Conley v. City of Findlay

266 F. App'x 400
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 28, 2008
Docket06-4664
StatusUnpublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 266 F. App'x 400 (Conley v. City of Findlay) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Conley v. City of Findlay, 266 F. App'x 400 (6th Cir. 2008).

Opinions

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge.

In the aftermath of a massive spill of 500,000 gallons of wastewater from its municipal Water Pollution Control Plant, defendant City of Findlay terminated plaintiff Sandra Conley’s employment as an assistant operator at the plant. Thereafter, Conley sued the City claiming sex discrimination, the creation of a hostile work environment, and unlawful retaliation. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the City, and Conley appealed. We affirm. In doing so, we hold that Conley failed to rebut, as pretextual, the City’s legitimate and nondiscriminatory reasons for terminating her employment. Further, we hold that Conley failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact regarding her claims of hostile work environment or unlawful retaliation.

I.

Beginning in February 1997, Sandra Conley worked the third shift as an assistant operator at defendant’s Water Pollution Control Plant in Findlay, Ohio. Some of her specific duties included: operating belt filter presses, monitoring liquid levels from the sludge holding tanks, reading and recording charts and gauges, collecting [402]*402samples for analysis, and performing “unskilled duties such as mowing, landscaping, sweeping, moping [sic], dusting, painting and cleaning windows.” An assistant operator must also “assist a plant operator in any process problems that may occur,” and perform “[a]ny other duties as required to maintain proper operation of the facility.”

In February 2004, Conley was involved in an overflow of a sludge tank. She admitted that she “knew that the waste had been on a little bit longer than it should, but I didn’t know it was overflowed until the next day.” She claims that there was some discussion about whether she had caused the overflow or whether it was caused by a malfunctioning clarifier tank. Regardless, part of her duties involved manually checking the level of the tanks throughout her shift, and she admits that she did not recheck the levels after her initial check. Dave Beach, the plant supervisor, informed her of the problems caused by spills of this nature, and she was verbally reprimanded for her role in the overflow.

On March 31, 2004, Conley was responsible for a second spill. This spill was the largest in City history, resulting in the discharge of over 500,000 gallons of waste-water.

Conley claims that when she began her shift on March 31, 2004, at 4 p.m., she spoke with Gary Hayden, the assistant operator of the outgoing shift, but he did not mention to her that the waste flow machinery was in operation. According to Conley, “[i]t was customary for the previous shift’s assistant operator to notify the oncoming assistant operator if he had left the waste on.” Further, Conley asserts that it was also customary to place a magnetic placard on the control panel to signify that the “waste was on.” Hayden did not mention that he had activated the waste machinery, and there was no placard, so Conley “assumed that the tanks had been filled and that wasting had been completed.”

She checked the level of the tanks at the beginning of her shift, “but not after that, because she had no reason to think that wasting was being performed.” She did not check the control panel until several hours later, during a discussion with Werner Roesch, the operator on duty during her shift, at which point she realized that the machinery had been active during her entire shift and that there had been an overflow. In her brief, Conley blames Roesch for the overflow. She argues that the “overflow should have been caught by operator Roesch in the control room before it reached catastrophic proportions, had he been doing his job properly. Had he been monitoring his computer monitor, he would have seen that the waste had been on for a significant length of time and could have alerted [Conley].” During her deposition, Conley argued that the spill was Roesch’s fault, but admitted that she shared in the blame:

Q. [Counsel for City] How did the spill occur?
A. [Conley] Because the waste was still on and I didn’t know it. I looked at the panel and I didn’t see that the one switch was on. I looked for warning lights and didn’t see that.
Q. Is it fair for me to say that you just overlooked that?
A. Yes, sir. And that would have— yes, yes, sir.
Q. That resulted in a significant spill, didn’t it?
A. That along with the fact that the operator wasn’t watching his monitors to see that the waste had been on that long. That is — had he done that — either way, had I seen, okay, that it was on, I would have shut it [403]*403off. Or if he had been monitoring his computer monitor, he would have seen that the waste had been on for a significant length of time and could have alerted me.
Q. Whose job is it to make that determination?
A. Well, it’s his job to monitor it, the plant.
Q. Okay. It’s his job to monitor the plant. You stated in—
A. And it was a mistake.
Q. You made a mistake because you overlooked—
A. I accidentally overlooked it. I looked and didn’t see it.

