Zarling v. Abbott Laboratories

Background

John Zarling worked for St. Jude Medical, which Abbott later acquired, and became a Territory Manager. During 2018 and 2019, Zarling discussed retirement, transitioning accounts to coworkers, employment contracts, and guaranteed compensation with Abbott supervisors. He alleged that Abbott later reassigned most of his accounts, pressured him to resign, and ended his employment in April 2020.

Zarling asserted claims for age discrimination, marital-status discrimination, reprisal discrimination, breach of contract, and defamation. Abbott moved for summary judgment on the remaining claims and asked the court to exclude portions of testimony from Zarling’s experts under the rule governing expert evidence.

Summary Judgment

The court applied the summary-judgment standard, under which judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine dispute about a fact important to the outcome and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

The court granted summary judgment on Zarling’s age-discrimination claim. Zarling relied primarily on Stewart’s use of the word “younger” during a March 2019 meeting, but he could not recall the context, and the court found the evidence too vague. The court also granted summary judgment on the marital-status discrimination claim. It concluded that Stewart’s “baggage” comment about another employee’s lack of a spouse or children was an isolated remark, made about a year before Zarling’s termination by a supervisor who was not responsible for the termination. The court found that the evidence did not create a trial-worthy dispute about whether Abbott acted because of Zarling’s age or marital status.

The court granted summary judgment on Zarling’s reprisal-discrimination claims. For the federal age-reprisal claim, the court found that Zarling’s complaint about the “baggage” comment was not protected activity under the age-discrimination law because the comment did not refer to age and Zarling’s recollection that Stewart used the word “younger” was too vague. For the California reprisal claim, the court found insufficient evidence that Zarling’s complaint contributed to his termination. The court also found that most of the other actions Zarling identified were too vague or unsupported, or did not materially affect his employment.

The court denied summary judgment on Zarling’s breach-of-contract claim. The 2019 employment contract required severance if Abbott terminated Zarling before April 1, 2020 because of a position elimination or reduction in force, subject to other contract conditions. The court found trial-worthy disputes about whether Abbott had effectively eliminated Zarling’s position in January 2020 and whether Abbott unjustifiably prevented him from satisfying the contract’s conditions, including by offering a separation agreement that waived severance.

The court granted summary judgment on the portion of the defamation claim based on statements Provost allegedly made to Hofstadter during a January 16, 2020 call. Some statements were opinions, while others were specific enough to be potentially defamatory. However, the court held that the statements were protected by a qualified privilege, meaning a workplace communication made for a proper purpose with reasonable grounds, and found that Zarling presented no evidence that Provost acted with malice.

The court denied summary judgment on the portion of the defamation claim based on Stewart’s 2019 Performance Assessment. It found that at least some statements about Zarling’s sales performance, dealings with doctors, use of a shared calendar, and vacation notifications were specific and verifiable rather than merely opinions. Although the statements were protected by a qualified privilege, the court found a trial-worthy dispute about whether Stewart made them with malice to push Zarling to resign earlier than he wanted.

Expert Testimony

The court applied the federal evidence rule governing expert testimony and the reliability and relevance principles from the Supreme Court’s expert-evidence decisions.

The court granted Abbott’s motion as to Stan V. Smith’s testimony about “hedonic damages,” meaning damages for loss of enjoyment of life. Smith used a willingness-to-pay methodology and Zarling’s self-reported reduction in enjoyment of life to calculate damages. The court found that the methodology was not sufficiently reliable or relevant to alleged reputational and emotional injuries in this case and excluded Smith’s report and related testimony on that topic.

The court denied Abbott’s motion as to Smith’s rebuttal testimony responding to Abbott vocational expert Amy Koellner. The court found that Smith’s background in labor economics and career analysis was sufficient at this stage and that Abbott’s challenges to the factual basis of his opinion could be addressed through cross-examination and contrary evidence.

The court also denied Abbott’s motion as to vocational expert Jennifer Bey’s proposed rebuttal testimony. Bey could provide general observations that age discrimination may have affected Zarling’s efforts to find new employment. The court found that this proposed testimony did not necessarily offer an improper legal opinion and that challenges to its factual basis concerned its weight rather than admissibility.

Order

The court ordered that Abbott’s Motion for Summary Judgment was GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. It was granted as to the age, marital-status, and reprisal discrimination claims, which were dismissed; denied as to the breach-of-contract claim; granted as to the defamation portion based on the Provost-Hofstadter call; and denied as to the defamation portion based on Stewart’s 2019 Performance Assessment.

The court ordered that Abbott’s Daubert motion was GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. It was granted as to Smith’s hedonic-damages report and testimony, denied as to Smith’s rebuttal report and testimony responding to Koellner, and denied as to Bey’s report and testimony.