ROHLER v. ROLLS ROYCE CORPORATION
Filing
77
ORDER granting 58 Defendant's Motion for Reconsideration. **SEE ORDER**. Signed by Judge Tanya Walton Pratt on 7/2/2014. (MGG) (Main Document 77 replaced on 7/2/2014) (MGG).
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA
INDIANAPOLIS DIVISION
PAMELA SUE ROHLER,
Plaintiff,
vs.
ROLLS-ROYCE NORTH AMERICA, INC.,
Defendant.
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Case No. 1:13-cv-00040-TWP-DML
ENTRY ON MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION
This matter is before the Court on Defendant Rolls-Royce North America, Inc.’s
(“RRNA”) Motion for Reconsideration (Filing No. 58) of the Court’s Entry on Summary
Judgment (Filing No. 52). The Court GRANTS the Motion for Reconsideration for purposes of
clarification only, however as explained below, the ruling on summary judgment remains.
I. BACKGROUND
The Court found the following facts undisputed for purposes of summary judgment: Ms.
Rohler worked for non-party RRC from August 1999 until November 2008. RRC is a distinct
corporate entity and is a subsidiary of RRNA. In September 2008, Ms. Rohler filed a charge of
discrimination and retaliation with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”)
against both RRC and RRNA.
In November 2008, Ms. Rohler transferred from her position at RRC to the position of
Senior Financial Analyst with RRNA. Between November 2008 and March 2012, Ms. Rohler
received regular salary increases; specifically she went from $89,981 to $100,698 in that time
frame. She also received an overall performance rating of “meets required performance” on two
written reviews.
Also in November 2008, the EEOC dismissed the charge Ms. Rohler had filed against
RRC and RRNA. In February 2009, Ms. Rohler filed a four-count complaint against RRNA and
RRC, which alleged that both entities had discriminated and retaliated against her. In March
2012, this Court granted RRNA’s and RRC’s joint motion for summary judgment on Ms.
Rohler’s claims. The Clerk of Court also issued a $3,374.25 bill of costs to be paid by Ms.
Rohler to RRNA.
After this Court granted summary judgment, Ms. Rohler filed an appeal and began
representing herself pro se. On July 2, 2012, she filed a “motion to add” exhibits to her appellate
record. Included in the exhibits were documents that contained confidential RRNA financial
information. The documents had not been requested by Ms. Rohler or produced by RRNA
during the action’s discovery phase. Ms. Rohler obtained the documents from RRNA’s “SAP”
centralized database through her position as a Senior Financial Analyst. She did not receive
permission to publicly file them in the legal action.
After RRNA learned that Ms. Rohler had filed the confidential documents, she was called
into a meeting with her supervisor Pamela White (“Ms. White”) and Human Resources Business
Partner Tracey McCoy (“Ms. McCoy”). During the meeting, Ms. Rohler admitted to taking the
documents from RRNA’s SAP database. Ms. McCoy told Ms. Rohler that using her position as
an RRNA employee to collect RRNA information in her lawsuit was a serious violation of
RRNA’s Confidentiality of Company Information Policy (“Policy”). The Policy provides in
part:
You should not use or disclose to any person or entity any company proprietary
information acquired during the course of your employment. Also, you should
not, directly or indirectly, copy, take or remove from your work site, any of the
company’s books, records, customer lists or any other documents or
materials. . . . If you have any questions about what material is considered
company proprietary, ask your supervisor or manager. Improper disclosure of
company proprietary information will lead to disciplinary action, up to and
including termination of employment.
Dkt. 40-2 at 16–17. Ms. Rohler was then suspended with pay pending an investigation. On July
13, 2012, Ms. Rohler met with Ms. White and Ms. McCoy. Ms. McCoy reiterated that Ms.
Rohler had committed a serious violation of the Policy.
Ms. Rohler was then terminated
effective the same day.
II. LEGAL STANDARD
Motions to reconsider serve a limited function, to be used “where the Court has patently
misunderstood a party, or has made a decision outside the adversarial issues presented to the
Court by the parties, or has made an error not of reasoning but of apprehension.” Davis v.
Carmel Clay Sch., 286 F.R.D. 411, 412 (S.D. Ind. 2012) (quoting Bank of Waunakee v.
