Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-07-05639/USCOURTS-ca6-07-05639-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
BWXT Y-12, LLC
Appellee
Royal D. Cline
Appellant

Document Text:

*

The Honorable Dan Aaron Polster, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio, sitting by

designation.

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206

File Name: 08a0133p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT _________________

ROYAL D. CLINE,

 Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

BWXT Y-12, LLC,

 Defendant-Appellee.

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No. 07-5639

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville.

No. 04-00588—Robert Leon Jordan, District Judge.

Argued: March 12, 2008

Decided and Filed: April 1, 2008 

Before: DAUGHTREY and SUTTON, Circuit Judges; and POLSTER, District Judge.*

_________________

COUNSEL

ARGUED: John D. Agee, RIDENOUR & RIDENOUR, Clinton, Tennessee, for Appellant.

Edward G. Phillips, KRAMER RAYSON, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: John

D. Agee, RIDENOUR & RIDENOUR, Clinton, Tennessee, for Appellant. Edward G. Phillips,

Francis L. Lloyd, KRAMER RAYSON, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellee.

_________________

OPINION _________________

SUTTON, Circuit Judge. Royal Cline challenges a decision rejecting his state-law, agediscrimination claims as a matter of law. One of Cline’s claims is barred by the statute of

limitations, and another claim fails because the company offered a nondiscriminatory, non-pretextual

reason for its decision. But a third claim, based on retaliation, deserves further consideration

because a reasonable jury could infer that the company had knowledge of this lawsuit and took an

adverse employment action because of it. 

1

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I.

Born in 1943, Cline worked for 31 years as a government contractor at United States

Department of Energy facilities in the “nondestructive testing” of military weapons. From 1969 to

1994, Cline worked at the Department’s Y-12 National Security Complex as a technician, supervisor

and trainer. From 1994 to 2000, he worked as a supervisor at the Department’s Oak Ridge National

Laboratory. In 2000, Cline was laid off in a reduction in force. 

Between 2000 and 2004, Cline applied unsuccessfully for numerous positions with the

company that manages Y-12, an entity named BWXT, which we will call “the company.” 

In 2004, Cline filed this age-discrimination lawsuit against the company in Tennessee court,

and the company removed the action to federal court on diversity grounds. (Cline is a citizen of

Tennessee, and the two members of the company are a Delaware corporation with its principal place

of business in Virginia and a Nevada corporation with its principal place of business in Maryland.)

In 2006, the company moved for summary judgment, which the district court granted. 

II.

We assess age-discrimination claims under the Tennessee Human Rights Act applying the

same standards that govern federal discrimination claims. Bender v. Hecht’s Dep’t Stores, 455 F.3d

612, 620 (6th Cir. 2006). And we give fresh review to the district court’s summary-judgment

decision, drawing all reasonable inferences in Cline’s favor. Id. at 619–20. 

A.

Cline first says that the company discriminated against him by failing to hire him for a

technical-specialist position. Under the familiar McDonnell Douglas standard, Cline bears the

burden of establishing a prima facie case of discrimination. If he succeeds in doing so, the burden

shifts to the company to produce a legitimate, non-discriminatory explanation for its decision, after

which Cline must establish that any non-discriminatory reason offered by the company is pretextual.

McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802–05 (1973). 

In June 2004, the company posted an opening for technical specialists in the product

certification department. The posting indicated that the position “requires a ‘Q’ clearance”—the

Department of Energy’s highest level of security clearance, which takes up to two years to obtain.

It also advised that certification in the Human Reliability Program might be required, which takes

12 additional months after an employee is “Q-cleared.” 

The company interviewed internal applicants in August 2004 and external applicants in

October 2004, expecting to hire five individuals. Cline submitted an application but was not

selected for an interview. In late October, the company put the posting “on hold for budgetary

reasons.” When sufficient funding allowed the company to hire three individuals the following year,

John Stanley, the hiring manager for the position, selected three internal candidates, all of whom

were younger than Cline. 

