Opinion
Civil Action No. 03-10820-GAO.
March 17, 2005
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
In this employment discrimination action, the plaintiff, Paul Quaglia, alleges that the defendants, Eaton Corporation and Cutler-Hammer, Inc., violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634 ("ADEA") and Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B, § 4 by terminating his employment because of his age. The defendants have moved for summary judgment. Upon review of the parties' briefs and the evidence presented, and after oral argument, I conclude that the motion ought to be and hereby is denied.
Where, as here, a plaintiff has not presented direct evidence of discrimination, both federal and Massachusetts state courts follow a three-stage order of proof. See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-05 (1973); Abramian v. President Fellows of Harvard College, 731 N.E.2d 1075, 1084-86 (Mass. 2000). Quaglia has established a prima facie case of discrimination and the defendants have articulated a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for his termination. The parties' dispute appropriately centers on the third stage: whether the defendants' stated reason for Quaglia's termination was a pretext for unlawful age discrimination.
Despite the general alignment of federal and Massachusetts law on the pretext issue, compare Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 147-48 (2000), with Abramian, 731 N.E.2d at 1085; see also Fite v. Digital Equip. Corp., 232 F.3d 3, 7 (1st Cir. 2000), a subtle distinction may remain. Under Massachusetts law, a plaintiff may be able to get his case to a jury, regardless of the circumstances, if he can present evidence sufficient to support a finding that at least one of the reasons given by the defendant for his termination was false.See Joyal v. Hasbro, Inc., 380 F.3d 14, 17 (1st Cir. 2004) (discussing Lipchitz v. Raytheon Co., 751 N.E.2d 360, 366 (Mass. 2001)). Under federal law, the plaintiff must present evidence from which the trier of fact could reasonably conclude that the proffered reason for the plaintiff's termination was false and that the true reason was age-based animus. See Currier v. United Techs. Corp., 393 F.3d 246, 254 (1st Cir. 2004) (citing Brennan v. GTE Gov't Sys. Corp., 150 F.3d 21, 26 (1st Cir. 1998)). The distinction is of no consequence here, however, because on the current record the defendants' proffered nondiscriminatory reason for the plaintiff's termination is not conclusive, and the plaintiff has proffered sufficient evidence of pretext which, together with his prima facie case, could support an inference of discrimination. Reeves, 530 U.S. at 147-48; Currier, 393 F.3d at 255-56; Koster v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 181 F.3d 24, 32 (1st Cir. 1999); Lipchitz, 751 N.E.2d at 366 (citing Abramian, 731 N.E.2d at 1085); c.f. Joyal, 380 F.3d at 18-19 (affirming grant of summary judgment for employer where the plaintiff pointed to nothing that would entitle a jury to find that the defendant disbelieved the reasons it gave or otherwise based its decision upon the plaintiff's age).
This is not to say that Quaglia will ultimately succeed on the merits of his relatively weak discrimination claims, but at this stage he has at least succeeded in demonstrating that there are issues of material fact concerning whether the real reason for his termination was unlawful. The defendants' motion for summary judgment (Docket No. 21) is DENIED.
It is SO ORDERED.