Opinion ID: 3011149
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Individual Liability Under the New Jersey Law

Text: Against Discrimination
In ordering a new trial for defendants Rifice and Madamba, the majority has concluded that the only basis for individual liability under the LAD is S 10:5-12(e), which prohibits any person from aiding and abetting an act prohibited by the LAD. In reaching this conclusion, the majority has predicted that the New Jersey Supreme Court would not recognize a cause of action against an individual supervisor under S 10:5-12(a), which makes it unlawful for any employer to discriminate on the basis of, among other things, sex. Maj. Op. at 45-46. The majority believes that interpreting S 10:5-12(a) to provide for individual liability of supervisors would not substantially further the purposes of anti-discrimination law and would be inconsistent with the prevailing interpretation of Title VII, which does not give rise to individual liability. See Sheridan v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 100 F.3d 1061, 1077-787 (3d Cir. 1996). Because I find these reasons unconvincing in light of the many New Jersey state court cases which strongly suggest that New Jersey law recognizes a cause of action against individual supervisors for their own acts of discrimination, I dissent from the majority's holding to the contrary. At the outset, it is worth noting that, viewed purely as a matter of statutory construction, there is a more than credible argument that the term employer, as used in N.J.S.A. S 10:5-12(a), was intended to encompass individual supervisors. The governing definition of employer under the LAD is found at N.J.S.A. S 10:5-5(e) and provides as follows: `Employer' includes all persons as defined in subsection a. of this section unless otherwise specifically exempt under another section of this act, and includes the State, any political or civil subdivision thereof, and all public officers, agencies, boards or bodies. Subsection (a) of S 10:5-5, in turn, states: 74 `Person' includes one or more individuals, partnerships, associations, organizations, labor organizations, corporations, legal representatives, trustees, trustees in bankruptcy, receivers, and fiduciaries. Based on these definitions, which indirectly define an employer as one or more individuals, it is reasonable to conclude, as plaintiff urges, that the New Jersey legislature intended to include individuals acting on behalf of their employer (i.e., supervisors) within the coverage of the statute. This is particularly so given the legislature's instruction that the LAD is to be liberally construed, N.J.S.A. S 10:5-3, and the New Jersey Supreme Court's repeated recognition that the goal of the LAD[is] `nothing less than the eradication of the cancer of discrimination.'  See Taylor v. Metzger, 706 A.2d 685, 693 (N.J. 1998) (quoting Hernandez v. Region Nine Hous. Corp., 684 A.2d 1385 (N.J. 1996)) (additional citations omitted). Indeed, in this case, plaintiff has an especially compelling argument that defendants Rifice and Madamba ought to be subject to liability under S 10:5-12(a) because public officers are specifically included in the S 10:5-5(e) definition of employer. Although public officers is not defined in the LAD, it is difficult to conceive of a definition of that term that does not encompass a police inspector and a police captain, which are, respectively, the second and third highest ranking positions in the Atlantic City Police Department. All of this is to say that, even if we did not have the benefit of New Jersey state court decisions and were completely left to our own devices, the question of whether Rifice and Madamba could be liable under LAD S 10:5-12(a) is, as the majority acknowledges, a close one. Maj. Op. at 45-46. But see Tyson v. Cigna Corp., 918 F. Supp. 836, 839 (D.N.J. 1996) (holding that S 10-5:12(a) does not provide for individual liability because it does not include any of the phrases that so clearly provide a basis for individual liability under other subparts of LAD). In matters involving state law, however, our role is not to interpret a statute as we deem it appropriate; instead, we must apply the law in a manner that is consistent with the interpretation given to 75 it by the state's highest court. Where, as here, the New Jersey Supreme Court has not explicitly addressed the issue, we must forecast the position of that court. Clark v. Modern Group Ltd., 9 F.3d 321, 326 (3d Cir. 1993). In doing so, we should consider, inter alia, decisions of the New Jersey intermediate appellate courts as well as[t]he `carefully considered statement[s]' of the Supreme Court in dicta. Travelers Indem. Co. of Illinois v. DiBartolo, 131 F.3d 343, 348 (3rd Cir. 1997) (quoting McKenna v. Ortho Pharm. Corp., 622 F.2d 657, 662 n. 21 (3d Cir. 1980)). There have been at least four decisions of the New Jersey Supreme Court in which individual supervisors were sued under the LAD for their own discriminatory acts. See Taylor v. Metzger, 706 A.2d 685 (N.J. 1998); Payton v. New