Labor & Employment Law

Courts Do Not Sit As Super Personnel Departments

Courts Do Not Sit As Super Personnel Departments
Source: Adjunct Law Prof Blog; http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/adjunctprofs/

Reproduced with permission. Copyright © 2008, Mitchell H. Rubinstein, Esq., Adjunct Professor of Law, St. Johns Law School and New York Law School, All rights reserved.

Hinds v. Sprint/United Management Co., ___F.3d___(10th Cir. April 22, 2008) reminds us that courts do not sit as "super personnel departments." Therefore, without more, an employer's failure to follow its own policies is not evidence of discrimination. As the court explained, the employer's failure to follow a written manual may simply be do to employee error.

Another important aspect of this case was that the employer had spread sheet with hidden cells indicating employee ages. The decision makers did not have access to this information and therefore, it could not be inferred that Sprint took the action in question for discriminatory reasons. The Human Resource Department had created this spread sheet "to avoid problems."

Though this case involved a RIF at Sprint, the case appears to have nothing to do with the Supreme Court's recent decision in Sprint/United Management Co. v. Mendelsohn, 128 S.Ct. 1140 (2008) which dealt with a RIF 2 years earlier. In fact, the 10th Circuit did not even cite to the Supreme Court's decision.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on May 13, 2008 (boomark / email).