Beard

1 2 3 4 5 6 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

8

9

10 JEROME BEARD, 11 Plaintiff, No. C 18-06783 WHA

12 v.

13 INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING MACHINES CORPORATION, IN PART DEFENDANT'S MOTION 14

FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Defendant. 15

16 17 INTRODUCTION 18 In this employment action arising out of a dispute over commission payments, defendant 19 moves for summary judgment. For the reasons stated herein, defendant’s motion is GRANTED 20 IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. 21 STATEMENT 22 This employment case is a dispute over commissions, not over termination or failure to 23 promote. Plaintiff Jerome Beard is an African-American who began working as a software 24 sales representative for defendant International Business Machines Corp. in 1983. Throughout 25 his career with IBM, Beard has received numerous accolades for his work, including “The Best 26 of IBM.” Starting in 2008, Beard started selling IBM software through a contract vehicle 27 called Embedded…