Pelham v. Unipres U.S.A., Inc.

Filing 56

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER: Unipres' Motion for Reconsideration (Docket No. 41 ) IS GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. Signed by District Judge Aleta A. Trauger on 9/8/2015. (DOCKET TEXT SUMMARY ONLY-ATTORNEYS MUST OPEN THE PDF AND READ THE ORDER.)(eh)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
NASHVILLE DIVISION
FREDRIC TYLER PELHAM,

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Plaintiff,
v.

UNIPRES U.S.A., INC.,
Defendant.

Civil No. 3:14-cv-1601
Judge Aleta A. Trauger

MEMORANDUM & ORDER
On July 17, 2015, the court denied the Partial Motion for Summary Judgment filed by
defendant Unipres U.S.A., Inc. (“Unipres”) in an Order and accompanying Memorandum,
familiarity with which is assumed. (See Docket Nos. 39, 40.) The court held, inter alia, that
plaintiff Fredric Tyler Pelham (“Pelham”) had “met his prima facie burden of establishing that
his protected activity bore a causal connection to Unipres’ adverse action.” (Id. at p. 12.) In
addition, the court held that “there was evidence sufficient to allow a jury to reasonably reject
Unipres’ explanation and conclude that Unipres failed to make a reasonably informed and
considered decision sufficient to establish the applicability of the honest belief defense.” (Id. at
16.) Unipres has filed a Motion for Reconsideration (Docket No. 41) and Memorandum in
support thereof (Docket No. 42), to which Pelham has filed a Response in opposition (Docket
No. 47). For the following reasons, the motion will be granted in part and denied in part.
I.

Legal Standard
While the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure fail to explicitly address motions to

reconsider interlocutory orders, “[d]istrict courts have authority both under common law and

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Rule 54(b) to reconsider interlocutory orders and to reopen any part of a case before entry of final
judgment.” Rodriguez v. Tenn. Laborers Health & Welfare Fund, 89 F. App’x 949, 959 (6th Cir.
2004) (citing Mallory v. Eyrich, 922 F.2d 1273, 1282 (6th Cir. 1991)); see also In re Life
Investors Ins. Co. of Am., 589 F.3d 319, 326 n.6 (6th Cir. 2009). Thus, district courts may
“afford such relief from interlocutory orders as justice requires.” Rodriguez, 89 F. App’x at 959
(internal quotations marks and brackets omitted). “Courts traditionally will find justification for
reconsidering interlocutory orders when there is (1) an intervening change of controlling law; (2)
new evidence available; or (3) a need to correct a clear error of law or prevent manifest injustice.”
Louisville/Jefferson Cnty., Metro. Gov’t v. Hotels.com, L.P., 590 F.3d 381, 389 (6th Cir. 2009)
(citing Rodriguez, 89 F. App’x at 959). This standard “vests significant discretion in district
courts.” Rodriguez, 89 F. App’x at 959 n.7.
II.

Analysis
Unipres first argues that the court made an error of law when it concluded that – in

reliance in part on Montell v. Diversified Clinical Servs., Inc., 757 F.3d 497, 505 (6th Cir. 2014)
– a causal link between a protected activity and an adverse action can be shown through temporal
proximity. (See Docket No. 39 at pp. 10-11.) The thrust of Unipres’ argument is that Montell is
irrelevant and that FLSA-specific cases – which Montell is not – require some additional
evidence beyond temporal proximity in order to establish a causal connection.
As an initial matter, the court acknowledges, as a sister court recently did in Smith v.
Grand Trunk Western Railroad Company, that the Sixth Circuit has, in the past several years,
issued what appear to be conflicting decisions as to whether temporal proximity alone is
sufficient to establish a causal connection in retaliation cases, or whether some additional

