12-462-cv

Christensen v. Cnty. of Dutchess

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED

ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE

PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A

DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN

ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST

SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

1 At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals

2 for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United

3 States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York,

on the 27th 4 day of November, two thousand thirteen.

5

6 PRESENT: DENNIS JACOBS,

7 BARRINGTON D. PARKER,

8 DENNY CHIN,

9 Circuit Judges.

10

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12 MAUREEN CHRISTENSEN, 

13

14 Plaintiff-Appellant,

15

16 -v.- No. 12-462-cv

17

18 COUNTY OF DUTCHESS, NEW YORK, ADRIAN

19 ANDERSON, DUTCHESS COUNTY SHERIFF, THE

20 DUTCHESS COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT,

21 MARK BATTISTONI, 

22

23 Defendants-Appellees,

24

25 and

26

27 DONALD CUMMINGS,

28

29 Defendant.

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1
1 FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT:

2

3

4

5 FOR DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES

6 COUNTY OF DUTCHESS, NEW

7 YORK, ADRIAN ANDERSON,

8 DUTCHESS COUNTY SHERIFF,

9 and THE DUTCHESS COUNTY

10 SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT:

11

12 FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLEE MARK

13 BATTISTONI:

ROBERT N. ISSEKS (Alex

Smith, on the brief),

Middletown, NY.

MICHAEL A. MIRANDA, Miranda

Sambursky Slone Sklarin

Verveniotis LLP, Mineola,

NY.

MARK BATTISTONI, pro se,

Millbrook, NY. 

14

15 Appeal from a judgment of the United States District

16 Court for the Southern District of New York (Smith, Mag.

17 J.).

18

19 UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED,

20 AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court be

21 AFFIRMED. 

22

23 Maureen Christensen appeals from the (1) dismissal of

24 her equal protection claim and (2) denial of her motion for

25 a new trial on her remaining substantive due process claim. 

26 We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying

27 facts, the procedural history, and the issues on appeal. 

28 1. Equal Protection Claim. After the jury heard all

29 the trial evidence but before it returned a verdict, the

30 district court dismissed Christensen’s equal protection

31 claim for lack of evidence of sex discrimination. We review

32 de novo, see Peters v. Baldwin Union Free School Dist., 320

2
1 F.3d 164, 167 (2d Cir. 2003), and uphold the district

2 court’s dismissal only if the record reveals no “legally

3 sufficient evidentiary basis” for “a reasonable jury” to

4 return a verdict in favor of Christensen, Fed. R. Civ. P.

5 50(a)(1). 

6 As the district court recognized, Christensen failed to

7 introduce evidence that any actionable discrimination or

8 harassment was motivated by her sex. The evidence suggested

9 that Christensen was subjected to rumors and investigated

10 because of (1) a potentially inappropriate relationship with

11 an inmate, and (2) the intense animosity between her husband

12 and Mark Battistoni, who allegedly spread the rumors. As

13 the district court concluded, “this had to do with behavior”

14 and not “with gender.” Our reasoning in Brown v. Henderson

15 is instructive: “[T]here is overwhelming evidence that the

16 hostility toward [plaintiff] was grounded in workplace

17 dynamics unrelated to her sex and that even [harassing]

18 pictures did not reflect an attack on [plaintiff] as a

woman.” 257 F.3d 246, 255-56 (2d Cir. 2001).1 19

1 Christensen cites to cases from outside this circuit

that acknowledge the “stereotypical notion that a woman will

use sex to advance in the work place,” Appellant’s Br. at

36, and conclude that rumors based on this stereotype may

constitute sex discrimination. See Spain v. Gallegos, 26

F.3d 439, 448 (3d Cir. 1994). But it is a long way from

3
1 2. Motion for New Trial. Christensen’s remaining due

2 process claim went to the jury, which unanimously answered

3 “no” to the question of whether Christensen “established, by

4 a preponderance of the evidence, that a Dutchess County

5 employee . . . uttered statements about [her] that were

6 injurious to [her] reputation, that were made public, and

7 that [she] claims were false.” Christensen did not object

8 to the jury instructions and therefore waived any objections

9 to their form. See Lavoie v. Pac. Press & Shear Co., 975

10 F.2d 48, 55 (2d Cir. 1992) (“Failure to object to a jury

11 instruction or the form of an interrogatory prior to the

12 jury retiring results in a waiver of that objection.”). The

13 district court denied Christensen’s motion for a new trial

14 based on the court’s “best recollection of the evidence, and

15 its own observations of the testimony offered at trial.”

16 “The court may, on motion, grant a new trial on all or

17 some of the issues . . . after a jury trial, for any reason

18 for which a new trial has heretofore been granted in an

such a stereotype to the one Christensen says motivated

discrimination in her case: “that a female jail official who

is repeatedly alone with a male prisoner for long periods of

time must be having sex with that prisoner.” Appellant’s

Br. at 36. The entirely legitimate concern that a jail

official, of either sex, may be engaged in an unusual and

inappropriate relationship with an inmate has little to do

with the kind of discriminatory sex stereotyping in Spain.

4
1 action at law in federal court.” Fed. R. Civ. P.

2 59(a)(1)(A). “[F]or a district court to order a new trial

3 under Rule 59(a), it must conclude that the jury has reached

4 a seriously erroneous result or the verdict is a miscarriage

5 of justice, i.e., it must view the jury’s verdict as against

6 the weight of the evidence.” Manley v. AmBase Corp., 337

7 F.3d 237, 245 (2d Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks and

8 alteration omitted). Because we accord a “high degree of

9 deference” to the “jury’s evaluation of witnesses

10 credibility, . . . jury verdicts should be disturbed with

11 great infrequency.” Raedle v. Credit Agricole Indosuez, 670

12 F.3d 411, 418-19 (2d Cir. 2012); see also DLC Mgmt. Corp. v.

13 Town of Hyde Park, 163 F.3d 124, 134 (2d Cir. 1998) (“[T]he

14 court should only grant such a motion when the jury’s

15 verdict is ‘egregious.’”). A district court’s “denial of a

16 motion to set aside a verdict as against the weight of the

17 evidence . . . is not subject to appellate review.” 

18 Lightfoot v. Union Carbide Corp., 110 F.3d 898, 910 (2d Cir.

19 1997). Instead, “the loser’s only appellate recourse is to

20 challenge the legal sufficiency of the evidence.” Stonewall

21 Ins. Co. v. Asbestos Claims Mgmt. Corp., 73 F.3d 1178, 1199

22 (2d Cir. 1995). 

5
1 Christensen does not demonstrate that the jury reached

2 a seriously erroneous result or that the verdict was a

3 miscarriage of justice. The jury could reasonably have

4 found that Christensen failed to establish by a

5 preponderance of the evidence that a Dutchess County

6 employee uttered statements injurious to her reputation. 

7 The jury heard evidence that Christensen’s professional

8 reputation was unimpaired because she was due to retire

9 anyway and successfully established a private practice post10 retirement. In light of its verdict in favor of Battistoni,

11 the jury could reasonably have concluded that Christensen

12 did engage in inappropriate conduct with an inmate, and that

13 it was this conduct rather than any statements by others

14 that injured her reputation. Regardless of why the jury

15 answered the way it did, it had enough evidence before it to

16 arrive at that answer.

17 We have considered all of Christensen’s remaining

18 arguments and conclude that they are without merit. The

19 judgment of the district court is hereby affirmed.

20

21 FOR THE COURT:

22 CATHERINE O’HAGAN WOLFE, CLERK

23

6