Antonis v. Electronics for Imaging CV-07-163-JL 11/25/08 C UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
John M. Antonis
v. Civil N o . 07-cv-163-JL Opinion N o . 2008 DNH 204
Electronics for Imaging, Inc.
O R D E R
The plaintiff, John M. Antonis, filed this action against
his former employer, Electronics for Imaging, Inc. (“EFI”),
alleging wrongful discharge under New Hampshire common law. EFI
has filed a motion for summary judgment. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56
(2008). This court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332
(a)(1) (2000) (diversity). After oral argument and for the
reasons set forth below, this court grants the defendant’s motion
for summary judgment.
I. APPLICABLE LEGAL STANDARD
Summary judgment is appropriate i f , viewing the record in
the light most favorable to the non-moving party, “the pleadings,
the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any
affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material
fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c); see Goldman v . First Nat’l Bank of
Boston, 985 F.2d 1113, 1116 (1st Cir. 1993) (decided under prior
version of the rule). In ruling on a motion for summary
judgment, the court must view all facts in the light most
favorable to the non-moving party, drawing all reasonable
inferences in that party’s favor. Maldonado-Denis v . Castillo-
Rodriguez, 23 F.3d 576, 581 (1st Cir. 1994). A material fact is
one that, under the prevailing substantive law, affects the
outcome of the case. Anderson v . Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S.
242, 248 (1986). A genuine issue is one that is properly
resolved only by a fact finder because it is one that reasonably
could be decided in favor of either party. See id. at 250;
Maldonado-Denis, 23 F.3d at 581.
“The very mission of the summary judgment procedure is to
pierce the pleadings and to assess the proof in order to see
whether there is a genuine need for trial.” DeNovellis v .
Shalala, 124 F.3d 298, 305-06 (1st Cir. 1997) (quotations
omitted). The moving party has the initial burden to demonstrate
the absence of genuine issues of fact that might affect the
outcome of the case. See, e.g., Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248.
Once the moving party has met this burden, the non-movant must
“go beyond the pleadings” and demonstrate specific facts to
establish the existence of a genuine issue for trial. Celotex
2 Corp. v . Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 324 (1986); see Fed. R. Civ. P.
56(e). “The evidence illustrating the factual controversy cannot
be conjectural or problematic; it must have substance in the
sense that it limns differing versions of the truth which a fact
finder must resolve.” Nat’l Amusements, Inc. v . Town of Dedham,
43 F.3d 731, 735 (1st Cir. 1995) (quotations, brackets and
ellipses omitted). “There is no trialworthy issue unless there
is enough competent evidence to enable a finding favorable to the
non-moving party.” Goldman, 985 F.2d at 1116.
Accordingly, even in wrongful discharge cases, “where
elusive concepts such as motive or intent are at issue, summary
judgment may be appropriate if the nonmoving party rests merely
upon conclusory allegations, improbable inferences, and
unsupported speculation.” Id. (quotations omitted.)
II. BACKGROUND
The record reveals the following facts. See Fed. R. Civ. P.
56(c). Antonis, a resident of Alexandria, New Hampshire, was
initially hired as a temporary employee by VUTEk, a predecessor
company to EFI, at its Meredith, New Hampshire manufacturing
plant in May 1996. He became a full time at-will employee with
VUTEk on August 2 6 , 1996 and held a number of positions in
testing, quality assurance, and manufacturing at the Meredith
3 facility. He also was a member and sometime chairman of the
plant’s “safety committee.”
In June, 2005, EFI acquired VUTEk, and Antonis continued his
at-will employment as Acting Manager of Quality Assurance. In
June 2006, Laura Cranmer was named Vice President of
Manufacturing. Cranmer undertook a plant-wide reorganization
that summer. She offered Antonis a choice between taking a
position as a testing manager or remaining in quality control.
According to both Antonis and Cranmer, he chose to become the
Training, Certification and Safety Manager in charge of
identifying safety issues at the plant, safety training for other
employees, and safety certification. The parties agree that a
substantial part of Antonis’s job was to assist the company in
qualifying for and maintaining “ISO 9000" certification under a
safety program administered by the International Organization for
Standardization. He also remained on the Safety Committee.
On January 1 0 , 2007, Antonis was terminated by EFI. He was
offered a severance package that included a payment of $15,604.
Antonis refused the offer and instead filed this lawsuit.
