Opinion ID: 516050
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: 20 The first case which recognized a cause of action based upon a discriminatory work environment was Rogers v. EEOC, 454 F.2d 234 (5th Cir.1971), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 957, 92 S.Ct. 2058, 32 L.Ed.2d 343 (1972). In that case the court held that a Hispanic employee could establish a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et seq., by showing that her employer created a working environment heavily charged with ethnic or racial discrimination. Id. at 238. The court determined that an individual's state of psychological well-being is a term, condition, or privilege of employment within the meaning of Title VII. Since Rogers, several courts have adopted this position, finding that an employer violates Title VII by creating or condoning an environment at the workplace which significantly and adversely affects an employee because of his race or ethnicity, regardless of any other tangible job detriment to the protected employee. Henson v. City of Dundee, 682 F.2d 897, 901 (11th Cir.1982); Sparks v. Pilot Freight Carriers, Inc., 830 F.2d 1554, 1561 (11th Cir.1987). 21 In Henson, this court applied the Rogers interpretation of Title VII in a sexual harassment case. However, we made it clear in Henson that not all workplace conduct that may be described as harassment affects a term, condition, or privilege of employment within the meaning of Title VII: 22 [The harassment] must be sufficiently pervasive so as to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment. Whether sexual harassment at the workplace is sufficiently severe and persistent to affect seriously the psychological well being of employees is a question to be determined with regard to the totality of the circumstances. 23 Henson, 682 F.2d at 904. See also Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 66-67, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 2405-06, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986) (citing Henson with approval). 24 In the order granting JNOV in this case, the district court ruled that the evidence concerning the noose incidents, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, established that a noose was hung over Vance's work station on two occasions, but that the plaintiff had presented no evidence as to who hung the noose on either occasion. Regarding each of the other alleged incidents of discrimination, the trial court ruled that the plaintiff either failed to make out a prima facie case, or that the defendant provided a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its conduct which the plaintiff failed to rebut. Thus, the court granted the motion for JNOV, stating that [t]wo incidents are not enough to establish that the alleged harassment was a persistent, pervasive practice. Vance, 672 F.Supp. at 1413. 25 We believe that the trial court incorrectly applied the pervasiveness standard outlined in Henson and Meritor. Those cases held that an actionable harassment claim must establish by the totality of the circumstances, the existence of a hostile or abusive working environment which is severe enough to affect the psychological stability of a minority employee. The prima facie showing in a hostile environment case is likely to consist of evidence of many or very few acts or statements by the defendant which, taken together, constitute harassment. It is important to recognize that in assessing the credibility and weight of the evidence presented, the jury does not necessarily examine each alleged incident of harassment in a vacuum. What may appear to be a legitimate justification for a single incident of alleged harassment may look pretextual when viewed in the context of several other related incidents. 26 We stress also that the determination of whether the defendant's conduct is sufficiently severe and pervasive to constitute racial harassment does not turn solely on the number of incidents alleged by the plaintiff. In a recent hostile environment harassment case, the Sixth Circuit explained that drawing a formal line between isolated incidents and a pattern of harassment is not helpful to the analysis:[T]he plaintiff need not prove that the instances of alleged harassment were related in either time or type. Rather, all that the victim of racial harassment need show is that the alleged conduct constituted an unreasonably abusive or offensive work-related environment or adversely affected the reasonable employee's ability to do his or her job. 27 Davis v. Monsanto Chemical Co., 858 F.2d 345 (6th Cir.1988). Thus, in order to determine whether a hostile environment is severe enough to adversely affect a reasonable employee, the law requires that the finder of fact examine not only the frequency of the incidents, but the gravity of the incidents as well. 28 By contrast, the district court in the present case used a two-step analysis to determine whether the plaintiff's evidence was sufficient to withstand the defendant's motion for JNOV. First, the district court examined each individual allegation of discrimination in turn, and found that the plaintiff had made out a prima facie case of discrimination only as to the two noose incidents. Next, the court held that two incidents of discrimination are too few, as a matter of law, to establish a harassment claim under Sec. 1981. 29 Both prongs of the analysis are incorrect. First, as we stated in Henson, the severity of the harassment is to be determined by the totality of the circumstances. Henson, 682 F.2d at 904. It was thus incorrect for the district court to require that the plaintiff establish a prima facie case of discrimination as to each individual allegation that the jury could properly consider. A hostile environment claim is a single cause of action rather than a sum total of a number of mutually distinct causes of action to be judged each on its own merits. Second, the totality of the circumstances necessarily includes the severity, 4 as well as the number, of incidents of harassment. It is thus incorrect to apply mechanically an absolute numerical standard to the number of acts of harassment which must be committed by the defendant before a jury may reasonably find that a hostile environment exists. 30 We find that the trial court erred in ruling that no reasonable jury could have found that the plaintiff was the victim of racial harassment within the scope of Sec. 1981. As the district court noted, the plaintiff produced substantial evidence that a noose was twice hung at her work station. The jury could also have found that Vance was discriminated against with respect to the discipline she received for failing to mention the traffic ticket on her transfer application, and for the altercation with her co-worker Joyce Foskey Blackwood. Regarding the incident involving Vance's transportation to the wrong hospital by her supervisor, Mr. Stembridge, the court found that it was inconclusive as to whether he had heard Vance's request to be brought to Baptist Hospital, and that even if he did, he offered a legitimate explanation for his action. Whether Stembridge actually heard Vance's request, and if he did, whether his explanation for not honoring her request was legitimate or pretextual, are both questions for the trier of fact. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 258, 101 S.Ct. at 1096. The plaintiff also produced evidence of instances of discrimination involving other employees at the Western Way facility, both before and during her tenure there. 5 Viewing all the evidence in context, we believe that the plaintiff satisfied her burden of producing evidence sufficient to create a jury question on her Sec. 1981 claim.