Like the district court, we see no reason to determine whether Cline established a prima facie

case of discrimination because he has not discredited the company’s reasons for its action. The

company explained that it did not hire Cline because it did not think he had several recommended

credentials—an active Q-clearance, Human Reliability Program certification and radiography

certification—and because, after the company lifted the budget hold, it posted the opening only on

an internal basis. Cline has not shown that these explanations amounted to pretextual covers for

discrimination—whether because (1) they had no basis in fact, (2) they did not actually motivate the

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company’s decision or (3) they did not suffice to motivate that decision. See generally Bender, 455

F.3d at 624. 

The company based its decision on uncontradicted facts. Cline’s Q-clearance expired in

2000, and his resume did not note any certification in radiography or in the Human Reliability

Program. And no one disputes the fact that, after the company lifted the budget hold, it posted the

position just for internal candidates. 

The evidence confirms that these facts motivated the company’s decision. The three hired

individuals had Q-clearance and Human Reliability Program certification, while Cline did

not—meaning that it would have taken him two and a half to three years to become eligible to work

in the department. “If he had indicated on his resume that he had active Q-clearance,” Stanley said,

“I would have interviewed him.” Despite the absence of any mention of a Q-clearance on his

resume, Cline maintains that he “remained Q-cleared through 2006,” which the district court

determined was false as a matter of law. But even assuming Cline had a Q-clearance, as he urges

on appeal, he has only himself to blame for failing to note that fact on his resume. Employers have

no duty to determine whether an applicant has more qualifications than his resume indicates. 

The three hired individuals also were internal candidates. In the aftermath of the budget

hold, the company chose to give a preference to internal applicants over external ones, and nothing

shows it did not follow that policy here. 

Cline responds that the company interviewed “younger, less qualified external applicants”

for the position, showing that its proffered reasons were pretextual. He points out, for example, that

he had a Level III radiography certification and that several interviewees did not. But, again, Cline

did not put this qualification on his resume, and, again, Cline cannot premise a discrimination claim

on information he never gave the company. 

Other interviewees, Cline adds, lacked one or all of the qualifications that the company says

were fatal to his application. “Several,” he says, “lacked any . . . radiological experience at all,”

including Mark Manning (a screener at an airport and a security escort whose application was late),

Tyrone Ballinger (a security officer), Scott Rogers (a student working on his degree), Gregory Scott

Bell (a student working on an engineering degree) and Jason Jones (an individual with experience

in tire and lube express). But each of these applicants had other qualifications that Cline did not

have. Manning and Ballinger were Q-cleared; Rogers and Bell were potential candidates for the

company’s college degree program; and Jones received an interview because “he came across as a

mechanical-type person with a lot of mechanical experience” who might have been a fitting

replacement for “one mechanical [x-ray person] that [was] going to be retiring before too long.” 

While Cline may disagree with the wisdom of the company’s decision to value some of these

characteristics over others, he “may not simply substitute [his] own business judgment for that of

the defendant.” Rowan v. Lockheed Martin Energy Sys., Inc., 360 F.3d 544, 550 (6th Cir. 2004).

The company emphasized the importance of Q-clearance, and it was reasonable for the company to

seek some candidates for its college program and to talk with a candidate who could replace a

retiring employee. See Wexler v. White’s Fine Furniture, Inc., 317 F.3d 564, 576 (6th Cir. 2003)

(en banc) (“[T]he reasonableness of an employer’s decision may be considered to the extent that

such an inquiry sheds light on whether the employer’s proffered reason for the employment action

was its actual motivation.”). That the job description itself did not express an interest in college

program candidates does not prevent the company from including such candidates in its mix of

interviewees. See Browning v. Dep’t of Army, 436 F.3d 692, 696 (6th Cir. 2006) (“[E]mployers are

not rigidly bound by the language in a job description.”). And the company’s decision to accept

Manning’s late application no more suggests that the company discriminated against Cline’s timely

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application than it suggests the company was more concerned with the content of an applicant’s

resume than with the date it was submitted. See Rowan, 360 F.3d at 550. 

