Davis v. Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 08a0300n.06
Filed: May 28, 2008
07-5420
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
JERRY W. DAVIS, )
)
Plaintiff-Appellant, )
)
v. ) ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
) STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
SIEMENS MEDICAL SOLUTIONS USA, ) WESTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY
INC., )
)
Defendant-Appellee. )
Before: KEITH, DAUGHTREY, and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM. In this diversity action for breach of an employment contract, plaintiff
Jerry Wade Davis alleged that his former employer, defendant Siemens Medical Solutions
USA, Inc., was liable for approximately $1.77 million in sales commissions that Davis
claimed were unjustly withheld by the defendant. He also sought damages based on other
state law claims – specifically, conversion, promissory estoppel, fraudulent
misrepresentation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, unpaid wages, and breach
of fiduciary duty.
After affording the parties extensive discovery, the district court granted summary
judgment to Siemens on all but Davis’s claim of fraudulent misrepresentation. See Davis
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Davis v. Siemens Medical Solutions
v. Siemens Med. Solutions USA, Inc. (Davis I), 399 F. Supp. 2d 785 (W.D. Ky. 2005). In
denying summary judgment to the defendant on that one cause of action, the district judge
focused on a factual dispute about whether Douglas Spotts, Siemens’s national sales
manager in the company’s Image Management Division, had informed Davis that if he
accepted a position as product sales executive, the company would pay him commissions
on national sales made by other Siemens sales agents who reported to Davis.
Consequently, the fraudulent-misrepresentation claim was tried by a jury at a trial
presided over by a magistrate judge because the district judge was confronted with “an
unanticipated scheduling conflict.” At the conclusion of four days of trial, the jury returned
a verdict in favor of Davis on the misrepresentation claim, awarding him $200,000 in
compensatory damages but no punitive damages. Post-verdict, Siemens filed a renewed
motion for judgment as a matter of law, a motion that the magistrate judge later granted,
ruling that, under principles of Kentucky law, Davis could not have reasonably relied upon
any representations made by Spotts that were in contravention of the unambiguous, written
language contained in the Siemens Compensation and Commission Plan under which
Davis was hired. See Davis v. Siemens Med. Solutions USA, Inc. (Davis II), No. 3:04CV-
195-MO, 2007 WL 710133, at *4 (W.D. Ky. Mar. 6, 2007). Davis now appeals that post-
trial decision, those portions of the district court’s summary judgment order that were
adverse to him, and certain evidentiary rulings made by the magistrate judge prior to and
during trial.
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The Summary Judgment Ruling
In addressing the defendant’s claims for breach of contract, conversion, promissory
estoppel, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and breach of fiduciary duty, the district
judge expertly outlined the facts relevant to the dispute, provided a full exposition of the
case law relevant to any decision on the matter, and accurately applied that law to the facts
presented. Indeed, insofar as the decision in Davis I addresses the allegations of breach
of contract, conversion, promissory estoppel, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and
breach of fiduciary duty, any additional discussion of those claims by this court would be
merely duplicative and would serve no useful purpose. We therefore affirm the grant of
summary judgment to Siemens based upon the reasons set out by District Judge Heyburn
in Davis I, reported at 399 F. Supp. 2d 785.
Grant of Judgment as a Matter of Law
Similarly, Magistrate Judge Moyer’s treatment of Siemens’s post-trial motion for
judgment as a matter of law accurately identified, explained, and applied the law relevant
to Davis’s claim of fraudulent misrepresentation. In that decision, the magistrate judge
correctly noted that the district court’s earlier denial of summary judgment on this ground
was based upon the court’s assumption that a genuine dispute existed as to whether
Douglas Spotts made the representation concerning the payment of commissions that is
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alleged by the plaintiff. As emphasized by the magistrate judge, however, even if such a
representation had been made by Spotts, Davis could not have reasonably relied upon that
promise, given the clear contract language to the contrary. For the reasons discussed in
Magistrate Judge Moyer’s memorandum opinion dated March 6, 2007, we also affirm the
district court’s decision granting Siemens judgment as a matter of law on the claim of
fraudulent misrepresentation.