The parties dispute the factual basis for Antonis’s
dismissal. Antonis contends that because he reported safety
issues to EFI’s management, the company “engaged in a series of
activities designed to humiliate, belittle and obstruct [his]
4 efforts” that ultimately led to his dismissal. He contends that
although some of EFI’s management agreed with his stated safety
concerns, EFI nonetheless humiliated and harassed him by: (1)
relocating his private office onto the manufacturing floor, (2)
assigning him additional menial tasks in manufacturing and
safety, and (3) falsely raising suspicions that Antonis was
responsible for a surprise safety inspection by state
authorities.
EFI answers that Antonis was terminated because the company
decided to no longer pursue the ISO 9000 certification, making
his position as safety manager obsolete. EFI also contends that
although he was officially terminated because of a job
elimination, and thus entitled to a severance package, his
performance had been substandard.1 Further, EFI asserts that
1 According to the record, EFI’s management had issues with Antonis’s decision to spend time on safety conditions in the company ink laboratory (a task assigned to Antonis’s superior) instead of focusing on projects assigned directly to him. This conflict led to concerns about Antonis’s productivity. In October 2006, management prepared a “Performance Improvement Plan” (PIP) for Antonis, outlining tasks he needed to complete or potentially be subject to termination. The parties vehemently dispute whether Antonis successfully performed under the PIP. For purposes of this motion, this court will focus only on the reason stated in Antonis’s dismissal letter, namely, that his position was eliminated. Cf. Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248 (when considering a motion for summary judgment “[f]actual disputes that are irrelevant or unnecessary will not be counted”).
5 Antonis’s claim that he was fired for reporting safety concerns
“lacks any credible support” since reporting safety violations
was his job. EFI alleges that it took Antonis’s complaints
seriously, addressing the issues he raised and hiring an outside
safety consulting firm to review safety conditions and make
recommendations for improvement. Indeed, EFI notes that even
Antonis agreed that Cranmer took a “very tough approach to health
and safety.”
III. ANALYSIS
In general, at-will employment may be terminated by either
party with or without cause. See Cloutier v . Great Atl. & Pac.
Tea Co., Inc., 121 N.H. 915, 919 (1981). New Hampshire, however,
has a judicially created exception to the at-will rule, such that
at-will employees may recover in tort for wrongful discharge.
This court notes that shifting reasons for dismissal may be viewed as raising an inference of pretext. See E.C. Waste, Inc. v . NLRB, 359 F.3d 3 6 , 44 (1st Cir. 2004). In this instance, although EFI’s position as to the impact of Antonis’s alleged substandard performance arguably shifted between its summary judgment motion and its reply to Antonis’s objection, the dispute over job performance is immaterial. Both parties agree that a plant-wide reorganization took place and it is undisputed that the ISO 9000 program was eliminated. The issue here is thus whether EFI’s decision to eliminate Antonis’s position as part of that reorganization was motivated by bad faith, or was a permissible management decision.
6 See Porter v . City of Manchester, 151 N.H. 3 0 , 39 (2004). To
state a wrongful discharge claim, a plaintiff must allege:
“(1) that the termination of employment was motivated by bad
faith, retaliation or malice; and (2) that [he] was terminated
for performing an act that public policy would encourage or for
refusing to do something that public policy would condemn.”
Lacasse v . Spaulding Youth Cent., 154 N.H. 246, 248 (2006)
(quotations and brackets omitted). The first prong focuses on
the nature of the employer’s actions, while the “public policy”
prong pertains to the employee’s acts. See Porter, 151 N.H. at
38.
EFI, in its motion, does not dispute the “public policy”
element of Antonis’s claim. Rather, it contends that, as a
matter of law, Antonis cannot demonstrate that EFI terminated his
employment because of bad faith, malice or retaliation. Id.
Under New Hampshire law, “bad faith” is the equivalent of
malice. See, e.g., MacDonald v . Tandy Corp., 796 F. Supp. 623,
627 (D.N.H. 1992), aff’d 983 F.2d 1046 (1st Cir. 1993) (citing
Centronics Corp. v . Genicom Corp., 132 N.H. 133, 140 (1989)).
While bad faith or malice comes in various forms, it is not bad
faith to terminate an employee for legitimate business reasons.
See Straughn v . Delta Airlines, Inc., 250 F.3d 2 3 , 44-45 (1st
Cir. 2001) (no bad faith where employee discharged for
7 dishonesty); MacDonald,796 F. Supp. at 627-28 (no bad faith where
employee was fired because he was suspected of stealing money
from the company); cf. Bourque v . Town of Bow, 736 F.Supp. 398,
402-03 (D.N.H. 1990) (“a discharge for business reasons is not
actionable”).