The company’s reasons sufficed to motivate its decision. Cline’s status as an external

candidate, combined with his failure to list key credentials on his resume, “gave the company ample

reason” not to hire him. Sherrills v. Beison, 242 F. App’x 332, 337 (6th Cir. July 27, 2007). And,

as we have shown, he has failed to demonstrate that younger individuals in a “substantially

identical” situation received more favorable treatment. Manzer v. Diamond Shamrock Chems. Co., 29 F.3d 1078, 1084 (6th Cir.1994).

Cline argues that a federal statutory preference for Cold War workers covered his

application, proving that indeed the company’s reasons could not have legitimately motivated its

decision. “Employees whose employment in positions at [Department nuclear] facilities is

terminated,” the preference says, “shall, to the extent practicable, receive preference in any hiring

of the Department of Energy (consistent with applicable employment seniority plans or practices

of the Department of Energy . . . ).” 50 U.S.C. § 2704(c)(2). But Oak Ridge treats the preference

as a tie-breaker between similarly qualified external candidates, and the preference does not apply

“when a contractor fills vacant positions through internal means.” Cline has not satisfied either

condition. 

 B. 

Cline next argues that the statute of limitations does not bar his claim stemming from an

unsuccessful application to be a chemical operator. In October 2001, the company posted the

opening, and Cline applied for it, as one of roughly 500 applicants for 41 positions. The company

made all of the external offers for the positions by August 13, 2002. Consistent with its general

practice, the company did not notify Cline (or any of the other unsuccessful applicants) that he had

been rejected for the position, and Cline never checked the status of his application.

Reasoning that “[t]hrough the exercise of reasonable diligence, Cline should have known that

he was not being hired” for this position “more than one year before he filed suit” in November

2004, the district court held that the claim was time barred. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-21-311(d)

(stating that the claimant must bring an action “within one (1) year after the alleged discriminatory

practice ceases”). We agree.

Under Tennessee law, if a discriminatory practice is a “discrete act” rather than a “continuing

violation,” the practice “‘ceases’ as of the time it occurs, not as of the time the consequences of the

act cease.” Booker v. Boeing Co., 188 S.W.3d 639, 645 (Tenn. 2006). An employer’s failure to hire

a job applicant represents a discrete act. Much like the denial of a promotion, see Austion v. City

of Clarksville, 244 F. App’x 639, 648–49 (6th Cir. July 31, 2007) (applying Tennessee law), or “the

decision to terminate an employee,” Booker, 188 S.W.3d at 645, a failure to hire represents a

“separate and distinct” act for these purposes, id. at 648. See Gilbert v. Choo-Choo Partners, L.P., No. E2006-01507-COA-R3-CV, 2007 WL 1049270, *6 (Tenn. Ct. App. Apr. 9, 2007) (“[W]here

the alleged discriminatory practice is a discrete act such as termination, failure to promote, denial

of transfer, or refusal to hire, each alleged act of discrimination must be evaluated independently

to determine whether it occurred within the limitations period.”) (emphasis added and internal

quotation marks omitted); cf. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 114 (2002)

(stating that “discrete acts [include] termination, failure to promote, denial of transfer, [and] refusal

to hire”) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Because the company’s failure-to-hire decision was a discrete act, Cline cannot get any

purchase from the continuing-violation doctrine. See Booker, 188 S.W.3d at 645. The allegedly

discriminatory act “t[ook] place” or “ happen[ed],” id. at 648, in August 2002, when the company

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filled the last of these positions—over two years before Cline filed this action. That some of the

hired employees reported to work later makes no difference, for reporting to work is merely a

“consequence[]” of the allegedly discriminatory decision—namely, hiring other applicants over

Cline. Id. at 645; cf. Weber v. Moses, 938 S.W.2d 387, 391–92 (Tenn. 1996) (concluding that, in

a discriminatory-discharge claim, the date on which an employer actually stops working is irrelevant

for purposes of the statute of limitations). 