Claim of Unpaid Wages (K.R.S. § 337.385)
In the summary judgment decision, the district court dismissed Davis’s claim for lost
wages under Section 337.385 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes because “Davis did not
pursue his necessary administrative remedies before initiating his lawsuit.” Subsequently,
however, the plaintiff moved the court to revise its decision in light of a Kentucky Supreme
Court decision overruling prior precedent that required such an administrative exhaustion.
See Parts Depot, Inc. v. Beiswenger, 170 S.W.3d 354, 362 (Ky. 2005). The district judge
granted that motion and filed a supplemental memorandum that again granted summary
judgment to Siemens on this issue, this time on the alternate ground that the commissions
were not “wages” because “Kentucky imposes no statutory duty to provide an override
commission” and because Davis had not established that the commissions had been
“agreed upon . . . or provided to employees as an established policy.” Ky. Rev. Stat.
§ 337.010(1)(c).
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To the extent that Davis’s statutory wage claim is based upon the failure of Siemens
to pay the plaintiff commissions that he believes he is due, the district court’s breach of
contract analysis in Davis I is applicable and fatal to the plaintiff’s claim. To the extent that
Davis’s statutory claim is based upon the failure of the defendant to pay the entire base
salary promised in the company’s guarantee rider, we are informed by counsel that the
issue has been resolved out of court to the satisfaction of both parties.
Evidentiary Determinations
On appeal, Davis also challenges the magistrate judge’s trial rulings that excluded
evidence of mistreatment of Davis and of other Siemens employees at the hands of a
management official not involved in the salary negotiations with Davis and also excluded
evidence that the defendant failed to provide the plaintiff with a company car, as promised
in a letter offering the product sales executive position to Davis. These and all challenges
to evidentiary determinations at trial are reviewed on appeal only for an abuse of discretion.
See Gen. Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 141 (1997).
The magistrate judge’s exclusion of evidence of alleged mistreatment suffered by
Davis and by other Siemens employees at the hands of manager Thomas Riesenberg was
proper. First, the sole remaining cause of action at trial was the plaintiff’s claim of
fraudulent misrepresentation, an alleged wrong that occurred when national sales manager
Douglas Spotts, not Riesenberg, supposedly made certain promises to Davis. The fact
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that Riesenberg may have “mistreated” the plaintiff approximately a year later might have
been relevant to the already-dismissed claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress,
but it had no relevance whatever to the inquiry of whether Spotts knowingly deceived Davis
when discussing the job’s payment scale with the plaintiff. Furthermore, Davis is unable
to point to any testimony supporting a conclusion that Riesenberg had any role in the initial
conversations with the plaintiff about the salary associated with the product sales executive
position. Because evidence of alleged mistreatment of Davis or of other employees by
Riesenberg is of no consequence to the determination of whether Spotts fraudulently
misrepresented information to the plaintiff, such testimony was thus irrelevant to the
misrepresentation claim before the jury and was properly excluded. See Fed. Rule of Evid.
401.
Likewise, the decision of the magistrate judge to disallow testimony regarding the
failure of the employer to provide Davis with a company car was not reversible error.
Although a letter from the defendant dated November 11, 2002, provided that it would
“provide a car for your use in accordance with Siemens Company Car Policy,” Davis later
disavowed any claim to a company car. During his deposition testimony, the following
exchange occurred between the plaintiff and defense counsel:
Q. Are you claiming in this lawsuit that you were entitled to a company car
while you worked as a product-sales executive?
A. As were all of us [phonetic], I was entitled to one; but I don’t think I’m
claiming it in my suit. No.
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Q. You’re not asking for any damages because you didn’t get a company
car?
Mr. Bishop: Object, insofar as it calls for a legal conclusion.
Ms. Settle: You can answer it.
A. No.
Having asserted that the request for a company car was no longer part of his contract
claim, Davis cannot now seek to resurrect that claim. Consequently, any error in the
decision of the magistrate judge to exclude testimony relevant to that issue is harmless.
For the reasons set out above, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court,
including both the order granting summary judgment to the defendant and the order
granting judgment as a matter of law to the defendant.
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