United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
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No. 09-2567
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Aaron Drew Binkley, *
*
Appellant, *
* Appeal from the United States
v. * District Court for the Eastern
* District of Arkansas.
Entergy Operations, Inc., *
*
Appellee. *
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Submitted: March 8, 2010
Filed: April 26, 2010
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Before BYE, ARNOLD, and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.
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ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.
After Aaron Binkley brought this action for breach of contract and promissory
estoppel against his former employer, Entergy Operations, Inc., the district court1
granted summary judgment against him on both claims. Mr. Binkley appeals the
court's judgment against him on his promissory estoppel claim and we affirm.
1
The Honorable Garnett Thomas Eisele, United States District Judge for the
Eastern District of Arkansas.
I.
We view the evidence favorably to Mr. Binkley, the non-movant, as we must
when reviewing a grant of summary judgment. Mason v. Correctional Med. Servs.,
Inc., 559 F.3d 880, 884 (8th Cir. 2009). After working for many years at Entergy's
Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO) facility, Mr. Binkley was terminated for falsifying his
time sheets. As was the custom at the facility, he would complete his time sheets
before the beginning of a pay period; he would then correct them if he was unable to
work part of the time or, if it was too late to make corrections, he would use his
vacation time to repay Entergy for the time that he had not worked. Mr. Binkley's
previous supervisor had approved his timekeeping methods.
During the meeting at which he was terminated, Mr. Binkley's immediate
supervisor, Howard Ridenour, and a human resources representative, Angela
Kindrick, told him that he could seek relief through Entergy's Issue Resolution Policy
(IRP) by presenting his "side" of the issue to a panel of employees and that if the panel
agreed with him he "could get [his] job back." They also told him that, in the
alternative, he could present his grievance through line management, which would
consist of Mr. Ridenour, Mr. Ridenour's supervisor, and Jeff Forbes, the vice president
in charge of ANO. Ms. Kindrick gave Mr. Binkley a copy of the IRP, which included
a statement that Entergy's unit heads were "responsible for Implementation of a Panel
decision." The IRP excluded from the "Issue Resolution program" terminations for
"potential or actual unethical or illegal behavior" and stated that the panel could not
"establish or alter Company policy ... or change work rules."
Mr. Binkley submitted the issue to a panel, asking for reinstatement and
removal of related records from his personnel file, and the panel notified him that it
had decided to "grant [his] requested resolution." Entergy, however, ultimately
decided not to follow the panel's decision: Ms. Kindrick and another human resources
employee told Mr. Binkley that Mr. Forbes was the final decisionmaker, and that he
had said that Mr. Binkley's termination was excluded from the IRP and questioned Mr.
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Binkley's trustworthiness based on the relevant time sheets. Employees could not
work at the ANO nuclear facility without first being certified as trustworthy. Human
Resources Director Becki Bressler attested in an affidavit that, after the panel made
its decision, Mr. Forbes told her that Mr. Binkley's termination came within an
exclusion from the IRP because it was for "potential or actual unethical or illegal
behavior," and she admitted to having mistakenly told Mr. Binkley that his issue was
"appropriate for review." Ms. Bressler added that Mr. Forbes told her that
reinstatement of Mr. Binkley was contrary to company policy regarding discipline and
absenteeism and that Mr. Binkley was not trustworthy.
II.
Mr. Binkley does not challenge the district court's rejection of his contract
claim, which was based on the written IRP. The court held that the IRP did not alter
Mr. Binkley's at-will employee status and therefore any right that he had to
reinstatement "would be meaningless because Entergy could reinstate him and
immediately terminate him and be within its rights in doing so." But Mr. Binkley
maintains that the district court erred in granting summary judgment on his claim of
promissory estoppel. He contends that Ms. Kindrick's statement that he "could" get
his job back and Ms. Bressler's assurance that his issue was reviewable, combined
with the written IRP – particularly its statement giving unit heads responsibility for
implementing panel decisions – constituted a promise that Entergy would follow the
panel's decision. (We believe that the district court's rationale for granting judgment
on the contract claim, if correct, might also dispose of the promissory estoppel claim,
since both claims rely on an alleged promise to follow the panel's decision by
reinstating him. But the district court did not adopt this rationale and we choose not
to consider it further.)
The district court concluded that the claim was time-barred, but we may affirm
on any ground, see Bluehaven Funding, LLC v. First Am. Title Ins. Co., 594 F.3d
1055, 1058 (8th Cir. 2010), and do not reach the question of timeliness. We entertain
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some considerable doubt that the record would support a finding that there was any
promise here at all, which would of course be fatal to the claim; but even if there was
a promise, we conclude that Mr. Binkley's claim fails for another reason.
The Arkansas Supreme Court places a heavy burden on a party relying on
promissory estoppel: He or she "must prove it strictly, there must be certainty to
every intent, the facts constituting it must not be taken by argument or inference, and
nothing can be supplied by intendment." K.C. Properties of N.W. Arkansas, Inc. v.
Lowell Inv. Partners, LLC, 373 Ark. 14, 30, 280 S.W.3d 1, 14 (2008); Rigsby v.
Rigsby, 356 Ark. 311, 316-317, 149 S.W.3d 318, 322 (2004). Mr. Binkley was thus
required to produce strict proof to support each element of his claim including, among
other things, that he "suffered some detriment" in reliance on a promise that Entergy
made. See K.C. Properties , 373 Ark. at 30-31, 280 S.W.3d at 14; Rigsby, 356 Ark.
at 317, 149 S.W.3d at 322; Ark. Model Jury Instruction – Civil 2444.
Mr. Binkley asserts that he suffered detriment because he gave up his right to
press his case up the management structure in reliance on the promise that, if he
sought relief from the panel, its decision would be followed. Even if he relied on the
alleged promise, Mr. Binkley has offered no evidence that his choice caused him any
harm. He attested in his deposition that from the beginning he did not think that he
could obtain relief by pursuing his grievance through line management: When told
about the option, he was "concerned" that two of the three people in the chain of
command were the same people who had decided to terminate him, Mr. Ridenour and
Mr. Forbes. Had Mr. Binkley taken the line-management path, Mr. Forbes would
have been the final decisionmaker. Mr. Binkley provided no proof that he would not
have been fired if he had chosen not to submit his case to the panel. So he has not met
his burden of showing that he suffered a detriment by not presenting his case to line
management and, in fact, we think that the only tendency of the evidence is to show
that he did not suffer any harm.
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Nor do we see any merit to Mr. Binkley's contention that he suffered a
detriment because, in reliance on the alleged promise, he "prepared and presented his
case to the panel." Mr. Binkley prepared some "bullet points" before presenting his
case to the panel; he testified, "Basically, I talked from, from memory and from my
heart." Had he pursued the matter through line management, he no doubt would have
had to tell his story and likely would have presented the same arguments, probably on
more than one occasion.
"In order to survive a motion for summary judgment, the non-moving party
must be able to show sufficient probative evidence that would permit a finding in his
favor on more than mere speculation, conjecture, or fantasy." See Godfrey v. Pulitzer
Pub. Co., 276 F.3d 405, 412 (8th Cir. 2002) (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted). We conclude that Mr. Binkley failed to produce such evidence in support
of a crucial element of his promissory estoppel claim, and therefore summary
judgment against him was proper.
Affirmed.
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