Opinion ID: 767290
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Smith's Aged Audits

Text: 34 CBOE claims that Smith's monthly time reports reflecting his aged audits are irrelevant because Zigelman did not base his promotion decision on the number of aged audits of each candidate. Thus, the defendant argues, the only evidentiary value of Smith's audits is to show that Hasham was more qualified. Again, Defendant is correct in pointing out that this Court has consistently avoided stepping into the role of a super- personnel department and second guessing legitimate personnel decisions. See Brill v. Lante Corp., 119 F.3d 1266, 1272 (7th Cir. 1997); Rand v. CF Indus., Inc., 42 F.3d 1139, 1146 (7th Cir. 1994). However, CBOE claims that Zigelman knew the quality of Smith's work product and work habits, and still believed that Smith was the most qualified candidate. Smith's work performance, as evidenced in part by his monthly time reports, represents one of the criteria that Zigelman allegedly based his promotion decision on. Because these reports reflect that even though CBOE expected that audits be completed within nine months, in 1993, Smith alone had some five or six aged audits not completed within nine months. (Tr. at 206-07.) Indeed, they are probative of whether Zigelman was in fact very impressed with the quality of [Smith's] work and consequently, whether this proffered reason was pretextual for discriminatory intent. See Emmel, 95 F.3d at 633. Smith's monthly time reports, along with Zigelman's acknowledgment that he spoke to Smith many times about his unacceptable number of aged audits, (Tr. at 207), contradicted Defendant's above assertion about the quality of Smith's work 15 and was thus relevant as indirect discrimination evidence. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it admitted evidence of Smith's tardiness in the completion of his audits. 16