Opinion ID: 3001807
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Faas’s prima facie case of age discrimination

Text: The ADEA makes it unlawful for an employer to dis- charge an individual because of her age. 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1). To establish her claim under the ADEA, Faas must show that her age “ ‘actually motivated’ ” Sears’s decision to terminate her employment. Hemsworth, 476 F.3d at 490 (quoting Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 141 (2000), Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604, 610 (1993), and Schuster v. Lucent Techs., Inc., 327 F.3d 569, 573 (7th Cir. 2003)). In other words, Faas must show that her age “ ‘actually played a role in [Sears’s decisionmaking] process and had a determinative influence on the outcome.’ ” Id. (quoting Reeves, 530 U.S. at 141, Hazen, 507 U.S. at 610, and Schuster, 327 F.3d at 573). Faas may establish her ADEA claim through either the direct or indirect methods of proof. Hemsworth, 476 F.3d at 490; Ptasznik v. St. Joseph Hosp., 464 F.3d 691, 695 (7th Cir. 2006). We have noted that because a plaintiff may utilize circumstantial evidence under both methods of proof, “[t]he distinction between the two avenues of proof is ‘vague,’ and the terms ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ themselves are somewhat misleading in the present context.” Luks v. 14 No. 07-2656 Baxter Healthcare Corp., 467 F.3d 1049, 1052 (7th Cir. 2006) (quoting Sylvester v. SOS Children’s Vills. Ill., Inc., 453 F.3d 900, 903 (7th Cir. 2006)) (internal citation omitted). The direct method of proof involves direct evidence, such as near-admissions by the employer, as well as more attenuated circumstantial evidence that “ ‘suggests discrimination albeit through a longer chain of inferences.’ ” Hemsworth, 476 F.3d at 490 (quoting Luks, 467 F.3d at 1052). In contrast, the indirect method of proof involves a certain subset of circumstantial evidence that includes how the employer treats similarly situated employees, and “ ‘conforms to the prescription of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 (1973).’ ” Id. at 49091 (quoting Luks, 467 F.3d at 1052). On appeal, Faas has failed to raise, and has therefore waived, her direct-method-of-proof argument. See Local 15, Int’l Bhd. of Elec. Workers v. Exelon Corp., 495 F.3d 779, 783 (7th Cir. 2007) (“ ‘A party waives any argument that . . . if raised in the district court, it fails to develop on appeal.’ ” (quoting Williams v. REP Corp., 302 F.3d 660, 666 (7th Cir. 2002))). We therefore turn to whether Faas’s claim under the indirect method of proof can withstand summary judgment. We evaluate whether Faas has raised a genuine issue of material fact under the indirect method using the familiar burden-shifting approach outlined by McDonnell-Douglas. See Barricks v. Eli Lilly & Co., 481 F.3d 556, 559 (7th Cir. 2007). In order to establish a prima facie case of age discrimination under the indirect method, Faas must to prove that (1) she is a member of a protected class; (2) her performance met Sears’s legitimate expectations; (3) despite her performance, she was subject to an adverse employment action; and (4) Sears treated similarly situated emNo. 07-2656 15 ployees outside of her protected class more favorably. See id.; Ptasznik, 464 F.3d at 696. Assuming that Faas can successfully lay out a prima facie case, the burden then shifts to Sears to provide a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for its decision to terminate her employment. See Barricks, 481 F.3d at 559; Ptasznik, 464 F.3d at 696. Once Sears meets this minimal threshold, Faas may attack Sears’s proffered reason as mere pretext for discrimination. See Barricks, 481 F.3d at 559; Ptasznik, 464 F.3d at 696. Where a plaintiff claims, as Faas does, that an employer’s legitimate expectations were disparately applied, the second and fourth elements of the prima facie case are closely intertwined with the pretext analysis, and the two inquiries may be merged and considered together. See, e.g., Cerutti v. BASF Corp., 349 F.3d 1055, 1064 n.8 (7th Cir. 2003); Peele v. Country Mut. Ins. Co., 288 F.3d 319, 329 (7th Cir. 2002); Curry v. Menard, 270 F.3d 473, 478 (7th Cir. 2001); see also Hague v. Thompson Distribution Co., 436 F.3d 816, 823 (7th Cir. 2006) (“[I]f the plaintiffs argue that they have performed satisfactorily and the employer is lying about the business expectations required for the position, the second prong and the pretext question seemingly merge because the issue is the same—whether the employer is lying.”). We will therefore analyze whether Faas presented sufficient evidence of pretext because without such evidence, Faas cannot show that she was meeting Sears’s legitimate expectations. See Hague, 436 F.3d at 823. “Pretext ‘means a dishonest explanation, a lie rather than an oddity or an error.’ ” Id. (quoting Kulumani v. Blue Cross Blue Shield Ass’n, 224 F.3d 681, 685 (7th Cir. 2000)); see also Hudson v. Chi. Transit Auth., 375 F.3d 552, 561 (7th Cir. 2004) (“Pretext is more than a mistake on the part of the employer; it is a phony excuse.”). “Showing pretext 16 No. 07-2656 requires ‘[p]roof that the defendant’s explanation is unworthy of credence.’ ” Filar v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Chi., 526 F.3d 1054, 1063 (7th Cir. 2008) (quoting Reeves, 530 U.S. at 147). Sears explained that it terminated Faas because of her consistently poor performance and for poorly executing two key marketing events. Faas does not dispute that she had a track record of sub-par leadership and customer service in the larger stores. And Faas’s managerial insufficiencies are well documented—the Performance Plans for Improvement, the deposition testimony of Carges, and even Faas’s own admissions indicate that Faas was a less-than-exemplary store general manager. Yet Faas insists that Sears is lying when it claims that she was terminated for her poor performance and for botching the promotional events because Sears disparately applied its performance expectations—younger store managers with similar performance problems were given a chance to improve, while older store managers were disciplined and terminated. Faas’s disparate treatment argument is untenable because she has not come forward with evidence that the store general managers who escaped reprimand shared a “ ‘comparable set of failings’ ” with her. Burks v. Wis. Dep’t of Transp., 464 F.3d 744, 751 (7th Cir. 2006) (quoting Haywood v. Lucent Techs., Inc., 323 F.3d 524, 530 (7th Cir. 2003). Faas had a long history of poor customer service (characterized at one point as “substandard”) and of an inability to motivate her team (epitomized by the dissension among her assistant store managers after Faas allegedly chastised her team at a meeting in March 2004). Faas’s extensive record of poor management without improvement dated back to Poss’s tenure as district general manNo. 07-2656 17 ager, and Faas concedes that Poss, who harbored the same concerns about Faas’s management that Carges later observed, was unbiased. Faas also mismanaged two major marketing initiatives. Perhaps most importantly, Faas had the lowest balanced-scorecard rating in her district. This idiosyncratic “set of failings” distinguishes Faas from the other managers supervised by Carges, and we cannot say that any of the other store general managers were similarly situated to Faas. See Burks, 464 F.3d at 751; Haywood, 323 F.3d at 530. Even if we thought that the other store general managers were similarly situated to Faas, other facts in the record belie Faas’s conclusion that Carges disparately applied Sears’s disciplinary procedures in a discriminatory manner. When Carges initially evaluated the twelve store general managers in the Chicago South District, she believed that two—Morris and Allen—were adequately performing their jobs. Significantly, both Morris and Allen were several years older than Faas. Indeed, Morris and Allen were two of the four oldest store managers in the district. A pattern where the protected-class members “sometimes do better” and “sometimes do worse” than their comparators is not evidence of age discrimination. Cf. Bush v. Commonwealth Edison Co., 990 F.2d 928, 931 (7th Cir. 1993) (“Such a pattern, in which blacks sometimes do better than whites and sometimes do worse, being random with respect to race, is not evidence of racial discrimination.”). Of the ten underperforming store general managers, Carges chose to discipline three—Faas, Johnson, and Spencer—by placing them on Performance Plans for Improvement. Faas was the low manager on the balancedscorecard totem pole, and Johnson and Spencer had the 18 No. 07-2656 third and fourth lowest balanced-scorecard ratings, respectively. The manager with the second-lowest rating, Kraatz, was not disciplined; but Kraatz had been at his store for less than a year when Carges became district general manager, and Kraatz had started the year with strong balanced-scorecard ratings before struggling. Carges eventually placed Kraatz on a Performance Plan after Faas was terminated. Moreover, Kraatz is less than four years younger than Faas—not a significant enough disparity in age to present a prima face case under the ADEA without further proof. See Bennington v. Caterpillar Inc., 275 F.3d 654, 659 (7th Cir. 2001) (five year age difference is not significant); Hartley v. Wis. Bell, Inc., 124 F.3d 887, 892 (7th Cir. 1997) (seven year age difference is not significant). So Carges—faced with the daunting task of improving ten of her twelve store managers—prioritized three of the worst four. Carges selected whom to discipline using an objective metric, the balanced-scorecard ratings, and Faas makes no argument that Sears improperly used age in calculating those ratings. Moreover, Carges’s decision to discipline her worst-performing manager, Faas, seems even more justified considering Faas’s habitual failures, and considering that Carges believed the Fox Valley store to be key to her plan to revitalize the Chicago South District. And Carges’s decision to wait to discipline Kraatz given his inexperience and strong start also appears quite legitimate. In light of the fact that Carges had only limited time to manage many stores, her decision to focus on the measurably least-competent managers (with one justifiable exception) does not strike us as pretext, it strikes us as wise. Faas makes one additional argument that she claims established a genuine issue of material fact with respect No. 07-2656 19 to pretext: Faas contends that Carges’s refusal to place all of the underperforming store general managers within the Chicago South District on Performance Plans for Improvement contravened Sears’s “policy” of treating performance problems in a consistent manner. See Rudin v. Lincoln Land Cmty. Coll., 420 F.3d 712, 727 (7th Cir. 2005) (“This court has held in the past that an employer’s failure to follow its own internal employment procedures can constitute evidence of pretext.” (citing