Tolbert v. Ford Motor Company , 151 F. App'x 376 ( 2005 )

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
File Name: 05a0825n.06
Filed: October 7, 2005
No. 04-3930
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
BRIAN TOLBERT, )
)
Plaintiff-Appellant, )
)
v. ) ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
) STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
FORD MOTOR COMPANY, ) NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO
)
Defendant-Appellee. )
) OPINION
Before: GUY, BATCHELDER, AND GILMAN, Circuit Judges.
RONALD LEE GILMAN, Circuit Judge. Brian Tolbert, an African-American male,
started working as a pipefitter for the Ford Motor Company in 1996. In May of 2000, Tolbert was
sprayed in the nose and mouth with white paint during a racially charged altercation with a fellow
employee. He was never given clearance to return to work due to his self-expressed emotion of
feeling “postal” and because he failed a routine drug test as part of his reinstatement physical.
Tolbert eventually brought suit against Ford, claiming that: (1) he had been discriminated against
on the basis of his race, (2) Ford had retaliated against him for filing a civil rights complaint and
a workers’ compensation claim, and (3) he had been discriminated against on the basis of a
disability. Ford moved for summary judgment on all of the claims. The district court granted the
motion. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
No. 04-3930
Tolbert v. Ford Motor Co.
Tolbert argues on appeal that the district court misconstrued the appropriate legal standard
under the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework when it failed to cite Reeves v. Sanderson
Plumbing Products, 530 U.S. 133 (2000). This omission, Tolbert argues, caused the district court
to reject certain “biased remarks” as “not probative.” Tolbert further maintains that, following
Reeves, “uncorroborated evidence of the decisionmaker as to his or her nondiscriminatory reasons
may no longer be given credence on summary judgment.”
In Reeves, the 57-year-old plaintiff claimed that he had been unlawfully terminated from his
job because of his age. Id. at 138. The jury found in favor of the plaintiff, but the Fifth Circuit
overturned the verdict. Id. at 139. In concluding that the plaintiff had not introduced evidence
sufficient to sustain the jury’s findings, the Fifth Circuit reasoned, in effect, that the plaintiff had
failed to provide any “smoking gun” evidence of discrimination. Id.
The Supreme Court reversed. It first articulated the familiar burden-shifting standard
employed by the federal courts in the discrimination context:
McDonnell Douglas and subsequent decisions have established an allocation of the
burden of production and an order for the presentation of proof in . . .
discriminatory-treatment cases. First, the plaintiff must establish a prima facie case
of discrimination. . . . The burden [then shifts to the defendant] to produce evidence
that the plaintiff was rejected, or someone else was preferred, for a legitimate,
nondiscriminatory reason. This burden is one of production, not persuasion; it can
involve no credibility assessment.
Id. at 142 (citations and quotation marks omitted) (alterations in original). The Court further noted
that
[a]lthough intermediate evidentiary burdens shift back and forth under this
framework, the ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant
intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff remains at all times with the plaintiff.
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Tolbert v. Ford Motor Co.
And in attempting to satisfy this burden, the plaintiff—once the employer produces
sufficient evidence to support a nondiscriminatory explanation for its decision—must
be afforded the opportunity to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the
legitimate reasons offered by the defendant were not its true reasons, but were a
pretext for discrimination. That is, the plaintiff may attempt to establish that he was
the victim of intentional discrimination by showing that the employer’s proffered
explanation is unworthy of credence. Moreover, . . . the trier of fact may still
consider the evidence establishing the plaintiff’s prima facie case and inferences
properly drawn therefrom . . . on the issue of whether the defendant's explanation is
pretextual.
Id. (citations and quotation marks omitted) (alterations in original).
Although Tolbert argues to the contrary, this was the exact standard employed by the district
court in its discussion of the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting standard. Indeed, the district
court’s chief authority, Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248 (1981),
was one of the primary sources relied on by Reeves. The district court did not explicitly cite Reeves
(nor, given the ample caselaw on point, did it have to), but its analysis of the appropriate legal
standard was nonetheless identical to the one employed by that opinion. See Reeves, 530 U.S. at
142-43.
Tolbert’s argument that Reeves lessens a plaintiff’s burden of establishing pretext is likewise
incorrect. Reeves’s holding centered on the ruling by the Fifth Circuit that the plaintiff had not
sufficiently demonstrated that the defendant’s reason for dismissing him was pretextual. In
analyzing the plaintiff’s argument, the Supreme Court first noted that the plaintiff had, through his
testimony, “made a substantial showing that [the defendant’s claim] was false.” Id. at 144. The
Court then reasoned that prior caselaw, including the same cases relied on by the district court in
the present case, made “it . . . permissible for the trier of fact to infer the ultimate fact of
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Tolbert v. Ford Motor Co.
discrimination from the falsity of the employer’s explanation.” Id. at 147. It further commented that
the Fifth Circuit “had erred in proceeding from the premise that a plaintiff must always introduce
additional, independent evidence of discrimination.” Id. at 149.
This analysis is fully consistent with the reasoning employed by the district court. In
reviewing Tolbert’s argument that Ford offered pretextual, rather than legitimate, reasons for
refusing to allow his return to work, the district court did not require Tolbert to “introduce
additional, independent evidence of discrimination,” id., as was required by the Fifth Circuit. To
the contrary, like the Court in Reeves, the district court examined whether Ford’s “proffered reasons
for requiring Plaintiff to obtain a psychiatric release prior to returning to work were false.” Tolbert,
unlike the plaintiff in Reeves, was unable to demonstrate the falsity of Ford’s reasons. We therefore
reject Tolbert’s contention that the district court employed an incorrect legal standard.
We also reject Tolbert’s arguments that the district court erred in (1) concluding that he had
not presented direct evidence of racial discrimination, (2) finding that Ford’s proffered reasons were
not pretextual, and (3) dismissing Tolbert’s claims of retaliation. Because the reasoning that
supports the summary judgment for Ford has been clearly articulated by the district court in a
thorough and well-written opinion, and because we are unpersuaded by Tolbert’s argument that the
district court’s failure to cite Reeves is fatal, the issuance by us of a detailed written opinion on these
remaining issues would be unduly duplicative. The summary judgment order rendered by the
Honorable Donald C. Nugent, Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of
Ohio, is accordingly AFFIRMED on the basis of the reasoning detailed in his Opinion dated June
18, 2004.
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