Opinion ID: 4533874
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Investigation of Plaintiff

Text: In February 2017, FCA US’s Business Practices Office (“BPO”) began an investigation into Plaintiff’s activities related to the Museum Project. As Plaintiff admits, the investigation conclusively determined that Plaintiff falsified certain numbers in the initial bid summary for the Museum Project. The investigation also revealed that Plaintiff had a “personal relationship” with Roncelli’s business development leader, Ehrlich Crain. (R. 26-3, Pg. ID 215.) Plaintiff and Crain live in the same neighborhood and both serve on its community housing board. Around the time of the Museum Project, Plaintiff was seeking a variance from the community housing board for an addition to his home. However, Plaintiff maintains that his and Crain’s relationship was purely professional and that Plaintiff did not associate with Crain outside of work. The investigation also uncovered that Plaintiff has a personally owned small business that is focused on building residential homes. Plaintiff had attended a residential builders’ training course in early 2017 and had wrongly expensed the cost of that course to FCA US. 5 No. 19-1420, Kenya Spratt v. FCA US LLC Following the investigation, FCA US decided to terminate Plaintiff. That termination decision led to the present lawsuit. As noted above, Plaintiff does not deny that he altered some of the numbers on the initial summary sheet. But he maintains that he did so only for the purpose of safeguarding the integrity of the bidding process, given his suspicion that Facilities was biased in favor of Barton Mallow. Accordingly, he contends that his actions were insufficient to motivate his termination, and that the real reason for his termination was his African American race. As evidence of this, he points out that FCA US did not terminate his Caucasian predecessor in the Senior Buyer position—Patrick Bergin—who engaged in similar conduct, but instead of being terminated, Bergin was effectively promoted.