In her incident report for the March 81 spill, Conley wrote that the overflow was only 50,500 gallons. Conley claims that Roesch told her to specify approximately 50.000 gallons in her report as an estimate of the overflow, rather than the actual 500.000 gallons.

Roesch told his superiors about his role in the spill and the falsehood contained in the report. After an investigation of the spill, Roesch was given a five-day suspension for his actions. Conley suggests that Roesch was part of a conspiracy to place all of the blame on her. Nevertheless, by Conley’s own admission, it was her duty to accurately record the amount of spillages.

While the second spill was being investigated, Conley was responsible for a third spill. This was a minor spill, consisting of only one gallon of wastewater. Conley testified in her deposition that on April 7 she was in the process of checking to make sure that the tank was not overfilling, but that she “just got there a couple minutes too late.”

The City terminated Conley’s employment on May 20, 2004. In its termination notice to plaintiff, defendant listed four reasons for its action:

1. Incompetence [pattern of conduct], in that you have engaged in a pattern of conduct that, despite training, resulted in three tank overflow incidents within three months [February, March and April 2004], including a single egregious act. That egregious act was a nearly catastrophic spill that could have resulted in direct transmission of bio-solids into the Blanchard River, with the potential to endanger aquatic life in the environment of the River.
2. Nonfeasance, in that your failure to prevent the March 31, 2004, discharge caused biosolids to enter into the stormwater drainage system, which could have caused extensive environmental damage to the aquatic life of the River, and could have exposed the City of Findlay to sizable Environmental Protection Agency fines. Two other incidents of nonfeasance occurred, [one in February 2004; and one in April 2004]. Both resulted in tank overflow which flooded the Sludge Pump Building.
3.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Wright v. Autozone Stores, Inc.
951 F. Supp. 2d 973 (W.D. Michigan, 2013)
Marshall v. Grand Trunk Western Railroad
850 F. Supp. 2d 686 (W.D. Michigan, 2011)
Moling v. O'Reilly Automotive, Inc.
763 F. Supp. 2d 956 (W.D. Tennessee, 2011)
Mid-Century Insurance v. Fish
749 F. Supp. 2d 657 (W.D. Michigan, 2010)
Harshaw v. Bethany Christian Services
714 F. Supp. 2d 771 (W.D. Michigan, 2010)
Crehan v. Davis
713 F. Supp. 2d 688 (W.D. Michigan, 2010)
Wheeler v. City of Lansing
677 F. Supp. 2d 965 (W.D. Michigan, 2010)
Leys v. Lowe's Home Centers, Inc.
664 F. Supp. 2d 828 (W.D. Michigan, 2009)
Talavera v. Fore
648 F. Supp. 2d 118 (District of Columbia, 2009)
Talavera v. Shah
District of Columbia, 2009
Maher v. International Paper Co.
600 F. Supp. 2d 940 (W.D. Michigan, 2009)
Hamilton v. General Electric Co.
556 F.3d 428 (Sixth Circuit, 2009)
Griffin v. Reznick
609 F. Supp. 2d 695 (W.D. Michigan, 2008)
Ellis v. Kaye-Kibbey
581 F. Supp. 2d 861 (W.D. Michigan, 2008)
Allen v. City of Sturgis
559 F. Supp. 2d 837 (W.D. Michigan, 2008)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
266 F. App'x 400, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/conley-v-city-of-findlay-ca6-2008.