Simple v. Walgreen Company

Facts

P had been hired by Walgreen in 1995, initially as a management trainee. P is African-American. Four years later he was promoted to assistant store manager and two years after that he was offered the job of manager of a Walgreens store in Kankakee, Illinois a minority area with lots of shoplifting in the store. P declined the offer. A year later P was offered a store manager job in Normal, but P rejected that offer too. The store in Normal had a more affluent customer base and 80 percent of its customers were white. D makes nothing of the demographic differences between that store and the ones in Kankakee and Peoria. A few years later, a white woman, Melissa Jonland, was hired as manager of a store in Pontiac, Illinois, without notifying P of the opening. The customers of this store have an average income of $40,000 to $60,000 and more than 80 percent of them are white. It is a more desirable store to manage than the Kankakee and Peoria stores. P had been an assistant store manager for four years and Jonland for only two. D considered both to be highly qualified for appointment as store managers. The only difference was P had more experience. Leanne Turley, P sued D. P's store manager testified in her deposition, 'I may have stated that Pontiac was possibly not ready to have a black manager. It is well known in this area that some of the smaller, outlying towns have some very racist tendencies, and I was simply trying to make P feel better because my feeling was he may not have been very happy working there.' P sought to introduce that statement and others that Turley consulted with management in the decision not to promote P. P argued that D's tracking of the racial composition of its customers shows discriminatory intent, that Jonland was once reprimanded for speaking in a vulgar manner to a coworker. The judge denied admission to the statements and P appealed. 

Issues

Rule of Law

Holding and Decision

Legal Analysis

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