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Parties Involved:
Bernard Gilbert
Appellant
Local Union No. 1 of the International Union of Operating Engineers
Not Party
Metro Wastewater Reclamation District
Appellee

Document Text:

F tE 

oited Stateli -Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEAL "tenth Circuit 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT OCT 3 0 1990 

BERNARD GILBERT, 

Plaintiff-AppelleeCross-Appellant, 

v. 

LOCAL UNION NO. 1 OF THE 

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING 

ENGINEERS, 

Defendant, 

and 

METRO WASTEWATER RECLAMATION 

DISTRICT, fka METROPOLITAN DENVER 

SEWAGE DISPOSAL DISTRICT NO. 1, 

Defendant-AppellantCross-Appellee. 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

) Clerk 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) Nos. 89-1318 

) & 

) 89-1320 

) (D.C. No. 87-B-593) 

) ( D. Colo.) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT * 

Before McKAY, LOGAN, Circuit Judges, and RUSSELL,** District 

Judge. 

**Honorable David L. Russell, District 

District Court for the Western District of 

designation. 

* 

Judge, United States 

Oklahoma, sitting -by 

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 estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 89-1320 Document: 010110064933 Date Filed: 10/30/1990 Page: 1 
Defendant 

appeals from a 

Metro Wastewater 

district court 

Reclamation District (Metro) 

judgment awarding plaintiff 

reinstatement and damages, along with interest and attorney's 

fees, in this constructive discharge action brought under the Age 

Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 u.s.c. § 621, et~ 

Plaintiff cross-appeals, challenging the size of the damages 

verdict rendered by the jury. Because we conclude that plaintiff 

failed to present a triable issue of age discrimination and, 

therefore, hold that defendant is entitled to judgment as a matter 

of law, we do not reach the matters raised on plaintiff's 

cross-appeal. See Mitchell v. Mobil Oil Corp., 896 F.2d 463, 473 

(10th Cir. 1990). 

Defendant moved for a directed verdict at the close of the 

evidence and, later, for judgment notwithstanding the verdict 

(JNOV), in both instances insisting that as a matter of law, 

plaintiff had not met his burden of proof on the elements of 

constructive discharge and age discrimination. The district court 

denied both motions. These twin rulings, see Zimmerman v. First 

Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass'n, 848 F.2d 1047, 1051 (10th Cir. 1988), 

claim our de novo review under the same standard applied by the 

district court, Guilfoyle ex rel. Wild v. Missouri, Kan. & Tex. 

R.R., 812 F.2d 1290, 1292 (10th Cir. 1987). That is, "[w)e will 

reverse the trial court's denial of a motion for a directed 

verdict [or JNOV] only if, viewed in the light most favorable to 

the nonmoving party, the evidence and all reasonable inferences to 

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Appellate Case: 89-1320 Document: 010110064933 Date Filed: 10/30/1990 Page: 2 
be drawn therefrom point but one way, in favor of the moving 

party." Mitchell, 896 F.2d at 467. 

At this late stage in the proceedings, the sequential 

analytical model adopted from McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 

411 U.S. 792, 801-04 (1973), consisting of (1) the plaintiff's 

prima facie case of age discrimination, (2) the defendant's 

legitimate business justification, and (3) the plaintiff's 

rebuttal showing of pretext and/or improper motivation, which 

guided the trier's consideration of this discrimination case, 

drops out and we are left with the single overarching issue 

whether plaintiff adduced sufficient evidence to warrant a jury's 

determination that adverse employment action was taken against 

plaintiff on the basis of age. Messina v. Kroblin Transp. Sys., 

Inc., 903 F.2d 1306, 1308 (10th Cir. 1990); see also Pitre v. 

Western Elec. Co., 843 F.2d 1262, 1266 (10th Cir. 1988). On our 

review of the record, we conclude that the evidence and reasonable 

inferences therefrom, see Lucas v. Dover Corp .• Norris Div., 857 

F.2d 1397, 1401 (10th Cir. 1988), do not establish a triable issue 

of age discrimination. Plaintiff may have been treated harshly or 

even unfairly, but "the ADEA does not protect against generally 

unfair business policies, however objectionable; the act 

proscribes only discriminatory practices." EEOC v. Sperry Corp., 

852 F.2d 503, 507 (10th Cir. 1988); .§.gg Palucki v. Sears, Roebuck 

& Co., 879 F.2d 1568, 1571 (7th Cir. 1989); Bienkowski v. American 

Airlines, Inc., 851 F.2d 1503, 1507-08 (5th Cir. 1988). The 

district court's denial of defendant's request for judgment as a 

matter of law cannot stand. 