Giacoletto v. Amax Zinc Co., Inc., 954 F.2d 424, 427 (7th Cir. 1992))). Faas claims that Sears had such a policy based on a statement in a Sears guide that outlined the Performance Plan for Improvement process for its managers: “the manager must treat similar performance situations among associates in a consistent manner.” However, Faas has taken this statement completely out of context. The language directly before the above quotation refers to a manager’s discretion in determining how to follow up during the Performance Plan for Improvement process, “[t]he manager . . . should use discretion to determine the exact timing for each follow-up step, considering the severity of the issue at hand and the opportunity to observe changes in performance; however, the manager must treat similar performance situations among associates in a consistent manner.” In our view, this language does not create a policy that Sears’s managers must discipline all underperforming subordinates; rather, it limits the discretion of managers once they choose to initiate the disciplinary process (i.e., the manager cannot be inconsistent in how she follows up with an employee). The fact that Carges was given discretion by Sunderland to select which store general managers to focus on supports this reading. Nevertheless, even if we 20 No. 07-2656 were to view the language as creating a policy of treating similar performance situations consistently, we have already explained how Faas’s performance deviated from that of the other store general managers. Carges’s actions did not clearly violate such a policy. We cannot say that Carges or Sears is lying when they claim to have disciplined and discharged Faas for her inability to manage the Fox Valley store. Hague, 436 F.3d at 823; Kulumani, 224 F.3d at 685. The district court correctly held that Faas did not raise a genuine issue of material fact on her ADEA claim under the indirect method of proof. B. The district court’s denial of an adverse inference for Sears’s document destruction Finally, we turn to Faas’s contention that she was entitled to an inference that Sears’s Leadership Overviews contained discriminatory content. In order to draw an inference that the Leadership Overviews contained information adverse to Sears, we must find that Sears intentionally destroyed the documents in bad faith. See Park, 297 F.3d at 615; see also Rummery v. Ill. Bell Tel. Co., 250 F.3d 553, 558 (7th Cir. 2001); S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. v. Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co., 695 F.2d 253, 258-59 (7th Cir. 1982). “Thus, ‘[t]he crucial element is not that evidence was destroyed but rather the reason for the destruction.’ ” Park, 297 F.3d at 615 (quoting S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., 695 F.2d at 258). A document is destroyed in bad faith if it is destroyed ” ‘for the purpose of hiding adverse information.’ ” Rummery, 250 F.3d at 558 (quoting Mathis v. John Morden Buick, Inc., 136 F.3d 1153, 1155 (7th Cir. 1998)). No. 07-2656 21 Faas has failed to advance any evidence that Sears destroyed the Leader Overviews in order to hide adverse information. Rather, she claims that we should assume as a matter of “common sense” that Sears shredded the forms evasively. To the contrary, the record shows that Sears shredded the Leadership Overviews as a regular business practice in order to protect confidential information about its employees. And Sears’s legitimate motivation for shredding the documents is not transformed into a disingenuous one merely because Deselits uttered the word “age” (in addition to “salary”) when discussing what kind of confidential information the Leadership Overviews contained. The district court also properly denied Faas an adverse inference because the Leadership Overviews are not relevant to Faas’s case. See Crabtree v. Nat’ l Steel Corp., 261 F.3d 715, 721 (7th Cir. 2001) (upholding district court’s decision not to grant adverse inference where irrelevant documents were destroyed); Coates v. Johnson & Johnson, 756 F.2d 524, 551 (7th Cir. 1985) (same). The record shows that Sears did not use the Leadership Overviews when deciding whether to discipline or terminate employees—the undisputed evidence in the record is that the Leadership Overviews were merely a talent assessment tool that allowed Sears to ascertain who among its employees had the potential for a promotion. Even still, Sears preserved, and produced, Faas’s personal Leadership Overviews. This disclosure is pertinent because Faas had access to at least one of the Leadership Overview forms, which should have revealed the “adverse information” that Sears sought to hide by destroying the Leadership Overviews. But Faas’s Leadership Overview did not contain any discriminatory material. The 22 No. 07-2656 word “blocker,” as Sears defined it, had nothing to do with age, but with an employee’s potential for ascent within the company. The form listed Faas’s age, but also included other biographical data. The fact that Faas had access to her own Leadership Overview and could not articulate what adverse information it contained is proof enough that Sears did not destroy the documents to hide adverse information. Faas “has offered no evidence, other than [her] own speculation, that they were destroyed to hide discriminatory information.” Rummery, 250 F.3d at 558. The document destruction therefore does not raise any issue of material fact with respect to Faas’s discrimination claim. See id. at 558-59.