Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-05-02803/USCOURTS-ca8-05-02803-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Lori Phillips
Appellee
Scott Phillips
Appellee
Phillips Modern AG
Appellee
Maelynn Tenge
Appellant

Document Text:

1

 The Honorable Edward J. McManus, United States District Judge for the

Northern District of Iowa.

 United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-2803

___________

Maelynn Tenge, *

*

Plaintiff - Appellant, *

* 

v. * Appeal from the United States

* District Court for the

Phillips Modern Ag Co; Scott Phillips, * Northern District of Iowa.

Individually and in his official capacity; *

Lori Phillips, Individually, *

*

Defendants - Appellees. *

___________

Submitted: March 14, 2006

Filed: April 28, 2006

___________

Before COLLOTON, JOHN R. GIBSON, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

___________

JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge.

Maelynn Tenge appeals from the district court's1

 grant of summary judgment

to Phillips Modern Ag Company and Scott Phillips on her claims of sex

discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Iowa

Civil Rights Act, and to Lori Phillips on Tenge's claim of tortious interference with

a business relationship. The district court held that Tenge failed to establish a prima

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facie case of sex discrimination and ruled that Tenge had not generated a factual

dispute as to whether Lori Phillips had improperly interfered with Tenge's

employment. We affirm.

I.

We state the facts in the light most favorable to Tenge. Phillips Modern Ag

Company is owned and operated by Scott Phillips, whose wife Lori is also involved

with the company. Tenge first began working for the company in 1993 as a secretary,

but she gradually assumed more responsibility and eventually became the highest paid

employee. For the entire period of her employment, Tenge was an at-will employee.

As a result of her position in the company, Tenge worked closely with Scott on a

regular basis. Scott said that he was always satisfied with her work performance and

that she never failed to perform an assigned task. However, around 2002, Lori began

to believe that Scott and Tenge were involved in a romantic relationship, and she grew

concerned that Tenge was attempting to seduce Scott.

When asked during her deposition whether she had engaged in any intimate or

sexual activity with Scott, Tenge admitted to two instances of touching that occurred

in Lori's presence. On one occasion, Tenge and her husband were at a bar with Lori,

Scott, and other co-workers. Tenge admitted that she "pinch[ed] [Scott] in the butt in

fun" and that she did not care whether Lori saw it. On the second occasion, they were

at a concert with their spouses, and Tenge testified that Scott "pinched me in the butt

and grabbed my hand ... and just kind of like flung it, but that was just a quick

instant." A few days later, Scott told Tenge that Lori was upset about them touching

each other. At her deposition, Tenge agreed that this was physical contact that was

suggestive and of a risqué nature, and that Lori could have suspected the two had an

intimate relationship.

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 Tenge also brought a claim under the Equal Protection Clause of the federal

constitution and state law claims for defamation and tortious interference with a

business relationship against Scott. These claims were dismissed on her own motion

in the district court.

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Tenge also testified that she wrote notes of a sexual or intimate nature to Scott

some five to ten times. She stated that she put these notes in a location where other

people could see them, even though she was not getting along with Lori and she knew

that Lori might have the power to fire her. Indeed, Lori found one of these notes in

the company dumpster, pieced it together, and reacted by terminating Tenge's

employment in November 2002. Tenge admitted that if a person other than she or

Scott had read the note, he or she would conclude that Tenge was interested in

engaging in intimate sexual behavior with Scott. Although Scott reinstated Tenge and

the two agreed that she would continue to work as an at-will employee beyond the end

of the calendar year, he ultimately dismissed her on February 17, 2003. Tenge

testified that Scott told her that Lori was "making me choose between my best

employee or her and the kids."

 Tenge filed charges of employment discrimination on the basis of sex with the

Iowa Civil Rights Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,

and she received right to sue letters. She subsequently filed a complaint in the United

States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa against Philips Modern, Scott,

and Lori, alleging, inter alia, employment discrimination on the basis of sex in

violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Iowa Civil Rights Act,

as well as a state law claim for tortious interference with a business relationship

against Lori.2

 The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Phillips

Modern, Scott and Lori on these claims.

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo and may

affirm on any basis supported by the record. Kratzer v. Rockwell Collins, Inc., 398

F.3d 1040, 1043 (8th Cir. 2005). Summary judgment is proper when, viewing the

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 The Iowa Civil Rights Act, Iowa Code Chapter 216.6(1), has a similar

provision which mirrors federal law, so our discussion of Tenge's Title VII claim

applies equally to her claim under the Iowa Civil Rights Act. Montgomery v. John

Deere & Co., 169 F.3d 556, 558 n.3 (8th Cir. 1999).