Rochester Cheese Sales, Inc., 906 F.2d 1185, 1191 (7th Cir. 1990)) (additional quotations
omitted). A court may grant a motion to reconsider where a movant demonstrates a manifest
error of law or fact. In re Prince, 85 F.3d 314, 324 (7th Cir. 1996). A motion to reconsider is not
an occasion to make new arguments. Granite State Ins. Co. v. Degerlia, 925 F.2d 189, 192 n.7
(7th Cir. 1991).
III. DISCUSSION
In its previous Entry, the Court held that disputed issues of fact precluded summary
judgment on Ms. Rohler’s retaliation claim. RRNA challenges the Court’s findings that Ms.
Rohler’s actions of downloading and producing confidential RRNA documents was founded in
her good faith participation in a Title VII action, and that a suspicious timing and a suspicious
and ambiguous statement created a disputed issue of fact regarding causation.
A. Participation in Protected Activity
The Court previously found that Ms. Rohler did not have unreasonable belief that filing
RRNA papers in her lawsuit was “in opposition to a statutory violation.” Filing No. 52 at 13.
The Court cited Hatmaker v. Mem’l Med. Ctr., 619 F.3d 741, 745 (7th Cir. 2010), for this
proposition. RRNA contends the Court mistakenly applied Hatmaker’s statement of the law for
the opposition clause of 42 U.S.C. § 20003-3(a), as opposed to the participation clause. The
Court agrees to an extent: the portion of Hatmaker the Court cited did refer to the opposition
clause, and the Court used “opposition” language instead of “participation” language.
The
conflation of the two principles was unintentional and requires reconsideration.
In Mattson v. Caterpillar, Inc., 259 F.3d 885, 889–90 (7th Cir. 2004), the Seventh Circuit
addressed whether the participation clause analysis required a good faith or reasonableness
requirement. The Court stated in the context of filing complaints of discrimination, “[w]e
believe that the same threshold standard should apply to both opposition and participation clause
cases. That is, the claims must not be utterly baseless.” Id. at 891. It went on to unequivocally
state, “the good faith, reasonableness requirement applies to all Title VII claims.” Id. at 892.
Hatmaker did not discuss this particular statement regarding the participation clause nor apply it
under the facts of that case. Hatmaker does include a discussion of a subjective measure of
reasonableness, as opposed to an objective measure, applied to the opposition clause. RRNA
seems to argue that there is no reasonableness requirement in the participation clause analysis;
however, one district court in this Circuit has interpreted Mattson as holding that there is an
objective and subjective prong to the participation clause analysis.
See Nelson v. Realty
Consulting Servs., Inc., No. 08 C 5219, 2010 WL 3455682, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 23, 2010).
RRNA cited this case for this statement of the law in its Reply to Motion for Summary Judgment
(Filing No. 48 at 14), despite its argument on reconsideration that only the opposition clause
contains a subjective reasonableness requirement.
The Court finds it important to note, though, that Mattson and Hatmaker (and subsequent
cases) deal with whether a complaint of discrimination or retaliation was baseless or
unreasonably made. In Hatmaker, the Seventh Circuit referred to plaintiffs making “frivolous
accusations,” “false charges,” complaints made with “retaliatory motives and strategies,”
complaints based on lies, and “malicious internal complaints.” 619 F.3d at 745. In that context,
such behavior is objectively unreasonable and it’s difficult to imagine a plaintiff could harbor a
subjective reasonable and good faith belief in their participation if the participation was false,
made with retaliatory motive, or based on lies.
This is unlike Ms. Rohler’s actions of
downloading corporate documents and filing them in an existing lawsuit.
Here, the question is not whether Ms. Rohler’s complaint of retaliation or discrimination
was reasonable, but whether her production of confidential documents as part of her lawsuit was
reasonable. The Court found on summary judgment that it was not objectively reasonable for
Ms. Rohler to download confidential RRNA information without permission or a request.
RRNA argues that this is the only determination the Court need make, based on Hatmaker’s
statement that “participation doesn’t insulate an employee from being discharged for conduct
that, if it occurred outside an investigation would warrant termination.” Id. It further points the
Court to cases from the Sixth and Ninth Circuits, in which plaintiffs who disclosed confidential
company information were found to be outside the protection of the participation clause. See
Niswander v. Cincinnati Ins. Co., 529 F.3d 714, 721–22 (6th Cir. 2008); O’Day v. McDonnell
Douglas Helicopter Co., 79 F.3d 756, 762–64 (9th Cir. 1996). In Niswander, the Court found it
dispositive that the plaintiff disclosed confidential company documents while acknowledging the
same documents were not relevant to her discrimination case. 529 F.3d at 722. The court stated,
“[o]ur analysis would be different if the documents that Niswander had given to her lawyers, and
that they in turn produced to CIC, had reasonably supported her claim of gender-based pay
discrimination—or if she reasonably believed that they did.”
