Opinion ID: 756728
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Investigation of Case Center Abuse

Text: 12 In late November 1995, employees informed McNeil that employees were entering the Case Center but not utilizing the computer lessons while they were there. McNeil relayed this information to Gingras, who then directed her to conduct an investigation into the alleged abuse. 13 During the course of her investigation, McNeil compared the pay records and computer records of the employees who were using the Case Center. McNeil acknowledged that many employees had discrepancies between their door time and lesson time. If a discrepancy was large enough, McNeil would look at the employee's lesson time for the days the employee had been paid to see if she could verify whether the employee had spent any time on a computer lesson that day. If the employee's lesson time indicated that he or she had spent some time working on a lesson for the days in question, McNeil would not report this employee to Gingras. At least eight employees had time discrepancies larger than those of the Appellees, but they were not reported to Gingras. 14 On approximately December 7, 1995, McNeil reported to Gingras that Smith had been abusing the Case Center. McNeil told Gingras that a comparison of the door time and the lesson time showed that Smith had been paid for 16.5 hours in the Case Center, but that she had only spent 8.5 hours working on lessons. The records also showed that Smith had been paid for 4 hours of time spent in the Case Center on two days, but her lesson time revealed that Smith could have been working on lessons for only a few minutes on those days. McNeil also claimed that she had received verbal statements from three employees implicating Smith in Case Center abuse. 15 Based on McNeil's report, Gingras decided to fire Smith. Gingras testified that he decided to terminate her because Riceland had multiple statements from employees which indicated that Smith had abused the Case Center by clocking into the Case Center, logging onto the computers, and then leaving and coming back at a later time to log out. On December 8, 1995, Gingras met with Smith and told her that she was being fired for falsifying company records. 16 The evidence at trial, however, revealed that only one of the employees implicating Smith actually gave a statement to McNeil before Smith was fired. Garland Peterson (Peterson) told McNeil that on November 28, 1995, Smith and Thomas were logged onto a computer when he arrived in the Case Center, and he was there for approximately 30 minutes before they returned to log out. 2 The time records from November 28, 1995, indicated that neither Smith nor Thomas had abused the Case Center on that day. Moreover, the records revealed that Peterson had been paid for over two hours of time spent in the Case Center on November 28, 1995, but he had no time registered on the computer for that day. McNeil did not investigate Peterson's discrepancy, and Peterson was not reported to Gingras. Finally, the testimony at trial established that another employee, Bobbie Fread (Fread), had been implicated in only one employee statement for being absent from the Case Center for approximately 20 minutes when she was logged onto a computer. Because the records could not verify the employee's statement, Fread was only given a warning. 17 Thomas did not have any discrepancies between his door time and his lesson time. Riceland had paid him for fewer hours than he had spent in the Case Center because he was still on the clock in the plant during some of this time. Riceland allowed employees, with their supervisor's permission, to go to the Case Center and work on computer lessons when plant activity was slow. On approximately December 18, 1995, McNeil reported Thomas to Gingras because he was allegedly implicated in the three statements that she had received regarding Smith. 3 Gingras met with Thomas on December 19, 1995, and advised him that other employees had given written statements that he was abusing the Case Center, and that Riceland had decided to terminate him for falsifying company records. 18 Riceland disciplined three other employees for abusing the Case Center. Gingras claimed that these employees were not fired because Riceland did not have employee statements implicating them in abusing the Case Center. 19 After their terminations, Smith and Thomas filed claims against Riceland. Smith alleged that Riceland had denied her a promotion and subsequently terminated her because of her race and gender, in violation of Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. She further alleged that Riceland discharged her in retaliation for filing a charge of discrimination with the EEOC, in violation of Title VII. Thomas alleged that Riceland had denied him a promotion and terminated him because of his race and that it also discharged him in retaliation for assisting Smith with the filing of her discrimination charge, in violation of Title VII. 20 The case proceeded to a trial by jury in June 1997. The district court denied motions for judgment as a matter of law. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Riceland on Appellees' failure to promote and discriminatory discharge claims. With respect to Appellees' retaliation claims, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Smith and Thomas, awarding Smith $20,750 in damages and Thomas $31,500 in damages. 21