Opinion ID: 768356
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Michas's Employment with HCC

Text: 8 Soon after meeting Demaret, Michas began to work for HCC as a contract attorney. The relationship initially proved favorable, and in July 1992, Demaret and Hanley hired Michas to work full-time as head of HCC's legal department. The legal department consisted of Michas, a paralegal and a secretary. Michas reported to Demaret on all matters. Michas's primary job responsibilities included research, advising staff on legal issues and acting as liaison to the outside counsel who handled HCC's core business of litigation. As a part of this liaison activity, Michas was responsible for monitoring the fees charged by outside counsel, and Michas also helped Demaret manage some of the claims that outside counsel litigated for HCC. 9 Soon after Michas began to work for HCC, Demaret became dissatisfied with Michas's work performance. The parties disagree over the extent that Michas was informed of this growing dissatisfaction. HCC has no formal evaluation procedure, and as a result, much of the evidence produced about Michas's performance comes from the parties' deposition testimony. Michas was given an incremental raise each year and a small bonus in December 1993. Michas claims that Hanley and Demaret told him when he was given these raises that everything was fine with his performance. Nonetheless, Demaret and Hanley refused his request for a more substantial raise in 1994. Demaret, Hanley and one of the team leaders, Stephen Prazuch, all testified to Demaret's dissatisfaction with Michas's performance, and on a number of occasions, Demaret criticized Michas's performance in short memos written to Michas. 10 In late 1994, Demaret began to consider ways to improve the performance of his legal department. He and Michas discussed expanding the department, but Demaret ultimately decided against this strategy. Hanley also asked Michas if he would prefer to act as a team supervisor. Michas declined this offer, so HCC hired another attorney to fill this role. In early 1995, HCC hired a new chief financial officer, Michael Neil, a move that raised the fixed costs of the firm. About the same time, a number of HCC's larger clients indicated their desire to cut ties with the company. Faced with rising fixed costs and a potentially precipitous decline in revenue, Demaret began to consider laying off the legal department. 11 In April 1995, Neil produced a summary detailing the costs associated with maintaining the legal department. The summary showed that HCC would save $114,697 by dissolving the legal department, and of this sum, $81,947 would be saved by Michas's discharge. Armed with these numbers and the threat of lower revenues, Demaret convinced an initially hesitant Hanley that the legal department must be laid off. On April 24, 1995, Hanley and Demaret informed Michas that they were firing him. Demaret and Hanley told Michas that they were trying to reduce operating costs in the face of a potential loss of important clients. On that date, HCC also fired the rest of the legal department--the secretary and the paralegal--along with Michas. The secretary was a member of the class protected by the ADEA, which is to say that she was over forty years old, but the paralegal was not. Michas was fifty-five years old at the time of his discharge.