Opinion
Cause No. IP 01-690-C H/K
January 16, 2003
FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
Plaintiff Lawrence Clanton brought this action against his former employer, defendant Kirk Blum Manufacturing Company, for race discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and for race discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Magistrate Judge Baker submitted a report and recommendation on defendant's motion for summary judgment, recommending that the motion be granted with respect to the claims for race discrimination and denied with respect to the claim for retaliation. Neither party submitted any objection to that recommendation. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636, the notice from Judge Baker, and Local Rule 72.1(d)(2) of this court, the lack of objections amounted to a waiver of subsequent review. The court accordingly issued a ruling consistent with Judge Baker's recommendation.
After both parties waived jury trial, the remaining retaliation claim in this matter was tried before the court on January 13, 2003. Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 52, the court now states its findings of fact and conclusions of law.
Kirk Blum is a sheet metal contractor and manufacturing company that specializes in industrial ventilation and air pollution control systems. The projects that Kirk Blum performs for other companies range from jobs as small as $200 to jobs as large as $5 million, causing its labor needs to fluctuate substantially. Nationally, Kirk Blum has between 400 and 650 employees at a given time. The Indiana facility for Kirk Blum employs as few as 12 to 15 people when business is slow and as many as 85 to 100 employees when business is brisk.
Kirk Blum manages the fluctuating demand at its Indiana facility by keeping eight to ten "core" production employees at the plant, and by hiring other "fill-in" employees to work as needed. The core employees are primarily journeymen sheet metal workers, while most fill-in employees are industrial welders or other sheet metal workers with less extensive training and skills. As business fluctuates, the fill-in employees are subject to constant hiring for short terms of work followed by lay-offs.
The production employees at Kirk Blum are supervised by a shop foreman, who in turn reports to the shop superintendent. The shop superintendent is responsible for hiring and laying-off production employees, and he reports to the general manager of the plant.
Plaintiff Lawrence Clanton graduated from Ivy Tech Community College in 1984 as a certified welder. Beginning in 1997, Clanton welded from time to time as a fill-in industrial worker for Kirk Blum. From 1997 to 2000, Clanton worked for Kirk Blum several times, for stints as short as a week and as long as a several months. During those years, Clanton also worked for other sheet metal contractors in the Indianapolis area when he was not working for Kirk Blum.
On September 19, 2000, plaintiff Clanton was working as a fill-in welder for defendant Kirk Blum. Late that morning, Clanton was working on welding a large diameter pipe, which required him to straddle the pipe and to lean over to one side to perform his weld. While he was welding, shop foreman Steve Rogers and co-worker Phil Jones fastened a heavy metal shackle around his ankle. While Clanton was doing his weld, he felt someone tapping on his ankle, but he could not interrupt his weld to see what was happening. He also did not hear the shackle being attached to him because of the level of noise within the plant. Only when he finished the weld did he discover that he had been shackled and chained.
The shackle consisted of a round metal pipe clamp or "hanger band" that weighed about five pounds. The band was attached to a length of heavy steel chain that was strong enough to pull a dump truck. Rogers and Jones had fabricated the shackle, which probably had taken about two hours. The chain was fastened to a work cart that Clanton was using, thus restricting his movement.
Clanton is African American. Rogers and Jones are both white. After Rogers and Jones shackled Clanton, other employees came to look. Many made fun of Clanton, though a few disapproved of the so-called "prank." The evidence indicated that Rogers and Jones even offered a work-related purpose for shackling Clanton — to prevent him from moving away from his work station (despite the need for all Kirk Blum employees to move around the plant to accomplish their work).
Clanton was angry and humiliated. No other employees came to Clanton's aid in removing the shackle and chain. Fortunately, Clanton was able to reach a power grinder and cut himself free from his work cart in a few minutes.