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Appellate Case: 89-1320 Document: 010110064933 Date Filed: 10/30/1990 Page: 3 
Apart from the circumstances surrounding plaintiff's 

demotion, there is no substantial evidence of the objectively 

intolerable employment conditions necessary to a constructive 

discharge claim. See generally Mitchell, 896 F.2d at 467; 

Cockrell v. Boise Cascade Corp., 781 F.2d 173, 177 (10th Cir. 

1986). Thus, the crux of this constructive discharge action is 

the demotion that ultimately led to plaintiff's resignation, not 

the resignation itself. Accordingly, the proper age comparison 

for plaintiff is not with the twenty-seven year old, entry-level 

EIT hired after plaintiff resigned, but with the person(s) 

selected to fill the vacancy left by his demotion from senior EIT. 

If the record demonstrates plaintiff's "replacement" in this 

critical respect at all, it does so by reference to the two EITs 

promoted to the electrical maintenance supervisory (nonunion) 

positions created after the (union) senior EIT position was 

discontinued. The ages of these individuals, however, was not 

established at trial. 

Plaintiff also failed to demonstrate disparate treatment with 

respect to the electronics training provided him by defendant. It 

was never shown that the formal training offered by defendant 

systematically varied at all from EIT to EIT, let alone that any 

privilege in this regard was afforded to the younger EITs. 

Moreover, plaintiff failed to undercut defendant's evidence 

establishing his deficient electronics expertise, 

poor performance in the remedial training 

his reluctant, 

ordered by his 

supervisors, and the disregardful, unresponsive conduct ultimately 

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Appellate Case: 89-1320 Document: 010110064933 Date Filed: 10/30/1990 Page: 4 
provoking his demotion during the meeting with his supervisors on 

April 18, 1986. 

Viewed in its broadest outline, the essence of plaintiff's 

case is that he was the victim of a de facto system of forced 

obsolescence particularly insidious in its deleterious effect on 

long-standing . (i.e., older) employees such as plaintiff. This 

regime kept plaintiff in a technically primitive section of 

defendant's facility and, coupled with the generally weak training 

that supplemented the limited experience provided by his work 

assignments, actively cultivated his incompetence and ultimately 

led to his demotion. While there is no more specific evidence of 

age discrimination tied to this scenario than to the demotion 

directly, there is something inherently age-suggestive about a 

claim that an employer has so exploited occupational longevity to 

the disadvantage of a senior employee. 

There are, however, two problems with following this approach 

to a conclusion favorable to plaintiff, one general and one 

specific to this case. Generally, the underlying premise, i.e., 

that retention of long-term (and, thus, aging) employees imposes 

upon an employer an extra, affirmative obligation to monitor and 

maintain their continuing technical competence, runs counter to 

the principle that "the ADEA does not require special treatment 

for older workers ... '[the act] mandates that an employer reach 

employment decisions without regard to age, but it does not place 

an affirmative duty upon an employer to award special treatment to 

members of the protected age group.'" EEOC v. Sperry Corp., 852 

F.2d 503, 509 (10th Cir. 1988). More specifically to this action, 

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Appellate Case: 89-1320 Document: 010110064933 Date Filed: 10/30/1990 Page: 5 
plaintiff presented no evidence showing that any of the other 

long-term EITs suffered the same deleterious superannuation of 

skills that occurred in plaintiff's case. 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

District of Colorado is REVERSED, and the causes are REMANDED with 

directions to enter judgment for defendant Metro. The parties' 

stipulated motion to correct heading of case is DENIED, as the 

caption properly reflects that the defendant local union is not 

included in this proceeding. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

PER CURIAM 

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Appellate Case: 89-1320 Document: 010110064933 Date Filed: 10/30/1990 Page: 6