Opinion ID: 167100
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Disparate treatment theory of age discrimination

Text: 29 The substance of this appeal is devoted to Pippin's claim that he was disparately treated on the basis of his age in violation of ADEA, 29 U.S.C. § 621(a). Because there is no direct evidence of age discrimination, the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting scheme applies to this disparate treatment claim. Garrett v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 305 F.3d 1210, 1216 (10th Cir.2002). Thus, Plaintiff must first establish a prima facie case of age discrimination in a RIF by showing: (1) Plaintiff was within a protected age group; (2) he was doing satisfactory work; (3) he was discharged despite the adequacy of his work; and (4) there is some evidence the employer intended to discriminate against him in reaching its RIF decision. Beaird, 145 F.3d at 1165; see also Rea v. Martin Marietta Corp., 29 F.3d 1450, 1454 (10th Cir.1994). This fourth element may be established through circumstantial evidence that the plaintiff was treated less favorably than younger employees during the [RIF]. Beaird, 145 F.3d at 1165 (quotation omitted). 30 If Plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, the burden of production shifts to the Defendant to rebut this presumption of discriminatory intent by asserting a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the employment decision. Id. Once the Defendant meets this burden of production, the burden shifts back again to the plaintiff to show that the defendant's proffered reasons were a pretext for discrimination. Rea, 29 F.3d at 1455. 31 In other words, Plaintiff must then resist summary judgment by presenting evidence that the proffered reason was `unworthy of belief.' Beaird, 145 F.3d at 1165 (quoting Randle v. City of Aurora, 69 F.3d 441, 451 (10th Cir.1995)). At this point, the presumption of discrimination established by the prima facie showing simply drops out of the picture, and the analysis shifts to the plaintiff's ultimate burden of showing that the defendant discriminated on the illegal basis of age. Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 143, 120 S.Ct. 2097, 147 L.Ed.2d 105 (2000). 32 There is no dispute that the first two steps of this analysis are satisfied here. Pippin at least met expectations as a Senior Engineer, and he was arguably treated less favorably than younger engineers— including Bobby Goodwin, thirty-three, who testified he picked up Pippin's paperwork and made it my own and continued what he did. Defendant's nondiscriminatory reason for terminating Pippin is similarly satisfied as Burlington asserts Pippin was terminated due to the RIF and Pippin's substandard performance. Thus, the only issue before us is whether Plaintiff has presented specific facts significantly probative to support an inference that Defendant's proffered justifications were a pretext for discrimination. Rea, 29 F.3d at 1455; accord Reeves, 530 U.S. at 147-49, 120 S.Ct. 2097. 33 In a RIF case, a plaintiff can demonstrate pretext in three principal ways. Beaird, 145 F.3d at 1168. That is, Pippin can present evidence that (1) his own termination does not accord with the RIF criteria, (2) Defendant's RIF criteria were deliberately falsified or manipulated in order to terminate him, or (3) that the RIF generally was pretextual. This third approach is sometimes satisfied by a showing that the defendant actively sought to replace a number of RIF-terminated employees with new hires during the RIF general time frame. Id. In a typical non-RIF context, we have also said a showing of pretext can look to prior treatment of plaintiff; the employer's policy and practice regarding minority employment (including statistical data); disturbing procedural irregularities (e.g., falsifying or manipulating... criteria); and the use of subjective criteria. Garrett, 305 F.3d at 1217 (quotation omitted). 34 Summarizing Pippin's claims on appeal, he asserts (1) the RIF itself was pretextual; (2) Pippin's evaluations, on which the RIF decisions were partly based, were not objective and were manipulated to pervert what was actually a good performance on Pippin's part; and (3) Burlington has a history and pattern or practice of discriminating based on age.

35 Pippin says the RIF itself was pretextual because Burlington hired four new college recruits in the summer of 2000, just a few months after the April RIF, and made two other under-forty engineer hires in an eighteen-month period surrounding the RIF. Pippin says this eliminates the concept of RIF and poses a glaring contradiction in that, in the face of a RIF, Burlington actually hired new engineers. 36 Burlington, however, presented evidence that the offers to these college hires had been extended in November 1999, before any talk of a RIF was in the wind, and that Burlington decided to honor those [offers] and hire those people, because we did not want our reputation as a company to be destroyed on those campuses of which those individuals went to school. 37 As for the two under-forty hires in the eighteen-month period surrounding the April 2000 RIF, Pippin has provided no details about their qualifications or what job functions they assumed, which makes a comparison to Pippin's abilities and treatment nearly impossible. Moreover, at least for the hiring decision made ten months before the RIF, the record is clear that no one at Burlington's San Juan Division knew to anticipate a RIF at that time. The decision to hire a new engineer eight months after a RIF also fails to account for any non-RIF-related terminations or resignations from within the engineer pool, and that decision is fairly remote from the RIF decision. 38 Pippin has presented no evidence, other than his own opinions of how a business should be run, to refute these otherwise legitimate considerations. Indeed, our cases have previously held that leaving out new employees from RIF decisions does not establish pretext. See Fallis v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 944 F.2d 743, 745 (10th Cir. 1991).