While the shackle was still around his ankle attached to a now-loose chain, Clanton walked to the office of shop superintendent Norman Harris. He showed Harris the shackle and chain. Harris realized that the people responsible were likely to lose their jobs. He decided to buck responsibility for the situation to his boss, Tim Schneider, who is a company vice president and general manager of the Indianapolis facility. Harris testified that Rogers and Jones were popular among the shop employees, and that he did not feel he could perform his job as effectively if he fired the men himself.
Schneider convened a meeting that same afternoon with plaintiff Clanton, as well as Rogers and Jones and a representative of the sheet metal workers union local. Schneider apologized to Clanton for the incident. Rogers and Jones also apologized, at least in some manner. Schneider fired Rogers because of the shackling incident. Schneider gave Jones an oral reprimand. Schneider took the different disciplinary actions with respect to Rogers and Jones because of Rogers' supervisory responsibility as a shop foreman.
Clanton took the rest of the week off, but was paid for that week. (The 19th was a Tuesday.) The rumor mill went to work. Other Kirk Blum employees quickly heard all about the incident and its consequences. Clanton returned to work on Monday, September 25, 2000. His co-workers continued to discuss the incident after he returned to work. Clanton was then laid off by Kirk Blum on September 29, 2000. The decision to lay Clanton off was made by shop superintendent Norman Harris.
Kirk Blum rehired Clanton on October 9, 2000 for one week, after which he was laid off again. Kirk Blum then hired Clanton on November 30, 2000, again for one week, before he was laid off. Each of these hiring and lay-off decisions was made by Norman Harris. Clanton has not worked for Kirk Blum since December 2000, and he has also not worked as a welder since that time. Following the incident, Clanton filed a charge of race discrimination with the EEOC. The evidence does not indicate exactly when the charge was filed, but the parties seem to agree it was shortly after the incident and before at least one or two of the later lay-offs. He also filed a grievance through his union, but the grievance reached a deadlock at the local level and did not proceed further. Kirk Blum agrees that Clanton had a reasonable and good faith belief that he had been the victim of racial discrimination at work.
To support his retaliation claim, Clanton relies heavily on the trial testimony of Norman Harris. Norman Harris testified at trial that after the September 19 shackling incident, he met with Schneider and office manager Deborah Ruska to review Clanton's employment records, and that Schneider instructed him in that meeting to lay Clanton off in a group of employees, preferably with another African American employee in the group. Schneider and Ruska denied that there was any such meeting, and Schneider denied having given Harris such instructions. Norman Harris also testified at trial that after he rehired Clanton to Kirk Blum, after Clanton had filed an EEOC charge based on the September 19th shackling incident, Schneider came to him and asked "What the f*** is he doing in the building? Get him the f*** out of here." Norman Harris testified that he then laid Clanton off again. Schneider denied having said this.
On these issues, the court does not find the testimony of Norman Harris to be credible. First, the evidence at trial demonstrated that Harris was bitter about the circumstances of his retirement. In late 2000, Schneider and Harris had a conversation about expected retirements among core employees. Harris himself was nearing retirement after having worked for Kirk Blum for 35 years. The result of the conversation was that Schneider encouraged Harris to retire earlier than Harris had planned. Harris submitted his retirement right after Christmas 2000 while Schneider was on vacation. Schneider later hired Norman Harris' nephew, Kevin Harris, as the new shop superintendent for Kirk Blum. Norman Harris was hurt, angry, and bitter about the circumstances of his retirement, and was motivated to lie to hurt Kirk Blum.
Second, Norman Harris' testimony showed contradictions that the court does not attribute to honest mistakes. At trial, Harris admitted having lied deliberately and repeatedly in his deposition about an anonymous letter that he had submitted to Schneider's boss around the time of his retirement. In several additional instances, Harris' trial testimony was impeached by contrary deposition testimony. (There were also several unsuccessful attempts to impeach Harris.) One successful instance involved a key issue: Schneider's instructions to Harris regarding how to handle Clanton. Harris testified in his deposition that after the September 19th incident, Tim Schneider told him that for purposes of rehire and layoff, Harris should proceed with Clanton just as he had before the shackling incident. N. Harris Dep. at 70-71. This testimony was consistent with Schneider's trial testimony, as well as Kirk Blum's actual treatment of Clanton before and after the September 19 incident. At trial, however, Harris testified that he could not believe that Schneider would have told him that. The court cannot attribute this stark conflict between the deposition and trial testimony to an honest mistake or misunderstanding.
