Opinion
Cause No. IP 00-1453-C H/K
January 8, 2002
ENTRY ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
Plaintiff Jerry Churchill was the branch manager of the Indianapolis office of defendant Harrington Industrial Plastics, Inc. In 1999, about three years after Harrington took over the business with which Churchill and the Indianapolis office had been affiliated, Harrington fired Churchill. He claims the decision to fire him was the result of age discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 623(a).
Defendant has moved for summary judgment. It is a truism that a court may not grant summary judgment simply because a case might appear weak. See, e.g., Huff v. UARCO, Inc., 122 F.3d 374, 388-89 (7th Cir. 1997) (reversing and remanding for trial: "although plaintiffs may have a weak case . . . they have enough of a case on their age discrimination claims to take their claims to a jury"); Partington v. Broyhill Furniture Indus., Inc., 999 F.2d 269, 272-73 (7th Cir. 1993) (affirming denial of judgment notwithstanding the verdict). Instead, the court must view all evidence in the light reasonably most favorable to the non-moving party, plaintiff Churchill, and must give him the benefit of all conflicts in the evidence and all inferences in his favor that might reasonably be drawn from the evidence. The court must grant summary judgment only if the evidence, viewed in that light, would not allow a reasonable jury to find in plaintiff's favor.
Churchill does not have direct evidence of age-based animus on the part of defendant or its decision-maker, Cris Beveridge, who supervised Churchill.
Churchill relies on the indirect method of proof adapted from McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 (1973). See Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 142 (2000) (assuming that McDonnell Douglas method applies to age discrimination cases).
Churchill has come forward with some evidence on each of the elements of his prima facie case. The element contested on summary judgment is satisfactory performance. In the only formal review that Beveridge ever gave Churchill in the three years or so of direct supervision, Beveridge gave Churchill an overall rating of "adequate." That is hardly a glowing endorsement, but it is sufficient to show that Churchill was performing satisfactorily. The issues concerning Beveridge's later and less formal evaluations present fact issues for the jury.
Defendant has responded to the prima facie case with the assertion that Churchill was fired for a legitimate non-discriminatory reason: poor performance, including a variety of specifics identified in Beveridge's memoranda based on his once-a-year visits to the Indianapolis office. As evidence of pretext, however, Churchill points out that the reason the defendant gave for his firing at the time was: "Laid off — Recessionary Economy — Cost Cutting." Pl. Ex. 1.
In light of this conflict in defendant's own explanations for Churchill's firing, a jury could reasonably question not merely the wisdom but also the honesty of defendant's stated rationale. See, e.g., Stalter v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 195 F.3d 285, 291 (7th Cir. 1999) (reversing summary judgment for employer); Emmel v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Chicago, 95 F.3d 627, 634-35 (7th Cir. 1996) (affirming verdict with punitive damages for employee). In other words, when viewed through the lens required on summary judgment, a jury could find that the explanation is a false pretext, and that finding could support a finding of discrimination. Reeves, 530 U.S. at 147-48. The court therefore need not dwell on the parties' more detailed debates about the grounds for the decision. Instead, the jury will have an opportunity to consider those arguments.
In light of the effort put into the motion for summary judgment, a few further comments may be worthwhile.
First, as a general rule, one party may not win summary judgment by asserting that the opponent's evidence is "self-serving." Defendant has cited the statement in Mills v. First Federal Savings Loan Ass'n of Belvidere, 83 F.3d 833, 843-44 (7th Cir. 1996), to the effect that conclusory, self-serving statements by an employee do not create a genuine issue of fact. Although some broad statements to that effect do appear in the Federal Reporter and Federal Supplement, they do not go so far as to mean that the moving party's evidence must be credited and the non-moving party's evidence disregarded. Such statements instead should be understood more narrowly to focus on the requirement of personal knowledge.
For example, an employee cannot avoid summary judgment by testifying about his belief that the employer discriminated. See, e.g., Fairchild v. Forma Scientific, Inc., 147 F.3d 567, 574 (7th Cir. 1998) (plaintiff's subjective belief in discrimination did not create a genuine issue of material fact in an employment discrimination case); Chiaramonte v. Fashion Bed Group, Inc., 129 F.3d 391, 401 (7th Cir. 1997) ("if the subjective beliefs of plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases could, by themselves, create genuine issues of material fact, then virtually all defense motions for summary judgment in such cases would be doomed").
Similarly, on an issue such as the employee's performance, the employee's own testimony that he was performing well will rarely be sufficient to call into question the honesty of an employer's different opinion. In Mills, for example, although the Seventh Circuit said in that case that the employee's affidavit was not sufficient to raise an issue of fact about the satisfactory performance prong of the prima facie case, the court cited in support cases that were addressing pretext, where the employer's subjective view is the critical fact. See Mills, 83 F.3d at 843, citing Sample v. Aldi Inc., 61 F.3d 544, 549 (7th Cir. 1995) (affirming summary judgment for employer; pretext not shown); Dey v. Colt Const. Development Co., 28 F.3d 1446, 1460 (7th Cir. 1994) (reversing summary judgment on pretext issue); Karazanos v. Navistar Int'l Transp. Corp., 948 F.2d 332, 337-38 (affirming summary judgment on pretext issue).
The law of summary judgment does not automatically treat as credible the moving party's own (usually self-serving) evidence and disregard the opponent's evidence because it is also "self-serving." See, e.g., Dunn v. Nordstrom, Inc., 260 F.3d 778, 785 (7th Cir. 2001) (reversing summary judgment for employer: "Nordstrom's supporting affidavits from management personnel . . . are no more credible than the affidavits presented by Dunn"); Szymanski v. Rite-Way Lawn Maint. Corp., 231 F.3d 360, 364-65 (7th Cir. 2000) (reversing summary judgment for employer; employee's and employer's evidence both "self-serving").
Second, plaintiff failed to submit proper authentication for some of the documentary evidence he relied upon in opposing summary judgment. When defendant pointed out the problem in its reply materials, plaintiff responded with a supplemental affidavit that cured the problem. That is a reasonable approach to such issues. Counsel who know a case well often do not insist that one another provide full authentication for all documents relied upon in summary judgment practice. See, e.g., Elghanmi v. Franklin College, 2000 WL 1707934, at *1 n. 1 (S.D.Ind. Oct. 2, 2000). (For example, strictly speaking, Churchill could have objected that all of the deposition excerpts filed by Harrington were not properly authenticated with an affidavit from the court reporter, but it rarely makes sense to raise such an easily-cured objection.)
Third, plaintiff's response to defendant's motion failed to comply strictly with all of the formal requirements of this court's Local Rule 56.1. Nevertheless, the presentation of evidence and factual issues was more than sufficient to enable the court to understand the parties' positions and to find the evidence they relied upon for support. As a result, the court has relied upon Local Rule 56.1(k) and has excused strict compliance. Cf. Harmon v. OKI Systems, 115 F.3d 477, 481 (7th Cir. 1997) (affirming district court decision to excuse moving party's failure to comply strictly with local rule on summary judgment).
In sum, this case is not the stuff of summary judgment, and defendant's motion is hereby denied. It is not the court's task at this point to weigh the relative strength of the parties' conflicting evidence. That task will be left to the jury at trial, which remains scheduled for March 4, 2002, with a final pretrial conference on February 22, 2002.
So ordered.