Opinion ID: 51501
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether Berquist was Otherwise Discharged Because of His Age

Text: The final prong of establishing a prima facie case of age discrimination requires Berquist to show that he was replaced by someone outside the protected class, replaced by someone younger, or otherwise discharged because of his age. Rachid, 376 F.3d at 309. The district court did not reach this issue, but the parties presented arguments on this final element before the district court and this court on appeal. As a starting point, the record does not support a finding that Berquist was replaced by someone either outside the protected class or by someone younger than himself. Berquist argues that Washington Mutual's decision to terminate him and Yancis, the two older employees in the Houston office, while offering the younger Plaisance and Zatopek the option of transferring to the Dallas office proves age discrimination. The undisputed facts surrounding Berquist's job function and Washington Mutual's reorganization, however, do not demonstrate that Berquist was replaced by Plaisance and Zatopek. As explained in greater detail below, Plaisance and Zatopek, the SFG credit process reviewers, remained in the Houston office for several months after Berquist's CBG functions were transferred to California. Moreover, Berquist presented no evidence to show who Washington Mutual hired to work in the California office. Therefore, the only path available for Berquist to establish a prima facie case is to show that he was otherwise discharged because of his age. Id.
Berquist asserts that Martinez's comments regarding the desire to attract younger talent, and her reference to Plaisance and Zatopek as the younger credit review officers, support his claim of age discrimination. Statements evince unlawful discrimination only if the comments first, demonstrate discriminatory animus and, second, [are] made by a person primarily responsible for the adverse employment action or by a person with influence or leverage over the formal decisionmaker. Laxton v. Gap Inc., 333 F.3d 572, 583 (5th Cir.2003) (citing Russell v. McKinney Hosp. Venture, 235 F.3d 219, 225 (5th Cir. 2000)). Under this test, Martinez's comments do not constitute evidence of age discrimination. Martinez made the first comment regarding younger talent in December 2002, six months before Washington Mutual terminated Berquist, and the comment does not at all relate to this employment decision. According to Berquist's contemporaneous transcription of the comment, Martinez stated that Performance issues will be promptly and aggressively dealt with. We will build leaders internally and attract younger talent. Washington Mutual contends that regardless of whether Martinez expressed an intention to attract younger talent, this remark was too vague and remote in time to show any discriminatory animus on the part of Washington Mutual in terminating Berquist. Martinez made no mention of replacing older employees with younger recruits or directly hiring younger employees into leadership positions. Unlike other cases in which we have considered remarks as evidence of discriminatory intent, this comment was a broad statement not directed to any particular employee about her management goals and remote in time from Berquist's firing. See Machinchick v. PB Power, Inc., 398 F.3d at 345, 353 (5th Cir.2005) (supervisor sent e-mail, just weeks before terminating plaintiff, discussing plans to strategically hire some younger engineers and designers; supervisor said plaintiff was inflexible and not adaptable); Rachid, 376 F.3d at 313, 315 (holding that employer's ageist comments to and about employee constituted evidence of age discrimination); Bienkowski, 851 F.2d at 1507 n. 4 (holding that comments requiring the employee to look sharp and criticizing an inability to adapt to new procedures constituted evidence of age discrimination); Palasota, 342 F.3d at 576 (supervisor sent a memorandum, two months before plaintiff's termination, recommending severance packages for fourteen named employees, all of whom were specifically identified as over fifty years of age, to create the flexibility to bring on some new players). Accordingly, in this context, we conclude that this statement is not evidence of age discrimination. As to Martinez's reference to Plaisance and Zatopek as younger employees, Washington Mutual asserts, and Berquist offers no alternative interpretation, that Martinez made this comment to contrast Plaisance and Zatopek with Berquist, the senior employee in the department. In his role as the senior employee, Martinez expected Berquist to provide leadership for the inexperienced members of the group. Berquist provides a similarly harmless interpretation of this statement in his response to the PIN, which was written prior to this litigation. Berquist's writes that The criticism mentioned repeatedly on March 4 from Ms. Martinez and Ms. Hart was that I did not notify them of the lack of desk reviews being sent to Houston to be performed by the young guys in the Houston office. I responded that since I reported directly to Ron Yancis at the time, it was not in my work experience to go over my boss's head directly to Credit Review management. . . . Ms. Martinez told me that I was a senior officer in this office and that other two employees in the department besides former Regional Manager Ron Yancis and myself were inexperienced young men who needed leadership. Based on Berquist's personal impressions of the statement, we decline to characterize this comment as anything more than a comment unrelated to an unlawful discriminatory animus. Both statements are consistent with Washington Mutual's stated commitment to build leaders internally based on available resources within the corporation. Accordingly, Martinez's comments are not sufficient evidence of age discrimination.
