Opinion ID: 171316
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Inadequate Employer Explanation for Job Categorization

Text: Defendant grouped employees in Ms. Coffey's job category by job title, ManagerConstruction. That job title included two subsets: construction managers, who supervised Defendant's internal cable technician employees, and contract coordinators, who oversaw outside independent contractors in fulfilling Defendant's cable work orders. Ms. Coffey was a contract coordinator, as were three of the five employees against whom she was ranked. The record indicates that a fourth employee was a construction manager, but there is a dispute regarding whether the fifth employee was a construction manager or a contract coordinator. The Defendant's MSG required it to group employees according to their affected work group, which the MSG defined as a portion of the organization at the same level, job title, similar job function, geography, and line of organization. (R. at 471, P's. Combined Resp. to D's. Mot. for Summ. J. at 15; R. at 363, MSG at 2 (Note).) Defendant argues it permissibly grouped construction managers and contract coordinators under the same job title because they had the same job function. Ms. Coffey asserts her day-to-day functions as a contract coordinator differed significantly from that of a construction manager. For example, construction managers worked with Defendant's internal crews of cable technicians and provided supervision for them. Whereas Ms. Coffey, as a contract coordinator, had no supervisory authority and worked with several independent contractors at various job sites on any given day to ensure their compliance with Defendant's contracted work orders. This contrast is important because Defendant's explanation for ranking two employees above Ms. Coffeythe two employees who were or who were alleged to be construction managersincluded the criterion of prior supervisory experience, which Ms. Coffey allegedly could not obtain as a contract coordinator. Based on Defendant's use of this criterion to rank construction managers over Ms. Coffey, in my view, Defendant's grouping of the two job subsets under one title could support a finding of pretext.