Opinion ID: 2973168
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Recommendation of the Selection Committee

Text: Plaintiff argues that the authenticity of the selection committee’s recommendation memorandum of September 14, 2000 is suspect because 1) the letterhead refers to Carolyn Nellon as Director of Human Resources when, at the time of the memorandum, Chester Christie was actually Director; 2) the memorandum refers to Eugene Brundige as a member of the selection committee when Brundige had, in fact, retired by that time; and 3) the memorandum refers to 12 No. 04-3465 Plaintiff’s lack of diplomacy when a committee member, Mike Vance, did not recall discussing such during committee deliberations. The City argues that it was common practice to use up old letterhead and that the memorandum clearly refers to Christie as the Director of Human Resources. Two of the three alleged problems with the memorandum do not, in fact, provide any evidence going to the authenticity of the memorandum. The reference to Brundige was in the background section of the memorandum in the context of a discussion of the first round of interviews in 1999 and does not allude to Brundige’s current employment position with the City. Brundige had, in fact, retired just at the end of August 2000, near the conclusion of the selection committee’s process. Second, the fact that Vance could not recall in his deposition testimony, taken almost four years after the fact, whether the committee discussed Plaintiff’s lack of diplomacy at the time is not evidence that the memorandum lacks authenticity. Plaintiff correctly points out that the City fails to provide any evidence that City departments regularly use old letterhead. In this respect, Plaintiff does point to an incongruity in Defendant’s evidence that this Court should consider. Standing alone, however, this Court believes that this piece of evidence is insufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact regarding the memorandum’s authenticity.