Opinion ID: 2833087
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plaintiff’s Position at Dollar General

Text: Plaintiff began working for Defendant as a part-time store clerk in 2007 at the Dollar General store located in Washington, Michigan.1 She subsequently transitioned to full-time employment and was promoted to lead sales associate. In September of 2010, she was again promoted, and became the assistant store manager. Plaintiff, for all intents and purposes, maintained ultimate responsibility on the ground for operating the store. Toward the end of her employment, Plaintiff was the only employee in a management position at the Washington, Michigan location. The store was “thinly staffed,” with a regular shift involving only two employees—a clerk and a manager. Plaintiff described the manager position as requiring her to do whatever 1 Dollar General is a national retailor that offers discount merchandise. 2 No. 14-2344 tasks had to be done to effectively operate the store at any particular moment. A typical day for Plaintiff involved going to the bank in the morning, handling paperwork (e.g., merchandise orders), opening the store, rearranging merchandise, insuring that the correct promotional posters were in place, running the cash register, and helping customers. There were also days that required more physical activity. For example, on “truck day,” which occurred once a week, new merchandise would arrive and Plaintiff would help restock the shelves, after supervising the unloading of the truck. Among the heavier items in the store that needed to be restocked were large packages of dog food and cases of laundry detergent. Plaintiff explained in her deposition testimony that although she could direct a store clerk to do all of the stocking while she worked the register, restocking (like all other tasks) was mostly a team effort, and responsibilities rotated. On weekdays, Plaintiff often opened the store by herself, and the part-time clerk would not arrive until later in the day. But prior to Plaintiff being the only manager at her store, on occasion, for brief periods there would be three employees in the store at the same time when the manager and assistant manager met to share information about the store’s operation. Apart from this overlap, there were never more than two employees in the store. Plaintiff, in addition to her administrative duties, was responsible for the same tasks as any of the part-time store clerks. She swept and mopped the floors, and she cleaned the bathroom. She also helped deconstruct and rearrange shelving when the store’s layout invariably changed each summer. This task required removing all merchandise from the shelves. In Plaintiff’s own words, she did “[w]hatever needed to be done,” because the store did not have task-specific positions such as a cashier. Plaintiff remained in this hands-on management role until December 13, 2011, when she was effectively terminated, inasmuch as she was not permitted to return to work following the 3 No. 14-2344 exhaustion of the medical leave she had taken to recover from injuries sustained in an auto accident.