Opinion ID: 198690
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Hostile Environment Claim.

Text: 9 The centerpiece of the appellant's case is his contention that the continual abuse he suffered in the workplace created an actionably hostile environment within the purview of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e to 2000e-17, and the Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA), Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 5, §§ 4551-4631. 2 The lower court rejected this claim on the ground that the appellant had shown only harassment because of his sexual orientation, not harassment because of his sex. See Higgins, 21 F. Supp. 2d at 75-76. Accordingly, the court did not reach logically subsequent questions such as whether the harassment resulted in a tangible employment action. See generally Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 118 S. Ct. 2275, 2293 (1998); Burlington Indus., Inc. v. Ellerth, 118 S. Ct. 2257, 2261 (1998). 10 The record makes manifest that the appellant toiled in a wretchedly hostile environment. That is not enough, however, to make his employer liable under Title VII: no claim lies unless the employee presents a plausible legal theory, backed by significantly probative evidence, to show, inter alia, that the hostile environment subsisted because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). If the appellant did not frame a trialworthy issue as to this essential element of his claim, Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c) authorized the entry of summary judgment. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986). The Supreme Court has made clear in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 118 S. Ct. 998 (1998) that, in same-sex harassment cases as in all sexual harassment cases, the plaintiff must always prove that the conduct at issue was not merely tinged with offensive sexual connotations, but in fact constituted discrimination because of . . . sex. Id. at 1002. The statutory because of . . . sex requirement is not met merely because workplace harassment involves sexual matters: the substance of the violation is discrimination based on sex or, as the Court put the matter, whether members of one sex are exposed to disadvantageous terms or conditions of employment to which members of the other sex are not exposed. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 11 We hold no brief for harassment because of sexual orientation; it is a noxious practice, deserving of censure and opprobrium. But we are called upon here to construe a statute as glossed by the Supreme Court, not to make a moral judgment -- and we regard it as settled law that, as drafted and authoritatively construed, Title VII does not proscribe harassment simply because of sexual orientation. See Hopkins v. Baltimore Gas & Elec. Co., 77 F.3d 745, 751-52 & n.3 (4th Cir. 1996); Williamson v. A.G. Edwards & Sons, 876 F.2d 69, 70 (8th Cir. 1989). The appellant argued below for a contrary rule, but the court correctly rejected his importunings. See Higgins, 21 F. Supp. 2d at 73-74, 76. To that extent, summary judgment plainly was appropriate. 12 On appeal, Higgins recasts his argument and presents two additional theories suggesting why the hostile environment that pervaded New Balance's factory was because of . . . sex, and thus actionable under Title VII. His first, a sex-plus theory, posits that the employer discriminated against men -- and only men -- who possessed certain qualities. Eminent authority indicates that such a course of action, if proven, may constitute discrimination because of . . . sex. See Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp., 400 U.S. 542, 544 (1971) (per curiam) (reversing summary judgment and holding that an employer may have violated Title VII by treating women with pre-school-age children differently than men with children of the same age). Riding this horse for all it is worth, the appellant identifies the culpable trait -- for which men were punished but women were not -- as either a sexual attraction to men or, alternatively, homosexuality. 13 The appellant's second theory derives from Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989), in which the Court ruled that an individual who suffered adverse employment consequences because she did not match the social stereotypes associated with her protected group had an actionable claim under Title VII. 3 See id. at 250-52 (plurality op.); id. at 272-73 (O'Connor, J., concurring). Following this lead, the appellant points to evidence that his peers mocked him by speaking in high-pitched voices and mimicking feminine movements. From these circumstances, he asseverates that he was harassed because he failed to meet his co-workers' stereotyped standards of masculinity and that, therefore, he was harassed because of . . . sex. 14 Both of these initiatives lack focused factual development in the summary judgment record. We need not probe this point too deeply, however, for -- absent exceptional circumstances, not present here -- we consider on appeal only arguments that were before the nisi prius court. See Muniz-Cabrero, 23 F.3d at 609 (A party opposing a summary judgment motion must inform the trial judge of the reasons, legal or factual, why summary judgment should not be entered. If [he] does not do so, and loses the motion, [he] cannot raise such reasons on appeal. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Slade, 980 F.2d at 30 (It is a bedrock rule that when a party has not presented an argument to the district court, she may not unveil it in the court of appeals.). The appellant's newfound theories of sex discrimination were not. We explain briefly. 