### Th e Honorable Michael J. Melloy, Chief Judge, United State s 1 

### Distri ct Court for the Northern District of Iowa, sitting b y designation. The Honorable George F. Gunn, Jr., United States Distric t 2 

### Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri. United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

No. 96-2654
Ronald H. Hanebrink, * * Appellant, * * Appeal from the United States v. * District Court for the Eastern * District of Missouri. Brown Shoe Company, * * Appellee. *

Submitted: February 13, 1997 Filed: April 14, 1997

Before H ANSEN and MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judges, and MELLOY, 1 District Judge.
MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.
Ronal d Hanebrink, the plaintiff in an age discrimination lawsuit , appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the defendants. 2 We affirm. I. In 1955 , Mr. Hanebrink began a long career with Brown Shoe Compan y (“Brown”). Although Mr. Hanebrink started as a mail clerk,

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he later transferred to the purchasing department and ultimately became a buyer. As a buyer, Mr. Hanebrink purchased shoe parts, factory supplies, mach inery, and equipment, and he also leased office equipment

. Mr. Hanebrink was dis charged from Brown in 1994, as part of a large-scale reduction in force ("RIF") stemming from a reorg anization designed to keep Brown competitive in the shoe industry. As part of that reorganizatio n plan, Brown’s parent company eliminated 12,000 jobs (9,000 of which came from Brow n) and closed five of Brown’s ten domestic shoe factories. I n Mr. Ha nebrink’s department, three of the eleven buyers were discharged , including Mr. Hanebrink. Some of his duties disappeared, and the rest wer e redistributed among five of the remaining buyers , all of whom were younger than he. Of the eight buyers who retained their jobs, two were older than Mr. Hanebrink, and two had higher salaries.
Unhappy with the discharge, Mr. Hanebrink sued Brown for ag e discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634, and the Missouri Human Rig hts Act ("MHRA"), Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 213.010-213.095. The district court granted Brown’s motion for summary judgment, holding that Mr. Hanebrink had failed to establish a prima facie case of age discrimination and, alternatively, that he ha d failed to proffer any evidence tending to demonstrate that Brown’ s legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for discharging him was pretextual. Mr. Hanebrink appeals.

II. To establish a prima facie case of a ge discrimination under the ADEA and the MHRA, a plaintiff dismissed during a RIF must (1) establish that he or she was at least 40 years old at the time of his or her termination, that he or she satisfied the relevant

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job q ualifications, and that he or she was discharged; and (2) produc e addi tional evidence that age was a factor in his or her termination

. Nitsc hke v. McDonnell Douglas Corp. , 68 F.3d 249, 251 (8th Cir. 1995) ; Holley v. Sanyo Manufacturing, Inc. , 771 F.2d 1161, 1165-66 (8th Cir

. 1985)
. A plaintiff may meet the last requirement by presenting eithe r statist ical evidence (such as a pattern of forced early retirement o r failure to promote ol der employees) or "circumstantial" evidence (such as comments and practices that suggest a preference for younger employees). Holley , 7 71 F.2d at 1166. We hold that because Mr. Hanebrink did no t present sufficient additional evidence tending t o demonstrate that age was
a motivat ing factor in his discharge, he did not meet his burden o f establishing a prima facie case of age discrimination.

Mr. Hanebrink first asserts that the fact that Brown redistribute d his remaining duties to younger employees shows that age was a factor in his te rmination. The fact that younger employees assumed some o f Mr. Hanebrink’s dutie s is insufficient by itself, however, to establish a prima facie case of age discrimination, Bialas v. Greyhound Lines, Inc. , 59 F.3d 759 , 763 (8th Cir. 1995); Holley , 771 F.2d at 1165, and Mr
. Hanebrink himself tes tified that no one at Brown said anything that would lea d him to believe he was selected for discharge because of his age

. Compare Johnson v. Mi nnesota Historical Society , 931 F.2d 1239, 1244 (8th Cir. 1991).

Mr
. Hanebrink further argues that because he trained some of th e younger employees and could have assumed their duties, he was mor e qualified than the younger employees retained by Brown, and that this fact raise s an inference that age was a motivating factor in his discharge

. Mr. Hanebrink has failed, however, to produce

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any evidence of the younger buyers’ qualifications other than the fact tha t he trained them and that some of their duties were similar to his. This court, moreover, may not second-guess an employer’s personnel decisions, and we em phasize that employers are free to make their own busines s decisio ns, even inefficient ones, so long as they do not discriminat e unlawfully. See Aucutt v. Six Flags Over Mid-Am erica, Inc. , 85 F.3d 1311, 1317 (8th Cir. 1996).

Mr. Haneb rink next contends that statistical evidence regarding the ages of the employees eligible for termination raises an inference that ag e motivated his discharge. He states that he was more than seven years olde r than the average age of the buyers in his area b efore the layoff, that all three buyers who were discharged were in the pro tected age group, and that after the layoff, the average age of the buyers in the group decreased

. As the district court succinctly noted, this contention lacks merit fo r several reasons. First, nine of the eleven buyers eligible for terminatio n were within the protected age group. Second, Brown retained the two buyer s who were older than Mr. Hanebrink. Third, after the layoff, the average age of the group’s buyers declined by merely half a year, from 48.65 t o 48.1. The district c ourt correctly concluded that these facts are not of
a suffici ent "kind and degree" to raise an inference that age was a motivating factor in Mr. Hanebrink’s discharge. See Goetz v. Farm Credit Services , 927 F.2d 398, 405 (8th Cir. 1991).
Mr. Hanebrink last asserts that the combination of his higher s alary, pote ntially higher retirement benefits, and potentially more expensiv e health benefits raises an inference of age discrimination. Employmen t decisions motivated b y characteristics other than age (such as salary and pension benefits), even when such characteristics correlate with age, do not constitute age

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discr imination. Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins , 507 U.S. 604, 611 (1993) ; Bialas , 59 F.3d at 763. Mr. Hanebrink has produ ced no evidence tending to demonstrate that his salary, retirement benefits, or health benefits were used as proxies for age, and he has testified that nobody at Brown sai d any thing that suggested that these characteristics played a role in hi s discharge. Indeed, he admitted that he was merely speculating that they had. We note, moreover, that the two buyers with salaries higher tha n Mr. Hanebrink’s were retained, as were the two buyers who were older than Mr. Hanebrink and therefore presumably had more expensive health benefits.

III. Because we hold that Mr. Hanebrink f ailed to establish a prima facie case of age discrimination, we need not address the issue of pretext. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

A true copy.

Attest:

CLERK, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.