Opinion ID: 2198126
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Johnson Produced Sufficient Evidence for the Jury to Find Age Discrimination

Text: For claims of age discrimination based on disparate treatment under the DCHRA, liability depends on whether [age] actually motivated the employer's decision. Reeves, 530 U.S. at 141, 120 S.Ct. 2097. [7] That is, the plaintiff's age must have actually played a role in [the employer's decision-making] process and had a determinative influence on the outcome. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Futrell v. Dep't of Labor Federal Credit Union, 816 A.2d 793, 803 (D.C.2003) (`the employee retains the ultimate burden of persuading the finder-of-fact that the employer acted with discriminatory animus' (quoting Blackman v. Visiting Nurses Ass'n, 694 A.2d 865, 868 (D.C. 1997))). Defendants have argued that they established two major nondiscriminatory reasons for terminating Johnson: (1) his performance was inadequate, and (2) they made their decision in light of the New Convention Center demands for a re-organization of the sales department. [8] Defendants presented evidence that Johnson was no longer qualified because the requirements of his position had evolved. In their view, [w]hile Johnson may have initially been qualified to lead the provincial Existing Convention Center, he lacked the sophistication, skill set, and current business acumen necessary to lead the sales team for the New Convention Center. Defendants point principally to testimony by Bankins and Dawley that Johnson was not an effective manager or Director of Sales. Two of Johnson's former subordinates testified that he was a poor manager. Other employees complained about having to do Johnson's work. Both Dawley and Fehrenkamp testified that there were numerous other performance-related problems, including difficulty developing the sales report in the spring of 2000. As the trial court summarized when denying defendants' post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law: Defendants offered evidence which, if believed, would allow a rational trier of fact to conclude that Plaintiff was terminated because he was not up to the job of selling the old (and new) convention center in the hard driving culture demanded of everyone by General Manager Lewis Dawley. This explanation was not conclusive, however, and Johnson presented enough evidence to create a factual issue for the jury to resolve. He points to his performance evaluations to rebut the claim that he was not qualified. In November 1999, Dawley gave Johnson an overall rating of excellent, the highest summary rating available. The most relevant evaluation, signed by Dawley and dated October 20, 2000 (less than three weeks before Dawley displaced him), gave Johnson a summary rating of above average. [9] Although that performance review, which occurred several months after Johnson's failed attempt to produce the sales report, indicates a need for improvement in some areas, Dawley indicated that Johnson [c]onsistently exceed[ed] job requirements in the categories of contract management, technical skills and knowledge, and one component of management of staff and resources. Furthermore, the letter which informed Johnson of his dismissal explicitly states that his termination was not related to [his] performance or any other personal factor. On the basis of this evidence, a reasonable jury could find that the explanation given by the defendants was not the actual reason for his termination. Esteños v. PAHO/WHO Federal Credit Union, No. 04-CV-1093, 952 A.2d 878, 895-96 (D.C. 2008); Brady, 380 U.S.App. D.C. at 288, 520 F.3d at 495. The jury could have found direct evidence of discriminatory intent based on the testimony of Johnson and Miller reporting Dawley's comments about older WCCA workers. [10] The force of these comments is counter-balanced by the fact that Dawley had recently hired Fehrenkamp, who was sixty-one in October 2000, but this competing evidence is not powerful enough to require a ruling in defendants' favor. The jury could have also found circumstantial evidence of discriminatory intent in Dawley's favorable treatment of Dawn Seay and Lana Ostrander, both of whom were significantly younger than Johnson. Furthermore, as the trial court noted, the jury was entitled to take defendants' contradictory positions into account when addressing whether they had intentionally discriminated. See Reeves, 530 U.S. at 147, 120 S.Ct. 2097 (Proof that the defendant's explanation is unworthy of credence is simply one form of circumstantial evidence that is probative of intentional discrimination, and it may be quite persuasive.). Defendants also argue that Johnson did not offer any evidence to show that their business-based explanation was false. They say that Dawley was experimenting with the organization of the staff: [a]s the result of the switch back to a combined Director of Sales position, Johnson's position was abolished, and there was no equivalent director position left for him to fill. Defendants assert that their evidence demonstrated a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for reorganization based on Dawley's concern that the new convention center be successful and profitable. While it may be literally correct to say, as defendants do, that Dawley abandoned the idea of having two directors of sales and chose Seay for the combined position, the jury could not have failed to notice that this reorganization essentially restored the status quo of having a single Director of Sales that existed before Seay arrived, less than three months before Johnson's termination. Moreover, as a result of this short-lived experiment, the older, more-experienced Johnson was pushed out in favor of the younger, newly-hired, and largely-untested Seay. See McFarland, 935 A.2d at 354 (An inference of discrimination is most natural when the plaintiff's job has not really been eliminated, but instead filled by others outside his protected class.). Although the subsequent termination of Seay and the elimination of the Director of Sales position support defendants' argument that they were experimenting with organization of the staff, that evidence is not so compelling as to preclude the jury from finding that defendants discriminated against Johnson. For these reasons, we see no legal justification for disturbing the jury's verdict that Johnson was the victim of age discrimination.