Clayton Pierce v. General Motors, LLC ( 2017 )

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 17a0670n.06
Case No. 16-2748 FILED
Dec 01, 2017
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
CLAYTON PIERCE, )
)
Plaintiff-Appellant, )
) ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
v. ) STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
) THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF
GENERAL MOTORS LLC, GENE LAUER, ) MICHIGAN
GREG PEPIN, DAVID NEIL, TODD )
AICHER, and TRENT MILLER, )
)
Defendants-Appellees. )
)
)
BEFORE: GILMAN, SUTTON, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges.
SUTTON, Circuit Judge. Clayton Pierce claims that General Motors suspended him
because of his religion (Seventh-Day Adventist) and disability (degenerative joint disease) and in
retaliation for his assertion of rights (a race discrimination claim with the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission). General Motors says that it suspended Pierce because he threatened
his supervisor. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants. We
affirm.
Pierce worked as a “walk picker” for General Motors in its Willow Run warehouse in
Michigan. The warehouse stores parts for General Motors vehicles. Walk pickers fill orders
from dealers and other customers by walking through the warehouse to retrieve requested parts.
Eight-hour shifts are the norm. But management sometimes requires overtime when the
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warehouse is busy. The collective bargaining agreement allows management, if need be, to
impose up to six mandatory Saturdays of work each year.
In December 2013, the Willow Run facility announced its first mandatory Saturday of the
year. That posed a problem for Pierce because Seventh Day Adventists generally do not work on
Saturdays. Pierce told David Neil, a supervisor at Willow Run, about his beliefs. Company
policy, as Neil understood it, required employees to ask their direct supervisor for medical or
religious accommodations. He told Pierce to talk to his direct supervisor, Trent Miller, about
taking the day off. Pierce claims that, in the course of this conversation, Neil told him, “I don’t
care what day you go to church on.” R. 27-1 at 30. Neil was not Pierce’s supervisor and was not
in his chain of command.
Pierce never spoke to Miller about missing the Saturday shift. He took the day off
anyway. This took Miller by surprise. Miller had supervised Pierce for just a few months and
did not know about his faith. Miller started disciplinary proceedings against Pierce in
accordance with the collective bargaining agreement. Under that process, management places
employees who violate company rules “on notice” that they might be subject to discipline. But
before management can issue any discipline, it must provide its employees with a chance to
present their case in a “76A” meeting with management and the union.
Consistent with this process, Miller put Pierce “on notice” that he might be subject to
discipline for missing his shift. Only then did Pierce tell Miller about his faith.
Miller and Pierce dispute the rest of their conversation. According to Miller, he offered
to take Pierce off “notice” as soon as he provided proof of his religious belief, such as a letter
from a pastor. At least one other picker missed the mandatory Saturday for medical reasons, and
Miller took that employee off notice as soon as he provided support from his doctor. Miller says
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he offered Pierce the same opportunity. According to Pierce, Miller never made any such offer
to him.
Two days later, Miller approached Pierce about the 76A meeting. According to Miller,
Pierce said that he “couldn’t believe” that management might potentially discipline him. R. 27-2
at 107. Pierce balled up his fists, “huff[ed] and puff[ed],” and said that he couldn’t promise
“who’s going to come out” of the room if they held the meeting. Id. at 107–09. According to
Pierce, he did become upset during the conversation. And he agrees that he balled up his fists
and experienced symptoms of a “rage attack[].” R. 27-1 at 35–36. But he denies actually
threatening Miller.
Miller reported the incident to Greg Pepin (his supervisor) and Neil, who in turn reported
the exchange to Roger Pelton, the union representative. The three of them decided that there was
a potential for violence and the best way to avoid it was to suspend Pierce and postpone the 76A
meeting. Pelton walked Pierce out of the building after telling him about the suspension. Pierce
says that Pepin screamed “get out of my building” and “I’m sick of you” as he left. Id. at 38.
A few weeks later, General Motors sent a letter to Pierce asking him to return to work for
a 76A meeting. Pierce did not respond and has been out on medical leave ever since.
Pierce complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Before the
Commission, Pierce claimed that the company failed to accommodate his religious needs when it
tried to discipline him for failing to work on Saturday. He also claimed that he was suspended
because of his race and religion and in retaliation for a previous race discrimination complaint
that he had filed with the Commission in October of that year. He made no mention of disability
discrimination in his initial complaint and raised it only in his request for reconsideration. The
Commission declined to act on Pierce’s complaint and issued him a right to sue letter.
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Pierce sued General Motors and several of its supervisors, raising several discrimination
claims under federal and state law. The district court granted summary judgment to the company
and the supervisors on all of them. Pierce does not challenge most of those rulings. He appeals
only the district court’s resolution of these claims: (1) religious discrimination under Title VII
and Michigan’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act; (2) retaliation under Title VII and Michigan’s
Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act; and (3) disability discrimination under the Americans with
Disabilities Act.
We give fresh review to the district court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of General
Motors, and read all reasonable inferences in the record in favor of Pierce. Cline v. BWXT Y-12,
LLC, 521 F.3d 507, 509 (6th Cir. 2008). The familiar McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting
framework guides our resolution of each claim. Tepper v. Potter, 505 F.3d 508, 515–17 (6th Cir.