Bad faith can be discerned from a course of events
surrounding an employee’s discharge, see, e.g., Cloutier, 121
N.H. at 921; Monge v . Beebe Rubber Co., 114 N.H. 130, 133-34
(1974), demonstrating a causal link between the dismissal and
improper motive. Cf. Straughn 250 F.3d at 4 5 . The First Circuit
Court of Appeals has observed that bad faith “may be established
under New Hampshire law where (i) an employee is discharged for
pursuing policies condoned by the employer, (ii) the record does
not support the stated reason for the discharge, or (iii)
disparate treatment was administered to a similarly situated
employee.” Straughn, 250 F.3d at 44 (relying on Cloutier, 436
N.H. at 1143-44). “[M]ere temporal proximity” between the
employee’s act and subsequent firing is not sufficient to
demonstrate bad faith. Id., 250 F.3d at 4 5 .
EFI contends that it is entitled to summary judgment because
it dismissed Antonis for legitimate business reasons and no
reasonable jury could find that Antonis was dismissed because of
bad faith or retaliation on the part of EFI. This court agrees.
8 There is ample record support for EFI’s stated reason for
terminating Antonis. In her affidavit, Cranmer stated that
Antonis was dismissed because the company decided to eliminate
the ISO 9000 program, rendering Antonis’s job obsolete. Antonis
conceded at the hearing that the reorganization did in fact take
place and that the company abandoned the ISO 9000 program as a
result. As noted above, both parties agree that management of
the ISO 9000 program was an important part of Antonis’s duties.
Further, Antonis’s dismissal letter stated that he was entitled
to receive severance benefits. Cranmer stated that according to
company policy, such benefits are reserved for employees who were
not dismissed for cause. EFI has therefore demonstrated that
there were legitimate reasons behind Antonis’s dismissal.
Antonis contends, however, that his “duties did not simply
disappear in their entirety, but [were] reassigned to other
individuals . . . to allow the defendant to claim that the
plaintiff’s job was no longer necessary.” This theory in no way
undermines EFI’s stated reason for terminating Antonis so as to
create a triable issue on whether the company acted in bad faith.
First, Antonis has not come forward with any evidence that his
duties were in fact reassigned to other employees, apart from a
co-worker’s statement to the effect that, given the burden of
those duties, they must have been. This sort of speculation
9 cannot defeat summary judgment. See Rathbun v . Autozone, Inc.,
361 F.3d 6 2 , 66 (1st Cir. 2004). Second, even if Antonis’s
former duties were reassigned to other employees, an employer’s
decision to affect such a reassignment--even if done to eliminate
a particular job--is not in and of itself wrongful; it is common
knowledge that employers often redistribute the same workload
among fewer employees as a means of streamlining their
operations. Employers are entitled to avail themselves of such
measures without incurring liability for wrongful discharge.2
Antonis also contends that the reorganization was “designed
in whole or in part to conclude [his] employment.” But, assuming
that a reorganization accomplished as a pretext for dismissing a
particular employee evinces the “bad faith” necessary to support
a wrongful discharge claim, Antonis has offered no evidence to
that effect anyway. He alleges that EFI was unhappy that he
vigorously pursued his duties as a safety officer, which, if it
was in fact the reason his position was eliminated, could
2 Antonis complains that he “had been a long term employee of the company (in excess of ten years) and was terminated as opposed to being offered reassignment to another position in the company.” But there is generally no duty in an at-will employment relationship to replace a position that was eliminated or “down-sized” due to prevailing business conditions. Cf. Cloutier, 121 N.H. at 920 (at-will rule “retains its vitality” except where there are judicial or legislative exceptions or collective bargaining agreements).
10 arguably amount to bad faith on the theory that he was fired for
pursuing his employer’s own policies. See Straughn, 250 F.3d at
44. But his evidence on this is speculative at best, and even
construing the record in a light most favorable to Antonis, he
has not established a genuine issue of material fact.
Antonis does not dispute that EFI addressed most of his
safety concerns, and even retained an outside safety consultant
to assess the safety conditions at the plant. He acknowledged
that Cranmer took a “tough approach” to health and safety issues
on the production floor, and expected every employee to “take
safety seriously.”3 It is difficult to infer from these
undisputed facts that EFI was displeased with Antonis’s pursuit
of workplace safety.
Antonis also claims bad faith based on management’s alleged
unhappiness with his choice to pursue a safety plan for EFI’s ink
lab. It is undisputed, however, that EFI was displeased because
Antonis spent work time on the ink lab project even though it was
assigned to another safety officer, Craig Moore. Despite
Antonis’s attempt to recast it as proof of malice, this evidence
3 At the hearing, there was much discussion of another claim by Antonis, namely that he was fired for taking pictures of safety conditions at the plant. In his deposition, however, Antonis acknowledged that others took pictures as well and were not fired. This theory is insufficient to support Antonis’s claim.
