Redmon v. Flexsol Packaging Corp., CIVIL ACTION NO. 5:19-CV-00124-KDB-DSC

REGGIE REDMON, Plaintiff, v. FLEXSOL PACKAGING CORPORATION, Defendant.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 5:19-CV-00124-KDB-DSC

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA STATESVILLE DIVISION

March 23, 2021

ORDER

Plaintiff Reggie Redmon was a factory employee at Defendant Flexsol Packaging Corporation ("Flexsol") until he was terminated in March 2018. Redmon alleges in this action that he was discriminated against because of his race (African American) and religion (Baptist) and that he is the victim of unlawful retaliation, all in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq. ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and the North Carolina Equal Employment Practices Act ("NCEEPA"), N.C. Gen. Stat. § 143-422.22. Now before the Court is Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment on all claims (Doc. No. 25).

After careful consideration of the motion, the parties' memoranda and exhibits in support and in opposition to the motion and the oral argument of the parties at a hearing on the motion on March 22, 2021, the Court will grant the motion in part and deny it in part. The Court finds that Flexsol is entitled to summary judgment on Plaintiff's religious discrimination and accompanying retaliation claims. However, the Court finds that there are genuinely disputed issues of material facts on Plaintiff's claims of racial discrimination and related retaliation so Flexsol is not entitled to summary judgment on those claims. Therefore, whether or not Mr. Redmon was subject to unlawful racial discrimination must be decided by the jury at the trial of this matter, if the case is not resolved earlier by the parties.¹

I. LEGAL STANDARD

Summary judgment must be granted "if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. A factual dispute is considered genuine "if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). "A fact is material if it might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law." Vannoy v. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, 827 F.3d 296, 300 (4th Cir. 2016) (quoting Libertarian Party of Va. v. Judd, 718 F.3d 308, 313 (4th Cir. 2013)).

The party seeking summary judgment bears the initial burden of demonstrating the absence of a genuine issue of material fact through citations to the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions or affidavits in the record. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986); Bouchat v. Baltimore Ravens Football Club, Inc., 346 F.3d 514, 522 (4th Cir. 2003). "The burden on the moving party may be discharged by 'showing' ... an absence of evidence to support the nonmoving party's case." Celotex, 477 U.S. at 325. Once this initial burden is met, the burden shifts to the nonmoving party. The nonmoving party "must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial," Id. at 322 n.3. The nonmoving party may not rely upon mereallegations or denials of allegations in his pleadings to defeat a motion for summary judgment. Id. at 324.

When ruling on a summary judgment motion, a court must view the evidence and any inferences from the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Tolan v. Cotton, 572 U.S. 650, 657 (2014); see also Anderson, 477 U.S. at 255. "Summary judgment cannot be granted merely because the court believes that the movant will prevail if the action is tried on the merits." Jacobs v. N.C. Admin. Office of the Courts, 780 F.3d 562, 568-69 (4th Cir. 2015) (quoting 10A Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller et al., Federal Practice & Procedure § 2728 (3d ed.1998)). "The court therefore cannot weigh the evidence or make credibility determinations." Id. at 569 (citing Mercantile Peninsula Bank v. French (In re French), 499 F.3d 345, 352 (4th Cir. 2007)).

However, "[w]here the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the nonmoving party, there is no genuine issue for trial." Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557, 586 (2009) (internal citations omitted). "Only disputes over facts that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law will properly preclude the entry of summary judgment. Factual disputes that are irrelevant or unnecessary will not be counted." Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248. Also, the mere argued existence of a factual dispute does not defeat an otherwise properly supported motion. Id. If the evidence is merely colorable, or is not significantly probative, summary judgment is appropriate. Id. at 249-50.

In the end, the question posed by a summary judgment motion is whether the evidence as applied to the governing legal rules "is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law." Id. at 252.

II. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Reggie Redmon is an African-American male and a lifelong Baptist who resides in Iredell County, North Carolina. In December 2012, Flexsol, a manufacturer of plastics and other packaging materials, hired Plaintiff to work in its Statesville plant as a Repel Operator. As discussed in more detail below, the parties characterize Redmon's employment with Flexsol in starkly different terms. According to his former direct supervisor Mike Martin, Plaintiff was a "productive worker," a "nice person" and "a religious man." See Doc. No. 28-6 at 2. But, in Flexsol's telling, Redmon "was constantly a problem employee" who "was often tardy, missed work frequently, was insubordinate and often had a bad attitude." While a few facts are undisputed (primarily with respect to the circumstances related to Plaintiff's claims of religious discrimination), these broadly divergent views of Plaintiff's employment are emblematic of the state of much of the record before the Court.

A. Allegations Related to Religious Discrimination

There appears to be no dispute that Plaintiff is a religious man who observes Sundays as the Sabbath and generally abstains from participating in any secular work on that day. Indeed, on Sundays Plaintiff volunteers as an associate minister at a Baptist Church, where he plays the piano and drums and teaches Sunday school. Also, Flexsol does not dispute that at the start of his employment, Plaintiff informed his Plant Manager Jim Redman ("PM Redman") and his then direct supervisor Mike Martin that he could not engage in secular work on Sundays because of his religious beliefs.

Flexsol's overtime policy is, however, similarly undisputed. While overtime was not always required, "[i]n instances where overtime is necessary, employees are expected to work thehours." Doc. No. 25-1 at 70. To assign overtime, FlexSol used a system that combined an opportunity for employees to voluntarily sign up for the mandatory overtime (choosing a particular day depending on the employee's preference) and a lottery for filling any overtime needs that had not been met by the employee self-selection process. See Doc. No. 25-30 at ¶¶ 9-10. Specifically, if any overtime slots remained after all employees had a chance to sign up for those slots, a drawing would occur where each employee who had not signed up for a slot would have their name put in a drawing. Those chosen in the lottery would then be assigned the remaining slots. This system effectively allowed Flexsol's employees to avoid being required to work on a particular day of the week, so long as they voluntarily selected an overtime slot and thus avoided the lottery.

For his entire five year tenure at Flexsol until the events at issue here, Flexsol's overtime allocation system accommodated Plaintiff's desire to avoid working on Sunday. Plaintiff preferred not to work overtime so he did not regularly sign up for overtime; however, either because other employees volunteered to work on Sunday or he was not chosen in the lottery, Plaintiff was never scheduled for Sunday overtime. See Doc. No. 25-30 at ¶¶ 11-16, 23; Doc. No. 25-7 at ¶¶ 7, 17-19.

Plaintiff's overtime lottery luck ran out in March 2018. Flexsol required employee overtime on Sunday March 11, 2018 as well as other days during the preceding week. Because he did not sign up for any other, non-Sunday overtime shifts earlier that week, Redmon was placed into the overtime lottery, in which he was randomly chosen to work on Sunday March 11. In response to this selection, Plaintiff testified that he requested that he not be required to work Sunday because of his religious beliefs and offered to work a Saturday instead. However, while Plaintiff suggests that other employees might have been willing to "switch" overtime scheduleswhich would have allowed him to avoid Sunday work, he has not identified any specific employee who was both willing and eligible to work that Sunday. See Doc. No. 25-7 at ¶18. In any event, Flexsol refused to allow Redmon to change his lottery assigned Sunday overtime.² When Redmon did not work on Sunday March 11, Flexsol charged him with an unexcused absence (which Flexsol says led to his termination for accumulating too many points for poor attendance - a conclusion which is hotly disputed as discussed below).

B. Allegations Related to Racial Discrimination

Plaintiff's allegations related to his claims of racial discrimination begin in June 2016. During a lunch break at work, Plaintiff alleges that he watched one of his co-workers, a white maintenance employee named David Hensley, tie some rope together to make a noose. Doc. No. 28-2 at ¶ 13. As Hensley made the noose, Plaintiff says that he approached Hensley and explained to him the deep-rooted, racist history surrounding nooses, how Hensley's conduct offended him, and how other Black employees at FlexSol would be negatively impacted if they saw Hensley's noose. Id. at ¶ 14. Hensley allegedly dismissed Plaintiff's comments, responding that what he was doing was not a problem, and that "slavery happened a long time ago." Id. at ¶ 15.

Pla...