Salmons v. Dollar General Corp.

989 F. Supp. 730, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21903, 1996 WL 934593
CourtDistrict Court, D. Maryland
DecidedSeptember 30, 1996
DocketCivil No. AMD 95-1416
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 989 F. Supp. 730 (Salmons v. Dollar General Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Salmons v. Dollar General Corp., 989 F. Supp. 730, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21903, 1996 WL 934593 (D. Md. 1996).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

DAVIS, District Judge.

The plaintiff is a former retail store manager for defendant Dollar General Corporation. She asserts, gender wage discrimination and retaliation claims under the Equal Pay Act, 29 U.S.C. § 206(d) et seq., and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. Pending before the Court is defendants’’ motion for summary judgment. No hearing is necessary. Local Rule 105.6 (D.Md.1995). For the reasons explained below, the defendants have shown that no material facts are in dispute and that as a matter of law they are entitled to summary judgment.

I.

Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c), summary judgment is appropriate “if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986); see also Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). The movant, then, bears two burdens. First, the movant must show that no genuine issues of material fact remain for the fact finder to determine at trial. Second, the movant must show that the law is in his favor.

Conversely, the non-movant must demonstrate that genuine issues of material fact exist. See Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248-49, 106 S.Ct. at 2510-11. This burden “is particularly strong when the non-moving party bears the burden of proof.” Pachaly v. City of Lynchburg, 897 F.2d 723, 725 (4th Cir.1990). A fact is material for summary judgment purposes if, when applied to the substantive law, it affects the outcome of the litigation. See Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248, 106 S.Ct. at 2510. A non-movant cannot create a genuine issue of material fact by resting upon her own mere allegations or denials contained in her pleadings, Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e), nor can she create a dispute of fact by relying upon “mere speculation or the building of one inference upon another.” Beale v. Hardy, 769 F.2d 213, 214 (4th Cir.1985). Instead, in order for a genuine issue of material fact to exist, there must be sufficient evidence upon which a jury could return a verdict in the non-movant’s favor. See Shealy v. Winston, 929 F.2d 1009, 1012 (4th Cir.1991).

II.

This case presents unusual difficulties in setting forth the non-movant’s (plaintiffs) version of the facts. This is primarily because, as defendants have exhaustively and compellingly demonstrated, the factual bases for plaintiffs claims are, to put it charitably} dynamic rather than static. That is to say, plaintiffs factual claims seem ever to evolve over time. When viewed as a whole, there is an extraordinary lack of coherence and candor in plaintiffs interrogatory answers, deposition testimony, and post-deposition affidavit [733]*733prepared under her substitute counsel’s supervision. Having made the above observations, however, it must be recalled that credibility determinations ordinarily have no role in summary judgment practice. Accordingly, I shall endeavor to summarize as plausibly as the record permits the plaintiffs version of the events underlying her claims.

The gist of Salmons’s claims reduces to three essential propositions: (1) that Dollar General has a long-standing official corporate policy of paying female managers less than male managers; (2) that pursuant to this policy, she was paid less than her brother, who worked briefly for Dollar General from 1991 through 1992; and (3) that when she sought to remedy this deprivation of her rights by filing a complaint of unlawful discrimination, Dollar General retaliated against her. I shall first trace some of the alleged historical evidence relied upon by Salmons. I shall then summarize the events of 1991 and 1992 which underlie Salmons’s claims.

Dollar General operates discount retail stores in twenty-four states.1 Dollar General groups its stores into districts, and each district is run by a district manager. As a matter of corporate policy, Dollar General district managers negotiate individual salaries with prospective employees. Factors a district manager considers in hiring store managers and in setting salaries include employment background and experience, store location and potential travel expenses, sáles volume at the location, shrinkage or inventory control, and the level of difficulty involved in managing a particular store.

Salmons was hired in March 1982, and worked as a store manager at Dollar General’s Edgewood store. While working at Edgewood, Salmons earned approximately $200 per week, When the Edgewood store closed not long after she was hired, Salmons was laid off. In October 1983, after Salmons had been unemployed for several months, Howard Ware, then the district manager of District 28, rehired her to manage the Chestertown store. Ware initially offered Salmons a salary of $210 weekly to manage Chestertown, but as a result of negotiations between them, he agreed to pay an additional $40 for travel expenses, for a total of $250 weekly. Salmons replaced Francis Toy, Chestertown’s previous store manager.

While reviewing the payroll records for the Chestertown employees, Salmons allegedly discovered that Toy had been paid $250 per week' to manage the Chestertown store, $50 more than she had been earning as a store manager at Edgewood.2 This claim is demonstrably untrue, however, as the defendants have produced payroll records which indicate that Toy was earning only $200 weekly, a pay rate equal to Salmons’s earnings at Edgewood, and less than Salmons’s earnings at Chestertown. Nonetheless, Salmons insists that (at that time) she confronted Ware about the pay disparity and Ware responded that it was the policy of Dollar General to pay its male employees at a higher rate. Salmons claims shé took no further action in connection with the alleged pay disparity over the next seven or eight years.

In February 1991, Dollar General hired Alonzo. Robinson, Salmons’s brother, as a first clerk/manager trainee at the Pasadena store. After negotiations with Willie Jackson, then the District 28 manager, Robinson agreed to a salary of $225 weekly. In addition to his weekly base pay, Robinson was reimbursed for transportation expenses he incurred while traveling in excess of one hundred miles per day to Pasadena. Robinson’s transportation expenses were not minimal; from February through July, he worked seven days per week and averaged approximately $126.91 in expenses.

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

Related

Reyes v. Texas Ezpawn, L.P.
459 F. Supp. 2d 546 (S.D. Texas, 2006)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
989 F. Supp. 730, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21903, 1996 WL 934593, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/salmons-v-dollar-general-corp-mdd-1996.