McElroy v. Fid. Invs. Institutional Servs. Co.

298 F. Supp. 3d 357
CourtDistrict Court, D. Rhode Island
DecidedMarch 22, 2018
DocketC.A. No. 15–287–JJM–PAS
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 298 F. Supp. 3d 357 (McElroy v. Fid. Invs. Institutional Servs. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Rhode Island primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McElroy v. Fid. Invs. Institutional Servs. Co., 298 F. Supp. 3d 357 (D.R.I. 2018).

Opinion

JOHN J. MCCONNELL, JR., United States District Judge.

*360Jennifer McElroy's former employer Fidelity Investments Institutional Services Company, Inc. ("Fidelity") and Fidelity Financial Advisor Solutions ("FFAS") move for summary judgment of Ms. McElroy's claims for gender discrimination, retaliation, and breach of contract. This motion raises issues of the applicable statute of limitations for breach of a contract that contains compensation provisions and the factual and legal elements required to assert gender and family and medical leave claims in the employment setting.

Facts1

Ms. McElroy worked for Fidelity for almost seventeen years. In 2004, she began work as an internal wholesaler. Her primary responsibilities were to prospect for new business within the corporate market. She worked in FFAS, a business unit within Fidelity now known as Fidelity Institutional Asset Management. FFAS had two channels of distribution, intermediary and direct. Within FFAS is the Fidelity Institutional Liquidity Management Solutions group ("FILMS").

In 2009, Ms. McElroy became regional vice president, a wholesaler role in which Ms. McElroy's primary responsibility was to manage existing client relationships. She worked in the intermediary channel with banks and broker dealers to provide updates, market information, product information, and to assist intermediaries with opportunities to bring in new business to Fidelity.

Ms. McElroy had a contract with Fidelity that set forth the plan for the payment of commissions to her.2 The plan set forth the calculation of commissions, bonuses, and other incentives based on determinations by Fidelity of the plan payout. In January 2012, Fidelity informed Ms. McElroy that it had overpaid her 2011 commissions to the tune of $61,149.29. Ms. McElroy requested information about the overpayment, but no significant information was ever forthcoming. When asked to sign a repayment letter, Ms. McElroy refused. She objected to any deductions or repayment claiming it would not be legitimate. Despite her protestation, Fidelity unilaterally deducted 75% of the total amount it alleged it overpaid Ms. McElroy from her paychecks.

At the beginning of the summer in 2012, Ms. McElroy's supervisor, William Pickens,3 informed her that Fidelity was going to promote her by the end of that year at the next promotional cycle. The promotion was to include a title change and $50,000 more in compensation. Mr. Pickens had the same discussion with a male employee, Jason Campellone, who was functioning in the same area of responsibility as Ms. McElroy but was based in Atlanta and covered the Southeast territory.4

In the fall of 2012, Ms. McElroy, while serving as regional vice president, informed her supervisor Mr. Perkins and his supervisor Joyce Marsilia that she was pregnant and planned to take a medical *361leave due to her pregnancy under the Family and Medical Leave Act ("FMLA").5

A few weeks later, at the end of 2012, Mr. Pickens informed Ms. McElroy that the promotion and raise she had been expecting was not going to take place. He told her that there would be no promotions because Fidelity was experiencing challenging market conditions. Despite this representation, Fidelity promoted a male employee, James Scalisi, from a regional vice president in the direct channel of the FILMS group to vice president-the same level promotion that Fidelity had promised to Ms. McElroy. Mr. Scalisi had not asked for parental or other medical leave. Mr. Pickens acknowledged that the same economic factors that affected Ms. McElroy's promotion also affected Mr. Scalisi's position.

Ms. McElroy began her FMLA leave when her child was born in the spring of 2013. In October 2013, after she returned from her FMLA leave, she initially returned to her position as a regional vice president. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Pickens informed Ms. McElroy that a senior vice president in charge of managing client relationships in New York and New Jersey was vacating her position. This position was two pay grades higher than Ms. McElroy's. He asked Ms. McElroy to cover this position on a temporary basis while they searched for a permanent employee. Fidelity describes this as a reward "for ten years of solid work by giving her the interim opportunity to take over a job two grades above her current role, with the hope that she would win the spot on a permanent basis." ECF No. 20-1 at 1.

Ms. McElroy agreed, despite the fact that she considered this position less desirable than her existing position, as it entailed extra travel and increased work responsibilities while a new parent. Ms. McElroy served in this position for eight months yet she never received the position's $375,000 established base salary (which was $200,000 greater than the base salary of her old position).

In January 2014, Ms. McElroy informed Mr. Pickens and Ms. Marsilia that she would not apply to fill permanently the position she was temporarily occupying and that she would like to return to her old job as soon as they hired someone permanently. Four months later, Ms. McElroy again inquired about the status of Fidelity filling the position so that she could return to her regular position. She explained that this temporary position was causing her undue hardship. Mr. Pickens told Ms. McElroy that Fidelity had eliminated her old position, despite having assured her for weeks that it was open and that Fidelity was holding it open for her.

Ms. McElroy resigned in May 2014. She claims that Fidelity constructively discharged her. She did not receive any severance.

Procedure

Ms. McElroy filed suit against Fidelity and FFAS. She alleges in her suit that Fidelity: 1) discriminated against her for being pregnant and for notifying her boss that she planned to become pregnant again at some point in the future; 2) retaliated against her because she previously took and would likely again take FMLA leave; and 3) breached its contract with her by recouping tens of thousands of dollars of an alleged commission overpayment.6

*362Fidelity and FFAS have moved for summary judgment (ECF No. 20), to which Ms. McElroy objects (ECF No. 34), and the Defendants reply (ECF No. 39).

Legal Standard

"Summary judgment is a drastic remedy because it deprives the parties of the opportunity to have a jury determine the outcome as enshrined in the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution." Colman v. Faucher , 128 F.Supp.3d 487, 490 (D.R.I. 2015) (footnote omitted). Per Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(a), the Court shall grant summary judgment when there is "no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." To determine whether there is a genuine dispute as to a material fact, the Court must assess whether "the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party" Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.,

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298 F. Supp. 3d 357, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcelroy-v-fid-invs-institutional-servs-co-rid-2018.