Mozingo v. Oil States Energy, Inc.

Filing 32

ORDER granting 24 Motion for Summary Judgment. Signed by District Judge Carlton W. Reeves on 02/16/2016. (AC)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF MISSISSIPPI
NORTHERN DIVISION
SAMMY MOZINGO

PLAINTIFF

V.

CAUSE NO. 3:14-CV-924-CWR-LRA

OIL STATES ENERGY, INC.

DEFENDANT
ORDER

Before the Court is the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. Docket No. 24. The
matter is fully briefed and ready for adjudication.
I.

Factual and Procedural History
Sammy Mozingo was a field supervisor for Oil States Energy. His job required him to

work 30 days in Pennsylvania, after which he had 10 days off and could return home to
Mississippi at company expense. Mozingo was eligible for the protections of the Family and
Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
In January 2012, Mozingo had a family health emergency. He successfully filled out the
company’s various FMLA application forms, took several weeks of FMLA leave, and returned
to work in March.
On May 15, 2012, while in Pennsylvania, Mozingo learned that his father was behaving
erratically. Mozingo requested and was granted time off to return to Mississippi and care for his
father.
The parties dispute whether this time off was an advance of Mozingo’s upcoming 10-day
leave or instead a new period of FMLA leave. Oil States claims that it advanced Mozingo’s usual
10 days off and sent him FMLA application forms to fill out in case he wanted to care for his

father for longer than 10 days.1 Since it never received a completed FMLA application, Oil
States contends, it was lawful to fire Mozingo for failure to return to work. In contrast, Mozingo
states that he requested up to six weeks off, that Oil States knew this was a FMLA leave period,
and that he never received the forms Oil States mailed and emailed to him.
The parties also dispute whether Mozingo qualified for FMLA leave. Upon Mozingo’s
arrival, he and his father had a confrontation which resulted in the father filing criminal charges
against Mozingo.2 Law enforcement subsequently advised Mozingo to stay away from his father
pending a court hearing, which was held in mid-June 2012. Mozingo complied. As a result, says
Oil States, Mozingo technically never provided care for his father and was not entitled to FMLA
leave in the first place.
In any event, it is undisputed that Mozingo’s stay in Mississippi exceeded 10 days. Oil
States terminated his employment as of June 1, 2012.
This suit followed on December 1, 2014. In it, Mozingo claimed that Oil States violated
the FMLA by firing him during a FMLA leave period. He alleged a willful violation of the
statute. Mozingo sought compensatory damages and attorney’s fees.
In the present motion, in addition to the arguments summarized above, Oil States
contends that Mozingo has insufficient evidence to prove that it willfully violated the FMLA. If
true, Mozingo’s suit would run afoul of the FMLA’s statute of limitations.
II.

Legal Standard
Summary judgment is appropriate when “the movant shows that there is no genuine

dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R.
1

Among the forms Oil States prepared was a medical certification Mozingo needed to get signed. See 29 C.F.R. §
825.305(a) (“An employer may require that an employee’s leave to care for the employee’s covered family member
with a serious health condition . . . be supported by a certification issued by the health care provider of . . . the
employee’s family member.”).
2
The father also checked himself into a hospital without Mozingo’s assistance.

2

Civ. P. 56(a). A party seeking to avoid summary judgment must identify admissible evidence in
the record showing a fact dispute. Id. at 56(c)(1). “Once a summary judgment motion is made
and properly supported, the nonmovant must go beyond the pleadings and designate specific
facts in the record showing that there is a genuine issue for trial. Neither conclusory allegations
nor unsubstantiated assertions will satisfy the nonmovant’s burden.” Wallace v. Texas Tech
Univ., 80 F.3d 1042, 1047 (5th Cir. 1996) (quotation marks and citations omitted).
The Court views the evidence and draws reasonable inferences in the light most favorable
to the nonmovant. Maddox v. Townsend and Sons, Inc., 639 F.3d 214, 216 (5th Cir. 2011). But
the Court will not, “in the absence of any proof, assume that the nonmoving party could or would
prove the necessary facts.” McCallum Highlands, Ltd. v. Wash. Capital Dus, Inc., 66 F.3d 89, 92
(5th Cir.), as revised on denial of reh’g, 70 F.3d 26 (5th Cir. 1995).
III.