Even if we give Cline the benefit of the discovery rule that applies to Title VII and ADEA

claims, that does not help him either. The limitations period still runs “as soon as a potential

plaintiff either is aware, or should be aware after a sufficient degree of diligence, of the existence

and source of an actual injury.” Podobnik v. U.S. Postal Serv., 409 F.3d 584, 590 (3d Cir. 2005)

(emphasis omitted); see also Newsom v. Textron Aerostructures, 924 S.W.2d 87, 95 (Tenn. Ct. App.

1995). And Cline’s claim of “reasonable diligence” falls flat, as he made no effort for three years

“to monitor the status of [his] application.” Oshiver v. Levin, Fishbein, Sedran & Berman, 38 F.3d

1380, 1391 (3d Cir. 1994); Nilsen v. City of Moss Point, 621 F.2d 117, 121 (5th Cir. 1980).

Cline argues that actual notice of the failed application should be the trigger date, pointing

to Weber v. Moses, 938 S.W.2d 387 (Tenn. 1996), which said that the limitations period begins to

run “when the plaintiff is given unequivocal notice of the employer’s termination decision, even if

the employment does not cease until a designated date in the future.” Id. at 391–92. But Weber

merely endorses one way in which the discovery rule may apply: when the plaintiff discovers the

employer’s act through actual notice. It does not purport to foreclose application of the reasonablediligence doctrine. Even then, Weber was a discriminatory-discharge case, and the employment

customs with respect to actual notice of a firing, as opposed to actual notice of a failure to be hired,

are by no means one and the same—particularly in the context of a pool of over 500 job applicants.

It is one thing to tell a worker not to show up for work on a certain day; it is quite another to take

on responsibility for telling 500 unsuccessful applicants they didn’t get the job. 

Cline adds that he “understood from talking with personnel of the Career Center and others

that there would be a lot of hiring for these positions for a long time.” But to toll the limitations

period based on equitable estoppel, he must show a “false representation or concealment.” Osborne

v. Mountain Life Ins. Co., 130 S.W.3d 769, 774 (Tenn. 2004). There was nothing false about this

statement: After all, there was “a lot of hiring” (no less than 41 positions), and it did take “a long

time” to complete the hiring process (nearly one year after the company posted the position

externally). 

C.

Cline, lastly, argues that the district court erred in rejecting his retaliation claim as a matter

of law. To establish a prima facie case of retaliation under Tennessee law, a plaintiff must show that

(1) he engaged in a protected activity, (2) his employer had knowledge of the plaintiff’s exercise of

protected rights, (3) the employer thereafter took an employment action adverse to the plaintiff and

(4) there was a causal connection between the protected activity and the adverse employment action.

Newsom, 924 S.W.2d at 96. 

In 2005, Ralph Mack sought to hire an individual to conduct an 80-hour certification

program in ultrasonics. Because no one inside the company was qualified to conduct the training,

Mack looked outside the company and learned that Cline could do the job. In September, Mack

asked Cline to take the job, and Cline agreed to do it. Mack and Cline identified possible dates,

locations and equipment for the training, and Cline began looking for training materials.

Later that same year, however, Mack told his supervisor (Zava) “that Mr. Cline was the

person that we were considering to do the training.” “And at that point,” Mack says, “she mentioned

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that we were in litigation with Mr. Cline and that he may not be the best person to do the training

because of the litigation factor.” As a result, Mack told Cline that he had “decided to table

the . . . training.” 

The company correctly concedes that these undisputed facts show that Cline has satisfied

two elements of the claim: The filing of a lawsuit against the company for age discrimination

constitutes a protected activity, see Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-21-301(1), and the company’s change of

heart represents an adverse employment action. What, however, of the second and fourth elements

of the claim? Under the second element, Cline’s protected activity had to be “known to those who

made [the adverse employment] decision.” Fenton v. HiSAN, Inc., 174 F.3d 827, 832 (6th Cir.

1999). Although the above evidence shows that Mack and Zava knew that Cline was “in litigation

with” the company, there is no evidence that they knew the litigation involved age discrimination.

Because Mack and Zava did not have “any knowledge of the substance of Cline’s present suit,” the

district court held that there was no genuine issue of material fact as to their knowledge of a

protected activity. 

