Opinion ID: 77051
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: 56 We conclude, as we must, that Ledbetter was permitted to challenge the one raise decision that was made within the limitations period: Kelly Owen's decision to recommend that she not receive any raise in 1998. Further, we assume that, to establish that intentional discrimination tainted the paychecks she received within the limitations period but before Owen's decision, Ledbetter could attack as discriminatory the plant administrators' decision not to allow Jerry Jones to consider her for a raise in 1997. The question therefore becomes whether Ledbetter presented sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that either of these decisions violated Title VII. 57 Title VII, in pertinent part, makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation ... because of such individual's ... sex. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). In this circuit, individual disparate-pay claims brought under Title VII are governed by the familiar burden-shifting framework set out by the Supreme Court in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981), and their progeny. See Miranda v. B&B Cash Grocery Store, Inc., 975 F.2d 1518, 1528 (11th Cir.1992) (adopting the McDonnell Douglas framework for disparate pay claims). Under the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine approach, 58 a female Title VII plaintiff establishes a prima facie case of sex discrimination by showing that she occupies a job similar to that of higher paid males. Once a prima facie case is established, the defendant must articulate a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the pay disparity. This burden is exceedingly light; the defendant must merely proffer non-gender based reasons, not prove them. Once such a justification is advanced, the plaintiff must demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that the employer had a discriminatory intent. In other words, the plaintiff must show that a discriminatory reason more likely than not motivated [the employer] to pay her less. 59 Meeks v. Computer Assocs. Int'l, 15 F.3d 1013, 1019 (11th Cir.1994) (citations and quotation marks omitted). 60 This burden-shifting framework does not relieve the plaintiff of her burden of persuasion; she ultimately bears the burden of showing by a preponderance of the evidence that she was paid at a disparate rate out of intent to discriminate on the basis of sex. See Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253, 101 S.Ct. at 1089 (The ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff remains at all times with the plaintiff.). Instead, the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine approach simply switches temporarily the burden of production, forcing the defendant (after the plaintiff has established a prima facie case) to produce a target at which the plaintiff can aim her proof — the legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons it offers for the pay disparity. [R]ejection of the defendant's proffered reasons does not compel judgment for the plaintiff as a matter of law, Hicks, 509 U.S. at 511, 113 S.Ct. at 2749, but in the usual case, 20 rejection of the reasons offered by the defendant, combined with the evidence supporting the prima facie case, will permit the trier of fact to infer the ultimate fact of intentional discrimination. Id.; see also Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 148, 120 S.Ct. 2097, 2109, 147 L.Ed.2d 105 (2000) ([A] plaintiff's prima facie case, combined with sufficient evidence to find that the employer's asserted justification is false, may permit the trier of fact to conclude that the employer unlawfully discriminated.). 61 If, therefore, the plaintiff comes forward with sufficient evidence to establish that she occupies a job similar to that of higher paid males, Meeks, 15 F.3d at 1019, and the defendant in response articulates legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for the pay disparity, the sufficiency of the evidence on the ultimate issue of intentional discrimination generally turns on whether a reasonable jury could find that the defendant's justification for the disparity is pretextual. The question becomes whether the plaintiff has demonstrated `such weaknesses, implausibilities, inconsistencies, incoherencies, or contradictions in the employer's proffered legitimate reasons for its action that a reasonable factfinder could find them unworthy of credence.' Combs v. Plantation Patterns, 106 F.3d 1519, 1538 (11th Cir.1997) (quoting Sheridan v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 100 F.3d 1061, 1072 (3d Cir.1996)). [T]he risk of nonpersuasion always remains with the plaintiff. Meeks, 15 F.3d at 1019. If the evidence is in equipoise on the issue of whether a salary differential is based on a factor other than sex, ... the employer prevails.... Id. 62 In this case, Ledbetter does not dispute that Goodyear came forward with legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for Ledbetter's being passed over for raises in 1997 and 1998. The sole issue, therefore is whether a reasonable jury could have found those reasons to be pretexts for intentional sex discrimination. The answer is a clear no. 63
64 There simply was no evidence produced at trial impugning Kelly Owen's motives in recommending, in February 1998, that Ledbetter receive no raise in 1998. Ledbetter was ranked twenty-third out of twenty-four employees in Tire Assembly, and fifteenth out of the sixteen Area Managers, based on her performance in 1997. That ranking was the same in both the raw performance scores taken directly from the 1997 performance appraisals and in the weighted scores Owen used to create the business-center-wide rankings. One male Area Manager, Dean Nance, was ranked below Ledbetter, and he and the two males ranked directly above Ledbetter were all denied raises, just as Ledbetter was. 65 There was no evidence that Owen purposefully underrated Ledbetter's performance for 1997. There was no evidence that he bore any ill will towards Ledbetter or toward women generally. Moreover, Owen told Ledbetter that she would not be receiving a raise when he met with her to discuss her performance appraisal, and she made no complaint about being discriminated against. She also neglected to make any such complaint when she went to EEOC a month later about her alleged mistreatment in the Technology Engineer position. In short, Ledbetter failed to produce a scintilla of evidence from which a reasonable jury could have found that Owen's decision was in any way affected by her sex. 21 66
