Opinion ID: 849201
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defendants' Justification for their Employment Decision

Text: Defendants cited several reasons for their decision to hire Michelle Block rather than plaintiff. Among them were plaintiff's lack of experience in supervision, finance, or accounting. By contrast, Block's application materials indicated that she had supervised an audit department of six persons and had significant financial experience. Defendants also expressed their desire to change the manner in which business would be conducted in the office; they wanted to hire what is customarily known as a change agent. Deposition testimony indicates that the former office manager allowed the pension clerks great autonomy with regard to their work and even their work schedules. Petty cash was handled informally, and a simple matter like the office's no-smoking policy was routinely ignored. As the number of Ford UAW retirees continued to grow, defendants wanted the office to improve the service it was providing. In this regard, Mark Savitskie testified that he was looking for someone who would be able to identify problems and effect change and processes that would correct problems. When asked why he believed Block to be more qualified than plaintiff, Savitskie testified as follows: I believe that Michelle's experience, her practical experience, her business experience, her work experience, gave her a broad number of skills that would help her meet my requirement. Compared to Block, Savitskie felt that plaintiff was somewhat isolated in terms of comparing the dealings with outsiders, written responsibilities, dealing with processes and data and correcting problems. Savitskie testified that he saw plaintiff as a person who did not seem to appreciate the need for change. Donald Harris expressed a similar view, testifying that he believed Block to be a person who could make changes, incorporate those changes and motivate people to accept those changes. We conclude that defendants made a sufficient showing that they had legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for choosing Michelle Block over plaintiff. This means that the presumption of discrimination created by plaintiff's prima facie case dropped away, and the burden of production returned to plaintiff to show the existence of evidence sufficient to permit a reasonable trier of fact to conclude that discrimination was a motivating factor for the adverse action taken by the employer toward the plaintiff. Lytle, supra at 176, 579 N.W.2d 906.