Third, Harris' account of key events at trial was embellished considerably when compared to his deposition testimony, and those embellishments further detract from his credibility. For example, at trial Harris added accusations of explicit age discrimination to his account of his retirement being encouraged by Schneider. Harris also provided an incredible account of his supposed efforts to evade Schneider's supposed orders to get rid of Clanton. The story involved Harris taking substantial risks concerning his own job in order to rehire Clanton. In light of Harris' instincts for self-preservation, which were evident in his testimony about his reasons for bucking the whole shackling incident to Schneider, for example, Harris' account of heroic evasion of the boss's unfair orders is not credible.
Further undermining Harris' credibility is the fact that Kirk Blum's treatment of Clanton after the shackling incident appears to have been consistent with its treatment of him before the incident. Clanton continued to be treated as a fill-in welder. Harris testified that Schneider decided Clanton should be laid off on September 29th because of his complaints about the shackling incident and supposed disruption in the workplace. Yet Kirk Blum rehired Clanton twice in the two months following that lay-off. That is not the behavior of an employer that has decided to get rid of a "troublemaker" once and for all. In fact, Kevin Harris, the shop superintendent since January 2001, testified credibly that he would rehire Clanton if he needed to fill a second shift. Kevin Harris does not view Clanton as an especially good employee, but as an adequate one with skills that Kirk Blum sometimes needs.
Plaintiff Clanton was humiliated and embarrassed by the shackling incident. His reaction is readily understandable. That two white employees, including a foreman, should prepare a heavy steel shackle and chain and attach them to a black employee's leg in the year 2000 is a pointed reminder of how far this country has yet to go to overcome the long legacy of slavery and to achieve a society in which race is not a factor in employment.
As disturbing as the incident was, however, Kirk Blum responded immediately by firing the foreman who was involved and by reprimanding the other person involved. One might reasonably argue that both should have been fired. But with the firing of Rogers, Kirk Blum provided a swift, firm, and reasonable response, which is what the law requires. There is no basis for holding Kirk Blum liable for the shackling incident itself. Accordingly, Clanton's response to the defendant's motion for summary judgment abandoned any hostile environment claim he might have had. Pl. Mem. at 10. Also, as Magistrate Judge Baker explained in his report and recommendation, there is no basis for finding that Clanton was fired or laid off because of his race.
To establish his claim for retaliation, Clanton needed to show three things. See Fine v. Ryan International Airlines, 305 F.3d 746, 752 (7th Cir. 2002) citing, Dey v. Colt Constr. Dev. Co., 28 F.3d 1446, 1457 (7th Cir. 1994). The first is that he engaged in statutorily protected behavior by complaining about actions that he reasonably and in good faith believed amounted to race discrimination. Although the evidence is not clear as to timing, Clanton has shown that he took such protected action, and Kirk Blum concedes that Clanton had a reasonable and good faith belief that he was the victim of race discrimination. Second, Clanton must show that he suffered an adverse employment action. Any of the three lay-offs in late 2000 after the September 19th shackling incident amount to adverse employment actions. Third, Clanton must prove by a preponderance of the evidence a causal relationship between his protected activity and the adverse employment actions. Clanton has failed to meet this burden. He has failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that he was fired or laid off because of his complaints about the September 19th shackling incident.
Accordingly, Clanton has failed to meet his burden of proof, and defendant Kirk Blum is entitled to judgment on the retaliation claim. The court will enter final judgment in favor of Kirk Blum pursuant to the earlier summary judgment and these findings of facts and conclusions of law.