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circumstantial evidence is required. See id., No. 13-14307, 2015 WL 3506318, at *10 (E.D.
Mich., June 3, 2015). However, the Sixth Circuit in Montell clearly rejected the argument that
temporal proximity alone was not be enough to establish causation in certain circumstances. In
doing so, the court relied on Mickey v. Zeidler Tool & Die Co., 516 F.3d 516, 525 (6th Cir.
2008), an ADEA case, in which the court had gone to great lengths to address what it considered
to be misunderstandings of prior precedent and to harmonize lines of cases that had appeared to
diverge concerning this subject.1 The court expressly stated that temporal proximity alone can be
enough to establish causation, where an adverse employment action occurs very close in time
after an employer learns of a protected activity. Montell, 757 F.3d at 505. While Montell
involved Kentucky Civil Rights Act retaliation claims analyzed under a Title VII framework,
there is no explicit indication that Montell’s statement of the law concerning temporal proximity
was restricted – as Unipres suggests – to any one type of claim.2 See generally Montell, supra.
In particular, there is no indication that the Mickey or Montell courts deliberately intended to
exclude FLSA retaliation cases from the scope of their holdings.3
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Notably, the Mickey opinion explained that a number of cases that had been
misinterpreted to stand for the proposition that temporal proximity could not alone establish
causation had actually only held that the temporal proximity alleged in the particular case was
too attenuated. Mickey, 516 F.3d at 524 (noting that these cases were read too “expansively, and
none squarely st[ood] for the proposition that temporal proximity alone may never show a causal
connection”).
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The discussion in Mickey, relied upon by Montell, was not limited to Title VII cases.
See Mickey, 516 F.3d at 524 (citing McNett v. Hardin Cmty. Fed. Credit Union, 118 F. App’x
960, 965 (6th Cir. 2004) (finding causation in retaliation action under the Federal Credit Union
Act when “only 13 days” separated protected activity from adverse action).
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Unipres cites an opinion from this court for the general proposition that causation
standards in retaliation cases are statute-specific. See Doe v. Rutherford Cnty., Tenn., Bd. of
Educ., 2014 WL 4080163, at *18 (M.D. Tenn. Aug. 18, 2014). This principle is unremarkable;
any claim must be understood and evaluated in the context of the statute under which it is
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The Sixth Circuit has reinforced its ruling in Montell in a Section 1983 First Amendment
retaliation action by again citing approvingly to Mickey and stating that a “close temporal
proximity between protected conduct and an adverse action may be sufficient on its own to raise
an inference of causation.” See Benison v. Ross, 765 F.3d 649, 661 (6th Cir. 2014) (citing
Mickey, 516 F.3d at 525). The fact that Benison is not an ADEA case like Mickey or a Kentucky
Civil Rights Act case like Montell is noteworthy and highlights that the Sixth Circuit considers
Mickey and its progeny (one of which is Montell) alive and well, even when the underlying action
may be of a different nature. Benison is consistent with Doe, 2014 WL 4080163, at *18 (in a
Title IX case, finding plaintiffs had met their burden of establishing causation based on the
temporal proximity between a family’s complaints about a coach and the coach’s decisions
concerning a student’s playing time, in reliance on Montell’s holding that, “where an adverse
employment action occurs very close in time after an employer learns of a protected activity, such
temporal proximity between the events is significant enough to constitute evidence of a causal
connection for the purposes of satisfying a prima facie case of retaliation”) and Russell, 2014 WL
1515527 at *3 (in an FLSA case, observing that “[a] causal link can be shown through direct or

brought – including, e.g., the claims discussed in Mickey and Montell. Doe, which concerned
whether Title IX and Title VII claims were similar, however, is of no import regarding the
specific question of the relationship of temporal proximity to causation.
In addition, Unipres cites, as it did in its Motion for Summary Judgment briefing, to
another opinion issued in this district that has described the FLSA causation standard as “butfor” or “close relationship.” See Russell v. Kloeckner Metals Corp., 2014 WL 1515527, *3
(M.D. Tenn. Apr. 18, 2014). However, Unipres fails to mention that, in the same opinion, that
court stated that this very standard could be met by merely showing “direct or circumstantial
evidence, including showing temporal proximity between engaging in protected activity and
suffering an adverse employment [action].” Id. Moreover, Unipres has not cited to any Sixth
Circuit cases that have specified a heightened level of scrutiny beyond what is set forth in
Russell. As such, these two cases do not establish that the court has made a clear error of law.

