Opinion ID: 149654
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Title VII Claims of Retaliation

Text: Title VII also makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee because he [or she] has opposed any practice made an unlawful employment practice by this subchapter, or because he [or she] has made a charge ... in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this subchapter. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a). In order to establish a prima facie case of retaliation, Kaytor must show (1) that she participated in an activity protected by Title VII, (2) that her participation was known to her employer, (3) that her employer thereafter subjected her to a materially adverse employment action, and (4) that there was a causal connection between the protected activity and the adverse employment action. See, e.g., Patane v. Clark, 508 F.3d 106, 115 (2d Cir.2007); Kessler v. Westchester County Department of Social Services, 461 F.3d 199, 205-06 (2d Cir.2006). Close temporal proximity between the plaintiff's protected action and the employer's adverse employment action may in itself be sufficient to establish the requisite causal connection between a protected activity and retaliatory action. See, e.g., Clark County School District v. Breeden, 532 U.S. 268, 273, 121 S.Ct. 1508, 149 L.Ed.2d 509 (2001); Cifra v. General Electric Co., 252 F.3d 205, 217 (2d Cir.2001). In adjudicating retaliation claims, courts follow the familiar burden-shifting approach of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-05, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). See, e.g., Jute v. Hamilton Sundstrand Corp., 420 F.3d 166, 173 (2d Cir.2005). At the summary judgment stage, if the plaintiff presents at least a minimal amount of evidence to support the elements of the claim, the burden of production shifts to the defendant to proffer a legitimate non-retaliatory reason for the adverse employment action. See id. If the employer produces such evidence, the employee must, in order to avoid summary judgment, point to evidence sufficient to permit an inference that the employer's proffered non-retaliatory reason is pretextual and that retaliation was a substantial reason for the adverse employment action. Id. Applying these principles, we reach different conclusions, for the reasons below, as to the viability of Kaytor's claims that she was subjected to retaliation (1) in the termination of her employment and (2) in her pre-termination treatment.
The principal retaliation claimed by Kaytor was Electric Boat's termination of her employment a short time after she filed the present action. As the district court noted, Kaytor presented a prima facie case with respect to this claim. The court concluded, however, as described below, that Electric Boat presented evidence of a non-retaliatory reason for terminating Kaytor's employment, namely that, with good reason, the Company instructed Kaytor to have a psychiatric examination and warned that she would be discharged if she refused; that Kaytor refused; and that the Company fired her for insubordination. As described in Kaytor I, 2009 WL 840669, at -6, -11, Electric Boat presented evidence that it maintained an on-site medical facility at which it employed nurses, physician assistants, and physicians, including Robert Hurley, M.D., a board-certified physician who supervised the facility. One of Dr. Hurley's principal responsibilities was to make determinations as to employees' fitness to perform the functions of their jobs. Dr. Hurley had training in interviewing, evaluating, and treating common psychiatric disorders, and he often sought outside opinions from specialists as part of his fitness-for-duty determinations. ( See Declaration of Dr. Robert Hurley dated March 26, 2008 (Hurley Decl.), ¶¶ 4, 8, 10.) On January 4, 2007, two days after Kaytor returned to work from a medical leave of absence, some of the Electric Boat plant facilities had to be evacuated because of an explosion in one of the laboratories, and employees took refuge in the Company's cafeteria. In the cafeteria, Kaytor experienced dizziness, and she went to the medical facility. While there, she spoke at some length with Dr. Hurley. During that conversation, Kaytor expressed her views, inter alia, that there might be a hidden camera in Dr. Hurley's office; that Electric Boat was spying on her at work and in her home; that a therapeutic counselor she had been consulting was conspiring with Electric Boat to spy on her; and that Dr. Hurley was a part of the conspiracy against her. ( See Kaytor Dep. 334; Hurley Decl. ¶ 14.) This January 4, 2007 meeting with Kaytor caused Dr. Hurley to question her fitness for duty. ( See Hurley Decl. ¶ 23.) He also received from Kaytor a January 4, 2007 email in which she stated, inter alia, that she had had to release all of her doctors because they had been targeted by Dr. Hurley and Electric Boat's legal department. (Hurley Decl. ¶ 17 & Exhibit 2.) And on the following day, Kaytor sent him another email stating, inter alia, that Electric Boat was intentionally trying to make her sick. ( See Hurley Decl. ¶ 20 & Exhibit 5.) In addition, Dr. Hurley had previously received communications from Kaytor that made him question her fitness for duty. These included a September 2006 letter in which Kaytor complained that Electric Boat was sending her to doctors who, in giving skin sensation test[s], punctured her thighs and le[ft] medical equipment in [her] legs. (Hurley Decl. ¶ 16 & Exhibit 1.) Dr. Hurley, in light of these experiences, determined that Kaytor should have an examination as to her psychiatric fitness for duty. Electric Boat, to show that Dr. Hurley's concerns about Kaytor's mental state were reasonable, also presented deposition testimony from two professionals who were not employees of the CompanyKaytor's personal primary care physician and a licensed counselor who had treated Kaytorwho stated that they viewed Kaytor as having paranoid ideation. On or about January 8, 2007, Dr. Hurley scheduled Kaytor for a January 11, 2007 independent medical examination with Dr. Jay Lasser, a psychiatrist. However, Kaytor had a conflicting appointment and could not see Dr. Lasser on January 11. On January 17, 2007, when Kaytor had not rescheduled, the Company sent her a letter instructing her to reschedule by January 24, 2007. The letter stated that Dr. Hurley will be unable to make a determination on your return to work without further information from Dr. Lasser, and that if Kaytor did not reschedule, her refusal would be considered an act of insubordination and her employment would immediately be terminated. (Letter from Linda G. Gastiger, Manager of Labor Relations, Electric Boat, to Sharon Kaytor, dated January 17, 2007.) Kaytor refused to schedule an appointment with Dr. Lasser. She testified that although she received and understood this letter, she did not believe the Company would terminate her employment. ( See Kaytor Dep. 343-44.) In accordance with its warning, however, and in light of Kaytor's failure to schedule an appointment with Dr. Lasser, the Company sent Kaytor a letter on January 25, 2007, informing her that her employment was terminated on account of her insubordination. ( See Letter from Linda G. Gastiger, Manager of Labor Relations, Electric Boat, to Sharon Kaytor, dated January 25, 2007.) The district court found Electric Boat's proffer ample to show a non-retaliatory reasonKaytor's repeated exhibition of signs of paranoiafor ordering the independent psychiatric examination and for terminating her employment because of her refusal to do so, and we agree. The court also concluded that Kaytor presented no evidence from which a rational juror could find that that proffered reason was pretext for retaliation. Kaytor has not pointed us to evidence in the record sufficient to warrant overturning that conclusion. Accordingly, we affirm the dismissal of Kaytor's claim that the termination of her employment violated Title VII for the reasons stated by the district court in Kaytor I, 2009 WL 840669, at -6, -11.
