Opinion ID: 759223
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Gleason's Request for Judgment as a Matter of Law

Text: 48 Gleason contends that the district court should have granted him judgment dismissing Gierlinger's retaliation claim as a matter of law on the ground that Gierlinger did not, in this dual motivation case, prove substantially more than simply that a bad or impermissible motive was a factor in the employer's employment decision (Gleason brief on appeal at 35 (emphasis in original)), i.e., did not prove that it was a substantial or predominating factor (id. at 36; see also Gleason reply brief at 2 (predominating  (emphasis in original))). Preliminarily, we note that this argument does not state the correct legal standard, for in a case in which the defendant has advanced a neutral reason for the employment decision, the plaintiff's burden is to show that the impermissible factor was a substantial or motivating factor in her adverse treatment, Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 287, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977) ( Mt.Healthy ). She is not required to show that the impermissible factor dwarfed all other factors. See, e.g., Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 247, 109 S.Ct. 1775, 104 L.Ed.2d 268 (1989) (plurality opinion) (in a mixed-motives case it makes no sense to ask whether the legitimate reason was 'the true reason '  for the decision (emphasis in original)); id. at 259, 109 S.Ct. 1775 (White, J., concurring) (a plaintiff is not required to prove that the illegitimate factor was the ... principal ... reason for petitioner's action). Even aside from Gleason's misdescription of the burden of proof, however, we reject his contention that he should have been granted judgment as a matter of law because that contention has not been preserved for appeal. 49 A party is not entitled to challenge on appeal the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury's verdict on a given issue unless he has timely moved in the district court for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) on that issue. See, e.g., Cone v. West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., 330 U.S. 212, 218, 67 S.Ct. 752, 91 L.Ed. 849 (1947); Pittman v. Grayson, 149 F.3d 111, 119 (2d Cir.1998); Galdieri-Ambrosini v. National Realty & Development Corp., 136 F.3d 276, 286-87 (2d Cir.1998). See also id. at 287 (review may be granted in the absence of compliance with the pertinent principles if required to prevent manifest injustice (internal quotation marks omitted)). In the district court, a party who seeks JMOL may move for that relief during trial at any time prior to the submission of the case to the jury. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(a)(2). The party may renew the motion within 10 days after judgment, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(b), and must do so in order [t]o preserve for appeal a challenge to the denial of a pre-verdict motion for JMOL, Varda, Inc. v. Insurance Co. of North America, 45 F.3d 634, 638 (2d Cir.1995). 50 The JMOL motion must at least identify the specific element that the defendant contends is insufficiently supported. Galdieri-Ambrosini v. National Realty & Development Corp., 136 F.3d at 286. A generalized challenge is inadequate. See, e.g., Cruz v. Local Union No. 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 34 F.3d 1148, 1155 (2d Cir.1994); Lambert v. Genesee Hospital, 10 F.3d 46, 53-54 (2d Cir.1993) (the specificity requirement is obligatory), cert. denied, 511 U.S. 1052, 114 S.Ct. 1612, 128 L.Ed.2d 339 (1994). 51 In the present case, Gleason states that he moved for JMOL after the entry of judgment, but the record does not reveal any proper motion for that relief. He made a posttrial motion that referred in passing to Rule 50, as well as to Fed.R.Civ.P. 59, which governs motions for new trials; but the only relief requested in that motion was the granting [of] a new trial. His motion was accompanied by a document entitled Declaration in Support of a Motion for a New Trial  (emphasis added). The memorandum of law that he eventually submitted stated tersely that JMOL was sought, but it challenged only evidentiary rulings and jury instructions, and did not present any arguments as to why the court should grant JMOL. 52 Not surprisingly, the district court did not view Gleason's motion as a request for JMOL. In its ruling, the court stated: 53 Although the Notice of Motion filed September 17, 1996 facially indicated that relief was additionally sought pursuant to FRCvP 50, such provision applies only to a motion seeking a judgment as a matter of law. As the arguments offered by Gleason make clear, the granting of a new trial was the only relief sought by him. 54 Posttrial Order at 2 n. 1. Gleason did not thereafter ask the district court for reconsideration or otherwise suggest that there was any aspect of his motion that the court had overlooked. We conclude that there was no proper posttrial motion by Gleason for JMOL. 55 More fundamentally, it does not appear that Gleason ever, during the trial, moved for judgment as a matter of law dismissing Gierlinger's retaliation claim for insufficiency of the evidence. Although his brief on appeal makes vague reference to a JMOL motion made at the close of the plaintiff's case (Gleason brief on appeal at 32), he furnishes no record citation to that motion, and our review of the record reveals only a motion that did not address Gierlinger's claim for retaliation. Gleason's motion at the close of Gierlinger's case described her claim as basically a complaint that Gleason was responsible for harassment [she] suffered, and he argued that there was no evidence that he was directly responsible for some misconduct or knew of it and failed to stop it even though he had the capacity to do so. (Third Trial Tr. Aug. 21, 1996, at 175.) Gleason went on to argue that the unrebutted evidence showed also that he lacked the authority to look into Gierlinger's harassment complaints after his own superior officer had completed an investigation (id. at 176), and he concluded that there's simply no theory by which liability under 1983, under the plaintiff's Equal Protection claim, can be premised and so the defendant's entitled to judgment as a matter of law as to that claim (id. at 177). 56 Gleason's motion at the close of Gierlinger's case contained no reference whatever to her claim for retaliation or to any failure of proof with respect to the motivation for the termination of her employment. And although we have found one point at which, following the close of all the evidence, Gleason requested the dismissal of the retaliation claim, that request said simply, We should focus this case on the retaliation claim and dismiss that before we go any further. (Transcript of Third Trial, separately paginated Charging Conference, Aug. 28, 1996 (Third Trial Tr. Charging Conf.) at 33.) This cryptic statement did not indicate that the request was based on any insufficiency of the evidence, much less specify the element on which the proof was supposedly deficient. 57 We conclude that Gleason's present challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support Gierlinger's retaliation claim has not been preserved for appellate review.