Mahaven v. Pulaski Township

45 F. App'x 155
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedJune 6, 2002
DocketNo. 01-2176
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 45 F. App'x 155 (Mahaven v. Pulaski Township) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mahaven v. Pulaski Township, 45 F. App'x 155 (3d Cir. 2002).

Opinion

[157]*157OPINION

BECKER, Chief Judge.

This is an appeal by plaintiff Jack Maha-ven from the grant of summary judgment to defendant Pulaski Township in a case brought under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. (ADEA). Mahaven worked as a part-time police officer for the Township, located in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, and was not promoted to Police Chief while a younger officer was. The District Court assumed that Mahaven established a prima facie case under the ADEA, but concluded that Mahaven failed to undermine the legitimate grounds that the Township had put forth for promoting the other officer instead of Mahaven, and therefore concluded that the Township was entitled to summary judgment. We will affirm.

I.

Mahaven, a Pennsylvania state trooper who retired after more than twenty years of service, began working in 1993 as a part-time patrolman for the Pulaski Police Department (the “PPD”), which consisted of several part-time patrolmen, one sergeant who was also part-time, and a full-time Police Chief. The job of Police Chief largely involved administrative duties, such as setting officers’ schedules, corresponding with state agencies, making sure that officers’ qualifications remained up to date, and arranging for training for the police force, such as handgun training, and emergency medical training. The Township was governed by a three-member Board of Supervisors, one of whom was assigned to be the liaison with the PPD.

In November 1996, then-Police Chief William Hogue took an unexpected leave of absence without pay. At that time, Mahaven was the most senior part-time patrolman (in terms of number of years served). Following Hogue’s leave of absence, Mahaven and James Morris, another part-time patrolman, discussed who should handle the Chiefs administrative duties during his absence. According to Mahaven, he told Morris that it was a matter for the Board of Supervisors to take care of.

Thereafter, Morris began to take over the administrative responsibilities that Chief Hogue had previously performed. Morris did not, however, work an increased number of hours. Morris told the supervisors that he had taken over Ho-gue’s administrative duties while he was on leave. According to Mahaven, he was not aware that Morris had taken over these duties. Mahaven told one of the Supervisors that he did not think that it was necessary to hire another full-time Police Chief. The Board of Supervisors promot- ' ed Morris to the rank of sergeant in 1997, but did not increase his pay or number of hours. According to Morris, they did this largely because they needed to designate a contact person within the PPD. In July 1998, the Board of Supervisors promoted Morris to the full-time position of Police Chief, and Mahaven’s suit soon followed.

Pulaski Township offered five reasons for its decision to promote Morris to Police Chief instead of Mahaven: (1) Morris, a sergeant, was senior to plaintiff in rank; (2) Morris had voluntarily assumed the duties and responsibilities of Police Chief and was thus deemed the more ambitious candidate; (3) Morris was doing a good job as the de facto Police Chief; (4) Mahaven had never expressed an interest in the position; and (5) at least one of the three Pulaski Township Supervisors was aware of citizen complaints regarding plaintiffs performance as a patrolman. The District Court found that on their face, these reasons are legitimate and non-discriminatory. We agree.

[158]*158When the employer has articulated a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for its action, the plaintiff, in order to survive summary judgment, must:

point to some evidence, direct or circumstantial, from which a factfinder could either (1) disbelieve the employer’s articulated legitimate reasons; or (2) believe that an invidious discriminatory reason was more likely than not a motivating or determinative cause of the employer’s action.

Simpson v. Kay Jewelers, 142 F.3d 639, 644 (3d Cir.1998) (quoting Fuentes v. Perskie, 32 F.3d 759, 764 (3d Cir.1994)). In order to do this, the plaintiff must:

point to weaknesses, implausibilities, inconsistencies, incoherencies, or contradictions in the employer’s proffered legitimate reasons such that a reasonable factfinder could rationally find them unworthy of credence and hence infer that the proffered nondiseriminatory reason did not actually motivate the employer’s action.

Id. (internal citations, quotation marks, and alterations omitted). We take up each of Mahaven’s arguments concerning the Township’s proffered reasons in turn.

II.

A. Morris had voluntarily assumed the duties and responsibilities of Police Chief

The District Court concluded that “[i]t is undisputed ... that at a point after Mr. Hogue’s departure, another part-time officer, Jim Morris, voluntarily began to assume the responsibilities of police chief.” Mahaven now contends that he did put forth evidence to undermine this ground. He points to: (1) a statement by Hogue that he had handled all administrative duties and forwarded them to Morris until December 31, 1997; (2) Mahaven’s belief that the Supervisors, and not Morris, were handling the administrative duties that Hogue had formerly handled; (3) Morris’s statement that his hours and pay did not increase when he took on the extra administrative duties; and (4) evidence that Ma-haven worked overtime as a patrolman during the period after Hogue left the department and before Morris became Chief.

We do not think that any of the things that Mahaven points to significantly contradicts or undermines the stated ground that Morris voluntarily assumed the duties and responsibilities of Police Chief. With respect to point (1), taking as true Hogue’s statement that he continued to handle the administrative duties until December 31, 1997, that still leaves between six and seven months when Morris would have been handling the administrative duties by himself before he was promoted to Police Chief. Regarding point (2), Mahaven’s subjective and (according to the uncontra-dicted record) mistaken belief that the Supervisors and not Morris were handling the Police Chiefs administrative duties does not undermine the Supervisors’ claim that they hired Morris because he voluntarily assumed the responsibilities, especially when the fact that he voluntarily assumed the responsibilities is not disputed.

With respect to point (3), Mahaven seems to be suggesting that the administrative work that Morris took on either, (a) was not very time-consuming, or (b) displaced a lot of his other work. Even if Morris did shift from doing more patrolling to doing more administrative work, this would still be a valid (non-age discriminatory) ground for choosing him to be Chief in that he rose to the occasion to handle the department’s needs, even if he did not do so by increasing his total num[159]*159ber of work hours.1

B. Morris, a sergeant, was senior to plaintiff in rank

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45 F. App'x 155, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mahaven-v-pulaski-township-ca3-2002.