39 Next, Pippin argues that his replacement by Goodwin, a younger engineer, also eliminates the concept of a RIF. 40 Where an employee is selected for RIF termination solely on the basis of position elimination, qualifications become irrelevant and one way that employee can show pretext is to present evidence that his job was not in fact eliminated but instead remained a single, distinct position. Furr v. Seagate Tech., Inc., 82 F.3d 980, 988 (10th Cir.1996); see also Abuan v. Level 3 Commc'ns, Inc., 353 F.3d 1158, 1169 (10th Cir.2003). 41 Here, however, Burlington reduced its overall complement of petroleum engineers based on a combination of past performance and skill set matches. 8 The fact that Pippin's employment duties were assumed by another employee does not establish pretext. Moreover, Burlington established that Goodwin was an exceptional performer, receiving the highest possible rating in both 1999 and 1998. Indeed, Goodwin earned 100 percent of his eligible bonus in 1999 and 120 percent of it in 1998. 42
43 Finally, Pippin argues that, because Burlington's larger restructuring resulted in the elimination of the high-risk exploration projects in the San Juan Basin, and Pippin was not involved in these high-risk projects, any RIF that subsequently included him was pretextual. 44 Burlington responds that it would show poor business judgment to terminate the higher performers just because they were working on a high risk project at the time, where such higher performers could readily shift into remaining job functions. This conforms with the testimony that RIF-terminated employees were selected after reviewing what the organizational needs were and then determining who the best performers were to meet those needs into the future. We see no reason to second-guess these business judgments or to infer that Burlington's RIF itself was pretextual. 45

46 Pippin also argues he has presented evidence of pretext because his evaluations were too subjective. He complains, in particular, that the process included input from other supervisors and the possibility of changes being imposed by higher-level managers. 47 Our cases have regularly affirmed grants of summary judgment for employers who based RIF terminations on employee rankings. E.g., Rea, 29 F.3d at 1456; Fallis, 944 F.2d at 744. The subjective nature of the evaluations may be a factor to consider in pretext but it ordinarily is not by itself sufficient to establish pretext. Furr, 82 F.3d at 987 (the use of subjective criteria does not suffice to prove intentional age discrimination.); see also Simms, 165 F.3d at 1328 (Evidence of pretext may include ... the use of subjective criteria.); Bauer v. Bailar, 647 F.2d 1037, 1046 (10th Cir.1981) (noting that although subjective criteria are not wrongful per se, it does provide[] an opportunity for unlawful discrimination). 48 Nonetheless, Pippin cites language from one of our subsequent non-RIF ADEA cases where we said [a]bsent evidence that [the employer's] system of ranking and evaluation relies on objective criteria, we hold that [the employee] has satisfied his burden to demonstrate pretext ... for the purposes of avoiding summary judgment. Garrett, 305 F.3d at 1218. Although this language is indeed broad, our holding in Garrett was much more narrow. There, the plaintiff's rankings had taken an abrupt turn for the worse almost immediately after that plaintiff began organizing a pro-diversity committee at the work place. Moreover, the defendant did not contest, consistent with expert testimony on the subject, that the rankings were wholly subjective. Id. at 1214, 1218. Indeed, elsewhere in Garrett we clarified that  [w]hen viewed in the aggregate, his proffered evidence is sufficient to raise a genuine doubt about Defendant's motivation. Id. at 1220 (emphasis added, quotation omitted). 49 Unlike in Garrett, here we do not consider Burlington's evaluation process wholly subjective. The evaluations, while covering such subjective considerations as team building, personal leadership, and personal accountability, also required the employee's immediate supervisor to enumerate specific results achieved with supporting examples. Burlington also used a particular evaluation form that included multiple mandatory areas for evaluation, and Pippin's evaluations showed a consistent pattern of soft skill issues over more than ten years. Thus, neither the contents of, nor Burlington's reliance on, these evaluations support an inference that Burlington's proffered reasons for terminating Pippin were pretextual.