11 of “bad faith” demonstrates nothing but a disagreement over EFI’s
management decisions. Courts are reluctant to interfere with
internal management decisions of private employers. Cf. Bourque,
736 F. Supp. at 402-03 (noting that there is no cause of action
where an employee is dismissed for complaining about poor
management). Here, the safety issues that Antonis complained
about were either addressed by management or assigned to another
employee.
Antonis also attempts to establish bad faith or malice by
showing that EFI “harassed” and “humiliated” him. Specifically,
Antonis contends that during the reorganization, his private
office was eliminated and he was moved to the middle of the
manufacturing floor, which was noisy and lacked privacy.4
Even assuming that this type of slight could give rise to an
inference of bad faith in a subsequent termination, the
undisputed fasts show that EFI had a legitimate business reason
for moving Antonis’s work space. During his deposition, Antonis
4 Antonis also contends that EFI harassed him by asking him to assist with manufacturing projects that were outside the scope of his duties in the safety department. In his deposition, however, Antonis admitted that he was not the only member of management asked to assist with the manufacturing process when necessary. In fact, he stated in his deposition that it did not bother him to be asked to help out and that “I liked being the hero.” This claim likewise does not demonstrate a pattern of harassment or retaliation targeted at Antonis.
12 acknowledged that other members of the management team, including
Cranmer, lost their private offices as part of an effort to
maximize production space and capacity. Although Antonis was the
only employee moved directly to the production floor,5 he
acknowledged that other employees would have eventually been
moved there as well.
Antonis also contends that he was wrongfully terminated due
to EFI’s mistaken belief that he reported unsafe conditions to
state authorities. Specifically, he asserts that management
blamed him for a surprise inspection of the Meredith facility by
the state Department of Environmental Services in November 2006.
To survive summary judgment, a plaintiff must present more
than inferences based on “tenuous insinuation,” Rosenfeld v . Egy,
346 F.3d 1 1 , 17 (1st Cir. 2003), and here, that is all Antonis
presents. He relies entirely on an ambiguous comment by a
quality assurance manager whose meaning was not even immediately
apparent to him. Specifically, after the inspection, quality
assurance manager David Parker went to Antonis and
said, “[W]hen did you know about this?” and I said, “[A]bout two minutes after they entered the door,” and he just looked at me and shook his head. I don’t know whether he didn’t believe m e , but then it started to
5 The others were relocated above the production floor on the mezzanine level.
13 get into my head, he thinks I called these people and knew they were coming and didn’t inform anyone.
Antonis admits that there is no additional evidence to support
his belief. “While ambiguous remarks may, under some
circumstances, help to illuminate the summary judgment record,
such remarks rarely will suffice to conceive an issue of material
fact when none otherwise exists.” Rosenfeld, 346 F.3d at 16
(quotations omitted). Parker’s question and head shake, even if
interpreted as Antonis does, do not suffice.
Finally, Antonis contends that this court can discern bad
faith from the manner in which he was discharged, i.e., he was
escorted to the door of the facility and not allowed to retrieve
his personal belongings until the following Saturday. Although a
trier of fact can infer bad faith from the circumstances of an
employee’s discharge, cf. Cloutier, 121 N.H. at 921, this is
plainly insufficient. Not only is this practice commonplace,
but, in Antonis’s case, it was accompanied by an offer of a
$15,000 severance package.
The circumstances of Antonis’s dismissal, either
individually or collectively, simply cannot support the showing
of bad faith or malice necessary to prevail on his wrongful
discharge claim.
14 V. CONCLUSION
This court concludes, therefore, viewing the record in a
light most favorable to Antonis and drawing all reasonable
inferences therefrom, that EFI is entitled to summary judgment.
Simply put, EFI has demonstrated “an absence of evidence” to
support Antonis’s claim, Maldonado-Denis, 23 F.3d at 581
(quotations omitted), and Antonis did not present to the court
sufficient “competent evidence to rebut the motion.” Id.
(Internal quotation marks omitted.)
The defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment (document n o .
16) is granted. The plaintiff’s claim is dismissed with
prejudice. All other pending motions are denied as moot. The
clerk shall close the case.
Joseph N. Laplante United States District Judge
Dated: November 2 5 , 2008
cc: Paul T . Fitzgerald, Esq. Linda S . Johnson, Esq. Michael T . Pearson, Esq. Adam M. Hamel, Esq.