Opinion ID: 484640
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: wakefield's appeal

Text: 20
21 Wakefield contends that Wakefield I mandated a new trial on his contract claim. The district court rejected this view, stating that it d[id] not understand the Court of Appeals as ruling on whether or not plaintiff had established a prima facie case, March 18 Opinion at 2; the court apparently read our statement that Wakefield could attempt to prove that Paragraph J did not apply or that NTI was motivated by a desire to deny him commissions that were about to become vested as clearly indicat[ing] that plaintiff had not made out a prima facie case, id. Neither view is entirely correct. 22 The action taken by a court of appeals must be analyzed in the context of the issues before it. In Wakefield I, NTI challenged, inter alia, the district court's failure to grant it judgment n.o.v. In pursuing its contention that it was entitled to judgment as a matter of law, NTI explored at some length the trial evidence with respect to what contract governed Wakefield's right to commissions in 1979. In remanding for a new trial, we plainly rejected NTI's contentions that it was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Far from clearly indicat[ing] that Wakefield had not established a prima facie case at his first trial, we stated that a properly instructed jury could have awarded damages to Wakefield upon either of [his] theories.... 769 F.2d at 113. Thus, we clearly indicated that Wakefield had presented sufficient evidence at the first trial to withstand a motion for dismissal of his case as a matter of law. This ruling was confirmed thereafter when we denied NTI's petition for rehearing which sought to avoid a new trial on the wrongful motivation theory on the basis that the district court had implicitly ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support that theory at the first trial. 23 We do not mean to suggest that if further discovery proceedings on remand had revealed an undisputed fact conclusively precluding the entry of judgment in Wakefield's favor, judgment could not have been entered against him as a matter of law. But in the absence of such a revelation, our ruling in Wakefield I meant that NTI was not entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
24 We think it plain that NTI was not entitled to summary judgment on the issue of whether the termination was motivated solely by NTI's desire to deny Wakefield commissions to which he was about to become entitled. Summary judgment is proper only if there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and ... the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2553, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). There must also be  'no controversy as to the inferences to be drawn from'  the facts; the court should draw all reasonable inferences against the moving party. EEOC v. Home Insurance Co., 672 F.2d 252, 256-57 (2d Cir.1982) (quoting Schwabenbauer v. Board of Education, 667 F.2d 305, 313 (2d Cir.1981)). Summary judgment is usually inappropriate when the moving party's state of mind is in issue. EEOC v. Home Insurance Co., 672 F.2d at 257. 25 The district court granted NTI summary judgment on the issue of its motivation on the basis that Wakefield, at his postremand deposition, explicitly ha[d] acknowledged that the sole evidence he can present on this issue is his own subjective belief. March 18 Opinion at 8 (footnote omitted). This ruling somewhat stretched the deposition testimony and unfairly ignored both the evidence adduced at the first trial and the ruling by this Court. 26 At his deposition, Wakefield was asked whether there was [a]ny information outside of [his] own head that [he had] to indicate that [he was] fired to deprive [him] of commissions. He stated that he had only his own firm belief and that no one had ever told him anything to support that belief. This is the testimony relied on by the court, and since the question was not posed to Wakefield in terms of what evidence he could present, it seems to us unduly harsh to construe his answer as anything more than a concession that Wakefield had no direct evidence to support his belief. Plainly there was circumstantial evidence to support his belief, for such evidence was in fact presented at the first trial. That evidence included the sequence of events leading to this suit, i.e., that Wakefield's superiors were aware that Wakefield was working on sales of some $16 million that were about to come to fruition; that these included a $12 million sale to IBM which would have been the largest sale of a switch in the industry up to that time; that Wakefield was regarded by his superiors as a capable salesman with a reputation for success; that Wakefield had performed the work enabling the sales to go through; that shortly after Wakefield's termination, the $12 million IBM sales agreement was signed; and that NTI paid no one a commission on that sale. In addition, there was evidence that prior to NTI's acquisition of Danray, Wakefield had been in competition with Salerno who thereafter became one of Wakefield's superiors, and that there was animosity between them. 27 Thus, the fact that Wakefield was unable to testify that anyone had told him NTI's goal was to deprive him of commissions should not have been fatal to his case as a matter of law. Rarely, in a wrongful termination case, is the plaintiff privileged to have such direct evidence to support his claim. Prima facie cases are usually established by circumstantial evidence that may include just such a sequence as was shown here. To be sure, there was countervailing evidence produced by NTI that it had merely effected a general reduction in work force in the fall of 1979 and that Wakefield had been insubordinate. On a motion for summary judgment, however, even prior to any trial, the district court could not properly enter judgment on the basis of the inference it preferred, for choosing between competing inferences is the province of the jury. Certainly after Wakefield had been able to produce circumstantial evidence at one trial on the basis of which this Court had said that a properly instructed jury could have found in his favor, the district court was wrong to dismiss his complaint as a matter of law.
28 We conclude that the court erred also in summarily dismissing Wakefield's theory that the Danray Plan had been superseded and that Paragraph J therefore no longer was applicable. The court itself noted that the exchanges of communications created confusion and that there were therefore ambiguities in what plan was referred to in the pertinent statements by Cotten. On a motion for summary judgment, the court may not properly resolve such ambiguities in favor of the moving party. E.g., Schwabenbauer v. Board of Education, 667 F.2d at 313 (In determining whether or not there is a genuine factual issue, the court should resolve all ambiguities and draw all reasonable inferences against the moving party.) The court did not apply this principle. 29 Nor was the fact that Wakefield may have made concessions at prior moments during this litigation sufficient to warrant the entry of summary judgment against him. The substance of the statements cited by the district court was that Wakefield's amended complaint alleged that Wakefield's right to commissions had been governed by the 1978 Danray agreement. This is precisely what NTI argued to this Court in Wakefield I, urging that Wakefield's contract claim should have been decided and dismissed by the court as a matter of law on the basis of the clear language of the commission contract and should not have been presented to the jury at all. We remanded the contract claim for a new trial. It was not open to the district court on remand to dismiss summarily on the basis of previously known evidence.