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circumstantial evidence, including showing temporal proximity between engaging in protected
activity and suffering an adverse employment [action],” and finding that plaintiff had established
a triable issue of fact as to causation where, immediately after the plaintiff complained about
having to attend lunch meetings “off the clock,” the defendant changed a policy that negatively
impacted the plaintiff and fired him within two months).4
The cases relied upon by Unipres do not change the court’s analysis. The first of these,
Pettit v. Steppingstone Ctr. For the Potentially Gifted, 429 F. App’x 524 (6th Cir. 2011), predated Montell. Although Pettit is an FLSA case, for its authority on the issue of temporal
proximity and causation, Pettit relied upon Spengler v. Worthington Cylinders, 615 F.3d 481 (6th
Cir. 2010). See Pettit, 429 F. App’x at 533. Notably, Spengler was not an FLSA case, strongly
undercutting Unipres’ argument that only FLSA cases are relevant to the instant discussion. See
Spengler, 516 F.3d at 495. Rather, Spengler was an ADEA case similar to the Mickey case,
relied upon by the Sixth Circuit in its subsequent Montell decision. More importantly, several
years later, when the defendant in Montell expressly relied upon Spengler, the Sixth Circuit
rejected that argument, found that the defendant had “misconstrued both the facts and the law,”
and ruled that temporal proximity alone, in the absence of any other evidence, could, in certain
circumstances, support a finding of causal connection in certain instances. Montell, 757 F.3d at
505-506. In short, Unipres has not convinced the court that Pettit supersedes the Sixth Circuit’s

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See also, e.g., Singfield v. Akron Metro. Hous. Auth., 389 F.3d 555, 563 (6th Cir. 2004)
(finding that temporal proximity was “significant enough to constitute sufficient evidence of a
causal connection for the purpose of satisfying [the plaintiff’s] burden of demonstrating a prima
facie case”); DiCarlo v. Potter, 358 F.3d 408, 422 (6th Cir. 2004) (finding temporal proximity of
twenty-one days between the plaintiff’s protected activity and termination “sufficient enough to
constitute indirect evidence of a causal connection so as to create an inference of retaliatory
motive”).
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subsequent ruling in Montell.
The second case relied upon by Unipres is the unpublished decision in Evans v. Prof’l
Transp., Inc., No. 14-6132, — F. App’x —, 2015 WL 3559186 (6th Cir. June 8, 2015). Like
Pettit, Evans relies on only one prior decision and that was also not an FLSA case – rather, it was
a Title VII retaliation action analyzed under the same rubric as that utilized in Montell. See
Evans, 2015 WL 3559186 at *5 (citing Mulhall v. Ashcroft, 287 F.3d 543, 552 (6th Cir. 2002)).
This again undercuts Unipres’ argument that FLSA cases should be insulated from the
application of the principles discussed in Montell. Unipres notes that the Evans court observed
that “[t]emporal proximity, when coupled with other facts, may be sufficient in certain cases to
establish the causal-connection prong of a prima facie case of retaliation, but we have generally
declined to consider temporal proximity to establish the employer’s-knowledge prong.” Id. at *6
(emphasis added). This statement does not, however, establish that the court has universally
declined to do so. The court believes a fair interpretation of this statement is that the court looks
askance at temporal proximity alone unless it is extremely close in time; this statement is
consonant with prior caselaw that has rejected temporal proximity that is too attenuated. Here,
Pelham was terminated extremely close in time to his complaints. Even if, in Evans, the Sixth
Circuit were stating a general reluctance against considering temporal proximity alone to be
sufficient, the court concludes that a finding that this is one of the small number of cases in which
it was sufficient is not a clear error of law or manifestly unjust.
Additionally, Unipres’ motion ignores important parts of the court’s summary judgment
Memorandum. After holding that Pelham had demonstrated temporal proximity, the court went
on to explain that Pelham had also adduced additional circumstantial evidence, in keeping with
the Pettit decision now relied upon by Unipres. The court explained that, “[i]f temporal