15 The papers originally presented by Higgins to the trial court did not claim sexual harassment at all. In respect to the hostile environment claim, his complaint cited only the MHRA and averred that his co-workers abused him because of his sexual preference. The appellant shifted gears somewhat in his memorandum opposing summary judgment (mentioning Title VII as well as cases involving hostile environment sexual harassment), but he continued to attribute the harassment that he had experienced to his sexual preference. As if to drive the point home, he filed a statement of disputed material facts, see D. Me. R. 56(c), in which he reasserted that his co-workers knew him to be homosexual and treated him hostilely as a result. He did not, then or thereafter, attempt to show that the harassment was because of . . . sex and thus actionable under Title VII. 16 The appellant later supplemented his summary judgment opposition. In that submission, he collected some precedents regarding claims of same-sex sexual harassment, and his lawyer wrote, conclusorily, that [s]exual [h]arassment, based upon sexual preference or orientation, creating an objectionable, abusive hostile work environment, perceived so by a reasonable person and the victim, is sex and gender related, and is a violation of Title VII . . . as well as of [the MHRA]. Still, the appellant never attempted to explain to the lower court how -- apart from sexual preference or orientation -- the harassment was sex and gender related. He made no mention of Phillips, Price Waterhouse, or their respective progeny, nor did he marshal any evidence of abuse because of . . . sex. 17 Although it is an appellant's duty to order a transcript of any portion of the proceedings below that he wishes the court of appeals to consider, see Fed. R. App. P. 10(b)(1), Higgins has not proffered a transcript of the oral arguments on the summary judgment motion. Since we cannot tell from the available record precisely what his counsel may (or may not) have said during that session, we must assume that his counsel's oral presentation tracked his written submissions. See Campos-Orrego v. Rivera, 175 F.3d 89, 93 (1st Cir. 1999) (Parties seeking appellate review must furnish the court with the raw materials necessary to the due performance of the appellate task.). 18 On this record, we cannot reach the new and different arguments that the appellant attempts to advance on appeal. We have warned that parties who permit their adversaries to configure the summary judgment record place themselves in peril. See Kelly v. United States, 924 F.2d 355, 358 (1st Cir. 1991). A party who aspires to oppose a summary judgment motion must spell out his arguments squarely and distinctly, or else forever hold his peace. See Sammartano, 161 F.3d at 97-98; Paterson-Leitch Co. v. Massachusetts Mun. Wholesale Elec. Co., 840 F.2d 985, 990 (1st Cir. 1988). The district court is free to disregard arguments that are not adequately developed, see McCoy v. MIT, 950 F.2d 13, 22 (1st Cir. 1991), and such arguments cannot be resurrected on appeal. 19 These elementary principles are dispositive here. The appellant's sex-plus claim never surfaced in the district court, and the record contains no proof at all about how women with the plus traits that he now says are central to the case were treated at New Balance. Because the district court had before it neither evidence from which it could draw an inference of sex-plus harassment nor acrystallized legal theory that suggested a viable basis for such a cause of action, no impediment existed to brevis disposition. 20 The appellant's claim of impermissible stereotyping fares no better. Although he now maintains that the evidence of co-workers mocking his supposedly effeminate characteristics supports an argument for harassment based on sexual stereotypes, he presented that evidence to the district court only as an example of discrimination because of sexual orientation. He did not mention gender stereotyping below and he did not present any considered argumentation along that line. 4 His eleventh-hour statement to the district court that all harassment based on sexual orientation is sex . . . related was an unsupported conclusion, not a developed argument -- and conclusory statements of that sort cannot defeat summary judgment. See Dow v. United Bhd. of Carpenters, 1 F.3d 56, 59-60 (1st Cir. 1993); Medina Munoz v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 896 F.2d 5, 8 (1st Cir. 1990). 21 Where, as here, arguments made before the trial court and the appellate court, respectively, pull from the evidence common factual threads but weave them into distinctly different legal patterns, the new argument normally is deemed forfeited. See Sammartano, 161 F.3d at 98; Slade, 980 F.2d at 30; Clauson v. Smith, 823 F.2d 660, 665-66 (1st Cir. 1987). This is as it should be: considerations of fairness, institutional order, and respect for trial courts in our hierarchical system of justice all militate strongly in favor of such a rule. Consequently, the court of appeals should be extremely reluctant to reverse a district court's decision because an appellant belatedly presents on appeal a legal theory, not argued below, hinged on a piece of evidence that was buried in the district court record. While such reluctance might be overcome if compelling reasons for an exception exist, nothing about the present situation justifies such a departure. Accordingly, we conclude that the district court did not err in granting summary judgment in New Balance's favor on the hostile environment claim. 22