Opinion ID: 538896
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The golf scores

Text: 84 Nor does the second item of evidence--the golf scores--provide the slightest support for finding a contractual obligation between Levolor and Ada Kern. Ada Kern was a good employee. But in the workplace, as elsewhere, everything is relative. Steven Smithling, Kern's shift supervisor at Levolor, testified without contradiction that Ada Kern was laid off because the company was experiencing a downturn in business and needed the production of only two full-time wandmakers, rather than the three they were then employing. Reporter's Transcript (RT) 7/28 at 44. All three wandmakers had AAA ratings, the highest the company gave, and excellent attendance records. Id. at 45. Unfortunately, Ada Kern's production was slightly lower than that of the other two wandmakers, and she was the least senior. Id. 85 In preparation for the February 1985 layoff decisions, Levolor carefully recorded relevant employee data on a series of tally sheets. AER at 55-66. The tally sheets contained two sets of scores. One was a series of absolute measures, reflecting the employee's grade (AAA, A, B, etc.), average production, and a measure of attendance. All employees eligible for layoff, including Kern, received these ratings. Id. at 64. Many of the tally sheets also contained a set of golf scores, in which the absolute measures were converted to a relative scale; the better the employee, the lower the score, hence the analogy to golf scores. It was Steven Smithling's uncontroverted testimony that golf scores were used only to compare employees in the same job classification in the same shift. RT 7/28 at 45-46. They were not used to compare employees on different shifts, or employees on the same shift doing different jobs. 86 There was nothing magic about the golf scores; they were simply a mathematical summary of various employees' work performance, used to make layoff decisions among employees who were otherwise similarly situated. Because Ada Kern was the only wandmaker on her shift and there was no one with whom to compare her, no golf scores were prepared for her. 87 Based on this evidence, the majority concludes that a jury could reasonably find that Levolor had a contractual obligation to prepare golf scores for Ada Kern. I don't get it. Levolor demonstrated by uncontroverted evidence that the golf scores were inapplicable to Ada Kern. How could a rational jury conclude from this that Levolor and Ada Kern had an implied contract that she would receive such scores? 88 The majority relies on the fact that Levolor calculated golf scores for two other employees who were the only ones on their shift in their job classification. Majority op. at 774. But these were the exceptions, and there is no indication that the golf scores, once computed, played any part in the decision whether to lay them off. The fact is, most employees in Ada Kern's position were treated exactly the same: they did not receive golf scores. See AER at 65. Under the majority's rationale, Ada Kern had an implied contract to be treated different than most of the other employees in her position. This just doesn't make sense. 5 89 Equally significant, the record is clear that Ada Kern was not aware of the golf-score system until after her layoff. RT 7/27 at 97. Yet she claims that Levolor breached its contract with her by failing to give her a golf score before laying her off. To show that she had an implied agreement with Levolor that they would give her such a rating, however, Kern must first prove that Levolor management did or said something to her. Pugh, 116 Cal.App.3d at 326, 171 Cal.Rptr. 917. It confuses implied with imaginary to find that an employer and employee had an agreement over a policy about which the employee had absolutely no knowledge. 90 Where the majority finds an obligation on Levolor's part to provide golf scores is beyond me. It's not in the Employee Handbook (even assuming the Handbook could serve as a contract). It's not in any written agreement. Nor is there any evidence that Ada Kern talked to anybody about the golf scores before her layoff. What we have here is a cheap litigation trick, honed to a fine art by contingency-fee-hungry lawyers: rummage through the opposing party's files and records until you find something that looks vaguely like your client has been afforded differential treatment, no matter how trivial or irrelevant, and then parade it before the jury as a grave injustice. 6 91 To say, as the majority does, that a rational jury might find that Ada Kern had a contractual right to have Levolor perform an irrelevant, hypothetical and to her unknown tabulation on the layoff tally sheet, is so contrary to common sense it does not, in my opinion, pass the snicker test. Quite aside from the substantive problems with today's opinion, one unfortunate consequence is that lawyers will be encouraged to engage in this type of scorched-earth litigation tactic; after all, you never know what triviality might impress a court and jury. This is no doubt welcome news for lawyers, but I doubt it helps the economy or that it is in the long-term interest of employees.