Mesnick v. Electric Company
Case Date: 10/19/1992
Docket No: 91-1451
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_________________________ No. 91-1451 SAMUEL MESNICK, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY, Defendant, Appellee. _________________________ APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Hon. Rya W. Zobel, U.S. District Judge] _________________________ Before Selya, Circuit Judge, Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge, and Cyr, Circuit Judge. _________________________ Scott A. Lathrop with whom Scott A. Lathrop, P.C. was on brief for appellant. David H. Erichsen with whom Susan M. Curtin and Hale and Dorr were on brief for appellee. _________________________ __________________________ SELYA, Circuit Judge. This appeal calls upon us, in the course of determining whether an employer transgressed the law in its dealings with a former employee, to map the much traveled but little understood intersection between Rule 56 of the Civil Rules and the burden-shifting framework for discrimination cases first crafted by the Court in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). For the reasons that follow, we affirm the entry of summary judgment in the employer's favor. I. BACKGROUND Recognizing the dictates of Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c), we scan the record in the light most congenial to the summary judgment loser and draw all reasonable inferences to his benefit. In 1974, Radio Corporation of America (RCA) hired plaintiff-appellant Samuel Mesnick, a lawyer by training, to work as a senior contracts administrator at its plant in Burlington, Massachusetts. Mesnick was then fifty-one years of age. He was promoted several times, eventually becoming manager of contracts administration. In 1986, defendant-appellee General Electric Company (GE) purchased RCA's business and installed new management at the Burlington facility. Achilles Georgiou became director of finance, and thus, Mesnick's immediate superior. Georgiou discussed Mesnick's job performance with Mesnick's former supervisors, receiving mixed reviews. Georgiou was told good things about Mesnick's technical competence. He was also told, however, that Mesnick had at times shown himself to be a vulgar, bigoted, sexist lout who insulted subordinates, offended clients, drank to excess during lunch, and so forth. On March 7, 1987, Georgiou wrote his initial evaluation of Mesnick's performance. It was largely negative. In closing, Georgiou suggested that Mesnick ought to "pursue a private career of a federal procurement consultant." Instead of the $4,000 raise that he had anticipated, Mesnick received a $2,000 raise. Later on, a meeting was held in which Mesnick complained to Georgiou about unfair treatment in these matters. At the same time, the men discussed an expected reorganization of the contracts department (the Department). As part of this reorganization, GE planned to instate a supervisory position, the holder of which would be in charge of departmental operations at both Burlington and GE's facility in Huntsville, Alabama. The new position entailed many of the plaintiff's previous responsibilities. Mesnick expressed an interest in finding out more about the job, although he voiced some reservations about the involvement of "the hanging judge" |