Giuliani v. Polysciences, Inc.

275 F.Supp.3d 564

Thomas GIULIANI

v.POLYSCIENCES, INC.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 17–1705

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

Signed July 31, 2017

Edward T. Kang, Gregory H. Mathews, Jason Powell, Kang Haggerty & Fetbroyt LLC, Philadelphia, PA, for Thomas Giuliani.

William H. Catto, Sean R. Riley, Litchfield Cavo LLP, Philadelphia, PA, for Polysciences, Inc.

MEMORANDUM

O'NEILL, District Judge

Plaintiff Thomas Giuliani brings the present action against his former employer defendant Polysciences, Inc. alleging that Polysciences discriminated against him based on his age and wrongfully withheld both an earned annual bonus and payment for unused sick/personal time. Defendant now moves to dismiss the complaint against it or, alternatively, to strike certain paragraphs from the complaint. For the following reasons, I will grant the motion in part and deny it in part.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

I. Plaintiff's Background

According to the facts set forth in the complaint,¹ plaintiff Thomas Giuliani has a BS in accounting from Elizabethtown College, and an MBA in finance from the College of William and Mary. Compl., Dkt. No. 1, ¶ 10. He has worked for Deloitte, Haskins & Sells (now Deloitte), Commodore computers, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Robinson Alarm Company (now ADT) and Prophet 21 (now Epicor).Id.

Plaintiff began his employment as chief financial officer of defendant Polysciences, Inc. on September 5, 2006. Id. ¶ 12. During his almost nine years as CFO of Polysciences, plaintiff made numerous contributions to the company's success by, among other things, implementing a budget process, updating the accounting software, implementing major changes to the accounting processes, renegotiating new bank loans, restructuring Polysciences' insurance policies and implementing a monthly report consolidating all relevant information for the company. Id. ¶ 13. Through plaintiff's efforts, defendant was able to improve employee productivity, relations with banks and reporting efficiency, all while decreasing expenditures. Id. ¶ 14. Consistent with these achievements, plaintiff received excellent performance appraisals, id. ¶¶ 15–16, and was instrumental in the company's continued survival. Id. ¶¶ 18–20.

II. Alleged Discriminatory Conduct

Sometime in May of 2015, when plaintiff was fifty-eight years old, Polysciences' management, specifically its president and chief executive officer Michael Ott, devised a plan to terminate plaintiff's employment and that of other older workers. Id. ¶¶ 2, 21. Over the three years leading up to plaintiff's termination, Polysciences systematically terminated and/or forced the retirement of several employees over the age of forty. Id. ¶ 24. Of the approximately thirty-one full-time employees close to or over the age of forty who had been employed by Polysciences, twenty-two were either terminated or forced into early retirement. Id. ¶ 25.

As part of its plan to terminate plaintiff's employment due to his age, management allegedly set plaintiff up for failure by assigning him projects with unrealistic deadlines, with little to no assistance and in matters for which he lacked the expertise to accomplish. Id. ¶ 26. For example, on May 6, 2015, Mike Ott asked plaintiff to inventory all equipment not currently being used in all three of Polysciences' buildings and also in a large storage trailer, describe each piece with the proper scientific terms and complete the project in one week without any assistance. Id. ¶¶ 27, 29. Without a background in science, plaintiff was unable to realistically perform this assignment. Id. ¶ 30. In addition, Ott changed the format of the company's financial statements by splitting out a department that was so embedded in another department that it had no relevance to the financials. Id. ¶ 31. This change delayed the publishing of the January and February statements, which Ott blamed on plaintiff. Id. Polysciences terminated plaintiff's employment on June 16, 2015, claiming that he failed to satisfactorily complete his work. Id. ¶ 21.

Polysciences allegedly engaged in a pattern of fabricating pretextual reasons to terminate unwanted employees. Id. ¶ 35. For example, Polysciences fired personal care manager Stacy Walstrum due to her gender, claiming that she failed to complete a number of impossible jobs. Id. ¶ 35. Two other women who held this position were also terminated allegedly due to their gender. Id. ¶ 37. In addition, Polysciences systematically terminated and/or forced the retirement of several employees over the age of forty in the three years leading up to plaintiff's termination, including vice president of personal care, Glenn Sandgren, who was in his fifties when terminated; vice president of technology, Robert Gleim, who was sixty-seven years old when forced into retirement; subsequent vice president of technology, Joel Coret, who was in his forties when terminated; quality control lab manager, Mark Eckert, who was in his sixties when terminated; plaintiff's predecessor, Michelle Crene, who was around fifty when terminated purportedly due to age and gender; and accounts receivable clerk, Ilse Burk, who was eighty-years old when terminated. Id. ¶¶ 38–39.