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facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, there is no genuine issue of

material fact for trial, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

Fed R. Civ. P. 56(c).

II.

Tenge argues that she was terminated because she is a woman in violation of

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which makes it unlawful for an employer to

discriminate against an employee on account of that individual's sex. 42 U.S.C. §

2000e-2(a)(1).3

 An employee's Title VII claim for sex discrimination can survive

summary judgment in one of two ways. First, the employee can produce direct

evidence of discrimination that demonstrates "a specific link between the alleged

discriminatory animus and the challenged decision, sufficient to support a finding by

a reasonable fact finder that an illegitimate criterion actually motivated the adverse

employment action." Griffith v. City of Des Moines, 387 F.3d 733, 736 (8th Cir.

2004). Alternatively, an employee can use the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting

framework to establish an inference of unlawful discrimination. Turner v. Gonzales,

421 F.3d 688, 694 (8th Cir. 2005).

Tenge first argues that Scott's statement that he had to choose between his best

employee and his marriage is direct evidence of sex discrimination. She claims that

arousing the jealousy of the boss's wife is an illegal criterion for discharge under Title

VII. Tenge admits that she engaged in sexual conduct with Scott that could have led

Lori to suspect an inappropriate relationship. Thus, we are not presented with a

situation where an employee has engaged in no sexually suggestive behavior, but is

terminated simply because an employer or supervisor's spouse perceives the employee

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to be a threat. Nor does Tenge claim that the conduct arose in the context of a hostile

work environment or due to unwelcome advances from Scott. As a result, this case

presents the limited question of whether Title VII's prohibition on discrimination on

the basis of "sex" includes a termination on the basis of an employee's admitted,

consensual sexual conduct with a supervisor. Although this circuit has not yet decided

a case presenting this specific legal question, for the reasons stated below, we

conclude that it is not illegal under Title VII for an employer to discharge an employee

on such grounds. Consequently, Scott's stated reason for terminating Tenge cannot

amount to direct evidence of sex discrimination.

The word "sex" was not added to Title VII until shortly before the bill was

passed, so there is "little legislative history to guide us in interpreting the Act's

prohibition against discrimination based on 'sex'." Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson,

477 U.S. 57, 64 (1986). However, it is clear that in enacting Title VII, Congress

aimed to eliminate the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women in

the workplace. Los Angeles Dep't of Water & Power v. Manhart, 435 U.S. 702, 707

n.13 (1978). Accordingly, in interpreting the meaning of "sex discrimination," the

Supreme Court has expanded Title VII's reach beyond simply prohibiting employers

from making distinctions between employees based on their gender. Meritor, 477

U.S. at 64-65. Title VII now prohibits both quid pro quo harassment, where an

employee's submission to or rejection of a supervisor's unwelcome sexual advances

is used as the basis for employment decisions, and hostile work environment

harassment, where "the workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation,

ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the

victim's employment and create an abusive working environment." Harris v. Forklift

Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21 (1993) (quotations omitted). As Tenge does not raise either

type of sexual harassment claim, we must consider whether Title VII is implicated

when distinctions are made in the workplace based on an employee's admitted,

consensual sexual conduct with a supervisor in a non-hostile working environment.

There are two lines of cases relevant to this inquiry.

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First, many appellate courts have addressed cases of "sexual favoritism," where

one employee was treated more favorably than members of the opposite sex because

of a consensual relationship with the boss. Faced with such a scenario, the Second

Circuit rejected a Title VII claim brought by the disadvantaged group, holding that

"[t]he proscribed differentiation under Title VII ... must be a distinction based on a

person’s sex, not on his or her sexual affiliations." DeCinto v. Westchester County

Med. Ctr., 807 F.2d 304, 306 (2d Cir. 1986). The court reasoned that the male

employees "were not prejudiced because of their status as males; rather, they were

discriminated against because [the supervisor] preferred his paramour." Id. at 308. 

After this decision, other appellate courts have uniformly followed this reasoning in

similar cases. See, e.g., Schobert v. Illinois Dep't of Transp., 304 F.3d 725, 733 (7th

Cir. 2002) ("Whether the employer grants employment perks to an employee because

she is a protege, an old friend, a close relative or a love interest, that special treatment

is permissible [under Title VII] as long as it is not based on an impermissible

classification"); Womack v. Runyon, 147 F.3d 1298, 1300 (11th Cir. 1998) (per

curiam) ("Title VII does not encompass a claim based on favoritism shown to a

supervisor's paramour"); Taken v. Oklahoma Corp. Comm'n, 125 F.3d 1366, 1369-70

(10th Cir. 1997) (same); Becerra v. Dalton, 94 F.3d 145, 149-50 (4th Cir. 1996)