In addition to the above remarks, as stated supra, Berquist contends that Washington Mutual's decision to terminate him and Yancis, the two older Houston employees, while offering the younger Plaisance and Zatopek the option of transferring to the Dallas office further supports his claim of age discrimination. According to Berquist, all four employees were performing the same SFG work at the time of his termination. Berquist also maintains that Washington Mutual's age bias prompted Martinez to issue only the older employees a PIN. Berquist contends that Washington Mutual then suggested an internal transfer to resolve his employment issues but refused to facilitate this action because Martinez would not downgrade his PIN. Washington Mutual contends that the disparate treatment of Berquist and the younger employees, Plaisance and Zatopek, was based on the differing job functions performed by the two sets of employees. Washington Mutual argues that, although Berquist performed overflow work from SFG, everyone in Houston pitched in to work on SFG's reports during downtime. Plaisance and Zatopek were the only two employees, however, with years of experience in this specialty area. In disparate treatment cases, the plaintiff-employee must show nearly identical circumstances for employees to be considered similarly situated. Perez v. Tex. Dep't of Criminal Justice, 395 F.3d 206, 210 (5th Cir.2004) (quoting Little v. Republic Refining Co., Ltd., 924 F.2d 93, 97 (5th Cir.1991)). Berquist performed an array of jobs after the Bank United-Washington Mutual merger. Berquist initially stayed with the bank, at the request of Don Dahrens, for the specific purpose of assisting with the conversion of Bank United's risk grading system for loans to Washington Mutual's system. In late October 2002, Washington Mutual moved this function to Seattle, Washington, and Berquist no longer worked with converting the risk rating grids. Martinez then assigned Berquist to a national team reviewing a residential construction portfolio. After the group's first meeting, Martinez removed Berquist from the residential construction portfolio and asked him to assist with the review and approval of credit reports. This assignment involved clearing a large backlog of unissued loan review reports. At some point in early March, Berquist began working on change request summaries (CRS). CRS's require a determination of whether to increase or decrease a customer's credit rating based on a credit review. In her deposition, Martinez explained that the CRS process was segmented into two teams, the SFG and CBG. SFG handled a different business line from CBG, CBG involved a larger work load and larger assets under management. Martinez also stated that [i]f there was overflow from SFG then that would be allocated, and then Mr. Berquist may have been assigned those. Martinez's explanation comports with Berquist's account of the work distribution. Berquist testified that during slow periods, after receiving a stack of CRS's in the mail, someone simply grabbed a stack of CRS's without any regard to whether the files dealt with SFG or CBG loans. Berquist also testified in his deposition that after receiving his PIN, the Houston group received an email from either Martinez or Cynthia Hart, the SFG manager, announcing that Zatopek and Plaisance were being permanently assigned to the SFG function. In this capacity, Zatopek and Plaisance attended a national meeting concerning their duties in the SFG position. Berquist and Yancis did not attend this meeting. Moreover, Berquist and Yancis directly reported to Bob Granfelt, and only in the event of a workflow issue did these two employees report to Frazee as their administrative supervisor. Frazee managed the tracking system of work assignments for the Houston office. Finally, to this court, Berquist represented that he was initially assigned SFG work and then assigned to the CBG position. Thus, the PIN and Berquist's response to the PIN pertained to [his] SFG work, not the CBG position that Appellee alleges [he] was assigned after he was given his PIN. The explanations provided by Martinez and Berquist regarding the division of labor in the Houston office demonstrate that Berquist was not similarly situated with Zatopek and Plaisance; therefore, the employment decisions applied to Zatopek and Plaisance cannot be used to support Berquist's claim of age discrimination. Accordingly, based on the uncontroverted evidence, Berquist cannot argue that Zatopek and Plaisance were similarly situated employees treated differently from himself based on unlawful age discrimination. Berquist also argues that the PIN from Martinez accounts for one additional peg in the series of discriminatory events leading to his termination. Berquist asserts that the PIN supports his claim of age discrimination because it directly conflicts with verbal conversations between himself and Martinez, and only the two older employees, himself and Yancis, received a notice. Berquist also maintains that Frazee refused to participate in the PIN because he did not agree with Martinez's performance assessment. In early 2003, the Corporate Credit Review department of Washington Mutual consisted of seventy-one percent of employees over 40, and thirty-seven percent of employees over 50. During the reorganization, Martinez issued PIN's to only five employees under her management. Based on Berquist's admission that he lacked skills in SFG review, his then-current position, it is difficult to interpret the negative evaluation as motivated by age discrimination. On February 27, 2003, Berquist sent an email to Martinez attempting to carve out a position better suited for his operational and administrative skill sets. In the message, Berquist listed his prior work experience and states the following: As you know, my overall background has been in auditing and operational review . . . . In our initial meeting last year, I told you that I really love doing operational reviews. I believe that this is where my greatest strengths are. This is where I believe that I can be of best value to you and the entire Corporate Credit Review organization of Washington Mutual. . . . As you are aware and can see from the above, there are extensive operations and credit activities