HAYES v. CRST VAN EXPEDITED, INC. et al

Filing 50

OPINION. Signed by Judge Joseph E. Irenas on 4/17/2014. (dmr)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

STEPHEN R. HAYES,
Plaintiff,
HONORABLE JOSEPH E. IRENAS
v.
CIVIL ACTION NO. 12-00027
(JEI/KMW)

CRST VAN EXPEDITED, INC., CRST
INTERNATIONAL, INC., DRIVER
HIRING CONNECTION, JOHN DOE
OWNERS AND OPERATORS, and JOHN
DOE DECISION MAKERS,

OPINION

Defendants.

APPEARANCES:
LAW OFFICES OF RICHARD L. PRESS & ASSOCIATES, LLC
LaTonya N. Bland-Tull, Esq.
23 E. Black Horse Pike
Pleasantville, NJ 08232
Counsel for Plaintiff Stephen R. Hayes
GEORGE W. WRIGHT & ASSOCIATES, LLC
George W. Wright, Esq.
Narinder S. Parmar, Esq.
505 Main Street
Hackensack, NJ 07601
Counsel for Defendants CRST Van Expedited, Inc. and
CRST International, Inc.

Irenas, Senior District Judge:
This employment discrimination matter comes before the
Court on Defendants CRST Van Expedited, Inc. (“CRST Expedited”)

1

and CRST International, Inc.’s motion for summary judgment.1

For

the reasons set forth below, the Court will grant Defendants’
motion.

I.
Plaintiff Stephen Hayes is a former HVAC mechanic.

In or

about August 2009, he completed a commercial driving course at
Superior Tractor Trailer Training School (“Superior”) in
Pleasantville, New Jersey and obtained his Commercial Driver’s
License.
Around the time of his graduation, Plaintiff applied for a
job as a tractor-trailer driver with Defendant CRST Expedited, a
subsidiary of Defendant CRST International, Inc.
71 years-old when he applied.

Plaintiff was

At the time, CRST Expedited was

one of the largest long-haul truckload motor carriers in the
United States, operating more than 1,200 company-owned tractors
and 3,000 van trailers, and employed approximately 2,500 drivers
at any given time.
There was a high turnover rate among those 2,500 drivers:
during the period between September 1, 2008 and October 20,
2009, CRST Expedited employed 7,663 drivers total.

1

(Defs.’

The Court has federal subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to
28 U.S.C. ¶ 1331.
2

Facts ¶ 12)2

CRST Expedited received approximately 10,000

applications per month for driver positions and accepted
approximately 500 of them.

(Defs.’ Facts ¶ 13)

In June 2009, approximately two months prior to the
submission of Plaintiff’s application, CRST Expedited
implemented an unwritten policy that precluded hiring applicants
who had caused a rear-end, lane-change, or intersection accident
within the previous two years.

(Defs.’ Facts ¶ 22)

The policy

was implemented and conveyed to CRST employees by managers
during meetings and “oral conversations.”

(Defs.’ Facts ¶ 19)

The policy was not reduced to writing until June 2010.
Facts ¶ 33)

(Defs.’

CRST Expedited points to several applications it

denied in late 2009 because the candidates were involved in
prohibited accidents as evidence of the existence of the policy.
(See Defs.’ Facts ¶ 26-32)
Plaintiff completed and filed his CRST application with
Judy Bowman of Defendant Driving Hiring Connection
(“Connection”), an independent contractor that recruits drivers

2

The Court uses “Pl.’s Facts ¶” and “Defs.’ Facts ¶” to refer to
Plaintiff’s and Defendants Statement of Material Facts,
respectively.
3

on behalf of CRST pursuant to a commission broker agreement.3
Bowman then filed an application on Plaintiff’s behalf online.
In addition to including Plaintiff’s age, Bowman identified
an April 2008 accident Plaintiff was involved in.