Discussion
A.

Substantive Law

Garden-variety FMLA claims must be brought within two years of the discriminatory act.
29 U.S.C. § 2617(c)(1). If, however, an employer commits a “willful” violation of the FMLA,
the plaintiff is entitled to a three-year statute of limitations. Id. § 2617(c)(2).
“To establish a willful violation of the FMLA, a plaintiff must show that his employer
either knew or showed reckless disregard for the matter of whether its conduct was prohibited by
statute.” Henson v. Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., 128 F. App’x 387, 393 (5th Cir. 2005)
(quotation marks and citation omitted). “The word ‘willful’ is widely used in the law, and,
although it has not by any means been given a perfectly consistent interpretation, it is generally
understood to refer to conduct that is not merely negligent.” McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe Co.,
486 U.S. 128, 133 (1988) (construing an identical distinction between willful and negligent

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violations in the FLSA statute of limitations). Conduct that is unreasonable but not reckless also
does not qualify as a willful violation. Hillstrom v. Best W. TLC Hotel, 354 F.3d 27, 33 (1st Cir.
2003) (quoting McLaughlin, 486 U.S. at 135 n.13).
“‘Cases under the ADEA and FLSA’ – statutes analogous to the FMLA – ‘have found
willfulness most frequently in situations in which the employer deliberately chose to avoid
researching the law’s terms or affirmatively evaded them.’” Bass v. Potter, 522 F.3d 1098, 1105
(10th Cir. 2008) (quoting Hoffman v. Prof’l Med Team, 394 F.3d 414, 419 (6th Cir. 2005)).
B.

Analysis

This case was filed at the 2.5-year mark. That means Oil States is liable to Mozingo only
if it has willfully violated the FMLA.
At summary judgment the Court must resolve all disputed material facts in Mozingo’s
favor. Doing so results in a fact pattern where: (1) Mozingo initially requested up to six weeks of
FMLA leave; (2) Oil States sent FMLA application forms to Mozingo’s work email account
despite a company custom that field employees like Mozingo were not expected to regularly
check their work email; (3) Oil States prepared but did not mail (certified or otherwise) FMLA
application forms to Mozingo’s home in Mississippi; (4) between May 17 and 24, Mozingo told
his supervisor Quinten Breaux that he could return to work on June 14; (5) Breaux told Mozingo
to take as much time as he needed; (6) Breaux’s supervisor subsequently terminated Mozingo by
“overstating” the case for termination to the human resources department; and (7) Breaux’s
supervisor did not give Mozingo an opportunity to immediately return to work.

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Mozingo’s best argument for a willful violation is that Oil States set him up for
termination by ensuring that he would not get the required FMLA application forms.3 Perhaps
tellingly, though, his summary judgment response largely characterizes Oil States’
communications in a way which falls short of a knowing or reckless violation:


“After preparing the FMLA forms for a leave on May 16 - 25, [Oil States’
regional human resources manager] may have realized that FMLA leave was not
necessary for Mozingo to take his regular 10-days off, so she may have not sent
the letter but instead just waited to see if Mozingo really needed more time.”
Docket No. 30, at 7.



“Based on the commotion and confusion of such a merger [which took Oil States
from 350 to 1700 employees], the jury could infer that the FMLA letter and notice
were not mailed to Mozingo. Based on this evidence, a reasonable juror could
conclude that that the FMLA cover letter or forms were not sent to Mozingo due
to an internal snafu.” Id.



“Oil States recklessly did not send [the forms] to Mozingo due to a change in
plans or to wait and see if Mozingo returned within 10 days or due to some
bureaucratic snafu.” Id. at 15.



“The supervisor recklessly failed to even call Mozingo to alert him that an e-mail
had been sent to his company e-mail address.” Id.

