Sixth Circuit Affirms $435K Verdict in Retaliatory Termination Case.

In Imwalle v. Reliance Medical Products, Inc., No. 06-4619 (6th Cir. 2/8/08), the plaintiff argued that he was unlawfully terminated by a Swiss conglomerate as President and corporate Chief Operations Officer only three months after he filed a Charge of Discrimination with the EEOC alleging discrimination on account of his age (62) and national origin (American). The jury awarded $185,000 to the plaintiff on the retaliation claims and the Court added another $250,000 for attorney fees, court costs and pre-judgment interest. The Sixth Circuit affirmed on appeal.

The plaintiff had produced evidence that the Swiss company had proposed several cost-cutting measures, including a corporate-level powerpoint presentation by his boss (a Swiss citizen) which suggested the termination of “elderly” employees. He testified that he had been phased out of the corporate decisionmaking process and his boss also suggested in May 2003 that he hoped to retire and volunteer in the community at plaintiff’s age and then asked for the plaintiff’s resignation. The plaintiff also testified that his Swiss boss had complained to him in 1996 about it being the biggest mistake of his career to hire an American manager (i.e., the plaintiff), said he would never repeat that mistake and, in fact, never hired another American manager thereafter. His boss admitted that age discrimination is not illegal in Switzerland and did not understand U.S. employment laws or how they applied to the plaintiff. Nonetheless, the jury rejected the plaintiff’s discrimination claims.

When the plaintiff refused to retire as requested, he hired an attorney and accused the employer of both illegal discrimination and breaching his employment agreement. The employer then agreed to retain him in his current position, but never brought him back into the corporate decisionmaking process. The plaintiff then filed an EEOC Charge alleging age and national origin discrimination. Three months later, his boss met with him and, as described by both the plaintiff and the employer’s human resources director, fired him in January 2004 after reading the following statement:

“‘Dennis, I know that you know [the defendant employer] never committed discrimination in the past, at present, and will not in the future. I therefore canot [sic] understand why you raise such a claim.’ We are not discriminatory, just not.”

The defendant submitted a plausible explanation of poor performance as a non-retaliatory reason why it terminated the plaintiff. For example, the employer contended that it was unhappy with how the plaintiff had managed a particular division and had managed his own division during the brief 2001 recession. The employer also showed that it had pretty much excluded the plaintiff from the corporate decisionmaking process before he made his first allegation of discrimination in May 2003. However, the Court held that the jury could disbelieve the employer’s explanation of poor performance on the grounds that other individuals were more responsible for the corporate failures according to the outside auditors (and yet were not similarly held accountable) and because other managers were not similarly held responsible for the recession. Once a jury rejects the employer’s explanation as false or insufficient, it may infer that discrimination or retaliation was the actual reason or motivation. More importantly, the Court found that the employer’s pre-discharge statement -- denying any unlawful discrimination and wondering how the plaintiff could make such an accusation -- could reasonably be interpreted as evidence that the plaintiff’s EEOC allegations were at the forefront of the employer’s mind when it decided to terminate him.

The Court acknowledged that temporal proximity alone can rarely prove a retaliation claim and the plaintiff lacked direct evidence of retaliation. Indeed, the Court had previously ruled that the passage of four months between protected conduct (i.e., an EEOC Charge) and a discharge created an insufficient inference of retaliation. However, with the passage of only three months, the jury’s disbelief of the employer’s explanation for its conduct and – most importantly -- the employer’s pre-discharge statement, the plaintiff had produced sufficient circumstantial evidence of a retaliatory discharge to support the jury’s verdict. It probably would have been a different result had the employer not protested the discrimination allegations moments before firing the plaintiff.

Insomniacs can read the decision in full at http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/08a0066p-06.pdf.

NOTICE: This summary is designed merely to inform and alert you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to different results. Information here can change or be amended without notice. Readers should not act upon this information without legal advice. If you have any questions about anything you have read, you should consult with or retain an employment attorney.