Opinion ID: 196727
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Pages

Text: 18 The district court found that Pages demonstrated a prima facie case, but failed to present sufficient evidence from which a reasonable factfinder could infer anti-age animus. Because it does not change our analysis, we assume without concluding that the district court properly found that Pages (age 51) carried her burden of presenting a prima facie case. As a result, we review her case to determine whether the evidence as a whole was sufficient to support a reasonable inference of age animus in the decision to dismiss her. LeBlanc, 6 F.3d at 836. 19 Pages argued that Iberia's anti-age animus could be inferred by comparing her dismissal with the retention of: (1) Maria Garcia (Garcia) (age 61), an Executive Secretary; (2) Sandra Medina (Medina) (48), an Executive Secretary; (3) Rivera (33), a Sales Assistant; and (4) Nitza Alos (Alos) (30), an employee of an independent contractor who performed functions similar to Pages'. Even assuming that three comparisons with non-discharged employees could permit an inference of anti-age animus in a reduction in force case as a matter of law, these three particular comparisons cannot. First, Garcia is in fact older than Pages, a fact that Pages does not dispute. Second, a reasonable inference of anti-age animus cannot be drawn from the comparison of the retention of Medina, an executive secretary at Iberia's administrative offices in Miramar, Puerto Rico, and the discharge of Pages, Secretary to the Airport Manager, at the airport in Isla Verde, Puerto Rico. Pages does not dispute that the position of Airport Manager had been eliminated. Thus, to retain her rather than Medina, Iberia would have had to transfer Pages to another position or location. And, as noted in the discussion of Lopez and Izquierdo, Appellants cite no authority for the proposition that an employer conducting a reduction in force must offer such transfers or relocations--in fact, authority exists for the proposition that employers face no such obligation. See Holt, 797 F.2d at 38; Ridenour, 791 F.2d at 57; Parcinski, 673 F.2d at 37. We must reject any inference of age animus drawn from a comparison of Pages with Rivera for the same reason we rejected comparisons between Lopez and Rivera: employers conducting a reduction in force face no obligation to offer lower echelon, poorer paying jobs in the restructured enterprise to all older employees. Parcinski, 673 F.2d at 37; see Holt, 797 F.2d at 38. 20 Finally, the comparison with Alos cannot justify a reasonable inference of anti-age animus because Alos was not employed by Iberia, but by another company, G.M.D., with a contract to perform services for Iberia. This circuit has previously stated that 21 [a] discharged employee 'is not replaced when another employee is assigned to perform the plaintiff's duties in addition to other duties, or when the work is redistributed among other existing employees already performing related work.' Rather, 'a person is replaced only when another employee is hired or reassigned to perform the plaintiff's duties.' 22 LeBlanc, 6 F.3d at 846 (citations omitted) (quoting Barnes v. GenCorp, Inc., 896 F.2d 1457, 1465 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 878, 111 S.Ct. 211, 112 L.Ed.2d 171 (1990)). Thus, to reasonably infer that Pages was replaced by a younger employee, we would have to conclude that Pages' duties, and no others, were allocated to Alos, and that Alos should be considered an Iberia employee. However, in Mitchell v. Worldwide Underwriters Ins. Co., 967 F.2d 565, 566 (11th Cir.1992), the court rejected as insufficient to establish a prima facie case, without more, an employee's claim that his employer assigned his work to an independent contractor corporation that decided to employ younger employees to do the work. What is more, the instant case has a grave flaw that was not present in Mitchell: Iberia's contract with G.M.D. predates the reduction in force that gave rise to Pages' claim. Since Pages has failed to present evidence suggesting that Iberia could, at its discretion, retain her and have G.M.D. eliminate Alos, any inference of age animus drawn from Iberia's retention of Alos would be simply unreasonable. 23 As a result, we conclude that the comparisons Pages points to cannot support a reasonable inference of age animus on the part of Iberia.