Williams v. Serra Chevrolet Automotive, LLC

4 F. Supp. 3d 865, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28658, 2014 WL 897365
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Michigan
DecidedMarch 6, 2014
DocketCase No. 12-11756
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 4 F. Supp. 3d 865 (Williams v. Serra Chevrolet Automotive, LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Michigan primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Williams v. Serra Chevrolet Automotive, LLC, 4 F. Supp. 3d 865, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28658, 2014 WL 897365 (E.D. Mich. 2014).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT [41]

NANCY G. EDMUNDS, District Judge.

This employment discrimination and retaliation lawsuit arises out of the at-will employment of Plaintiff Paris Williams as a lube technician for less than one month (December 5, 2011 through January 4, 2012) at Defendant Serra Chevrolet Automotive, LLC (“Serra Chevrolet”). Defendant Don Tailor was the Serra Chevrolet service manager and Plaintiffs supervisor during her short employment at Serra Chevrolet. Plaintiff’s daily job performance, however, was supervised by lube technician “crew leaders” Michael Patterson and Mitch Cotto, who were assigned the task of training new lube technicians [868]*868during this time period. These crew leaders reported to Defendant Tailor. After multiple reports that Plaintiff was insubordinate when told to wear her safety goggles and to follow Serra Chevrolet protocol for lube technician tasks, Plaintiff was terminated less than 30 days into her 120-day “Introductory Period” of at-will employment at Serra Chevrolet. Plaintiff subsequently filed this lawsuit alleging claims of gender discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq., and under Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (“ELCRA”), Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 37.2201 et seq., and alleging claims of retaliation under both Title VII and the ELCRA.

This matter is now before the Court on Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Defendants’ motion is GRANTED because Plaintiff has not presented any admissible evidence of gender-based disparate treatment to sustain her discrimination claims or sufficient evidence to permit a reasonable inference that the “desire to retaliate was the but-for cause” of her termination or that Defendants’ lawful reasons for termination were a pretext for retaliation. See University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, — U.S. -, 133 S.Ct. 2517, 2526, 2528, 186 L.Ed.2d 503 (2013); Nicholson v. City of Clarksville, 530 Fed.Appx. 434, 448-449 (6th Cir.2013).

I. Background

A. Plaintiffs Job Performance After December 5, 2011 Start Date

Plaintiff was hired by Serra Chevrolet as a lube technician and started working on December 5, 2011. (Defs.’ Mot., Ex. 1, PL’s Dep. at 22.) She does not dispute that she was an at-will employee as expressly stated in her employment application and the employee handbook she was provided by Serra Chevrolet. (Id. at 153; Defs.’ Mot, Ex. 2, Pl.’s Application at 2; Defs.’ Mot., Ex. 3, Serra Chevrolet Handbook at 2.) Plaintiff was hired by Defendant Tailor as a lube technician. (Defs.’ Mot., Ex. 6, Tailor Dep. at 19.) At the time, Serra Chevrolet was opening a new, larger facility that required more staff, including lube technicians, who would be trained and moved to the new facility when it opened on January 16, 2012. Plaintiff was one of those newly hired lube technicians. (Id. at 19-22, 24; Defs.’ Reply, Ex. 4, Brown Dep. at 18.)

Defendant Tailor was Plaintiffs direct supervisor, but Michael Patterson and Mitch Cotto were the lube technician “crew chiefs” or “crew leaders” tasked with monitoring her performance on the jobs she was assigned. (Tailor Dep. at 28.) In addition to training and supervising new lube technicians, the crew leaders also performed lube technician duties. (Defs.’ Mot., Ex. 9, Patterson Dep. at 20.) Crew leaders did not have the authority to discipline, hire, or fire lube technicians; rather, they reported any performance problems to the service manager, Defendant Tailor. (Id. at 22; Defs.’ Mot., Ex. 8, Cotto Dep. at 12-14.) Immediately upon learning that Serra Chevrolet had hired its first female lube technician, Greg Brown, Serra Chevrolet’s general manager, contacted the builder of the new facility and ordered that the existing plans be altered to add a female locker room. (Brown Dep. at 20-21, 26, 39^1.)

Both crew leaders — Michael Patterson and Mitch Cotto — had problems with Plaintiffs work performance, her defiance in following directions, her inability to work as a team with the lube technicians, and acts of insubordination that they reported to Defendant Tailor. Specifically, crew leader complaints included Plaintiffs repeated failure to and questioning why she had to wear safety glasses when per[869]*869forming tasks, her repeated resistance to performing tasks in the manner Serra Chevrolet lube technicians were trained, and her rebellious attitude and resistance when assigned clean-up tasks that included a tire changing machine — tasks that the crew leaders and all lube technicians performed. (Cotto Dep. at 17-24, 25-27, 31, 33, 35-37, 40-42; Patterson Dep. at 22-23, 24-33, 39-40, 42-43, 44-50, 52-54, 64-68; Tailor Dep. at 32-34, 39-40.) Others personally witnessed Plaintiff not wearing her safety glasses in the proper manner when working. (Tailor Dep. at 32, 52; Defs.’ Mot., Ex. 7, DeCarlos Colley Dep. at 10-12.)

Plaintiff concedes that every day Patterson told her that she was not performing a task the right way — that Serra Chevrolet does it different. (Defs.’ Mot., Ex. 1, Pl.’s Dep. at 70.) She testified that she got in trouble for everything that she didn’t do that Patterson told her to do. (Id. at 53.) Plaintiff admits that she questioned the Serra Chevrolet method of doing things, like starting tire rotations from the left rear tire, that crew leaders Patterson and Cotto would tell her to follow the Serra Chevrolet method, and that they would tell Defendant Tailor if she didn’t follow Serra Chevrolet procedures. She questioned crew leader Patterson’s and Cotto’s authority over her yet acknowledged that they had been at Serra Chevrolet longer than the new hires like her and acknowledged that it was their job to show everyone “the ropes” at the dealership. (Id. at 85-87.) She admits that she complained about Serra Chevrolet’s policy of wearing safety glasses. (Id. at 168.) She concedes she voiced her opinion if Serra Chevrolet procedures differed from that of her past employer. (Id. at 182-185.) She complained that her time at Serra Chevrolet was more like a boot camp rather than a job because she was reprimanded if she talked to other employees and other employees would get reprimanded if they talked to her while she was working. (Id. at 53-54, 73.)

Plaintiff testified that, although he never told her so, she believed crew leader Patterson disliked her because he saw she could do his job better than him and Patterson thought Plaintiff was after his job. (Id. at 60-62, 90-91.) She formed this belief because Patterson told her to clean a tire machine that Plaintiff felt didn’t need to be cleaned, ever; repeatedly told her that she was not doing her job properly; and sent her to retrieve a car from the dealership lot two or three times with an identification tag that had the wrong set of keys, an act that Patterson claimed was a mistake but Plaintiff believes was intentional because she claims it never happened to anyone else. (Id. at 55-56, 57-58, 61-62, 70-71, 75, 78-79, 82-83, 85-86, 88-89.)

B. December 19, 2011 Meeting

On December 19, 2011, Plaintiff went to Defendant Tailor’s office to talk to him but saw that he had someone else in his office and left without speaking to him. (Id.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
4 F. Supp. 3d 865, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28658, 2014 WL 897365, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-serra-chevrolet-automotive-llc-mied-2014.