Cheryl R. Zimmerman v. Sloss Equipment, Inc., S & N Enterprises, Inc., Richard Sloss

72 F.3d 822, 1995 U.S. App. LEXIS 37160, 1995 WL 767296
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedDecember 29, 1995
Docket93-3386
StatusPublished
Cited by44 cases

This text of 72 F.3d 822 (Cheryl R. Zimmerman v. Sloss Equipment, Inc., S & N Enterprises, Inc., Richard Sloss) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cheryl R. Zimmerman v. Sloss Equipment, Inc., S & N Enterprises, Inc., Richard Sloss, 72 F.3d 822, 1995 U.S. App. LEXIS 37160, 1995 WL 767296 (10th Cir. 1995).

Opinion

SEYMOUR, Chief Judge.

Cheryl Zimmerman brought this action for damages under section 510 of ERISA, 29 U.S.C. § 1140, alleging that defendants discriminated against her and discharged her to avoid paying for her medical benefits. In a pretrial ruling, the district court denied her request for a jury trial and held that she was not entitled to extra-contractual damages. Zimmerman v. Sloss Equipment, Inc., 835 F.Supp. 1283 (D.Kan.1993). Following a trial to the bench, the court denied Ms. Zimmerman relief, finding that she had not been discharged and that she lacked health insurance due to her own failure to complete the application. Ms. Zimmerman appeals. We affirm.

I.

On August 24, 1990, Ms. Zimmerman was hired as a full-time secretary and receptionist by defendants Sloss Equipment, Inc. and S & N Enterprises, Inc. Sloss Equipment leases and sells trash compaction equipment. S & N Enterprises owns the equipment leased by Sloss Equipment. The corporations maintain their offices at the same site.

Before Ms. Zimmerman was hired, the two corporations had three employees: Richard Sloss, Chase Nixon, and Wallace McIntyre. Mr. Sloss was president, chief executive officer, and sole stockholder of Sloss Equipment. Mr. McIntyre was vice president of Sloss Equipment and administrator of the group insurance plan. Mr. Nixon was the president of S & N Enterprises. Mr. Sloss was S & N Enterprises’ vice president and chief executive officer. Mr. Nixon and Mr. Sloss jointly owned S & N Enterprises.

S & N Enterprises purchased group health insurance from Employers Health Insurance Company through the Lockton Insurance Agency. The policy was effective from June 1, 1990. Lockton’s Manager of Client Services, Donna Sherrow, handled the transaction.

Ms. Zimmerman contends she was told when she was hired that she would receive insurance benefits under defendants’ health insurance plan after sixty days of employment. She claims she completed her application and assumed she was insured. Ms. Sherrow received an incomplete application *825 in the mail from Ms. Zimmerman in early October, 1990. The evidence is conflicting about whether and when Ms. Zimmerman was informed she had failed to complete the application, and whether she was subsequently sent the application to finish.

Months later, Ms. Zimmerman became very sick. On January 10, 1991, she was admitted to Humana Hospital in Overland Park, Kansas. According to Ms. Zimmerman, she called Mr. Nixon on January 28 to inquire about her health insurance, and in that conversation he fired her and told her she had no health insurance coverage. Ms. Zimmerman called Mr. McIntyre on February 1. She says he told her she was not fired. However, Ms. Zimmerman asserts that in' a phone conversation with Mr. Sloss later that day, he told her she was never offered health insurance and she would “never get another dime” from him.

Defendants tell a different story. They argue that Ms. Zimmerman did not receive medical insurance because she failed to. complete the application. Defendants deny they interfered with Ms. Zimmerman’s attempts to obtain insurance. Indeed, defendants deny that Mr. Nixon fired Ms. Zimmerman on January 28, or that she was fired at all. They maintain they held a job open for her for five months after her hospitalization but she did not return to work.

Following a trial, the district court entered judgment for defendants. The court rejected Ms. Zimmerman’s account of the telephone conversations with Mr. Nixon and Mr. Sloss. The court found that she was not terminated and that defendants did not make the comments she attributed to them. The court believed Mr. Sloss told Ms. Zimmerman in the February 1 phone call that she was not fired and that she should concentrate on getting well and coming back to work.

On appeal, Ms. Zimmerman asserts the district court erred in four ways. First, she contends the court erroneously found she failed to establish a prima facie case of discrimination. Second, she asserts defendants should have been collaterally estopped from arguing she was not fired. Third, she contends the court erred in ruling she could not collect extra-contractual damages. Fourth, she argues the court erroneously failed to grant her a trial by jury.

II.

Ms. Zimmerman challenges the district court’s findings of facts as clearly erroneous. She contends she proved that defendants discriminated against her. We review the district court’s findings of fact under the clearly erroneous standard. Salve Regina College v. Russell, 499 U.S. 225, 233, 111 S.Ct. 1217, 1222, 113 L.Ed.2d 190 (1991); Federal Deposit Ins. Corp. v. Oldenburg, 38 F.3d 1119, 1122 (10th Cir.1994), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 171, 133 L.Ed.2d 112 (1995). “A finding of fact is not clearly erroneous unless ‘it is without factual support in the record, or if the appellate court, after reviewing all the evidence, is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made.’ ” Las Vegas Ice & Cold Storage Co. v. Far West Bank, 893 F.2d 1182, 1185 (10th Cir.1990) (quoting LeMaire v. United States, 826 F.2d 949, 953 (10th Cir.1987)). “When findings are based on determinations regarding the credibility of witnesses, Rule 52(a) demands even greater deference to the trial court’s findings.” Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 575, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1512, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985).

Ms. Zimmerman and defendants recounted dramatically different versions of the events that led to the present action. In Ms. Zimmerman’s story, she did everything she was told.to obtain health insurance, and worked for months with the understanding that she was indeed insured only to be fired and denied benefits when she became sick. In defendants’ account, Ms. Zimmerman simply failed to complete her application for insurance, perhaps because she suspected she would be denied coverage on the basis of her recent medical history, and then declined to return to her job after her hospital stay. Ample testimony from each side supported each version of the events. No surviving documents establish the veracity of either account. The case was essentially Ms. Zimmerman’s word against that of defendants.

*826 The district court heard this testimony at trial and believed defendants’ explanation. In particular, the court found that Ms. Zimmerman never returned a completed application to the Lockton Agency or to defendants, and that Mr. Nixon did not terminate Ms. Zimmerman in their telephone conversation.

Ms. Zimmerman essentially argues on appeal that the court got it wrong. She invites us to reassess the credibility of the testimony in front of the district court, which we will not do. There was considerable support for the court’s findings of fact, and we are not persuaded those findings are clearly erroneous.

III.

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Bluebook (online)
72 F.3d 822, 1995 U.S. App. LEXIS 37160, 1995 WL 767296, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cheryl-r-zimmerman-v-sloss-equipment-inc-s-n-enterprises-inc-ca10-1995.