Opinion ID: 1301580
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The seasonal slowdown

Text: There is no dispute that Eagle Produce's need for tractor workers decreased in the winter of 2001-2002. The total number of employees at the Aguila farm in February 2002, including non-tractor workers, was less than half of the number employed in July of the same year. According to John Redmond, the vice president of Phoenix Agro Invest, the efficiency gained by the increased use of plastic mulch reduced Crew 94's total work hours from 13,710.75 in January and February 2001 to only 7346 for the same period in 2002. Daffern corroborated this testimony. Brandt continued to hire new workers during the slowdown, but that does not suggest that the slowdown did not occur. He hired two workers for Crew 94 in December 2001 and four more in the first two months of 2002, but the evidence clearly suggests that the hires were necessitated by the decisions of five other workers to quit during the same period. There is no evidence that Crew 94's operations ceased altogether in the winter. Brandt needed to make some hires to sustain a minimum operational level even during the slowdown. Evidence that Eagle Produce's need for tractor drivers does not decline during the winter similarly fails to create a genuine issue of fact. Daffern testified that tractor drivers perform a consistent amount of work year-round. Gilberto Vigueria testified that there is more work for tractor drivers from January to June than from July to December. This is consistent with other evidence that planting for the melon crop begins in the spring. Because Crew 94's primary duty was to prepare the soil prior to planting, its work for the melon crop would presumably have to begin in the winter, or at least by the early spring. However, none of this evidence actually conflicts with the evidence that the winter of 2002 was particularly slow. The testimony of Daffern and Vigueria addressed the amount of work generally available for the tractor crew within a single year; it did not compare the amount of work available in the winter of 2002 to the amount available in previous winters. Thus, even accepting the testimony as true, there is no reason to discount the specific evidence that factors such as the expanded use of plastic mulch caused a unique drop in Eagle Produce's need for laborers around the time Moreno and Mancilla were laid off. [6] From the conclusion that a seasonal slowdown occurred, however, it does not necessarily follow that there is no triable issue of fact concerning pretext. The slowdown could justify only a workforce reduction that comparably affects laborers from different age groups. It cannot explain the statistical evidence suggesting that Brandt had a tendency to fire older workers and hire substantially younger replacements. It also cannot explain the evidence that Brandt fired Moreno and Mancilla while retaining younger workers with less experience and later hired younger workers who were for the most part no more qualified than Plaintiffs. We therefore conclude that, even if the slowdown-induced reduction in force could independently stand as a sufficiently individualized explanation for the layoffs under stage two of McDonnell Douglas, there would be a triable issue of fact concerning pretext to the extent that the explanation was unaccompanied by any employee-specific justification for discharge.