Opinion ID: 783068
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Count 131: Adverse Action as to Plaintiff's RIF Rights

Text: 90 Count 131 of Plaintiff's amended complaint sought a review of his RIF pursuant to MSPB guidelines. However, Count 131 does not allege that TVA committed any particular violation in conducting the RIF. Moreover, on appeal Plaintiff does not advance any theories to support this claim. Because we cannot discern from the vague reference to MSPB standards what Plaintiff's argument is, we affirm the district court's dismissal of this count. V 91 Plaintiff also challenges his sixty-day suspension for violating TVA's vehicle use policy. Count 128 challenged the validity of the suspension, 6 and Count 129 alleged that TVA subjected Plaintiff to racially disparate treatment by suspending him for sixty days, while suspending white employees for only thirty days for the same offense. TVA's vehicle use policy reads as follows: 92 An officer or employee of the United States Government or of the District of Columbia government violating section 1341(a) or 1342 of this title shall be subject to appropriate administrative discipline including, when circumstances warrant, suspension from duty without pay or removal from office. 93 31 U.S.C. § 1349. 94 As to Count 128, Plaintiff argues that genuine issues of material fact remain as to whether the suspension was appropriate. Specifically, Plaintiff argues that a genuine issue remained as to whether he willfully violated the policy. In support, Plaintiff points to the October 7, 1991 issue of TVA's daily publication, TVA Today, which announced a change in the vehicle use policy: 95 Employees may now use TVA vehicles or rental cars for incidental purposes without getting their supervisors' permission. The policy change is effective immediately. Supervisors have been sent background information about the change to help answer employees' questions. Details are in the Oct. 8 issue of Inside TVA. 96 (J.A. at 1270.) Plaintiff argues that because TVA started to allow employees to use the TVA vehicles for incidental purposes, he thought he was permitted to drive from Raccoon Mountain to Birmingham for his law school class, which was 139 miles away. 97 Plaintiff's argument is insufficient to establish a genuine issue of material fact. First of all, there is no dispute that the statute mandates penalties for violators of this statute. Second, we seriously doubt that any reasonable juror would believe, in good faith, that a 139-mile trip (one way) is incidental, or that an employee would reasonably believe that such a trip was incidental. Because we find that Count 128 lacks merit, we affirm the dismissal of that count. 98 Plaintiff also argues that the district court erred in dismissing Count 129 (racially disparate treatment regarding Plaintiff's suspension) because genuine issues of material fact remain as to whether TVA engaged in racial discrimination in violation of Title VII by suspending Plaintiff for sixty days when it suspended white violators of the policy for only thirty days. 99 In order to establish a prima facie claim of disparate treatment, a plaintiff must produce evidence which at a minimum establishes (1) that he was a member of a protected class and (2) that for the same or similar conduct he was treated differently than similarly-situated non-minority employees. Mitchell v. Toledo Hosp., 964 F.2d 577, 583 (6th Cir.1992). Moreover, the plaintiff must show that the `comparables' are similarly-situated in all respects, absent other circumstantial or statistical evidence supporting an inference of discrimination. Ercegovich v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 154 F.3d 344, 352 (6th Cir.1998) (quoting Mitchell, 964 F.2d at 583) (internal quotation marks omitted). This means a plaintiff must prove that all of the relevant aspects of his employment situation were `nearly identical' to those of [the non-minority's] employment situation. Pierce v. Commonwealth Life Ins. Co., 40 F.3d 796, 802 (6th Cir.1994). 100 The parties dispute whether Plaintiff can satisfy the similarly-situated requirement. Plaintiff points to four employees: Danny Seal (no discipline), Tanveer Khalid (no discipline), Guy Kidd (thirty-day suspension), and Roy Mason (thirty-day suspension). Although these employees all misused TVA vehicles and received less discipline, the facts surrounding Seal's, Khalid's, and Kidd's violations differ in relevant respects from the facts surrounding Plaintiff's violation. In the cases of Seal and Khalid, TVA's investigation determined that their respective supervisors had approved their misuses of the TVA vehicles (and therefore those employees were not disciplined because they did not willfully violate the policy), whereas nobody had approved Plaintiff's misuse. Plaintiff has offered nothing to contradict the accuracy of this finding. Kidd used a TVA vehicle to take his wife and neighbor to church on one occasion, whereas Plaintiff received a sixty-day suspension because he misused a TVA vehicle on two separate occasions. (J.A. at 493.) Because of these relevant differences, we