Opinion ID: 154594
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Instructions on the Gender-Plus Claim

Text: 8 B-G Maintenance contends that the jury was erroneously instructed 1 on Ms. Coleman's gender-plus claim, because the instructions failed to instruct that gender-plus claimants must establish that they were treated differently from similarly situated members of the opposite sex. We agree. 9 In Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp., 400 U.S. 542, 91 S.Ct. 496, 27 L.Ed.2d 613 (1971) (per curiam), the plaintiff's claim of gender discrimination was based on the fact that the employer refused to accept applications from women with pre-school-age children, but did not enforce that policy against men. The Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeals ... erred in reading [Title VII] as permitting one hiring policy for women and another for men--each having pre-school-age children. Id. at 544, 91 S.Ct. at 498. The Court thus created a cause of action for gender-plus discrimination; that is, Title VII not only forbids discrimination against women in general, but also discrimination against subclasses of women, such as women with pre-school-age children. See, e.g., King v. Trans World Airlines, 738 F.2d 255 (8th Cir.1984) (alleging gender-plus-child care discrimination); Inda v. United Air Lines, 565 F.2d 554 (9th Cir.1977) (alleging gender-plus-marriage discrimination), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 1007, 98 S.Ct. 1877, 56 L.Ed.2d 388 (1978); Sprogis v. United Air Lines, 444 F.2d 1194 (7th Cir.) (same), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 991, 92 S.Ct. 536, 30 L.Ed.2d 543 (1971). 10 To be actionable, however, gender-plus discrimination must be premised on gender. As one scholar has artfully explained, Title VII contemplates gender-plus claims because 11 when one proceeds to cancel out the common characteristics of the two classes being compared ( [e.g.,] married men and married women), as one would do in solving an algebraic equation, the cancelled-out element proves to be that of married status, and sex remains the only operative factor in the equation. 12 Lex K. Larson, Employment Discrimination § 40.04, at 40-12 (2d ed.1996) (emphasis added). Thus, although the protected class need not include all women, the plaintiff must still prove that the subclass of women was unfavorably treated as compared to the corresponding subclass of men. See, e.g., Fisher v. Vassar College, 70 F.3d 1420, 1448 (2d Cir.1995) (holding that plaintiff's gender-plus-child-care claim was not adequately supported by the evidence because she failed to compare the tenure experience of women who took leaves of absence for child rearing with the tenure experience of men who took similar leaves of absence); Bryant v. International Sch. Servs., 675 F.2d 562, 575 (3d Cir.1982) (No evidence was before the trial court to show that married males, in circumstances similar to [the married female] appellants, received better, or even different treatment.); Willingham v. Macon Tel. Publ'g Co., 507 F.2d 1084, 1089 (5th Cir.1975) (The practical effect of interpreting Sec. 703 [of the Civil Rights Act] to include [gender-plus] discrimination is to impose an equal protection gloss upon the statute, i.e. similarly situated individuals of either sex cannot be discriminated against vis a vis members of their own sex unless the same distinction is made with respect to those of the opposite sex.). 13 Thus, despite Ms. Coleman's vigorous arguments to the contrary, gender-plus plaintiffs can never be successful if there is no corresponding subclass of members of the opposite gender. Such plaintiffs cannot make the requisite showing that they were treated differently from similarly situated members of the opposite gender. Ms. Coleman suggests that Bryant indicates that gender-plus plaintiffs can compare themselves to all persons outside the corresponding subclass. Bryant does not support such a proposition; the court merely observed that because the employer's policy applied to all persons--male and female, single and married, it was not discriminatory. 675 F.2d at 576. Similarly, Ms. Coleman claims that Fisher supports her argument, because it states that [t]here is nothing to show how Vassar treated married men or unmarried men. 70 F.3d at 1446. Read in its proper context, however, that quote was merely an observation regarding the state of the plaintiff's evidence; just two sentences later, the court held that [t]o establish that Vassar discriminated on the basis of sex plus marital status, plaintiff must show that married men were treated differently from married women. Id. (citing Bryant, 675 F.2d at 575). 