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proximity is lacking in strength, the Sixth Circuit has stated that combining it with other evidence
of retaliatory conduct is enough to establish a causal connection.” (Docket No. 39 at pp. 11)
(citations omitted). The court then found that Pelham had met this standard as well:
Here, Pelham complained about his unpaid wages every day for
two weeks and – most importantly – immediately before he was
assigned to work an unfamiliar task at the Nissan Facility that gave
rise to the purported basis for Unipres’ adverse action against him.
Given the immediate temporal connection between (1) Pelham’s
complaints, (2) Unipres’ suspension of Pelham mere hours after the
Nissan Facility shift at issue, and (3) Unipres’ termination of
Pelham shortly thereafter, Pelham has sufficiently established a
case that his complaints had a direct bearing on his termination.
Pelham’s testimony concerning (1) Simpson’s growing anger
towards only him, (2) Brown’s comments echoing the same, and
(3) Pelham’s sudden assignment to a new line position, without any
information as to the identity of his supervisors or the proper
mechanisms for taking breaks, provides additional evidence of
disparate treatment that supports Pelham’s case for causation. See,
e.g., Pettit v. Steppingstone, Ctr. for the Potentially Gifted, 429 F.
App’x 524, 533-34 (6th Cir. 2011) (citing Cantrell v. Nissan N.
Am. Inc., 145 F. App’x 99, 105-06 (6th Cir. 2005) (noting that an
example of sufficient additional evidence of causation can be
disparate treatment in various forms)).
(Docket No. 39 at pp. 11-12.) Accordingly, the court specifically found that, even if additional
evidence were necessary to support Pelham’s case for causation, Pelham had met his burden in
that regard by coupling his allegations of temporal proximity with “additional evidence of
disparate treatment” so as to defeat summary judgment and proceed to trial. Unipres’ partial
motion for summary judgment was, therefore, appropriately denied on this ground as well.
Unipres also contends that the court committed an error of law in finding – based on the
fact that Pelham had adduced evidence sufficient to allow a jury to reasonably reject Unipres’
explanation and conclude that Unipres failed to make a reasonably informed and considered
decision in terminating him – that Unipres did not enjoy the protection of the “honest belief”

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doctrine. (Docket No. 39 at pp. 14-15.) In so holding, the court wrote:
But Unipres also does not dispute the fact that, at 3:00 a.m. on July
17, 2017, Pelham’s drill broke, and he was in the process of
securing replacement equipment from nearby Nissan employees.
See RAMF No. 23. This is an alternative, equally plausible reason
for the Nissan line to have gone down for six minutes around 3:00
a.m., and it is not attributable to Pelham’s delinquency. This
admission leads to other questions of disputed fact concerning the
events of that morning, including whether what occurred at 3:00
a.m. was “authorized” or not, and raises factual issues about the
veracity of Harris’s statement. Stated differently, if Unipres does
not dispute that Pelham’s drill broke at 3:00 a.m., this raises a
triable question of fact as to whether Unipres reasonably relied on
the particularized facts of an adequate investigation in reaching an
honest belief that Pelham was acting in an “unauthorized” manner
at 3:00 a.m. and thus deserved to be terminated for that reason.
This question as to the factual predicate of Unipres’ honest
belief is enhanced by the fact that Unipres also acknowledges it did
not even seek Pelham’s side of the story. See RAMF No. 28.
(Id. at p. 16.) First, Unipres argues that the court’s language “does not dispute” and
“acknowledges” is an improper “overstatement” because Unipres “declared that both these issues
were undisputed for purposes of [the Motion for Summary Judgment] only.” (Docket No. 42 at
p. 7.) The court finds this argument puzzling; the court’s ruling was for the purposes of summary
judgment only as well. To be clear, in its response to Pelham’s Statement of Additional Material
Facts, Unipres did not dispute Pelham’s factual assertion that, at approximately 3:00 a.m.,
Pelham’s drill “malfunctioned, lost power and had to be replaced” and Pelham was in the process
of securing a replacement drill. (Docket No. 36 at p. 7, No. 23.) Unipres is bound by the
position it took for purposes of the summary judgment ruling.
Finally, Unipres contends that the court misunderstood that Unipres must be absolved
under the honest belief doctrine, because “[Pelham] admit[ted] that he met with Unipres’ Human
Resources presence in Smyrna, Ms. Owens[,]” following the shutdown of the Nissan line but did

