Court Opinion

ID: 9688806
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:06:31.113602+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:42.364808
License: Public Domain

J. C. Kingsley, J.
(dissenting in part). I respectfully dissent from that part of the majority’s opinion that affirms the trial court’s reinstatement of plaintiff as an equitable remedy. As the majority acknowledges, plaintiff was offered his same job with full seniority and benefits, but refused the offer. In spite of finding that plaintiff rejected an offer of unconditional reinstatement, the trial court ordered his reinstatement as an employee saying:
This Court does not believe that Chrysler terminated Mr. Rasheed as a result of his religious beliefs, but due to the fact that he abused his position in taking extended time off away from his job. And.also he abused his position; he damaged' company property.
The biggest problem that I have with this particular case is that this Court is presented with an employee who has 17 years of employment with this particular company.
Mr. Rasheed is requesting reinstatement to his prior job, to his prior job, to his old job.
This Court does, however, believe that Mr. Rasheed, as I stated earlier, breached his obligation to mitigate his damages.
This Court at this point in time is going to carve out an equitable determination for Mr. Rasheed.
I do believe that as a result of Mr. Rasheed not mitigating his damages and not taking his job back, he believing, Mr. Rasheed believing, that his unconditional offer of reinstatement was really conditional to him because he believed that the *210status of his position would in fact be changed as a •result of him coming back as a person who had a disciplinary suspension on his record.
This Court for all intents and purposes does not buy that argument. However, this Court does believe that as a result of him not mitigating his damages, he lost all his bumping rights. He lost all of his seniority rights.
This Court is going to order Chrysler Car Company to give Mr. Rasheed an offer of employment within the next 60 days as a new worker. As a new laborer.
He has to come back within Chrysler Motor Car Company as a new employee and it will be up to Chrysler Motor Car Company to determine what type of employment that is. But it has to be of some employment.
I am not going to give him his old job back.
I do believe that he has lost it as a result of he, Mr. Rasheed, failing to mitigate his damages.
Although this Court is not required to follow federal decisions when there is no precedent in Michigan law, it may do so when the federal cases are on point. In my view, the better reasoning is found in those cases that stand for the proposition that, unless it is reasonable under the circumstances, an employee’s right to reinstatement is forfeited by refusing an unconditional offer of reinstatement. Ford Motor Co v Equal Employment Opportunity Comm, 458 US 219; 102 S Ct 3057; 73 L Ed 2d 721 (1982); Giandonato v Sybron Corp, 804 F2d 120, 125 (CA 10, 1986); Stanfield v Answering Service Inc, 867 F2d 1290, 1296 (CA 11, 1989).
The rationale for this approach was explained by the Stanñeld court as follows:
In Ford Motor Co v EEOC . . . the Supreme Court stated that the laws should be designed to *211encourage defendant employers to make unconditional, curative job offers to claimants in an effort to end discrimination quickly .... Once such an offer is made, claimants forfeit their right to reinstatement unless their refusal of the employer’s offer is reasonable. A contrary holding would allow an employee to avoid her obligation to mitigate damages by holding out for a court-ordered reinstatement. [Stanfield, supra at 1296.]
Neither the record nor the cases on which plaintiff relies support his claim that his refusal of reinstatement was reasonable. As a result, I believe that the trial court did not have the authority to order any reinstatement of the plaintiff by the defendant.