Jersey Turnpike Authority, 691 A.2d 321 (N.J. 1997) (employee brought LAD action against her employer and two of her supervisors for sexual harassment); Montells v. Haynes, 627 A.2d 654 (N.J. 1993) (employee brought suit against employer, supervisor, and others asserting claims for personal injuries and sexual harassment under the LAD); Lehman v. Toys `R' Us, Inc., 626 A.2d 445 (N.J. 1993) (former employee brought action against employer, supervisor, and personnel director, alleging hostile work environment sexual harassment in violation of the LAD). Most recently, in Taylor, 706 A.2d 685, the Supreme Court permitted plaintiff, a county sheriff's officer, to sue the county sheriff, her supervisor, for creating a racially hostile work environment based on the sheriff's use of the term jungle bunny to describe plaintiff. The central legal issue addressed in Taylor was whether the utterance of a single derogatory racial comment by a supervisor could support a hostile work environment claim under the LAD, but implicit in the decision is the proposition that a supervisor is liable for his or her own discriminatory behavior. This follows from the court's observation that: [a] supervisor has a unique role in shaping the work environment. Part of a supervisor's duty is to prevent, avoid, and rectify invidious harassment in the workplace. Id. at 691. Although the majority relies on Taylor for its conclusion that a supervisor can be liable as an aider and abettor of discrimination under LAD S 10:5-12(e), nowhere in the Taylor opinion does the court characterize the defendant as an aider and 76 abettor or suggest that any other individual or entity is principally liable. Given this omission, the more reasonable inference to draw from Taylor, as well as the other cases in which supervisors were sued in their individual capacities under the LAD, is that the Supreme Court has endorsed the concept of supervisory liability under LAD S 10:5-12(a). The decisions of the Appellate Division support an identical conclusion. Muench v. Township of Haddon, 605 A.2d 242 (App. Div. 1992), is particularly instructive. In that case, plaintiff alleged that while working as a probationary dispatcher with the Haddon Township Police Department, she was subjected to a hostile work environment by Joseph Tortoreto, a police officer who had been assigned to train her. Despite plaintiff's complaints to Chief of Police Robert Saunders and Tortoreto's supervisor, Sergeant Walter Aaron, the harassment continued until plaintiff was forced to resign. Plaintiff then brought suit under the LAD against Haddon Township, the Haddon Police Department, Chief Saunders, Sergeant Aaron, and Tortoreto. While the main legal issue in the case was whether plaintiff could maintain a hostile work environment claim in the absence of overt sexual conduct, the court's opinion, which cites, quotes, and discusses S 10:5-12(a), id. at 246, but not the aiding and abetting provision ofS 10:5- 12(e), makes plain that supervisors are individually liable under the LAD. As the court stated: [T]here is no question that `management-level employees,' Chief Saunders and Sergeant Aaron, had been told by plaintiff of Tortoreto's conduct during plaintiff 's probationary period, and that no corrective steps were taken. Indeed, the trial court found that plaintiff complained to the chief `on two occasions' and the chief did nothing about it. Since the evidence established that supervisory personnel were on notice of the alleged harassment and failed to take corrective steps, defendants, including Haddon Township, are subject to liability under the LAD. Id. at 249. Other decisions of the Appellate Division likewise support the notion of individual supervisory liability under LAD 77 S 10:5-12(a). See Maiorino v. Schering-Plough Corp., 695 A.2d 353 (App. Div. 1997) (affirming judgment of compensatory damages in LAD action against plaintiff's former employer and supervisors); Herbert v. Haytaian, 678 A.2d 1183 (App. Div. 1996) (state employee brought LAD claim for sexual harassment against the State of New Jersey and former speaker of the General Assembly); Wilson v. Parisi, 633 A.2d 113 (App. Div. 1993) (reversing grant of summary judgment to defendants in LAD sexual harassment claim brought by high school teacher against high school principal and board of education). In sum, the above cases provide more than ample evidence that, under LAD S 10:5-12(a), a supervisor may be individually liable for his or her own discriminatory acts. I would therefore hold that on remand, defendants Rifice and Madamba are subject to individual liability under LAD S 10:5-12(a), as well as the aiding and abetting provision of LAD S 10:5-12(e). While I do not reject the possibility that the New Jersey Supreme Court, when squarely presented with this issue in a future case, could decide otherwise, I am convinced that, given our obligation to be sensitive to the doctrinal trends of the state courts in the application of state law, the majority has erred in its prediction on this subject. I therefore dissent.