We faced a similar problem in Bacon v. Honda of America Manufacturing, Inc., 192 F.

App’x 337, 343 (6th Cir. July 13, 2006), but reached a different conclusion. There, a Honda vice

president suggested that a manager should transfer an employee to a different group, mentioning

“legal concerns” regarding the employee. Id. at 340, 343 (internal quotation marks omitted). The

manager, who transferred the employee and ultimately terminated him, id. at 341, admitted

knowledge of “legal concerns” but denied knowledge of the “nature of the legal concerns,” id. at 343

(internal quotation marks omitted). We held that “the ‘legal concerns’ remark constitutes sufficient

evidence to create a question of fact as to whether [the manager and the vice president] knew of [the

employee’s] protected activity.” Id.

Consistent with Bacon, Cline has produced sufficient evidence from which “a reasonable

jury could infer . . . that the supervisor knew of the protected activity at issue.” Mulhall v. Ashcroft, 287 F.3d 543, 553 (6th Cir. 2002). Mack and Zava knew that Cline was involved in litigation with

the company; the evidence permits the inference that the decision makers were unwilling to hire

someone in litigation with the company; and under Bacon this evidence creates a triable issue of fact

over whether the decision makers knew of Cline’s protected activity. Bacon, 192 F. App’x at 343.

Something more is required, the company says, because Cline’s evidence still does not show

that the decision makers knew that the litigation involved an age-discrimination claim, and Bacon

at all events is an unpublished decision. In one sense, the company has a point. Cline’s evidence

permits the inference that Mack and Zava would not hire someone—anyone—“in litigation” with

the company, and that view might suggest unbiased neutrality. It thus might have made no

difference to Mack and Zava whether the litigation involved age discrimination if they preferred not

to hire anyone in litigation with the company without regard to the subject matter of the

lawsuit—whether it was a tort action, a contract dispute or a civil rights complaint. But such an

across-the-board explanation—that any litigation with the company precludes any individual from

being hired (or for that matter being retained as a current employee)—would necessarily sweep up

protected civil rights claims and non-protected claims. And if such an explanation suffices for one

hiring decision, why couldn’t an employer adopt a company-wide policy against hiring or retaining

anyone in litigation with the company? As long as the policy were consistently followed, the

employer would rarely have reason to obtain knowledge about the substance of the litigation, and

at any rate it could always fairly say that it was the ruthlessly neutral policy, not the protected

activity, that caused the adverse action. While we have no Tennessee case that tells us so, we doubt

that the Tennessee courts would allow the State’s anti-retaliation provision to be so easily evaded

by the simple expedient of refusing to hire (or discharging) any individual with any litigation claim

against the company. Two triable issues of fact thus exist: (1) Do the Mack and Zava statements

(and any other relevant evidence) permit the inference that the company knew about the content of

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Cline’s claim against the company; and (2) do the Mack and Zava statements (and any other relevant

evidence) permit the inference that the company had a policy against hiring (or retaining) individuals

with litigation against the company? 

Under the fourth element, the claimant must show “that there was a causal connection

between the protected activity and the adverse employment action.” Newsom, 924 S.W.2d at 96.

Mack’s testimony provides the requisite link: He reversed his decision to hire Cline because Zava

“mentioned that we were in litigation with Mr. Cline and that he may not be the best person to do

the training because of the litigation factor.” That is not quite true, the company says. According

to Zava, she told Mack to cancel the training because she wanted to conduct the training in-house,

and she only “posed [to Mack] the rhetorical question of whether it was proper to subcontract with

someone who was in litigation with BWXT.” Even if Zava is correct and even if Mack

misunderstood her, the fact remains that Mack “table[d]” the training because he understood Zava

to say that Cline may not be the best person for the job based on the litigation, and he took action

on that basis. A triable issue of fact thus exists on whether Cline’s protected activity caused the

company to change its hiring decision.

III.

For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s disposition of the failure-to-hire claims and

reverse and remand the retaliation claim for further proceedings.

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