Opinion ID: 167100
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Impact of RIF on Pippin's responsibilities

Text: 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