Opinion ID: 2967284
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Nature of the Unwelcome Conduct

Text: We next turn to the third Harris factor: whether the evidence demonstrates unwelcome conduct that was physically threatening or humiliating, or that instead merely constituted offensive utterances. Some examples of such unwelcome conduct found in the evidentiary record are the following: (a) Ms. Conner, one of the higher-performing machine operators at the plant, was paid less than male machine operators who did not possess equivalent skills, and who sought her assistance on their machines. See supra § II.B.8. This difference in compensation, unrelated to her job performance, was humiliating and offensive. (b) Ms. Conner experienced a single powerful incident of gender-based intimidation, when in her meeting with Giudice, he slammed his clenched fist on his desk and screamed that he would fire her on the spot if she ever mentioned sexual discrimination again. See supra § II.B.10; see also Smith, 202 F.3d at 242 (discriminatory intimidation, as well as ridicule and insult, can contribute to an alteration of the conditions of the victim's employment to create an abusive working environment). (c) Schaefer's questions of Are you on the rag? and Didn't you get any last night? constitute, in context and by their frequency, personally humiliating public ridicule. See supra § II.B.5. Such gender-based ridicule was amplified by Schaefer's leadership in mocking Ms. Conner while she complied with his orders that she perform the stereotypically female task of mopping, which men in the same job class were not required to perform. See supra § II.B.4. (d) In order to obtain permission to leave the work floor in response to a medical and safety need, Ms. Conner repeatedly had to display her gynecological bleeding to Schaefer, who also frequently and quite publicly 27 humiliated her by asking, Are you on the rag? See supra §§ II.B.5, II.B.6. While the district court reasoned that [t]here was no evidence that Schaefer made the plaintiff show her blood-stained pants for any reason other than to verify the presence of a medical problem, this suggestion is logically flawed. First, because Schaefer flatly denied Ms. Conner's version of these incidents, there is no affirmative evidence of any medical purpose underlying his disavowed conduct. Second, Schaefer's visual inspection could not provide any verification of a medical problem, because blood on a woman's pants can also indicate normal body functions.18 Cf. Dorland's Medical Dictionary 1013 (28th ed. 1994) (menstruation is a normal discharge of blood from the uterus). A senseless mandate from a supervisor that an employee expose symptoms of a deeply private reproductive system dysfunction is simply humiliating, especially when, as here, that mandated display must occur within eyesight of other employees. We conclude that the unwelcome conduct established by this record was sufficiently humiliating and physically threatening to support the jury's verdict. 4. Unreasonable Interference with Work Performance The fourth Harris factor requires us to determine whether the evidence shows that the frequent and unwelcome conduct unreasonably interfered with Ms. Conner's work performance. Under the evidence, SBI failed to provide the usual training to Ms. _________________________________________________________________ 18 The district court indicated that [g]iven Conner's poor attendance record, it is not surprising that Shaeffer [sic] sought verification of this condition. We are unpersuaded by this argument, in light of Schaefer's blanket denial of having engaged in the conduct, and in light of the undisputed evidence that SBI's medical verification policy required employees to provide a note from a health care professional. There simply was no evidence suggesting that SBI physically inspected its employees to verify their asserted medical needs. 28 Conner, see supra § II.B.1, by not initially assigning her to Department 767 with the new male machine operators, and also by denying her ad hoc lessons and practice on a day-to-day basis throughout her employment. These omissions undermined her ability to perform despite her excellent aptitude for the tasks. As a result, Ms. Conner alone bore the responsibility for acquiring the necessary job skills, unlike her counterparts, the male machine operators. Ms. Conner's specific job assignments (unlike those of her male counterparts), see supra §§ II.B.3, II.B.4, also interfered with her performance -- she operated physically separated machines; those machines produced dissimilar parts, which slowed her operation time by precluding a rapid transfer of knowledge between machines. She was often reassigned to tool setting and set-ups rather than permitted to operate her machines as they were producing parts. She also regularly had to mop the entire floor during the time that the men were able to produce parts. We therefore conclude that there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find that the disparate and adverse treatment of Ms. Conner in Department 710 unreasonably interfered with her work performance, due to her gender, during the course of her SBI employment. 5. Psychological Harm We must also consider, pursuant to Harris, whether there was evidence, from the plaintiff's subjective perception of the hostile work environment, i.e., that psychological harm resulted therefrom. On this record, Ms. Conner experienced regular, profound humiliation because of her gender, unlike the male machine operators. The disparate duties assigned to her, and the failure to provide her with needed training prior to the task assignments, placed her in a significantly higher-stress workplace than experienced by the male machine operators. She suffered pain from the blistered hands that resulted from her efforts to force the hexagonal bars into the machines, because her supervisors failed to show her how to properly load the bars. 29 Ms. Conner suffered daily headaches and nausea from the humiliation, and as a result, a doctor prescribed medication for her. The workplace disparities caused her to have constant fear that she would lose her job, adding even more stress. When she met with the plant manager, Mr. Giudice, to inform him of these disparities, he screamed at her and threatened to terminate her on the spot, causing her to immediately start crying. She cried throughout the rest of that meeting. J.A. 155. We find sufficient evidence before the jury to support Ms. Conner's subjective perception of Department 710 as a hostile and abusive environment towards women. The evidence supports the jury's finding that this environment resulted in psychological harm to her. 6. Summary Applying the Harris factors to this record, viewed in the totality of the circumstances, there is ample support for the jury finding of severe or pervasive conduct sufficient to constitute a hostile work environment. Indeed, in our view, the conduct evidenced here is extreme. Our conclusion is buttressed by the legal principle that whether the harassment was sufficiently severe or pervasive to create a hostile work environment is quintessentially a question of fact for the jury, Smith, 202 F.3d at 243 (citing Beardsley v. Webb, 30 F.3d 524, 530 (4th Cir. 1994)), as is the issue of the plaintiff's credibility. The fact that two female machine operators later hired into the Department, Ms. Rorer and Ms. Haskins, experienced the same types of unwelcome conduct is also highly supportive of the jury's determination of a gender-based hostile work environment. See Harris v. L & L Wings, Inc., 132 F.3d 978, 981 (4th Cir. 1997) (identical course of harassment experienced by two female employees indicated it was not an isolated phenomenon); Stahl v. Sun Microsystems, Inc., 19 F.3d 533, 538 (10th Cir. 1994) (because critical inquiry in hostile environment claim is the environment, sexual harassment incidents directed at other employees can prove plaintiff's claim). We accordingly conclude that there is sufficient evidence in this record to support the jury's finding of a hostile work environment.19 _________________________________________________________________ 19 SBI raises three additional arguments, as follows: First, SBI contends that the harassment claim impermissibly exceeds 30