50 Pippin also asserts pretext by asserting that the evaluations and rankings used by management for the announced purpose of determining bonus levels is known and understood by management to be the likely basis for layoffs or reductions in force. He claims that the RIF must have been in the wind at the time of the 1999 ranking process and that his 1999 evaluations were manipulated in order to place him last because there was personal animosity between himself and one of the team supervisors. Finally, Pippin argues that the criticisms in his evaluations were false, vague, and ... put in the evaluation so they could fire Pippin because of his age and that instead he had very substantial success at Burlington. 51 However, we see no permissible inference of pretext from any of these self-serving claims. For example, Pippin complains that one of the upper-level managers had previously suggested that Pippin should be managed out of the company. 9 He asserts that this establishes an ulterior motive other than the supposedly objective criteria which Defendant claimed to use which Pippin asserts evidences manufactured reasons for termination. To the contrary, this statement simply supports Burlington's assertion that Pippin had a longstanding performance problem prior to the 2000 RIF. 52 Similarly, Pippin's complaint that his 1999 evaluation was manipulated is without merit. He cites two versions of this evaluation in the record—the first is unsigned and the second is signed by Pippin, Pippin's immediate supervisor, and his supervisor's manager, and dated January 2000, well before the April 2000 RIF. Pippin notes that the second copy includes additional negative comments that do not appear on the first, unsigned version. 10 Although this language may well have been added, Pippin's final scores in the 360 degree feedback portion of the evaluation are the same on both versions and, on both, Pippin received an overall rating of Met Expectations +. Furthermore, similar, albeit more generic comments, are on both versions under Pippin's Development Needs. Finally, multiple supervisors' opinions are imbedded in the ranking process itself and, as this evaluation is in substance consistent with Pippin's earlier evaluations, we see no reason to suspect pretextual manipulation of the evaluations. 53 Finally, although Pippin certainly thinks he was well qualified and a good performer, [i]t is the perception of the decision maker which is relevant, not plaintiff's perception of [him]self. Branson v. Price River Coal Co., 853 F.2d 768, 772 (10th Cir.1988). Indeed, an employer may chose to conduct its RIF according to its preferred criteria of performance ... and we will not disturb that exercise of defendant's business judgment. Beaird, 145 F.3d at 1169; see also Lucas v. Dover Corp., Norris Div., 857 F.2d 1397, 1403-04 (10th Cir.1988) (This court will not second guess business decisions made by employers, in the absence of some evidence of impermissible motives.); Simms, 165 F.3d at 1330 (noting it is not court's role to establish defendant's hiring criteria or act as super personnel department). 11 Pippin may have produced technical results, but Burlington's decision to terminate Pippin due to his poor soft skills does not warrant an inference of pretext. 54
55 Finally, Pippin argues a jury could infer pretext because Burlington has a long history of preventing Senior Engineers from retiring, and statistical evidence reveals a pattern of age discrimination. 56 However, Pippin has presented no reliable evidence on these points. First, as for the history of preventing retirements, Pippin relies on his own deposition testimony and the testimony of Kenneth Raybon. Raybon, who is not an engineer, was a production superintendent with Burlington but was demoted to senior supervisor in May 2000. The testimony Pippin relies on from Raybon is as follows: 57 Q. Have you ever seen a senior engineer retire at Burlington? 58 A. A senior engineer retire? 59 Q. Yes. 60 A. I can only remember, I guess, going back to ancient history maybe early `90s. I can only remember one engineer retiring, and I'm not even sure what his classification was.... 61 Q. What happens to all these engineers? It seems like the place is filled with them, and none of them retire. Why is that? 62 A. I think for the most part, they're probably not of retirement age. 63 Q. At least, not the ones that continue to be employed here, right? 64 A. I can't think of one who is 55 years or older, as we speak. 65 Q. Can you think of any who have gotten terminated besides Mr. Pippin who are approaching that age? 66 A. No, sir. 67 However, absent information about what happened to the other senior engineers— whether they were promoted to other positions or terminated to avoid retirement— this weak evidence does not support an inference that Defendant's stated reasons for termination were pretextual. 68 Similarly, Pippin's allegation of a statistical pattern of age discrimination— apparently inferred from the fact that fourteen of the nineteen employees terminated in the 2000 RIF were over forty—is not supported by the record. 12 Statistical evidence which fails to properly take into account nondiscriminatory explanations does not permit an inference of pretext. Furr, 82 F.3d at 987. A plaintiff's statistical evidence must focus on eliminating nondiscriminatory explanations for the disparate treatment by showing disparate treatment between comparable individuals. Rea, 29 F.3d at 1456 (quotation omitted). Statistical evidence that does not adjust for the various performance evaluations and departmental rankings of the employees included in the statistical pool does not compare similarly situated employees and therefore fails to eliminate nondiscriminatory explanations for disparate treatment. Id. 69 In this case, Pippin's statistical evidence that fourteen out of nineteen RIF-terminated employees were over forty does not account for any of these different individuals' circumstances, skills, or prior performances. It represents only a very small sample size, cf. Mayor of Philadelphia v. Educational Equality League, 415 U.S. 605, 621, 94 S.Ct. 1323, 39 L.Ed.2d 630 (1974) (noting concern with sample size of thirteen), and it fails to tell us what portion of the overall Burlington workforce was over forty in order to compare whether 14/19 is an excessive percentage of over-forty terminations. See Stone v. Autoliv ASP, Inc., 210 F.3d 1132, 1139 (10th Cir. 2000) ([S]tatistics concerning employees terminated in a RIF are probative to the extent they suggest that [protected classes of employees] were not treated less favorably than [the privileged classes].). 4. Conclusion 70 Taking all of this together, we agree with the district court that Pippin has not presented sufficient evidence to support an inference of pretext. The RIF was implemented consistently, and Pippin has presented no evidence of a history of discrimination or a discriminatory intent in terminating Pipping. Accordingly, we affirm the district court. 71