Kaytor also claims that she was subjected to retaliation prior to her termination, arguing, inter alia, that because she complained to HR about McCarthy's abuses, she was in effect demoted by being reassigned to work for a person who reported to McCarthy, was placed in an office containing health hazards, was repeatedly summoned by HR to meetings that she considered superfluous, was given no work to do, was constantly yelled at by her new supervisor, and was ostracized. We conclude that Kaytor's deposition testimony was sufficient evidence to defeat the summary judgment dismissal of this claim. Preliminarily, we note that Electric Boat contends that Kaytor has abandoned any contention that her transfer to a different supervisor after her complaints about McCarthy[ ] constituted unlawful retaliation, because she does not raise this argument in her main brief on appeal and had not raised it in the district court until she moved for reconsideration following the district court's grant of summary judgment. (Electric Boat brief on appeal at 62 n. 7.) The district court, before rejecting this claim on its merits in Kaytor II, stated in Kaytor I that Kaytor had abandoned any claim of pre-termination retaliation, see Part I.C. above. We note, however, that in responding to Electric Boat's motion for summary judgment, Kaytor had argued, inter alia, that she was subjected to adverse employment actions after she reported sexual harassment by her supervisor which amounted to a hostile work environment. She had been the administrative assistant to the Manager of a work unit ..., but when she complained about his use of obscenities and sexual comments, she was transferred to work under Al Crogle, who supervised one of six work groups reporting to McCarthy. (Kaytor's Memorandum of Law in Opposition to Defendant Motion for Summary Judgment at 2.) She referred to the Company's order that she undergo a psychiatric examination as  further retaliation ( id. (emphasis added)) and argued that she had been punished for raising the issue of a hostile work environment ( id. at 7). And in the retaliation section of her main brief on this appeal, she refers not only to having been forc[ed] ... to submit to a psychiatric exam, but also to, inter alia, being transferr[ed] ... to a less prestigious work assignment, and having her job responsibilities take[n] away. (Kaytor brief on appeal at 21.) Although the arguments as to pre-termination retaliation are sketchy, we are unpersuaded that the claim was abandoned. Turning to the merits, we note that a lateral job transfer that does not affect an employee's salary or title may be the basis for a Title VII retaliation claim only if the reassignment would have been viewed by a reasonable employee as being materially adverse. See, e.g., Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. at 68, 126 S.Ct. 2405. The test is an objective one; an employment action is materially adverse if it well might have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination. Id. (internal quotation omitted); see, e.g., Kessler v. Westchester County Department of Social Services, 461 F.3d at 209. Plainly the reassignment of Kaytor to Crogle was occasioned by her complaint to HR about McCarthy. The HR investigation was commenced on May 15, and Kaytor was reassigned on May 16. And there is circumstantial evidence from which a rational factfinder could infer that the Company itself viewed Kaytor's new position as a demotion, given that, on the day after it reassigned her to Crogle, it asked Kaytor if she wanted to return to her old position. But the Company notes that Kaytor's compensation was unchanged, and it plausibly argues that it was merely reasonably separating Kaytor from a manager she claimed was harassing her. The district court found this dispositive of the merits of this claim in Kaytor II. Yet the separation of Kaytor from McCarthy does not account for the ensuing treatment of Kaytor or resolve the question of whether other conditions of her employment were so adversely affected as to dissuade complaints of discrimination. According to her deposition testimony, which must be credited on a motion for summary judgment, Kaytor, after being reassigned, was stripped of her former prestigious responsibility of ordering supplies for the entire engineering department ( see Kaytor Dep. 14, 16-17), was given no work to do ( id. at 299), was screamed at by Crogle on a daily basis for th[e] whole department to hear ( id. at 299, 301), and was ostracized ( id. at 299). A jury, of course, need not credit Kaytor's testimony or view the evidence in the light most favorable to her. But given the summary judgment standards, we conclude that there are genuine issues of fact to be tried as to whether the Company's treatment of Kaytor, following her complaints about McCarthy and prior to the termination of her employment, well might have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making those complaints.