Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca11-13-15582/USCOURTS-ca11-13-15582-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Correctional Medical Services
Appellee
Julie Howell
Appellant

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 13-15582

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 1:12-cv-00272-WS-N

JULIE HOWELL, 

 Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

CORRECTIONAL MEDICAL SERVICES, a.k.a. Corizon, Inc.,

 Defendant-Appellee.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Alabama

________________________

(September 9, 2015)

Before JORDAN and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges, and ROBREÑO,

* District 

Judge.

 

* Honorable Eduardo C. Robreño, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of

Pennsylvania, sitting by designation. 

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PER CURIAM: 

Plaintiff Julie Howell appeals the district court’s grant of judgment as a 

matter of law in favor of Defendant Correctional Medical Services on her race 

discrimination and retaliation claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 

1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Because we write for the 

parties, we assume familiarity with the underlying facts of the case. Essentially, 

Plaintiff claims that Defendant discriminated against her by subjecting her to a 

racially-hostile work environment, and then retaliated against her when she 

complained about it. After reviewing the parties’ briefs and the record, and with 

the benefit of oral argument, we affirm in part and reverse in part. 

As to Plaintiff’s race discrimination claim, we affirm the judgment in favor 

of Defendant for the reasons stated in the district court’s order. Based on the 

evidence presented at trial, the district court held that Plaintiff had failed to show 

she was subjected to severe or pervasive racial harassment, as required to support a 

hostile work environment claim. We agree with this holding. 

With respect to the retaliation claim, however, we reverse. To prevail on 

this claim, Plaintiff had to show that she engaged in “statutorily protected” activity

and that, as a result, her employer retaliated against her by imposing an “adverse 

employment action.” Alvarez v. Royal Atl. Dev., Inc., 610 F.3d 1253, 1268 (11th 

Cir. 2010). Plaintiff argues that her complaints about workplace harassment 

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constituted protected activity under Title VII’s opposition clause, which prohibits 

retaliation against an employee because she “has opposed . . . an unlawful 

employment practice.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a).

Plaintiff did not have to prove that the underlying conduct about which she 

complained actually violated Title VII or § 1981 in order to prove that she engaged 

in statutorily protected activity. Little v. United Tech., Carrier Transicold Div., 

103 F.3d 956, 959-60 (11th Cir. 1997). But she did have to show that she not only 

believed, in good faith, that the conduct did violate the law, but also that this belief 

was objectively reasonable in light of the facts and the law. Id.; see also Butler v. 

Ala. Dep’t of Transp., 536 F.3d 1209, 1213 (11th Cir. 2008) (citation omitted). 

The district court held that Plaintiff could not meet this requirement, because 

her belief that she was subjected to a hostile work environment was objectively 

unreasonable in light of the substantive law and the evidence presented. Although 

it is a close call, we do not agree. Even though Plaintiff failed to support her

hostile work environment claim with evidence of severe or pervasive harassment, 

the various workplace incidents, particularly the racially-tinged comments taken in 

tandem with the medicine cart incident, were sufficient to render objectively 

reasonable Plaintiff’s good faith belief that she was opposing an unlawful 

employment practice. Cf. Butler, 536 F.3d at 1213-14 (holding that the plaintiff’s 

complaint about a co-worker’s “one-time use of vile language away from work” 

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could not support a retaliation claim under the opposition clause); Clover v. Total 

Sys. Serv., Inc., 176 F.3d 1346, 1351 (11th Cir. 1999) (“We do not mean to hold 

that the conduct opposed must actually be . . . harassment, but it must be close 

enough to support an objectively reasonable belief that it is. The conduct [the 

plaintiff] described misses the mark by a country mile.”). 

Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s ruling and remand the case for 

trial on the retaliation claim.1

 

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND REMANDED.

 

1

 With only a two-sentence argument, Plaintiff asserts in her opening brief that the district court

dismissed her state-law claim “solely on the basis that her federal claims lacked objective 

reasonableness.” Accordingly, Plaintiff argues that our reversal of the court’s decision will 

“preserve the viability of her state claim.” 

In its response brief, Defendant notes that Plaintiff’s assertion is inaccurate in that the court 

dismissed Plaintiff’s state-law claim for negligent supervision and hiring on two independent 

grounds: (1) that Plaintiff had failed to prove that she was subjected to a hostile work 

environment and (2) that an Alabama state-law claim for negligent supervision and hiring cannot 

be premised on an alleged violation of Title VII or § 1981. As to the latter ground, Defendant 

reiterated the district court’s holding that such a claim requires proof that the underlying conduct 

constitutes a common-law Alabama tort, and proof of a federal cause of action under Title VII 

does not meet this requirement. Defendant also supplied case law authority for this proposition. 

Plaintiff declined to respond to Defendant’s argument that the district court based its dismissal of 

the state-law claim on a ground whose viability continued regardless of our disposition of the 

ruling on the federal claims. In fact, Plaintiff formally waived the filing of a reply brief. We 

have reviewed the district court’s order and Defendant has accurately summarized the basis for 

the court’s ruling. Further, before us, Plaintiff does not dispute the correctness of the district 

court’s dismissal of the state-law claim based on the above ground. Accordingly, we do not 

disturb the district court’s dismissal of this claim. 

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