(same); see generally, Merrick T. Rossein, Romantically Motivated Favoritism,

Employment Discrimination Law and Litigation § 5:45 (2005); Mitchell Poole,

Paramours, Promotions, and Sexual Favoritism: Unfair, but Is There Liability?, 25

Pepp. L. Rev. 819 (1998). In 1990, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

weighed in, concluding that "[a]n isolated instance of favoritism toward a 'paramour'

(or a spouse, or a friend) may be unfair, but it does not discriminate against women

or men in violation of Title VII, since both are disadvantaged for reasons other than

their genders." However, the Commission was careful to distinguish cases of

favoritism to an employee actually involved in a romantic relationship with a

supervisor from favoritism based on coerced sexual conduct, which amounts to quid

pro quo sexual harassment, and from widespread sexual favoritism in the workplace,

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which may establish a hostile work environment claim. EEOC Policy Guidance on

Employer Liability Under Title VII for Sexual Favoritism, EEOC Notice No. 915-048

(Feb. 15, 1990).

This circuit has not squarely faced the issue of sexual favoritism, but two cases

indicate our general agreement with the above reasoning. In Thomson v. Olson, 56

F.3d 69 (8th Cir. 1995), we summarily affirmed the dismissal of a Title VII action

brought by a male employee based on the preferential treatment a female co-worker

received due to a consensual romantic relationship with her supervisor. In support of

the dismissal, the district court had reasoned that the prohibited differentiation under

Title VII must be "based on a person's sex, not on his or her sexual affiliations."

Thomson v. Olson, 866 F. Supp. 1267, 1271 (D.N.D. 1994). Later, in Miscellaneous

Docket Matter #1 v. Miscellaneous Docket Matter #2, 197 F.3d 922, 926-27 (8th Cir.

1999), we cited DeCinto and Taken with approval in affirming the district court's

holding that a discovery inquiry into the voluntary sexual relationships of the

company president would be irrelevant to a sex discrimination charge brought against

him. Thus, the principle that emerges from the above cases is that absent claims of

coercion or widespread sexual favoritism, where an employee engages in consensual

sexual conduct with a supervisor and an employment decision is based on this

conduct, Title VII is not implicated because any benefits of the relationship are due

to the sexual conduct, rather than the gender, of the employee.

The second line of cases is more directly analogous to the instant case and

concerns situations where an employee is treated less favorably than employees of the

opposite sex as a result of consensual sexual conduct. For example, in Platner v. Cash

& Thomas Contractors, Inc., 908 F.2d 902, 903 (11th Cir. 1990), the wife of the

business owner's son became "extremely jealous" of one of the female employees,

suspecting that her husband and the female employee, Platner, were having an affair.

The owner of the business became aware of the conflict and terminated Platner

because he "perceived this as a threat to his son's family unit," despite the fact that

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 The only opinion based on somewhat analogous facts did not reach the issue.

In Mercer v. City of Cedar Rapids, 308 F.3d 840 (8th Cir. 2002), a female

probationary police officer was terminated after her romantic involvement with a male

permanent police officer led to problems for the police department. However, Mercer

made no argument that her termination amounted to direct evidence of sex

discrimination, proceeding instead under the McDonnell Douglas framework. Her

claim failed because of the numerous disciplinary grounds for her termination and

because it was clear that she was not similarly situated to the male officer.

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Platner had been an otherwise satisfactory employee. Id. at 903-04. The Eleventh

Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Platner's Title VII claim, emphasizing that "the

ultimate basis for Platner’s dismissal was not gender but simply favoritism for a close

relative." Id. at 905. A number of federal district courts have faced similar cases and

concluded that terminating an employee based on the employee's consensual sexual

conduct does not violate Title VII absent allegations that the conduct stemmed from

unwelcome sexual advances or a hostile work environment. See, e.g., Kahn v.

Objective Solutions, Int'l, 86 F. Supp. 2d 377, 382 (S.D.N.Y. 2000) (employee who

had consensual sexual relationship with her employer was fired at the insistence of his

wife); Campbell v. Masten, 955 F. Supp. 526, 529 (D. Md. 1997) (employee who had

consensual sexual relationship with her supervisor was fired because he saw her as a

threat to his marriage); Freeman v. Continental Technical Serv., Inc., 710 F. Supp.

328, 331 (D. Ga. 1988) (employee who had consensual sexual relationship with her

boss was fired when she became pregnant).