2007) (Title VII religious discrimination); Hussain v. Highgate Hotels, Inc., 126 F. App’x 256,
263–64 (6th Cir. 2005) (Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act religious discrimination); Laster v. City of
Kalamazoo, 746 F.3d 714, 730–32 (6th Cir. 2014) (Title VII retaliation); Booker v. Brown &
Williamson Tobacco Co., 879 F.2d 1304, 1311 (6th Cir. 1989) (Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act
retaliation); Talley v. Family Dollar Stores of Ohio, 542 F.3d 1099, 1105 (6th Cir. 2008)
(Americans with Disabilities Act discrimination).
Under this framework, Pierce bears the burden of establishing a threshold case of
discrimination or retaliation. If successful, the burden shifts to the company to articulate a
legitimate explanation for its decision. If the company meets this requirement, Pierce must show
that the stated ground is a pretextual cover for discrimination or retaliation. McDonnell Douglas
Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802–05 (1973).
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There is no need to determine whether Pierce established presumptive cases of
discrimination or retaliation because he cannot discredit the company’s reason for suspending
him. See Cline, 521 F.3d at 509. General Motors says that it suspended Pierce because he
threatened his supervisor. Pierce has not shown that this explanation was a pretext for
discrimination or retaliation, whether because it (1) lacked a basis in fact, (2) did not actually
motivate the company’s decision, or (3) did not suffice to motivate that decision. Id. at 509. His
employment record counters the first two possibilities, as it records the threat and shows that he
was suspended for that reason: “[m]aking a threat to a member of management.” R. 27-1 at 39.
Company rules counter the third possibility, as they confirm that threatening a supervisor
provides grounds for a suspension.
Pierce offers a rejoinder to one of these conclusions. He denies that the company’s
explanation has any basis in fact. As proof, he points out that the parties dispute whether Pierce
threatened Miller at all, and this factual dispute, he insists, requires a trial.
The problem is, Pepin and Neil, not Miller, made the suspension decision. They chose to
suspend Pierce after listening to Miller’s version of the events and after believing him. Under
the “honest belief” rule, an explanation honestly believed by a supervisor counts as a factual
basis for a decision, not as a pretext for that decision. Ferrari v. Ford Motor Co., 826 F.3d 885,
895–96 (6th Cir. 2016). Allegations that Miller lied about the threats do not show that Pepin and
Neil’s explanation was false or pretextual. The allegations merely show that the beliefs of
Miller’s supervisors could have been mistaken. Id. But to prove that Pepin and Neil’s
explanation was false or pretextual, Pierce must show that they did not honestly believe Miller’s
version of the events. Id.
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The uncontroverted evidence shows that Miller reported the threat to Pepin and Neil and
that they believed him. Neil answered “Yes” when asked in his deposition whether he accepted
Miller’s version of the events. R. 27-4 at 54. So did Pepin. R. 27-3 at 76. And Miller’s reaction
gave them good reason to believe his story. Both Pepin and Neil testified in their depositions
that Miller looked “shook up.” R. 27-3 at 76; R. 27-4 at 51. Neil added that he was “almost in
tears.” R. 27-4 at 51. Pierce was “a pretty big guy,” they noted, and had “made intimidating
body motions toward other employees and management” in the past. Id. at 52–53. Neil, Pepin,
and union representative Pelton thus “believed that there was the potential for violence.” Id. at
52.
Pierce offers no reason to think otherwise. He alleges that Pepin and Todd Aicher
(another supervisor at the warehouse) “pad[ded]” his personnel file to make it easier to discipline
him. Appellant’s Br. 26. But Pierce admits that everything Pepin and Aicher put in his file was
true: He did arrive late to two meetings in October, and he did receive a written reprimand as a
consequence. The company at any rate did not rely on his personnel file to discipline him.
Pierce also points to Neil’s comment: “I don’t care what day you go to church on.” But that
does not suggest that Neil disbelieved Miller’s contention that Pierce threatened him. Pierce
adds that a jury could find that Pepin and Neil acted with discriminatory or retaliatory intent
under the “totality of the circumstances.” Id. at 26. But we fail to see which “circumstance”
would permit this inference, making even a “totality” of such circumstances unhelpful.
The “honest-belief rule,” it is true, sometimes gives way to the “cat’s paw” theory of
liability, the idea that a plaintiff may show pretext when a biased lower-level supervisor without
decision-making power manipulates a neutral decision maker to make an employment decision.
Marshall v. The Rawlings Co., 854 F.3d 368, 377 (6th Cir. 2017). But Pierce does not allege that
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Pepin and Neil acted as Miller’s dupes. He does not even suggest that Miller harbored any
discriminatory or retaliatory intent. To the contrary, he acknowledges that he and Miller got
along well.
Pierce’s claims, for what it is worth, face other challenges. Pepin and Neil testified that
they never knew that Pierce had filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission and thus could not have retaliated against him for filing it. And the record indicates
that Pierce failed to exhaust his disability discrimination claim with the Commission. But we
need not resolve these other grounds for rejecting his claims. For present purposes, it suffices to
say that General Motors had a legitimate nondiscriminatory explanation for suspending him, and
Pierce has not shown that this explanation was a smokescreen for a discriminatory or retaliatory
motive.
For these reasons, we affirm.
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