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Pannell v. Food Services of America5/28/1991
Food Services of America, Tradewell Group, Inc., and Thomas Stewart, the defendants in the action below (hereinafter Tradewell), appeal a jury verdict awarding Ronald Pannell, Rodney Adler, Albert Hasson, Ronald Maes, and Robert Miller (hereinafter the Managers), all former Tradewell store managers, damages for their discharge from employment on the basis of age discrimination.
Facts
Tradewell, a subsidiary of Pacific Gamble Robinson, employed the plaintiffs as grocery store managers until their discharge in July 1986. Miller-Cascade acquired all of Pacific Gamble Robinson's stock in May 1986. Food Services of America (FSA) is the surviving corporation from a merger between Miller-Cascade and Pacific Gamble Robinson in 1987. Thomas Stewart was an officer of both Miller-Cascade (subsequently FSA) and Tradewell when the Managers were terminated.
At the time of the terminations, Tradewell operated 49 stores, including Tradewell stores, Prairie Market stores and Price Setter stores. On June 16, 1986, Stewart appointed himself Tradewell's president. According to Fred Friedrichsen, zone manager for 19 stores, Stewart stated at that time that he wanted "young, aggressive managers". Stewart then began what he referred to as an "instant reorganization" of Tradewell. He terminated the president, the vice-president, the internal auditor, the director of sales and marketing, and the director of meat operations.
Following this upper management reorganization, Stewart decided to close 12 stores with low profit margins.
He told Jim Dugdale, whom he had recently promoted from retail operations manager to vice-president of operations, to select the 37 best managers, using Stewart's philosophy. Dugdale asked zone managers Randy Fox and Friedrichsen to evaluate the store managers.
Of his 27 managers, Fox rated plaintiff Hasson last. Of the 19 managers he supervised, Friedrichsen rated plaintiffs Maes, Adler, Pannell, and Miller second, third, sixth and tenth, respectively. Dugdale utilized the information solicited from the zone managers, along with Dugdale's own evaluations and comments from other employees, to devise a point scoring system for the 49 managers. According to this scoring system, all five plaintiffs ranked in the bottom 15. Dugdale and Stewart met and determined that 15 instead of 12 managers would be terminated because a number of them had the same score on Dugdale's scoring sheet.
Dugdale met with Fox and Friedrichsen on July 9, 1986, to tell them which stores were to be closed and which store managers would be terminated. Dugdale's explanation for his termination decisions was that he picked those who would not fit into the new regime. The termination list showed that Miller (age 59), Adler (age 49), Hasson (age 53), and Maes (age 49) were in the top five on the list. Dugdale had previously informed Friedrichsen that he was going to terminate Pannell (age 56), but that he was concerned because of Pannell's status as a community leader. In addition, Dugdale mentioned concerns about Miller's health. As for Hasson, despite his low ranking by both Dugdale and Fox, Friedrichsen testified that Hasson ran the most profitable store in the system.
The Managers' evidence indicated that the five terminated managers who brought this suit were some of Tradewell's best managers. Rod Adler, age 49, worked for Tradewell for 26 years. He started as a clerk and was eventually promoted to zone manager, a position he lost when store closures resulted in the loss of one zone manager position. In 1986, Adler was manager of the Auburn Prairie
Market, and was rated the third best manager by his supervisor, Fr
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