It should go without saying that errors caused by waiting to see how an employee wants to
proceed with a leave request, organizational commotion, or bureaucratic snafus amount to
negligence at best. And it is a stretch to say that a failure to make a courtesy call amounts to
reckless conduct. None of these characterizations constitute a knowing or reckless violation of
federal law.
For present purposes, however, the Court will assume that Mozingo could prove a willful
violation of the FMLA if all of Oil States’ communications were designed to frustrate his ability
to apply for FMLA leave.

3

The complaints about Breaux and Breaux’s supervisor are ultimately unavailing, since “overstating” the case for
termination to human resources would have been irrelevant had Mozingo returned the FMLA application forms to
that department.

5

Unfortunately for Mozingo, the evidence does not support this theory. On May 15, 2012,
the company’s regional human resources manager, Rhonda Totten, called Mozingo on his cell
phone to discuss the FMLA application process. Docket No. 28-16. She testified as follows in
her deposition:
[Counsel]: Does that look like an e-mail that you got from Tim Haynes giving
you Sammy Mozingo’s cell number?
[Totten]: Yes.
[Q]:
Okay. Do you remember -- and did you talk to Sammy? Did you call
him?
[A]:
Oh, yes, sir.
[Q]:
Okay. Do you remember what you told him?
[A]:
I remember talking to Sammy about that his -- this FMLA would be a
different request for leave than his first one, and to make sure that he
understood that, that it didn’t continue on because it was two different
situations.
[Q]:
Okay.
[A]:
And that he would be receiving paperwork and he would need to fill
them out, just like he had done previously. And also get information,
documentation that would need to come back from a physician so that
he could get approved for his FML[A] and let him know how many
weeks he had available. I remember just going over the requirements
of going through FMLA. . . . I do remember when I went over this that
I did confirm where he would be, where specifically to send that,
because he was talking about he was going to be with his dad.
[Q]:
Okay. Do you remember what address he confirmed?
[A]:
It was the -- on the paperwork that was there. And if I remember
correctly, I think it was the -- I think he said -- I remember him saying
something about his wife would be there. I thought it was -- it may be
his home address.
[Q]:
Okay. That’s right.
[A]:
And that his wife -- even though he would be with his dad, his wife
would be there.
Docket No. 28-3, at 10 (emphasis added).
Mozingo agrees that he spoke with Totten that day and has not disputed the substance of
the above testimony. Docket No. 28-1, at 4. Contemporaneous evidence is supportive, too.
Totten emailed Breaux’s supervisor later that day with the following: “I just talked to Sammy

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and made sure he FULLY understands his responsibilities with communicating his status and
return time, how his time off will be handled etc.” Docket No. 28-19.4,5
The necessary conclusion is that Oil States’ conduct did not rise to the level of a knowing
or reckless violation of the FMLA. Perhaps it negligently failed to mail Mozingo the FMLA
application forms. That does not constitute a willful violation, especially where: (a) Mozingo’s
recent experience with FMLA leave gave him actual knowledge that he had to return certain
FMLA forms to the company; (b) on the day he requested leave, the human resources manager
spoke with Mozingo about the forms; (c) Mozingo knew from that phone call that forms would
be mailed to his address in Mississippi; and (d) assuming they never arrived, Mozingo never
followed up to request a second set of forms despite his knowledge that they were necessary.
As a result, Mozingo is entitled to a two-year statute of limitations. Since his complaint
was filed at the 2.5-year mark, it was untimely and cannot proceed further.
IV.

Conclusion
The motion for summary judgment is granted. A separate Final Judgment will issue this

day.
SO ORDERED, this the 16th day of February, 2016.

s/ Carlton W. Reeves
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

4

Totten’s email continued, “I requested that Sammy respond to this e-mail.” Docket No. 28-19. Mozingo denies that
she said that. Docket No. 28-1, at 4. The discrepancy cannot be resolved at summary judgment.
5
Totten also testified that when she did not receive Mozingo’s signed forms, she left him a voice message on his
cell phone to remind him, but never heard back. Docket No. 28-3, at 15. Mozingo disputes receiving or missing any
phone calls during that time period. Docket No. 28-1, at 4.

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