Williams v. United Airlines, Inc.

Background

Clarence Williams, an African American commercial airline pilot, had flown for more than twenty years, including eleven years for United Airlines. United eventually promoted him to fleet technical manager. In 2017, Williams was required to choose between a Performance Improvement Plan and demotion back to pilot. He chose neither and was demoted.

Williams brought claims for race discrimination and retaliation. United moved for summary judgment, asking the court to resolve the claims without a trial.

Race-discrimination claim

The court held that a jury could reasonably find that forcing Williams to choose between a Performance Improvement Plan and demotion was an adverse employment action. The court rejected United’s argument that such a choice could never qualify as an adverse employment action and stated that a jury would have to decide the issue.

The court also found enough evidence for the race-discrimination claim to reach a jury. Williams presented evidence that Supervisor Cormican used demeaning language toward him, including comments in July and September 2017. Williams also presented evidence that Cormican penalized him for not logging a particular number of monthly flights on the 787 fleet without comparing his flight hours with those of other fleet technical managers or identifying a standard number of expected hours. The court said this created a jury question about whether Williams faced tougher performance expectations than other fleet technical managers.

The court considered an email from another United employee who said she had observed Williams receive derogatory and demeaning treatment compared with other team members and believed the difference was based on race. The court stated that the employee would need to testify in person, but found the email sufficient for deciding the summary-judgment motion.

The court further held that Williams’s evidence could support a finding that United’s stated, legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons were a pretext, meaning an explanation masking unlawful discrimination. The evidence included Williams’s communication skills and accomplishments, strong peer reviews and technical work, and correspondence disputing alleged errors. The court also stated that subjective evaluations of a pilot’s communication skills require close scrutiny because they can be susceptible to discriminatory abuse.

United argued that its hiring of First Officer Faye Matthews undermined Williams’s discrimination claim. The court rejected that argument, explaining that Williams did not need to show that he was replaced by someone of a different race. The court found that Williams’s existing evidence could outweigh any inference of nondiscrimination from United’s hiring of another African American professional.

Retaliation claim

For retaliation, Williams had to show that he engaged in protected activity, suffered an adverse employment action, and had a causal connection between the protected activity and United’s action. The court found that Williams engaged in protected activity by cooperating with another African American pilot in that pilot’s separate, earlier lawsuit against United.

A United supervisor testified in the other pilot’s discrimination lawsuit on December 5, 2017. The court stated that the questioning could have shown the supervisor that Williams had cooperated and provided evidence. The supervisor demoted Williams by letter dated December 8, 2017. The court held that the three-day timing could allow a jury to infer that Williams’s cooperation was the true reason for the demotion.

Evidence and after-acquired evidence

United argued that later-discovered evidence showed it would have fired Williams for eavesdropping on a supervisor’s call or for other reasons. The court held that a jury would have to decide whether United really would have fired him for those reasons.

The court denied United’s evidentiary objections because United had not complied with the local rule requiring evidentiary objections in its reply. Independently, the court stated that the evidence cited in the order and its companion order concerning the Wiretap Act was admissible, with one partial exception. The court sustained United’s objection to the word “discrimination” in an employee’s email but stated that the remainder of the email would be admissible if the employee were subpoenaed.

Disposition

Williams withdrew his ERISA Section 510 claim, and the court denied United’s motion on that claim as moot. The court denied United’s motion for summary judgment on all remaining claims. The order therefore left the remaining race-discrimination and retaliation claims for further proceedings, including possible consideration by a jury.