Opinion ID: 779723
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: application of analytical framework

Text: 16 Appellant urges that the district court erred in finding that he offered no direct evidence of Appellee's discriminatory motive in terminating him. We agree with the district court. Direct evidence is evidence that, if believed, proves the fact of discriminatory animus without inference or presumption. Mooney v. Aramco Services Co., 54 F.3d 1207, 1217 (5th Cir. 1995). Appellant points to the Long Term Leadership Development Plan, which endeavored to identify ... younger managers... for promotion to senior management over the next 5+ years, ultimately replacing senior management. To find that the plan is evidence of age-based animus relevant to Appellant's termination requires the inference that senior managers were to be fired to make room for younger trainees, rather than being replaced as they retire, change jobs, or are terminated for performance reasons. 4 Appellant contends that the district court erroneously failed to draw this inference in his favor. However, Appellant's contention is inapposite to the analysis of whether evidence is direct or circumstantial. If an inference is required for the evidence to be probative as to Appellee's discriminatory animus in firing Appellant, the evidence is circumstantial, not direct. 17 Next, Appellant offers the remarks by stock analysts about too much grey hair in Company management. This evidence cannot demonstrate directly that Appellant was fired because of his age. The speakers not only had no part in the decision to terminate Appellant, they were not even employed by the Company. Gary Beban's skipping a generation comment similarly is not direct evidence. First, Beban was not responsible for Appellant's termination. Second, Beban in his deposition testimony indicated that he meant generation in the context of levels of management seniority, not age. The ambiguity of the remark, as well as its attenuation from Appellant's termination, excludes it from the realm of direct evidence. 18 Because Appellant's case consists of circumstantial evidence, we apply the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting analysis. Appellee argues that Appellant failed to make out a prima facie case because Appellee restructured its divisions rather than replacing Appellant per se. The region formerly under Appellant's direction was collapsed into a region managed by 42-year-old Jeff Langdon. As did the district court, we will view, without deciding, Appellant's evidence as establishing a prima facie case. The burden then shifts to Appellee to produce a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for terminating Appellant. 19 Appellee's proffered reasons for terminating Appellant were his management style and the risk created by his conduct toward Nina Petty. Evidence in support of Appellant's explanation includes deposition testimony by the managers who fired Appellant or took part in the decision. Appellant contends that Reeves requires us to disregard as interested witness testimony all testimony by managers involved in the employment decision. 5 We disagree with Appellant's interpretation of Reeves, which would in effect eliminate his burden to show that Appellee's explanation is pretextual. The burden on Appellee to produce a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for terminating Appellant is one of production, not persuasion; it can involve no credibility assessment. Reeves, 530 U.S. at 142, 120 S.Ct. at 2106; See also Rios v. Rossotti, 252 F.3d 375 (5th Cir. 2001)(same); Futrell v. J.I. Case, 38 F.3d 342 (7th Cir.1994)([I]n indirect discrimination cases, we do not defer to jury verdicts where the credibility of a defendant's explanation of the discharge is at issue simply because juries have the exclusive right to judge credibility.) The definition of an interested witness cannot be so broad as to require us to disregard testimony from a company's agents regarding the company's reasons for discharging an employee. As the Seventh Circuit noted in Traylor v. Brown, et al., 295 F.3d 783 (7th Cir.2002), to so hold would foreclose the possibility of summary judgment for employers, who almost invariably must rely on testimony of their agents to explain why the disputed action was taken. 20 Moreover, the record reveals support other than the testimony of senior managers for Appellee's explanation. In Appellant's deposition and in a memo written by Appellant, he acknowledges calling Nina Petty in during her maternity leave to discuss removing her from a pure management role. Appellant admits that he regrets writing in a memo to Petty that she was regarded as a mother hen. In a memo to Brett White, Appellant concedes that the book on him was that he micro-managed those who reported to him. The record contains memoranda expressing dissatisfaction with Appellant's management style from managers Ran Holman and Jerry Lumsden, both of whom reported to Appellant. The performance review of Appellant by Brett White, written the July before Appellant's September termination, expresses White's concern with the instability and dissatisfaction among the management in the Dallas market. 21 Also supporting Appellee's explanation are the summaries written by Rogge Dunn after he investigated Petty's complaint. While the summaries could not be admitted for their truth, we consider them only for their effect on Appellee's decision. Appellant's assertion that we must assess the truth of the interview summaries to determine Appellee's reasonableness in relying on them does not create a fact issue as to pretext; Appellee is entitled to be unreasonable so long as it does not act with discriminatory animus. If Appellant intends to show that the explanation is so unreasonable that it must be pretextual, it is Appellant's burden to proffer evidence creating a fact issue regarding reasonableness. Appellant has not done so. 22 Given Appellee's nondiscriminatory explanation, Appellant must point to evidence creating an issue of fact as to the pretextual nature of the explanation. Merely disputing Appellee's assessment of his performance will not create an issue of fact. Evans v. City of Houston, 246 F.3d 344, 355 (5th Cir.2001). The issue at the pretext stage is whether Appellee's reason, even if incorrect, was the real reason for Appellant's termination. Id. Thus, Appellant must adduce evidence supporting an inference that Appellee's motive was age-based animus, or at the least, that Appellee's explanation of its motive is false. 