do not believe that these three non-protected employees Plaintiff identified are sufficiently similarly-situated for Plaintiff to establish his prima facie case. 101 However, Plaintiff has also identified Roy Mason, a white employee who had used a TVA vehicle to haul his boat to a lake. The record indicates that Mason's violation was not approved by any of Mason's superiors and that the violation occurred on two occasions. Despite these similarities, Mason was suspended for only thirty days, while Plaintiff received sixty days. 102 TVA nevertheless asserts that Mason is not similarly-situated because he and Plaintiff worked in different TVA departments and had different supervisors. It is true that similarly-situated employees ordinarily must have dealt with the same supervisor, have been subject to the same standards and have engaged in the same conduct without such differentiating or mitigating circumstances that would distinguish their conduct or the employer's treatment of them for it. Mitchell, 964 F.2d at 583 (citations omitted). However, the same supervisor criterium has never been read as an inflexible requirement. The requirement is particularly problematic here, where a violation such as vehicle misuse does not occur frequently enough to invite such a direct comparison within a compartmentalized organization. See Ercegovich, 154 F.3d at 353 (noting that inflexible criteria for establishing the similarly-situated requirement would mean that a plaintiff whose job responsibilities are unique to his or her position will never successfully establish a prima facie case (absent direct evidence of discrimination)). In such cases, we have emphasized the importance of mak[ing] an independent determination as to the relevancy of a particular aspect of the plaintiff's employment status and that of the non-protected employee. Id. at 352. Thus, a plaintiff need not demonstrate an exact correlation with the employee receiving more favorable treatment so long as the two employees are similar in `all of the relevant aspects.' Id. (citing Pierce, 40 F.3d at 802). 103 In the present case, the record indicates that the decision to suspend Plaintiff for sixty days was not made in a vacuum. Several discussions took place, as well as a meeting in which participants included Johnson (Plaintiff's immediate supervisor), Walters (the Labor Relations and Safety Department manager and Johnson's supervisor), a representative from TVA's human resources department (which is involved in any type of disciplinary action), and a representative from TVA's legal department. Past discipline for similar misuses was discussed at that meeting. Thus, all of the people involved in the decision-making process, including Plaintiff's immediate supervisor and the department manager, were well-aware of the discipline meted out to past violators, including Roy Mason, who had violated the policy on at least two occasions. Moreover, TVA does not dispute that Mason and Plaintiff were subject to the same standards or that Mason's conduct included differentiating or mitigating circumstances that would distinguish their conduct or the employer's treatment of them for it. Mitchell, 964 F.2d at 583. Despite the similar circumstances, Plaintiff was punished for a time period that was twice as long as Mason's. We therefore conclude that Plaintiff has demonstrated that he and Mason were similarly-situated in all relevant respects. Because Plaintiff satisfied his prima facie case with respect to Count 129, we reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment to TVA on this claim. VI 104 Finally, Plaintiff argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to strike evidentiary submissions TVA presented with its reply brief. He argues that this was prejudicial to his case because he was not allowed to respond to the new evidence TVA submitted with its reply brief. 105 We review the decision to grant or deny a motion to strike for an abuse of discretion, and decisions that are reasonable, that is, not arbitrary, will not be overturned. Collazos-Cruz v. United States, 117 F.3d 1420 (Table), 1997 WL 377037, at  (6th Cir. July 3, 1997) ( per curiam ) (citing Whitted v. Gen. Motors Corp., 58 F.3d 1200, 1203 (7th Cir.1995)); see also Beaird v. Seagate Tech., Inc., 145 F.3d 1159, 1164 (10th Cir.1998) (applying an abuse of discretion standard to the district court's ruling allowing the defendant to file a reply brief but denying the plaintiffs' motion to file a surreply brief). 106 The facts demonstrate that with respect to TVA's first and third motions for partial summary judgment, Plaintiff filed opposition papers, and more than five days later TVA filed reply briefs, to which it attached additional evidence in the form of declarations with exhibits. The additional evidence was not included with TVA's original motions. Plaintiff filed motions to strike these evidentiary submissions, and the district court denied Plaintiff's motions. Plaintiff argues on appeal that the district court abused its discretion in allowing these evidentiary submissions because (1) the reply briefs were not timely filed pursuant to Local Rule 7.1(a) of the Eastern District of Tennessee, 7 and (2) in granting summary judgment, the district court relied on new evidence in TVA's reply briefs without first affording Plaintiff an adequate opportunity to respond to that new evidence. 