located and headquartered in the Phoenix Tower [in Houston, TX]. I would like to volunteer to dedicate my activities to these critical operational and credit areas in Houston and their respective field offices. In addition to documenting and reviewing all of the above operational activities as they relate to Credit Review, I also could attend regular meetings of these groups as they relate to credit issues as not only your representative, but for the team leaders as well. Prior to the reorganization, and in response to his PIN dated March 4, Berquist wrote the following: I have never at any time represented to anyone that I have specific expertise in credit review since my responsibilities at both Bank United and Washington Mutual were solely of an administrative and operational nature. At no time prior to March 4, 2003, was I ever advised that my lack of experience in credit review was an impediment to my continued employment and certainly not that it was grounds for termination. In his deposition, Berquist once again confirmed that he has no specific expertise in credit review. To reconcile the admissions in his PIN response and deposition, Berquist proffered that in his opinion, the skills involved in financial and operational auditing involve some of the same skills that are needed for corporate credit review. I believe that [] inquiries-requires an intuitiveness, a curiosity, and an ability to read and understand financial statements and documents. Berquist never presents evidence to refute the fact that the PIN accurately pinpoints his deficiencies in the credit review skills necessary to be a SFG credit process reviewer. Berquist also insinuates that Scott Frazee refused to participate in the March 2003 PIN because he had no problems with Berquist's work. To the contrary, Frazee explained in his deposition that he didn't participate in Martinez's evaluation of Berquist because he didn't have firsthand knowledge for the basis of her concerns and needed time to specifically assess Berquist's work. Frazee described that a process reviewer leads the credit review and a file reviewer conducts the necessary supporting file work. A process reviewer position typically requires at least four to five years of file review experience. Based on Berquist's work product, Frazee assessed that Berquist understood the basic concepts of credit review but lacked the capability and background to provide an appropriate assessment of more complex files. Ironically, Martinez attempted to use the PIN as a gateway for securing Berquist's long-term employment at Washington Mutual in a department better suited for his self-identified skill sets. Martinez and Julie Aydelotte, an employee relations manager, called Berquist to discuss a transfer to another department within Washington Mutual. Berquist recorded and transcribed many of these telephone conversations. In the initial discussion, on May 13, 2003, Martinez told Berquist that, What we want to discuss with you today and what we want you to think about is really working with you to find, to see if we can find you another position within the company. You know, your skill sets and the contribution that you could provide Washington Mutual from a global basis, I definitely think there is some contribution there. The issue really becomes are those skill sets what are needed in the Credit Review function and I think at this point in time the answer is no. But I think we also want to recognize the historical performance as far as your contribution to the department and see what we can do to help you. Also in this conversation, Martinez discussed with Berquist a 45-day period to find another position and her willingness to discuss the PIN with any interested managers within the company. Berquist requested to receive his severance package offered during the acquisition period, but Aydelotte explained that Berquist's working for two years had negated the original severance plan. Over the next several weeks, Aydelotte and Berquist communicated regarding his search for a new position and the severance package. Berquist resisted applying for another position because (1) Martinez did not completely fill-out his transfer form, and (2) Berquist questioned his ability to transfer in light of the company's policy regarding employees with a negative performance evaluation on file being ineligible for a transfer. Aydelotte advised Berquist that [w]hat you need to do is to apply on-line if you find something that you are interested in and then we can work through this part with the recruiters. Aydelotte testified in her deposition that, in the conversation Melissa had with Phil on the May 13th, was that she would authorize a transfer, that it was okay for him to look internally for a position that better suited his experience, and that if he found something I would work with a recruiter and that she would approve him to transfer. On June 10, 2003, Aydelotte offered Berquist the requested 38-weeks severance package in the form of a separation agreement. Berquist refused the offer because the paperwork included a confidential settlement and release agreement. Based on this evidence, confirmed and undisputed by Berquist on the pertinent points, the PIN highlighted his self-acknowledged lack of experience with credit review. Washington Mutual documented this skill deficiency, yet at the same time, attempted to retain Berquist in another position. When Berquist refused to look for another position, Washington Mutual offered Berquist a severance package identical to the amount offered at the time of the merger. Berquist then declined this offer. Berquist provides no evidence to diminish the veracity of Washington Mutual's position or to show a causal connection between Washington Mutual's adverse employment action and his age. To the contrary, Berquist readily admits through inconsistent statements that he was not working in the SFG position at the time of his termination, he lacked the skills necessary to perform the work assigned to Plaisance and Zatopek, and he refused to cooperate with Martinez's and Aydelotte's attempts to accommodate his requests. Based on this evidence, a reasonable trier of fact could not determine that Washington Mutual otherwise discharged Berquist based on his age.