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Jackson v. Georgia-Pacific Corp.12/12/1996
The opinion of the court was delivered by
CONLEY, J.A.D.
In December 1989, plaintiff was fired from his job as foreman by defendant Joseph Savage, the plant manager of the Georgia-Pacific paper mill in Delair, New Jersey in which plaintiff worked. In 1990, plaintiff filed a Law Division action which included allegations that his termination was racially motivated in violation of the Law Against Discrimination, N.J.S.A. 10:5-1 to 42 (LAD), and that his termination was in violation of a company policy manual (a Woolley common law wrongful discharge claim). In October 1993, summary judgment was granted defendants on the Woolley cause of action. In January 1993, and pursuant to a mutual agreement that was expressly without prejudice as to all issues in the litigation, plaintiff was reemployed by Georgia-Pacific, but in an entirely different position and without supervisory responsibilities. Counsel then unsuccessfully sought "interim" counsel fees. Thereafter, following a nine-day jury trial, the jury concluded, in response to the first interrogatory on the verdict sheet, that plaintiff had not satisfied his initial burden under McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802, 93 S. Ct. 1817, 1824, 36 L. Ed. 2d 668 (1973) (McDonnell Douglas), that is he had not proven by a preponderance of the evidence "that he was performing his job at a level which satisfied defendant's reasonable expectations." The jury, therefore, did not proceed to the next two steps in the analysis, that is whether defendant "has articulated or advanced any legitimate nondiscriminatory business reason for its decision to terminate plaintiff" and, if yes, whether "plaintiff has proved that defendants' legitimate business reason was a pretext for discrimination." Pursuant to the "no cause" verdict, the complaint was dismissed.
We have, ourselves, read the entire transcript of the trial. While it is not, of course, our function to second-guess the jury, suffice it to say that we are not at all surprised by the verdict. The evidence in support of the jury's Conclusion that plaintiff simply was not performing his job satisfactorily is, to put it mildly, overwhelming. To be sure, there is no evidence to suggest that the production that plaintiff was able to get from his crews was anything but satisfactory and, perhaps, even superior. Moreover, through his over fifteen years as a foreman, plaintiff continued to receive the positive evaluations that were needed for his annual pay raises. The evidence, however, from Savage, crew members (African-American and Caucasian alike), and the union representative revealed a supervisor whose sole concern was production to the total disregard of the safety of his crew members and contrary to the expressed policies and expectations of management.
Between 1984-89 numerous grievances were filed against plaintiff reflecting his mistreatment of the employees and lack of safety concerns. Many of the grievances were filed in the last two years of plaintiff's employment and during a time when, the jury could have concluded, Georgia-Pacific's safety concerns for its employees had become increasingly important and of which plaintiff was fully aware. In response to this evidence, plaintiff simply considered his management style as "unorthodox" and asserted that none of the grievances had been substantial nor did he suffer any adverse consequences. He admitted, however, that he had been told that management believed he did not demonstrate sufficient concern for the safety of the employees and had been told that his use of abusive and profane language must stop and that he must demonstrate more concern for and tolerance of his employees. There was no evidence of any similar
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