8 107 In denying Plaintiff's motions to strike, the district court reasoned that TVA's evidentiary submissions merely pointed out additional facts that Plaintiff had in his possession and could have addressed in his response brief, and that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure did not preclude TVA from including these new submissions in its reply brief. 108 We only partially agree with the district court. Although the second and third reply briefs were not timely filed in accordance with Local Rule 7.1, we do not agree with Plaintiff that it would always be appropriate, barring extreme circumstances, for us to preclude a submission to the district court for failure to comply with the requirements of a local rule. Salehpour v. Univ. of Tenn., 159 F.3d 199, 205 (6th Cir.1998) (citing Stough v. Mayville Comm'ty Schs., 138 F.3d 612, 614-15 (6th Cir.1998)). Enforcing timely filing, on these facts, does not constitute an extreme circumstance. We therefore are not inclined to reverse based on the district court's decision not to strictly enforce Local Rule 7.1. However, we conclude that the district court was not entitled to enter summary judgment for TVA under these circumstances, inasmuch as Plaintiff was not accorded an adequate opportunity to respond to the new evidence presented with TVA's reply briefs. 109 When new submissions and/or arguments are included in a reply brief, and a nonmovant's ability to respond to the new evidence has been vitiated, a problem arises with respect to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c). Rule 56(c) requires that an adverse party receive ten days notice before a district court may enter summary judgment. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); Employers Ins. of Wausau v. Petroleum Specialties, Inc., 69 F.3d 98, 105 (6th Cir.1995). The purpose of Rule 56(c) is to afford the nonmoving party notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond to the moving party's summary judgment motion and supporting evidence. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 326, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986) (holding that summary judgment is to be entered only if the nonmovant is on notice that it must come forward with all of its evidence). It is only logical that the purposes of notice and opportunity to respond extend Rule 56(c) to the situation where the moving party submits in a reply brief new reasons and evidence in support of its motion for summary judgment, and require a district court to allow the nonmoving party an opportunity to respond. Beaird, 145 F.3d at 1164-65 (citing Cia. Petrolera Caribe, Inc. v. Arco Caribbean, Inc., 754 F.2d 404, 410 (1st Cir.1985)). This is particularly true when the district court relies on the new evidentiary submissions. 9 110 In this case, most of TVA's additional submissions consisted of evidence Plaintiff already had included among his evidentiary submissions to the district court. However, at least one of TVA's submissions involved new evidence. The new evidence concerned a declaration from Rowena Belcher, General Manager of Human Resources for TVA's Chief Operating Officer Fossil Power Group organization. The declaration was dated March 22, 2001, seven days after Plaintiff filed his papers in opposition to TVA's summary judgment motion. Exhibits C and D attached to the declaration involved newly-produced evidence. The district court issued an order granting TVA's motion just three days after TVA's reply brief was filed. In so doing, the court relied on the Belcher declaration and its attached evidence in dismissing Count 46 of Plaintiff's amended complaint. We therefore hold that the district court abused its discretion in granting summary judgment so quickly without allowing Plaintiff an adequate opportunity to respond to the new evidence. 111 We need not reverse the dismissals of any other counts in Plaintiff's amended complaint. The district court relied on the new evidence in dismissing only Count 46, and Plaintiff elected not to appeal the dismissal of this claim. However, in adjudicating the four counts we remand, the district court is precluded from considering any of the new submissions attached to TVA's first and third reply briefs until Plaintiff has been provided an adequate opportunity to respond to that new evidence. VII 112 For all the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of TVA on Counts 15, 123, 125 (with respect to reemployment rights), 126, 127, 128, and 131. However, we REVERSE the grant of summary judgment in favor of TVA on Counts 67, 75, 125 (with respect to reassignment rights), and 129, as well as the district court's denial of Plaintiff's motion to strike the new evidentiary submissions attached to TVA's first and third reply briefs. We REMAND those claims to the district court for further consideration not inconsistent with this opinion.