14 The district court instructed the jury that in order to recover against B-G Maintenance, [Plaintiff] has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant's actions were motivated by the Plaintiff's gender or gender along with her personal relationship with Mr. Newborn. That instruction envisions a subclass of women who had a personal relationship with Mr. Newborn (or, in other words, Ms. Coleman) for which there is no corresponding subclass of men--that is, men with a common-law marriage to Milton Newborn. Viewing the jury instructions as a whole, we also note that the phrase Plaintiff's ... gender along with her personal relationship with Mr. Newborn, appears many times throughout the instructions. We conclude, then, that the district court's jury instructions on Ms. Coleman's gender-plus claim constituted reversible error. 15 Even assuming, however, that taken as a whole the jury understood the instructions to mean that Ms. Coleman must prove that her termination was motivated by her gender plus her marital status, the instructions were still erroneous. As discussed above, gender-plus claims are ultimately based on gender discrimination. Ms. Coleman argues that if the instructions are carefully reviewed, they do not address comparative class at all. That is precisely our point. The district court failed to instruct that Ms. Coleman must show that similarly situated men were treated differently; thus the instructions allowed the jury to award a verdict in Ms. Coleman's favor if marital status alone were the reason for her termination. Title VII prohibits employers from treating married women differently than married men, but it does not protect marital status alone. Fisher, 70 F.3d at 1447; Willett v. Emory & Henry College, 569 F.2d 212 (4th Cir.1978) (affirming the district court's decision that plaintiff's discrimination claim was based upon marital status, and thus did not give rise to a cause of action for gender discrimination under Title VII). 16 The subtleties of language involved in gender-plus discrimination make it a somewhat perplexing concept to a jury. We appreciate the difficulty of explaining the concept to a jury in the formalized context of jury instructions. Nevertheless, we are concerned that the jury was not told of the significance of Ms. Coleman's relationship with Mr. Newborn in the context of the claim advanced. Because the jury, in all probability, based its verdict on the district court's erroneously given instruction, we must reverse the jury's verdict as to Ms. Coleman's gender-plus claim. See United States Gypsum Co., 72 F.3d at 1495; Fed.R.Civ.P. 61 (stating harmless error standard). 17 A new trial is warranted when the district court's erroneous instructions may have misled the jury. See, e.g., Gardetto, 100 F.3d at 818. However, B-G Maintenance also contends that it should have been granted judgment as a matter of law under Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(b), because Ms. Coleman failed to present sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case of gender-plus discrimination. We agree, and hold that even if the jury instructions had been correct, Ms. Coleman failed to produce evidence on which the jury could properly return a verdict in her favor on the gender-plus claim. 18 Our review of the denial of a motion for judgment as a matter of law is de novo, and we construe the evidence and inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Furr v. Seagate Tech., 82 F.3d 980, 985 (10th Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 684, 136 L.Ed.2d 608 (1997). We must affirm the denial if there is evidence upon which the jury could properly return a verdict in the nonmovant's favor. Harolds Stores v. Dillard Dep't Stores, 82 F.3d 1533, 1546 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 297, 136 L.Ed.2d 216 (1996). 19 In an indirect Title VII case, a plaintiff may prove a prima facie case of discrimination before the defendant is obligated to articulate some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its treatment of the employee. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). Where the case has been fully tried, however, the issue of whether the plaintiff has proved a prima facie case drops out, and we are thus left to consider whether Ms. Coleman proved her gender-plus claim at trial by showing that B-G Maintenance treated her differently than similarly situated men. Metz v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, 39 F.3d 1482, 1491 (10th Cir.1994). We find that she did not. Ms. Coleman put forth evidence that male supervisors were not discharged when their subordinate employees left work during their shifts. None of those supervisors, however, had any kind of personal relationship, marital or otherwise, with their subordinate employees. At most, that evidence is probative only of Ms. Coleman's gender discrimination claim, which the jury rejected. Our review of the record reveals that the jury had no evidence on which it could have concluded that B-G Maintenance treated Ms. Coleman differently from men who also were married to subordinate employees. As a consequence, the jury's award of $250,000 in emotional distress damages cannot stand. The court instructed the jury that it could award emotional distress damages on Ms. Coleman's gender claims, but did not so instruct on the contract claims.