23 In arguing that Appellee's explanation is pretextual, Appellant points to Rogge Dunn's conclusion that Appellant did not discriminate against Petty. However, Appellant fails to note Dunn's additional conclusion that Appellee nonetheless placed the Company at substantial risk of a jury verdict. That Appellant did not discriminate against Petty is insufficient to create an issue of fact regarding whether Appellee fired him because he posed a risk to the Company. 24 Appellant argues that the oral statements we reject as direct evidence in any event provide evidence of discrimination sufficient to show pretext. Oral statements constitute evidence of discrimination if they indicate age-based animus and the speaker is principally responsible for the plaintiff's firing. Russell v. McKinney Hospital Venture, 235 F.3d 219 (5th Cir.2001)(citing Reeves, 530 U.S. at 151, 120 S.Ct. at 2110). 6 25 The statements offered by Appellant fail in that the speakers were not responsible, primarily or otherwise, for his termination. The comment by Gary Beban that James Didion had skipped a generation in choosing Beban's replacement could indicate age-based animus, and we draw that inference in favor of Appellant. However, Beban was not among the managers who made the decision to fire Appellant. Beban's estimation of Dideon's decision-making process in promoting Brett White bears no logical link to the decision to fire Appellant. 26 The remarks by stock analysts that the Company had too much grey hair in management indicate age based animus. However, the link between the speakers, who were not even Company employees, and Appellant's termination is absent. To indicate a connection between the analysts' remarks and his termination, Appekllant points out that Walter Stafford, one of the managers responsible for Appellant's firing, was audience to the comments and later expressed concern about them. We have held that a remark may bear a sufficient causal connection to the employment decision if the speaker has such influence over the decision maker that his animus properly may be imputed to the decision maker. Russell, 235 F.3d at 226-27, citing Haas v. ADVO Sys., Inc., 168 F.3d 732, 734 n. 1 (5th Cir.1999). These decisions are based in part on principles of agency. Long v. Eastfield College, 88 F.3d 300, 306 (5th Cir.1996). We have not held that the remarks of non-employees may be imputed to the decision maker, and the statement at issue here provides no reason to so hold today. 27 Appellant's only evidence of discriminatory remarks by a decision maker is Stafford's testimony that White said to him, You old guys don't always get it right. Appellant omits from his argument the portion of the exchange which places it in context: 28 Q: Can you recall any [remarks] specifically? 29 A: The specifics, no. But, again, they're of the same type: you old guys don't always get it right. 30 Q: He has said that? 31 A: Uh-huh. 32 Q: When did you hear him say that? 33 A: After I told him that, You young guys seldom get it right. 7 34 Viewed in context, White's remark provides no evidence of discriminatory animus. 35 The Plan likewise does not provide evidence of pretext. Favoring Appellant, we accept that the Plan evidences a policy of keeping older employees from advancing to senior management positions. However, the inference that the Plan reflected a policy to fire older managers to make room for younger managers is both unreasonable and contradicted by independent, uncontroverted evidence. Appellant offers the decline in mean age of senior managers as evidence of the Company's age-based animus. Since implementation of the Plan, two senior managers have been fired: Appellant and one other, whom Appellant concedes was not fired because of his age. The record shows that younger employees have been promoted to senior management positions. Thus, the decline in mean age is not attributable to senior managers being fired; it is attributable to younger employees moving into newly created senior management positions. 36 Even if we infer a general animus toward older people currently occupying senior management positions, Appellant offers no evidence providing for a reasonable inference connecting the Plan to his own termination. Appellant argues that the grey hair and generation skipping comments tie the Plan to his termination. The Plan was in place before the road show; thus, it could not have been enacted in response to the grey hair comment. Appellant's argument that we should consider the Plan as being enacted in anticipation of the comments requires an unreasonable inference, which we are not required to make. Similarly, the generation skipping comment, spoken in connection with a promotion decision made by someone other than the speaker, can be linked to the Plan and to Appellant's termination only with unreasonable inferences. 37 We reject also Appellant's argument that he was treated differently from Jeff Langdon, whose management style had been the subject of complaints from subordinates. In discrimination cases, we compare the treatment of other employees whose conduct is nearly identical to the plaintiff's conduct and who were treated more favorably than the plaintiff. Okoye v. Univ. of Tex. Houston Health Sci. Ctr., 245 F.3d 507 (5th Cir.2001). Appellant cannot show that Langdon's conduct was nearly identical because no formal complaint of gender discrimination was filed against Langdon. Thus, as the district court concluded, Appellant's treatment cannot be compared with that of Langdon. 38 Finally, Appellant points to Appellee's alleged lax attitude toward sexual harassment and discrimination. Appellant's evidence of the Company's attitude is no more than a list of the employees who have made complaints and a judgment against the Company won by one complainant. The record contains no evidence of the substance of the complaints or action taken by the Company that would be probative of the Company's attitude toward sex discrimination. No reasonable inference that the Company acted differently in its response to Appellant can be drawn from evidence in the record. 39 Viewing the evidence as a whole and drawing all reasonable inferences in Appellant's favor, we find that he has created no issue of material fact regarding the Appellee's discriminatory animus in terminating him. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court. 40 AFFIRMED.