Bowman

described it as follows:
WAS APPROACHING STOP AND PRESSED ON THE BRAKES AND THE
CAR DIDN’T STOP. HE HIT ANOTHER VEHICLE.
POSSIBLE
MECHANICAL FAILURE. ENCLOSED IS A STATEMENT FROM WHERE
THE CAR WAS REPAIRED THAT EXMPLAINS WHAT MAY HAVE
HAPPENED.
(Defs.’ Facts ¶ 76)
Bowman included with the application a note from a
repairman stating, “[c]arbon in the throttle body may cause the
throttle to stay engaged.”

(Id. at 80)

Bowman added the

following: “The Policeman put down that his foot slipped off
brake onto gas. This is not what he [Plaintiff] told them.”
(Defs.’ Facts ¶ 81)
Plaintiff’s application was received and reviewed by Alexis
West, the CRST Hiring Coordinator who reviewed all applications
submitted by outside recruiting contractors.

West subsequently

forwarded Plaintiff’s application to Joshua Birr, a Supervisor
in the Safety Department, with a notation: “need [‘]08 accident
approved.”

3

(Defs.’ Facts ¶ 91)

Such approval was not

Although Plaintiff named Connection as a Defendant, and CRST
Expedited’s cross-claim named Connection as a defendant,
Connection has not made an appearance in the instant matter.
4

forthcoming.
report.”4

Birr replied that CRST “must go by the police

(Defs.’ Facts ¶ 92)

Bowman was advised that CRST would not hire Plaintiff.
Bowman then told Plaintiff that he was not hired because CRST’s
Safety Department had concerns about the accident.5

(Pl.’s Facts

¶ 8)
In January 2010, Plaintiff was hired by Swift
Transportation.

He was dismissed therefrom six months later, a

brief tenure in which he incurred three accidents.

(Defs.’

Facts ¶¶ 111-12)
Plaintiff filed a Charge of Discrimination against
Defendants with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(“EEOC”) on October 20, 2009.

Plaintiff alleged he was not

hired because of his age in violation of the Age Discrimination
in Employment Act of 1967 (“ADEA”).
On September 26, 2011, EEOC issued a Determination in which
it found “there is reasonable cause to believe that Respondent

4

Birr was apparently following CRST policy: “It is CRST
Expedited’s policy to rely on police reports in determining
whether an applicant was at fault for an accident as police
reports are the only independent reliable sources of
information.” (Defs.’ Facts ¶ 95)
5

Although not relevant to the Court’s legal determinations, the
Court notes that Bowman notified Plaintiff that he was “preapproved for employment with CRST” and invited him to a company
orientation. (Pl.’s Facts ¶ 6) Plaintiff, however, was
notified of his rejection prior to the occurrence of the
orientation.
5

violated the ADEA when it failed to hire [hire] on the basis of
his age.”

(Pl.’s Ex. F)

On October 13, 2013, EEOC issued a Notice of Right to Sue
Letter, finding “reasonable cause to believe that violations of
[the] ADEA” occurred.

(Pl.’s Ex. G)

II.
Summary judgment is proper if “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. Civ. P.

56(a); see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322
(1986).

In deciding a motion for summary judgment, the Court

must construe the facts and inferences in a light most favorable
to the non-moving party.

Pollock v. Am. Tel. & Tel. Long Lines,

794 F.2d 860, 864 (3d Cir. 1986).
“‘With respect to an issue on which the non-moving party
bears the burden of proof, the burden on the moving party may be
discharged by ‘showing’ – that is, pointing out to the district
court – that there is an absence of evidence to support the
nonmoving party’s case.’”

Conoshenti v. Public Serv. Elec. &

Gas, 364 F.3d 135, 145-46 (3d Cir. 2004) (quoting Celotex, 477
U.S. at 323).

The role of the Court is not “to weigh the

evidence and determine the truth of the matter, but to determine
whether there is a genuine issue for trial.”
6

Anderson v.

Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249 (1986).

“Only disputes

over facts that might affect the outcome of the suit under the
governing law will properly preclude the entry of summary
judgment.”

Id. at 249.

III.
Although Plaintiff raised a series of claims in his Amended
Complaint, his only remaining claim is for violating the ADEA.
And because Plaintiff has failed to meet his burden of
production challenging Defendants’ non-discriminatory
justification for its adverse employment action, summary
judgment will be granted in Defendants’ favor.
The ADEA makes it unlawful for an employer to, inter alia,
“fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual or
otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to
his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of
employment, because of such individual's age.”

29 U.S.C. §

623(a)(1).
Courts evaluating ADEA claims use the three-step McDonnell
Douglas test: (1) first, the plaintiff must demonstrate a prima
facie case of discrimination; (2) if shown, the burden of
production shifts to the employer to identify a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment action; (3) if
the employer does so, the burden of production returns to the
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plaintiff to demonstrate that the employer’s proffered rationale
was a pretext for discrimination.

Smith v. City of Allentown,

589 F.3d 684, 689-91 (3d Cir. 2009); O’Malley v. Fairleigh
Dickinson Univ., Civ. No. 10-6193 (KSH/CLW), 2014 WL 67280, at
*8 (D.N.J. Jan. 7, 2014); see also McDonnell Douglas Corp. v.
Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973).
burden of persuasion.

The plaintiff always bears the

O’Malley, 2014 WL 67280, at *8.

Further,

part of the plaintiff's burden of persuasion involves proving
“that age was the ‘but-for’ cause of the employer's adverse
decision.”

Gross v. FBL Fin. Servs., 557 U.S. 167, 176-77

(2009).
“To establish a prima facie case of age discrimination
under the ADEA, [a plaintiff] must make a showing that: (1) she
is forty years of age or older; (2) the defendant took an
adverse employment action against her; (3) she was qualified for
the position in question; and (4) she was ultimately replaced by
another employee who was sufficiently younger.”

Burton v.

Teleflex Inc., 707 F.3d 417, 426 (3d Cir. 2013).
Plaintiff sets forth a prima facie case.

He is over forty

years-old; he was denied employment; he possessed a Commercial
Driver’s License, thereby being qualified for the position; and
substantially younger applicants were hired.

(See Pl.’s Facts ¶

10 (identifying three recent graduates of Superior who were
substantially younger than Plaintiff and hired by Defendants))
8

Defendants, in turn, put forward a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment action: the
company’s June 2009 hiring policy that precluded hiring
applicants who had been in rear-end, lane-changing, or
intersection accidents within two years of applying.

And

Defendants support their justification with sufficient
evidentiary support: Joshua Birr, a Supervisor in Defendants’
Safety Department, set forth that in June of 2009 “CRST
Expedited implemented an unwritten policy that excluded
applicants who, within the previous two years were responsible
for causing” such accidents.

(Birr Decl. ¶ 17)

Plaintiff, however, has failed to meet his burden of
production proving that such an explanation is pretext.
Plaintiff calls the policy “a fabrication” yet points to no
affirmative evidence indicating that this is so.

(Opp’n Br. at

1)
Instead, Plaintiff relies only on the EEOC’s Right to Sue
Letter, where the Commission found “reasonable cause to believe
that violations of [the] ADEA” occurred.

(Pl.’s Ex. G).

The

Commission, however, did not have a full record before it and
allegedly took an adverse inference against Defendants because
of their failure to submit requested evidence.
of April 15, 2014 Oral Argument.

See Transcript

Consequently, the letter

9

provides no probative value of pretext, and thus does not
satisfy Plaintiff’s burden.

IV.
For the reasons stated above, Defendants’ motion for
summary judgment will be granted.

An appropriate order

accompanies this opinion.

Date: April 17, 2014
_/s/ Joseph E. Irenas________
Joseph E. Irenas, S.U.S.D.J.

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