Finally, I do not agree with the majority's decision to affirm the District Court's grant of summary judgment to defendant Mooney. LAD S 10:5-12(e) provides that it is unlawful for any person, whether an employer and employee or not, to aid, abet, incite, compel or coerce the doing of any of the acts forbidden under this act, or attempt to do so. This provision could not be more clear in creating liability for any person who aids and abets a violation of the act, whether the individual is a supervisor, a nonsupervisory employee, or even an individual who is not an employee of the entity that is principally liable for discrimination. Despite the broad scope of the statute, the majority takes the position that a nonsupervisory employee cannot be 78 liable as an aider and abettor for his own affirmative acts of harassment because such affirmative acts do not substantially assist the employer in its wrong, which is its failure to prevent and redress harassment by individual employees. Maj. Op. at 53 (emphasis in original). This statement is correct as far as it goes, but it overlooks the fact that in many sexual harassment cases, including this one, the employer's wrong is not only its failure to prevent and redress harassment by individual employees. An employer also commits a wrong when its supervisors, whose conduct is generally attributable to an employer because of their position in the organization, engage in harassing behavior. See Ellerth, 118 S. Ct. at 2270; Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 118 S. Ct. 2275, 2292 (1998). It follows then that anyone who aids and abets harassment perpetrated by a supervisor that is attributable to an employer can themselves be liable under LAD S 10:5- 12(e). Accordingly, while I agree with the majority that, as a nonsupervisory employee, Mooney cannot be said to have aided and abetted the ACPD in failing to respond to his own acts of sexual harassment, that lone observation does not settle the question of Mooney's liability. Contrary to the majority's view, the ACPD is not liable to plaintiff solely for its failure to prevent and remedy a hostile work environment; a reasonable jury could also find that the ACPD is liable to plaintiff on her hostile work environment claim based on Captain Madamba's affirmatively harassing actions, which, given his high rank, are attributable to the ACPD. To the extent then that Mooney aided and abetted Madamba in creating a hostile work environment, Mooney should be subject to liability under LAD S 10:5-12(e). Under our decision in Failla v. City of Passaic, 146 F.3d 149 (3d Cir. 1998), the relevant inquiry is whether Mooney knowingly [gave] substantial assistance or encouragement to Madamba's alleged discriminatory actions. Id. at 158. In my view, the evidence in the record is sufficient to support such a finding. For example, plaintiff testified that Mooney, in Madamba's presence, remarked that he had heard that Hurley liked them hard and stiff. On another occasion, when plaintiff complained to Madamba that someone had stolen her coffee cup, Mooney asked plaintiff whether she 79 wanted to drink out of his jock cup. App. at A2514. Madamba apparently did not rebuke Mooney at all for this behavior. Viewing this evidence in a light most favorable to plaintiff, a reasonable jury could find that Mooney gave substantial assistance or encouragement to Madamba's unlawful acts of harassment. The District Court's grant of summary judgment to Mooney should therefore be reversed.