Court Opinion

ID: 9481904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:34:58.521395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:38.800041
License: Public Domain

SLOVITER, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
My colleague Judge Greenberg has been scrupulously fair in portraying the evidence introduced by Connecticut General seeking to prove that it terminated Billet for a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason and in portraying the evidence introduced and arguments made by Billet seeking to show that a reasonable jury could find pretext. There is no need for me to repeat those arguments, and I will not do so.
This is undeniably a close case. Unlike the majority, I conclude that Billet has shown enough to present this close case to a jury. The fact that the first jury could not reach a unanimous verdict underscores how close the evidence was perceived by them. Indeed, it is precisely when the line is so fine that a jury is called upon to use its cumulative wisdom, experience, insight, and intuition to make the difficult factual decision entrusted to them.
One fact referred to by the majority but insufficiently stressed is determinative of my decision to dissent from the affirmance of the grant of a directed verdict for Connecticut General. Connecticut General admits that before it selected Botta as city manager, it considered a number of other possible candidates and narrowed the finalists to three persons. Billet was one of the three. A reasonable jury could conclude that if Billet lacked the required knowledge and experience in the prepared products business, had the character flaws reflected by the car requisition and Southbury incidents, and was as insubordinate and insensitive to the needs of the underwriting department as defendant now claims, Connecticut General would never have allowed his name to be among the three finalists for the important city manager position. *832That is the stuff on which the jury may base a pretext determination.
The majority states that it is not the employee’s view of his own performance that is at issue (concededly correct), but that “what matters is the perception of the decisionmaker.” Majority typescript op. at 825. In cases such as this, the decision-maker will always argue that in its view plaintiff is not the proper person for the job in question. It is unlikely that plaintiff will be able to produce evidence directly contradicting that subjective view. Instead, plaintiff must build a case grain by grain. When there is objective evidence (such as in this case the inclusion of Billet as a finalist for the position) which could discredit the proffered subjective view, then it is the function of a jury and not the court on a directed verdict to decide whether the ultimate decision to terminate the plaintiff was tainted with the impermissible consideration of age.