Id.
In O’Day, the plaintiff
collected confidential information for his own purposes to prepare for eventual litigation against
the company. The Ninth Circuit employed a balancing test and found that the plaintiff’s interest
in preserving evidence did not outweigh the employer’s interest in discouraging this behavior.
79 F.3d at 763. Specifically, the court stated, “we are loathe to provide employees an incentive
to rifle through confidential files looking for evidence that might come in handy in later
litigation. The opposition clause protects reasonable attempts to contest an employer’s
discriminatory practices; it is not an insurance policy, a license to flaunt company rules or an
invitation to dishonest behavior.” Id. at 763–64. Both the Sixth and Ninth Circuits touched on
the reasonableness of the conduct under the circumstances.
Here it is, at minimum, disputed whether Ms. Rohler was participating in the lawsuit in
good faith when she downloaded and filed confidential documents. She testified and told Ms.
McCoy that she believed the documents were relevant to the lawsuit. While Ms. Rohler was
mistaken, a jury could find it was a reasonable belief. Given that Hatmaker did not specifically
reach the issue of subjective reasonableness, the Court will continue to hold that Ms. Rohler was
engaged in conduct protected by 42 U.S.C. § 20003-3(a).
B. Causal Connection
The Court held on summary judgment that there was a disputed issue of fact regarding
the causation requirement of Ms. Rohler’s retaliation claim. Specifically, the Court found Ms.
Rohler had produced evidence of suspicious timing and a suspicious and ambiguous statement
that a reasonable jury could rely upon to determine unlawful retaliation had occurred. RRNA
urges the Court to reverse this finding because the statement made by Ms. McCoy is not
susceptible to multiple interpretations when viewed in context. The Court declines to do so.
Ms. Rohler alleged in her affidavit that Ms. McCoy told her that her “lawsuit was over
and [she was] no longer protected.” Filing No. 46-1 at 4. At her deposition and in notes taken
on July 16, 2012 by Ms. Rohler, Ms. Rohler stated that Ms. McCoy told her she was terminated
for violating the Policy, that the investigation into Ms. Rohler’s lawsuit was over, and that Ms.
Rohler had no reason to be providing RRNA confidential documents to the court. See Filing No.
46-2 at 6, 72–73. Ms. Rohler further stated in her deposition that Ms. McCoy did not say that
Ms. Rohler was “no longer protected,” Filing No. 46-2 at 6, 73:1, but that it was Ms. Rohler’s
interpretation. Filing No. 46-2 at 6, 72:18–21. The Court finds that Ms. Rohler’s interpretation
is one a reasonable jury could also reach. It is but one possible interpretation of Ms. McCoy’s
statement, which means the statement can be viewed as ambiguous. It is also suspicious, in that
it directly references Ms. Rohler’s participation in her lawsuit as part of the basis for her
termination.
“[T]he task of disambiguating ambiguous utterances is one for trial, not for
summary judgment.” Shager v. Upjohn Co., 913 F.2d 398, 402 (7th Cir. 1990). Therefore, this
issue should be presented to the jury as trier of fact, for determination.
IV. CONCLUSION
Accordingly, the Court GRANTS RRNA’s Motion for Reconsideration (Filing No. 58)
for purposes of clarification as contained herein. RRNA’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Filing
No. 38) on Ms. Rohler’s retaliation claim remains DENIED.
SO ORDERED.
Date: 07/02/2014
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________________________
Hon. Tanya Walton Pratt, Judge
United States District Court
Southern District of Indiana
Distribution:
R. Anthony Prather
BARNES & THORNBURG LLP
tony.prather@btlaw.com
James F. Ehrenberg, Jr.
BARNES & THORNBURG LLP
jehrenberg@btlaw.com
Paul J. Cummings
HENN HAWORTH CUMMNGS
Paul.Cummings@HHCFirm.com
David M. Henn
HENN LAW FIRM P.C.
david.henn@HHCFirm.com
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