In addition to age discrimination, Polysciences' discriminatory conduct allegedly also extends to sex, political affiliation and sexual orientation. Id. ¶ 40. For example, the complaint asserts that it is "well known" that there is no opportunity for woman to advance at Polysciences and that all upper-level management positions are reserved exclusively for men. Id. ¶ 41. Indeed, when one female employee expressed an interest in applying for a supply chain planning manager position, she was told by another employee that management does not hire women for any meaningful positions. Id. ¶ 42. Further, after meeting with an insurance sales agent regarding insurance for Polysciences, Ott refused to do business with her after discovering that she was a supporter of then-President Barack Obama. Id. ¶ 43. Finally, Ott routinely gave business to Chick-fil-A due to its anti-gay stand. Id. ¶ 44.

III. Defendant's Alleged Failure to Pay Plaintiff's Wages

Since plaintiff began his employment with Polysciences in 2006, Polysciences gave holiday bonuses to its employees based on the company's profitability for each year. Id. ¶¶ 45–46. Because plaintiff started his employment with Polysciences in September 2006, his holiday bonus was prorated for that year. Id. ¶ 47. Each year thereafter, plaintiff received a bonus of approximately $30,000, including in 2011, which was one of Polysciences' least profitable years due to multiple pending lawsuits. Id. ¶¶ 47–48. In 2014, which was a very profitable year that immediately preceded his termination, plaintiff did not receive a holiday bonus. Id. ¶¶ 49–50.

Pursuant to Polysciences' employee handbook, employees accrued 1.846 hours of personal/sick time per paycheck, or approximately six personal/sick days per year. Id. ¶ 51. Despite Polysciences' policy of not paying employees for their personal/sick time upon termination, Polysciences encouraged its employees to accrue a minimum of 173 personal/sick hours if they wanted to be paid during their first thirty days of short-term disability. Id. ¶ 52. At the time of his termination, plaintiff had accrued approximately 180 hours of personal/sick time, which, based on his salary, was worth about $21,000. Id. ¶ 53. Polysciences did not give plaintiff the opportunity to use his personal/sick time and did not pay plaintiff for that time. Id. ¶ 54.

IV. EEOC Investigation

In August 2015, plaintiff filed a charge of discrimination against Polysciences with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for terminating his employment based on age. Id. ¶ 55. In response, Polysciences contended that (1) plaintiff's CFO position was eliminated as part of a restructuring of the company and, as such, he was not replaced by an employee outside the protected class; and (2) the two most similarly situated employees to plaintiff, in terms of qualifications and position, were in plaintiff's protected class. Id. ¶ 57.

According to the complaint, however, almost every one of plaintiff's responsibilities as CFO was assumed by Ott's two sons, Ryan Ott (age 31) and Andrew Ott (age 27), who are both well outside of the protected class. Id. ¶ 58. These two men make all of the strategic decisions that plaintiff used to make as CFO. Id. ¶¶ 63–67.

V. Procedural History

On April 13, 2017, plaintiff initiated litigation against Polysciences, setting forth three causes of action: (1) a claim of age discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. § 621, et seq. ; (2) a claim of age discrimination under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA), 43 P.S. § 951, et seq. ; and (3) a claim for wages due under the Pennsylvania Wage Payment and Collection Law (WPCL), 43 P.S. § 260.1, et seq. On June 13, 2017, defendant filed a motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, to strike paragraphs of the complaint. Dkt. No. 11. Plaintiff responded on June 27, 2017, Dkt. No. 12, and defendant filed a reply brief on July 10, 2017. Dkt. No. 13.

MOTION TO STRIKE

I. Standard of Review on a Motion to Strike

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f) permits a court to "strike from a pleading an insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter." Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f). Content is immaterial when it "has no essential or important relationship to the claim for relief." Donnelly v. Commw. Fin. Sys., No. 07-1881, 2008 WL 762085, at *4 (M.D. Pa. March 20, 2008), citing Del. Health Care, Inc. v. MCD Holding Co., 893 F.Supp. 1279, 1291–92 (D. Del. 1995). Content is impertinent when it does not pertain to the issues raised in the complaint. Id.,citing Cech v. Crescent Hills Coal Co., No. 96-2185, 2002 WL 31002883, at *28 (W.D. Pa. July 25, 2002). Scandalous material "improperly casts a derogatory light on someone, most typically on a party to the action." Id.,c...