Court Opinion

ID: 9477861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:33:17.923664+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:05.709675
License: Public Domain

*1102RALPH B. GUY, Jr., Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent for three reasons: (1) the plaintiff did not make out a prima facie case and the defendant should have had its motion for directed verdict granted; (2) the trial judge played an active role in the trial but did not intrude to the point where plaintiff was prejudiced; and (3) in this age of the “forensic expert,” a trial judge acts within the bounds of discretion when an “expert” is extensively questioned.
I.
The plaintiff did not present any direct evidence at trial showing that he was discharged because of his age. Instead, plaintiff sought to prove age discrimination through the use of circumstantial and statistical evidence. Most of the circumstantial evidence consisted of plaintiff’s personal observations and his general impression that older employees were leaving the company and being replaced by younger employees. In support of his claim of a pattern or practice of age discrimination, plaintiff gave five examples of older employees being replaced by younger employees. The record shows that three of the five individuals cited by the plaintiff were not “replaced” after they left the Company. Moreover, with respect to the two remaining individuals, one of them was transferred to California where he continues to work for the Company, and with respect to the other, there is nothing in the record to indicate whether his retirement was voluntary or involuntary. This anecdotal evidence regarding the retirement, transfer, or discharge of five out of defendant’s 3,200 employees was insufficient to establish a “pattern or practice” of age discrimination.
Plaintiff also sought to introduce a list compiled by a co-employee which, according to plaintiff, supported his claim of age discrimination. The trial judge refused to admit the list into evidence because it was not limited to those individuals who had been discharged by the Company but, rather, supposedly included every individual who had left the home office of the Company for any reason. Therefore, the trial judge found that the list lacked probative value. I agree.
Plaintiff also attempted to establish a prima facie case by citing examples of what he refers to as “age-related discriminatory statements.” For example, plaintiff testified that his superior, Mr. Adams, had told him that there were already “enough problems with age” at the Company. Ironically, the record shows that Mr. Adams’ remark was made in the context of a meeting with the plaintiff in which he admonished the plaintiff that he should “not refer to age in dealing with employees because it had a potential for creating a problem.” The impetus for Adams’ remarks to plaintiff was a complaint from one of the plaintiff’s subordinates who was upset about plaintiffs comments on her age. Apparently, plaintiff had told her that she had to adapt to the use of personal computers, and that her resistance to change was a sign of her age. The other “discriminatory” statements cited by plaintiff are either ambiguous or unsupported by the record, or both. I find that these types of isolated generalized statements are insufficient to establish a prima facie showing of age discrimination. See Chappell v. GTE Products Corp., 803 F.2d 261, 268 n. 2 (6th Cir.1986), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 1375, 94 L.Ed.2d 690 (1987).
Plaintiff also attempted to establish the existence of age discrimination through the use of statistical evidence. Plaintiff’s expert witness, Dr. Feinberg, testified that the average age of defendant’s workforce was lower in 1985 than in 1982. Dr. Fein-berg testified that, all things being equal, the average age of the workforce should increase over time and that the decline in the average age was “consistent with age discrimination.” According to Dr. Fein-berg’s statistics, the decline in the average age of the entire Company between 1982 and 1985 was only .2 years, and the decline in age of the workers at the Cincinnati home office was only one year. This court has previously found that such slight changes in the average age of the work*1103force have no probative value in an age discrimination claim. See Simpson v. Midland-Ross Corp., 823 F.2d 937 (6th Cir.1987). Moreover, the methodology of the plaintiffs statistical expert is faulty in that it fails to differentiate between those workers who voluntarily retired, transferred, or resigned from those who were discharged against their will. See Wilkins v. Eaton Corp., 790 F.2d 515, 523 (6th Cir.1986).
Dr. Feinberg also presented evidence showing that the number of management level employees between the ages of fifty and fifty-nine dropped significantly from the year 1982 to the year 1986, even though the total number of management employees increased. Once again, however, Dr. Feinberg failed to account for voluntary retirements, resignations, or transfers among the group of employees over fifty years of age. This omission rendered the analysis essentially meaningless with respect to the issue of whether management employees suffered age discrimination through involuntary discharges or forced resignations. In Simpson, this court stated: “[W]e reject any assertion that a decreasing average employee age coupled with other questionable statistics proves the existence of impermissible age discrimination.” 823 F.2d at 944 (citing Chappell, 803 F.2d at 268; Wilkins, 790 F.2d at 523). As in Simpson, the statistical evidence presented in this case was insufficient to create even an inference of age discrimination on the part of the defendant in its treatment of managerial level employees. A “mere scintilla” of evidence will not support a verdict in favor of a plaintiff in an age discrimination case. Simpson, 823 F.2d at 944.
II.
It cannot be gainsaid that the trial judge played a very active role in this trial. It may well be that the demonstration setting for this trial contributed to the amount of judicial involvement. This cannot be used as an excuse, however, if the trial judge was, in fact, so intrusive as to prejudice the plaintiff with the jury. The majority has set out plaintiff’s “best shot” examples of the alleged prejudicial comments made by the trial judge. Although some of the comments were critical of the expert’s methodology, they appear to be accurate criticisms. There is no doubt that if a trial judge has serious doubts as to whether a proposed witness even qualifies as an expert, further inquiry should be conducted outside the presence of the jury. The problem that arises, however, in this age where the “forensic expert” populates the judicial landscape in ever increasing numbers, is that there is a plethora of experts who look good on paper and do not reveal their shortcomings until they start testifying. Although one would hope that the adversary system would be an adequate safeguard against misinformation, such is not always the case. What frequently happens is one expert is called to offset another, and a jury is left with little guidance on how to choose between the two. We instruct juries that they are free to disregard the testimony of an expert, but we give them no criteria for doing so. It is no accident that Federal Rule of Evidence 706 allows a trial court to not only appoint its own expert but to actually call that expert to testify. A trial should still be a search for the truth and, if a few “experts” become tarnished in the process, it is a cheap price to pay. In this context, one must be careful of how the word “prejudice” is interpreted. All evidence that is offered by either side is intended to be prejudicial to the other side. We exclude prejudicial evidence only when its probative value is too slight. It may be that a trial judge’s questioning of a witness results in “prejudice” to one side or the other, but if the prejudice stems from the exposing of fallacies or improper methodology, so be it.
I want to make it crystal clear that I am not suggesting that plaintiff’s expert here was other than an honorable witness and a person of integrity. Howéver, one can possess these characteristics and still be wrong. Also, I am not writing a paean to trial judge activism. It is permissible to fill a void, but taking over a trial is to be avoided. On balance here, however, I conclude that plaintiff received a fair, if not *1104perfect, trial and that is all to which he was entitled.
I would affirm the jury verdict.