67 The same is true of Goodyear's decision not to consider Ledbetter for a raise in 1997. The evidence uniformly confirmed that Ledbetter and others were selected in 1996 to be included in layoffs that were expected in 1997, and that Ledbetter avoided actually being out of work during 1997 only because one or more other Area Managers were out on extended medical leave and she was able to work as a substitute. The only reasonable inference is that these layoffs were instituted as the first step in the production cutbacks that ultimately led to the plant's being all but completely shut down. Just a year and half after Jones first informed Ledbetter that she was slated for layoff, Goodyear announced in August 1998 the reduction-in-force that Ledbetter volunteered to be included in. And it was only two years later, in February 1999, that Goodyear announced that the entire plant would close. Many layoffs and transfers were made, and the number of Area Managers in the Tire Assembly area dwindled from sixteen, when Ledbetter was there, to as low as four. 68 The uncontradicted evidence also established that Ledbetter's impending layoff was the reason for her being denied a raise in 1997. Jones's testimony to this effect went unimpeached and uncontradicted, and there is no suggestion in the record that Ledbetter properly should have been considered for a raise notwithstanding her impending layoff. 22 Moreover, common sense suggests that scarce raise dollars would not normally be awarded an employee whose supervisors considered her departure to be imminent. 69 Because it was clear that Ledbetter was scheduled for layoff and was therefore ineligible for a raise in 1997, her only avenue for undermining the decision not to award her a raise was to attempt to raise the inference that she was improperly selected for the layoff. Her theory, in sum, was that she was on the layoff list so they wouldn't have to give me a raise. Ledbetter pointed to two threads of evidence that could conceivably support this theory: (1) evidence that Jerry Jones and a Plant Manager, Richard O'Dell, bore resentment against her or against women generally; and (2) evidence intended to show that she performed too well in 1995 for the company's decision to be credible. 70 Ledbetter's attempt to suggest that she performed too well in 1995 to be selected for layoff failed completely. 23 Mike Tucker ranked Ledbetter twenty-third out of the twenty-four employees in Tire Assembly for the 1995 performance year. 24 Jimmy Todd, who was also included in the layoff, was ranked last. Thus, the two lowest performing Area Managers in Tire Assembly in 1995 — the last year for which there were completed performance appraisals — were selected for the layoff. This makes inherent sense; that is, that the managers of a plant in dire financial straits (as the Gadsden plant undisputedly was) would choose for layoff those managers with the poorest recent performance history. 71 Ledbetter produced no evidence undermining Tucker's evaluation of her performance or suggesting that he had improper motives. Moreover, Ledbetter's next-to-last ranking in 1995 is consistent with her last-place ranking for 1993 and her next-to-last rankings for 1992 and 1997. There simply was no reasonable, performance-based reason for questioning Ledbetter's selection for layoff. 25 72 The same is true of Ledbetter's attempt to impugn the motivations of Jones and O'Dell, because Ledbetter produced no evidence that either of these men played any role in selecting her for the layoff. Goodyear's evidence that the layoff decision was made at a level of authority above Jerry Jones went uncontradicted and unimpeached; nothing in the record indicates that Jones had any role in this decision other than delivering the bad news to Ledbetter. Ledbetter's attempt to suggest that Jones bore ill will toward her because of her sex 26 therefore casts no light on the 1997 decision. The same is true of Ledbetter's testimony regarding sexist comments allegedly made by Richard O'Dell, who Ledbetter testified was Plant Manager at some unidentified point toward[ ] the end of [her] career. 27 If O'Dell was Plant Manager when Ledbetter was slated for layoff or when she was denied a raise in 1997, or if he had any role in these decisions, Ledbetter produced no evidence of it. His comments were therefore alone insufficient to support an inference of discrimination. Cf. Mitchell v. USBI Co., 186 F.3d 1352, 1355 (11th Cir.1999) (In several age discrimination cases ... this court has explained that comments by non-decisionmakers do not raise an inference of discrimination....). 73 Moreover, the jury's rejection of Ledbetter's claims related to her transfer to the Final Finish room, to the Technology Engineer position, cannot be squared with its accepting Ledbetter's far-flung theory that her layoff was manufactured by Jones or others to avoid raising her salary. Ledbetter advanced two theories to support her transfer claims: (1) that she was deceived into voluntarily applying for the transfer by Jones's falsely telling her she would be laid off if she stayed in her Area Manager position; and (2) that she was effectively forced into transferring by, among other things, Jones's constantly (correctly) threatening her with layoff. That the jury rejected these theories suggests that it accepted Goodyear's evidence that Jones did not mistreat Ledbetter, that he correctly told her she would be laid off if she remained an Area Manager, and that he arranged an interview for her for the Technology Engineer position as a gratuitous kindness, in an effort to keep her working until she would be eligible for full retirement. In short, if the jury had credited Ledbetter's testimony regarding Jones, it almost surely would have found in her favor on one or more of the transfer claims; that it found against her on those claims suggests it did not credit her testimony. 74 Given Ledbetter's failure to come forward with a scintilla of probative evidence casting doubt on Goodyear's explanation for denying her a raise in 1997, no reasonable factfinder could find that the decision was motivated by Ledbetter's sex.