meaningless because Entergy could reinstate him and

immediately terminate him and be within its rights in doing so." But Mr. Binkley

maintains that the district court erred in granting summary judgment on his claim of

promissory estoppel. He contends that Ms. Kindrick's statement that he "could" get

his job back and Ms. Bressler's assurance that his issue was reviewable, combined

with the written IRP – particularly its statement giving unit heads responsibility for

implementing panel decisions – constituted a promise that Entergy would follow the

panel's decision. (We believe that the district court's rationale for granting judgment

on the contract claim, if correct, might also dispose of the promissory estoppel claim,

since both claims rely on an alleged promise to follow the panel's decision by

reinstating him. But the district court did not adopt this rationale and we choose not

to consider it further.)

The district court concluded that the claim was time-barred, but we may affirm

on any ground, see Bluehaven Funding, LLC v. First Am. Title Ins. Co., 594 F.3d

1055, 1058 (8th Cir. 2010), and do not reach the question of timeliness. We entertain

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some considerable doubt that the record would support a finding that there was any

promise here at all, which would of course be fatal to the claim; but even if there was

a promise, we conclude that Mr. Binkley's claim fails for another reason.

The Arkansas Supreme Court places a heavy burden on a party relying on

promissory estoppel: He or she "must prove it strictly, there must be certainty to

every intent, the facts constituting it must not be taken by argument or inference, and

nothing can be supplied by intendment." K.C. Properties of N.W. Arkansas, Inc. v.

Lowell Inv. Partners, LLC, 373 Ark. 14, 30, 280 S.W.3d 1, 14 (2008); Rigsby v.

Rigsby, 356 Ark. 311, 316-317, 149 S.W.3d 318, 322 (2004). Mr. Binkley was thus

required to produce strict proof to support each element of his claim including, among

other things, that he "suffered some detriment" in reliance on a promise that Entergy

made. See K.C. Properties , 373 Ark. at 30-31, 280 S.W.3d at 14; Rigsby, 356 Ark.

at 317, 149 S.W.3d at 322; Ark. Model Jury Instruction – Civil 2444.

Mr. Binkley asserts that he suffered detriment because he gave up his right to

press his case up the management structure in reliance on the promise that, if he

sought relief from the panel, its decision would be followed. Even if he relied on the

alleged promise, Mr. Binkley has offered no evidence that his choice caused him any

harm. He attested in his deposition that from the beginning he did not think that he

could obtain relief by pursuing his grievance through line management: When told

about the option, he was "concerned" that two of the three people in the chain of

command were the same people who had decided to terminate him, Mr. Ridenour and

Mr. Forbes. Had Mr. Binkley taken the line-management path, Mr. Forbes would

have been the final decisionmaker. Mr. Binkley provided no proof that he would not

have been fired if he had chosen not to submit his case to the panel. So he has not met

his burden of showing that he suffered a detriment by not presenting his case to line

management and, in fact, we think that the only tendency of the evidence is to show

that he did not suffer any harm.

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Nor do we see any merit to Mr. Binkley's contention that he suffered a

detriment because, in reliance on the alleged promise, he "prepared and presented his

case to the panel." Mr. Binkley prepared some "bullet points" before presenting his

case to the panel; he testified, "Basically, I talked from, from memory and from my

heart." Had he pursued the matter through line management, he no doubt would have

had to tell his story and likely would have presented the same arguments, probably on

more than one occasion.

"In order to survive a motion for summary judgment, the non-moving party

must be able to show sufficient probative evidence that would permit a finding in his

favor on more than mere speculation, conjecture, or fantasy." See Godfrey v. Pulitzer

Pub. Co., 276 F.3d 405, 412 (8th Cir. 2002) (internal quotation marks and citation

omitted). We conclude that Mr. Binkley failed to produce such evidence in support

of a crucial element of his promissory estoppel claim, and therefore summary

judgment against him was proper.

Affirmed.

______________________________

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