Baker Hughes Oilfield Operations, Inc. v. James M. Williams

360 S.W.3d 15, 2011 Tex. App. LEXIS 1845, 2011 WL 833226
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 10, 2011
Docket01-08-00762-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 360 S.W.3d 15 (Baker Hughes Oilfield Operations, Inc. v. James M. Williams) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Baker Hughes Oilfield Operations, Inc. v. James M. Williams, 360 S.W.3d 15, 2011 Tex. App. LEXIS 1845, 2011 WL 833226 (Tex. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinions

OPINION

TERRY JENNINGS, Justice.

Appellee, James M. Williams, has filed a motion for en banc reconsideration from this Court’s June 10, 2010 opinion. In light of the motion, we withdraw our opinion and judgment of June 10, 2010 and issue this opinion in its stead. We overrule the motion for reconsideration en banc as moot. See Brookshire Brothers, Inc. v. Smith, 176 S.W.3d 30, 33 (Tex.App.Houston [1st Dist.] 2004, pet. denied) (op. on reh’g) (noting that motion for en banc reconsideration becomes moot when panel issues new opinion and judgment).

Appellant, Baker Hughes Oilfield Operations, Inc. (“Baker Hughes”), challenges the trial court’s judgment entered, after a jury trial, in favor of appellee, James M. Williams, in his suit against Baker Hughes for racial discrimination in violation of the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (the “Act’").1 In the first four of its issues, Baker Hughes contends that the evidence is legally and factually insufficient to support the jury’s findings that race was a motivating factor in Baker Hughes’ decision to terminate Williams’s employment. In its fifth issue, Baker Hughes contends that the compensatory damages award is excessive.

We reverse and render.

Factual and Procedural Background

In his petition, Williams, an African-American, alleged that he began working as a machinist at a Baker Hughes facility in 1993. On January 31, 2003, Gilbert Schulz and Brian Fendley, two white supervisors in the fishing tools section in which Williams worked, terminated his employment as part of an alleged larger pattern of discharging all the black machinists in the fishing tools section and “replacing them with Hispanic machinists.” According to Williams, Schulz and Fendley used “poor performance” as “a mere pretext for the discriminatory termination” of his and the other black machinists’ employment, and Baker Hughes, because of his race, had treated him less favorably in his employment, compared to other employees.

At trial, Williams testified that he had worked at the same Baker Hughes facility from 1993 to 2003 with a good employment history.2 In 2001, Baker Hughes created at the facility the fishing tools section, in which tools used in offshore drilling were manufactured. Williams was assigned to this section, and the supervisors of the section, Schulz and Fendley, reported to Lindsay Self, a production manager at the facility who supervised all of the machinists and welders at the facility.

Williams acknowledged that in November 2002, he signed a document circulated by his supervisors attesting that he would comply with, among other things, Baker Hughes’ manufacturing procedure “M01.090,” which the parties also refer to as an “ISO procedure.” The M01.090 procedure “define[d] the actions [to be] taken when nonconforming product [was] detected in the manufacturing process,” it applied to all Baker Hughes manufacturing personnel, and it required operators to notify a “supervisor” upon finding a non-conformance in a product. Williams also [19]*19acknowledged that in January 2003, he violated the M01.090 procedure by failing to notify his supervisors, Schulz and Fend-ley, when he discovered that he had milled a nonconforming part. Williams explained that he had received a work order to mill a two-part tool from furnished materials, he made a conforming part from the furnished materials when milling the first part of the tool, but he created a nonconforming part when milling the second part of the tool. Williams knew at that time that he had erred and created a nonconforming part, but rather than notify Schulz and Fendley, he instead told Moisés Ban-da, another machinist working in the fishing tools section.

After Williams told Banda that he had made a nonconforming part, Banda told Williams to search the work station for another piece of material from which to mill a replacement for the nonconforming part. Williams then found another piece of scrap material and, as suggested by Ban-da, milled the second part and sent the entire tool through the manufacturing process. In explaining how he had selected the scrap material to use in remaking the second part, Williams noted that he matched the “heat number” reflected on the blue print for the tool. However, subsequent, undisputed testimony revealed that this measure did not ensure that the scrap material was of the same hardness and required specifications of the furnished material.

Williams further testified that it was common practice among machinists to go to Banda if they had a problem because the machinists viewed Banda as a “lead-man” “to a degree,” an “unknown lead-man,” or a “troubleshooter.” However, Williams conceded that Banda was not an official Baker Hughes “leadman.” Moreover, although Williams noted that the M01.090 procedure did not define the term “supervisor,” he admitted that he knew, and in fact “everybody knew,” that Banda was not a “supervisor,” but was actually “just a machinist” like Williams. Williams agreed that no supervisor had given him permission to inform Banda, rather than a supervisor, in the event that he detected a nonconforming part, and Banda had not told Williams not to inform his supervisors about the nonconforming part.

Approximately one week later, the two-part tool with the replacement part milled by Williams was included among 10% of the parts tested by Baker Hughes’ inspection department, and the replacement part failed inspection. The inspection department determined that the replacement part made by Williams was only one-third to one-half of the hardness of the material specified in the tool’s work order and furnished to Williams. Williams agreed that had this defect not been caught by Baker Hughes in final inspection, the part could have caused a “dangerous” and “expensive” tool failure on an offshore or onshore well. When asked whether he had given any consideration as to whether the scrap material that he had used to mill the replacement part was of the same hardness as the material furnished to him, Williams agreed that he “never gave it a second thought.” He conceded that it was not possible to determine the hardness of the material that he used through visual inspection or while he was machining it and that special instruments were required to actually determine the hardness of the material.

After learning of the inspection results, Fendley, who was confused about how the tool could have been made with inferior material, approached Williams to determine if he knew what had happened. Williams explained the sequence of events. The next morning, when Williams appeared for work, Fendley and Schulz met [20]*20with Williams and terminated his employment.3 During this meeting, Fendley told Williams that his employment was being terminated because he milled a nonconforming part and reported it to Banda rather than his supervisors.

Fendley also provided Williams with a copy of a form “Discipline Report,” in which in a section titled “Description of Violation,” Fendley stated,

James Williams milled two parts and one of these parts was scrapped in final inspection due to not passing a hardness check. I asked James if he knew anything about why there was a discrepancy between the two parts. He said he had messed up on one part, so he found replacement material and milled another part without notifying a supervisor. James is a senior machinist and has read and signed off on ISO procedures.

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360 S.W.3d 15, 2011 Tex. App. LEXIS 1845, 2011 WL 833226, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baker-hughes-oilfield-operations-inc-v-james-m-williams-texapp-2011.