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not speak with her about the drill malfunction during that meeting. (Docket No. 42 at p. 8.)
Unipres argues that, if what Pelham says is true, “then Unipres did not know about [Pelham’s]
side of story at the time that it terminated him, and, therefore, Unipres’ honest belief is
“unblemished.” (Id.)
While Pelham admits that he accompanied Ms. Owens to her office on July 17, 2014,
after waiting for hours in the parking lot, there are two additional facts of importance that Unipres
cannot avoid: (1) “[Pelham] asked Ms. Owens if she would at least get his side of the story, and
she assured him there would be a time and place for that,” and neither (2) “Ms. Owens nor
[Unipres] ever asked [Pelham] for his explanation about what happened at work on July 17,
2014.” (Docket No. 36 at pp. 89, No. 28.) Unipres did not dispute either of these factual
assertions at summary judgment. Where a decision-maker’s “own testimony shows that he did
not ascertain or know all the relevant facts, and that he did not think it important to know such
facts before terminating” a plaintiff’s employment, “the honest-belief defense does not apply.”
Moffat v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., — F. App’x —, 2015 WL 4880135, *6 (6th Cir. Aug. 17, 2015)
(reversing district court and finding issue of material fact existed as to pretext where decisionmaker failed to conduct basic fact-finding) (citing Smith v. Chrysler Corp., 155 F.3d 799, 807-08
(6th Cir. 1998) (finding that, if the plaintiff can show that the employer’s decisional process was
“unworthy of credence” by producing “sufficient evidence to establish that the employer failed to
make a reasonably informed and considered decision before taking its adverse employment
action,” then the honest-belief defense does not apply)). Here, the undisputed record reflects that
Unipres did not find it important to get Pelham’s “side of the story” before terminating him, even
though Pelham actually met with Ms. Owens and gave Unipres the very opportunity to do so. In

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sum, Unipres has not convinced the court that its decision regarding Unipres’ honest belief
defense was made in clear error or represents a manifest injustice.
III.

Collateral Requests
Unipres requests that the court amend the description of the number and location of

Unipres’ employees contained in the summary judgment Memorandum. This is a non-material
fact (regarding which Pelham has no position), but the court will grant the request. The second
sentence on page 2 of the court’s summary judgment Memorandum will therefore be amended as
follows: “Most of Unipres’ approximately 1,350 employees work in Portland, Tennessee,
although approximately 188 work in a manufacturing facility in Smyrna, Tennessee, in or near
Nissan North America, Inc.’s (“Nissan”) manufacturing plant. Specifically, in June 2014, 99
Unipres employees worked regularly inside the Nissan plant (“Nissan Facility”) itself, while 89
Unipres employees worked nearby in a facility called the Nissan Supplier Park (“NSP”).”
Unipres has also taken the unusual step of requesting that the court revise its summary
judgment Memorandum is several other ways. For example, Unipres desires the court to change
the manner in which it has characterized Unipres’ decision to not dispute certain facts at
summary judgment (e.g., “does not dispute”, “acknowledges”), asserting that the court has made
a number of “misstatements” regarding what Unipres has or has not agreed is correct. These
requests are highly curious, and suggest that Unipres believes the court either is not familiar with
the record or does not understand the difference between the record for purposes of summary
judgment and trial. Remarkably, Unipres even wants the court to insert two paragraphs into its
opinion explaining the difference between summary judgment and trial. (Docket No. 42 at p.
11.) These matters are immaterial to reconsideration of the motion for summary judgment and an

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inappropriate use of the instant motion practice. The court assures the parties that it understands
that facts that are “undisputed for the purposes of summary judgment” may well be disputed at
trial. The court does not find its (or any other) summary judgment Memorandum confusing in
this regard. Accordingly, the court rejects all other suggested changes to the court’s summary
judgment Memorandum that Unipres requests “for additional clarity.” (See Docket No. 42 at pp.
10-11.)
CONCLUSION
Unipres’ Motion for Reconsideration (Docket No. 41) IS GRANTED IN PART AND
DENIED IN PART.
Enter this 8th day of September, 2015.

_____________________________
ALETA A. TRAUGER
United States District Judge

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