PHILADELPHIA -- A former Temple University manager who was terminated after being caught using his cellphone while at work has obtained a victory in court.
Gerald McHugh Jr., on the bench of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, issued a 14-page ruling on Dec. 17 denying a motion for summary judgment in the lawsuit filed by Berkley Williams against Temple University.
The motion was denied since Temple's arguments had no merit, the ruling says.
Williams, a former employee of Temple's hospital, sued the university alleging that he was only terminated because he was the oldest employee in his sector, and the manager knew he was retiring. As stated in the ruling, Temple "terminated Plaintiff Berkley Williams on Jan. 22, 2016," as Williams "was 61 years old at the time, the oldest employee in Temple’s linen department."
He had been working for the university for 28 years, having started his career as a patient escort in 1987, switching to a materials handler in the linen department in May 2011.
The incident that caused the termination took place on Jan. 16, 2016, when Williams' manager, Joseph Julia, saw him with a cellphone.
"Specifically, about 45 minutes before the close of a 2:30-to-11 p.m. shift for Plaintiff, Julia observed Plaintiff outside his work area, playing a video game on his cell phone. Plaintiff’s explanation is that, after he completed his assigned tasks, he was pulled away from his work area by a coworker who needed help getting a sporting event to work on a computer. He then remained in that area and played a video game on his cellphone to pass the time," the ruling said.
There are different versions to what happened following the occurrence.
"But whereas Plaintiff testifies that he acknowledged Julia, and that Julia did not say anything to Plaintiff about using his phone to play a video game, Julia says that he questioned Plaintiff to no avail: Plaintiff refused to respond, and instead turned to Julia, smiled, and then went about playing on his phone," the ruling stated.
Julia claimed, per the ruling, that "when Plaintiff did not respond, he stood behind Plaintiff for a sufficient amount of time to take a picture of Plaintiff playing videogames on his phone."
The university provided the picture, which Williams did not dispute. He was terminated on Jan. 22, 2016.
After exhausting all administrative resources, Williams sued Temple for age discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
In his ruling, Judge McHugh sided with Williams on age discrimination claims, stating that "the record reflects that Julia hired plaintiff for a role in the linen department when plaintiff was in his late 50s, which seemingly cuts against a bias based on age, but the reference to retirement could reflect Julia’s regret at having brought plaintiff into his department at that stage in his working life."
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Case No. is 17-2514.