Facts

In Nov. 1984, claimant Larry T. Nguyendo was hired by Hughes Aircraft Company (Hughes), the predecessor company of DirecTV, and hired by DirecTV on April 20, 1998, as a project engineer at its California Broadcast Center (CBC). At the time he was hired, he signed DirecTV's Employee Statements and Agreements form, which included its At-Will Policy specifying that claimant's employment be at-will.

In 2006, DirecTV merged and was consolidated with News Corp., resulting in four of nine Broadcast Centers being shut down. This merger resulted in DirecTV's operations at the CBC changing from engineering and development to a support role utilizing a more advanced technology with little development of new projects. Claimant was promoted to assistant manager for technical services.

Again in 2007, DirecTV laid off employees who worked in the CBC.

In June 2007, Herrera was hired as the manager of IT and Software Engineering Support at the CBC and claimant began to report to him.

In Jan. 2008, Herrera completed his first evaluation of claimant giving him a satisfactory overall rating although he received "improvement required" ratings on four categories. Herrera testified that with the exception of claimant, the remaining nine members of his group were responsible for providing support to the IT systems; whereas, claimant worked on his own projects and did not provide support to the other systems.

In Feb. and March 2008, DirecTV underwent another downsizing.

On a few occasions during group meetings, Herrera used the term "old man" and "old school." However, it is not clear whether these comments were made in reference to claimant or others. Beasley testified that he believed the old man comment was in reference to him, not claimant, and that the old school comment was in reference to outdated systems, and not the people. It was also significant that Herrera did not select two employees in the group older than claimant for layoff.

CLAIMANT'S CONTENTIONS:
Claimant argued that he was 48 years old at the time of his termination, which is not in dispute; that he was a consistently good employee for DirecTV and that he was terminated because of his age.

Claimant claimed that DirecTV failed to follow its policies as presented in its Employee Handbook in terminating him; thereby violating company policy and the implied terms of its employment relationship with claimant.

RESPONDENT'S CONTENTIONS:
DirecTV argued that the evidence refutes this conclusion because the evidence shows that claimant was an at-will employee who acknowledged in writing that claimant understood that his employment with DirecTV was at will and had never been altered.

Result

Claimant shall receive nothing on his claims against DirecTV.

Other Information

After completion of discovery, DirecTV filed a motion for partial summary judgment on claimant's breach of implied contract claim and employment discrimination claim based on his race and national origin. DirecTV's motion was denied. DirecTV moved to dismiss several of the causes of action at the close of claimant's case-in-chief, which were granted, leaving only the breach of implied contract and wrongful violation of FEHA based on age discrimination causes of actions.