As with the sexual favoritism scenario, this circuit has not yet addressed

whether Title VII prohibits the termination of an employee based on the employee's

admitted consensual sexual conduct with an employer or supervisor.4

 However, in

light of the above authority, we are persuaded that such action does not amount to

discrimination on the basis of the employee's status as a man or a woman; rather, it is

based on the employee's own actions and therefore is permissible under Title VII. The

ultimate basis for Tenge's dismissal was not her sex, it was Scott's desire to allay his

wife's concerns over Tenge's admitted sexual behavior with him. Tenge agreed that

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 The question is not before us of whether it would be sex discrimination if

Tenge had been terminated because Lori perceived her as a threat to her marriage but

there was no evidence that she had engaged in any sexually suggestive conduct.

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her sexually suggestive notes to Scott and their consensual touching could have led

Lori to honestly believe that they were having an intimate relationship. In addition,

Tenge admitted that her termination occurred "because of the suspicion of misconduct

as opposed to because you are female." In this context, Tenge was terminated due to

the consequences of her own admitted conduct with her employer, not because of her

status as a woman. Thus, Scott's stated reason for Tenge's termination does not

constitute direct evidence of sex discrimination.5

In addition to her argument that Scott's stated reason for her termination

amounted to direct evidence of sex discrimination, Tenge also contends that she has

made out a prima facie case of disparate treatment on the basis of sex under the

framework established in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973).

That framework requires a plaintiff to show that (1) she was a member of a protected

group; (2) she was qualified to perform her job; (3) she suffered an adverse

employment action; and (4) she was treated differently from similarly situated males.

Turner, 421 F.3d at 694. If a plaintiff can make out a prima facie case, the employer

must then articulate a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for its actions, and then it

falls to the employee to demonstrate that the reason was simply a pretext for

discrimination. Id.

While the first three elements of Tenge's prima facie case are not in dispute, the

parties disagree as to the fourth element, which requires evidence that Tenge and male

co-workers were "involved in or accused of the same or similar conduct and [were]

disciplined in different ways." Rodgers v. U.S. Bank, NA, 417 F.3d 845, 852 (8th Cir.

2005) (quoting Wheeler v. Aventis Pharms., 360 F.3d 853, 857 (8th Cir. 2004)).

Tenge argues that she was treated differently from similarly situated male employees

because sexual banter between all the employees was common and no male employee

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 Tenge stated in her deposition, "Jay wasn't fired because he pulled his pants

down in a bin in front of the guys. None of the guys were fired because they went to

strip clubs while they were out on the road. Nobody was fired for the comments that

were made on a continuous basis out there, the banter continuously."

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was ever terminated due to such behavior.6

 However, Tenge has not presented

evidence of any male co-employee who wrote explicit notes to Scott or engaged in

mutual consensual physical contact with Scott in Lori's presence. Simply put, the

touching and notes distinguish Tenge's actions from general sexual banter. In

addition, Tenge did not present evidence of similar sexual conduct between other

employees where a female employee was discharged. As we stated in Mercer, "It may

well be that an employer who always fires the woman when two employees engage

in an office romance would be guilty of gender discrimination." 308 F.3d at 845.

Nonetheless, Tenge does not contend that such a pattern exists, nor has she come

forward with any other evidence of discrimination against female employees in the

workplace. Because she fails to make out a prima facie case of sex discrimination, we

affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment on the sex discrimination claims.

III.

Tenge also appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of

Lori on her claim for tortious interference with a business relationship. Iowa law

"imposes tort liability on a person who intentionally and improperly interferes with

the performance of a contract between another and a third person." Condon Auto

Sales & Serv., Inc. v. Crick, 604 N.W.2d 587, 601 (Iowa 1999). If the contract at

issue is an at-will contract, Iowa courts require "substantial evidence that the

defendant's predominate or sole motive of the interference was to damage the

plaintiff." Id. Tenge contends that she has met this standard, pointing to Lori's

testimony at her deposition that she wrote an angry letter to Tenge and urged Scott to

fire her because, as Lori said, "I wanted her to feel the way - I wanted her to be able

to sympathize and relate to my feelings of how I was hurt." However, Tenge admitted

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that Lori's discovery of one of her notes and her own behavior with Scott in Lori's

presence contributed to her termination. Tenge also agreed in her deposition that Lori

may have honestly believed that she and Scott were having an intimate relationship

and that her conduct could have led to that impression. Therefore, even at this stage

in the proceedings, Tenge's own testimony undermines the proposition that Lori's

"predominate or sole motive" in terminating Tenge's employment was to damage

Tenge, rather than to preserve her marriage. Consequently, the district court did not

err in granting summary judgment on this claim.

For the above reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court. 

______________________________

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