Opinion ID: 767491
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Coach's summary judgment motion

Text: 13 After dismissing Cruz's failure to promote and retaliation claims, the district court granted summary judgment to Coach on Cruz's remaining claims of discriminatory termination, hostile work environment harassment, and disparate impact. We review this grant of summary judgment de novo. See Distasio v. Perkin Elmer Corp., 157 F.3d 55, 61 (2d Cir. 1998). In deciding whether summary judgment was appropriate, we must draw all inferences in favor of the non-moving party, and may affirm only if the record reveals no genuine issue of material fact for trial. See id. Here, although we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment with respect to the termination and disparate impact claims, we find that Cruz established a genuine factual dispute regarding her claim of hostile work environment harassment. We therefore remand the case on that basis.
14 Our review of Cruz's discriminatory termination claim follows the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting inquiry. See McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802. Under that test, Cruz must first establish a prima facie case of discrimination by demonstrating membership in a protected class, qualification for the position, adverse employment action, and circumstances giving rise to an inference of discrimination. See id. If she succeeds in this task, the burden shifts to Coach to produce a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for her termination. Once Coach has done so, the burden shifts back to Cruz to show that the company's stated reason is in fact a pretext for discrimination. See id. at 804; see also Austin v. Ford Models, Inc., 149 F.3d 148, 152-153 (2d Cir. 1998) (discussing burden-shifting inquiry). 15 Like the district court, we assume that Cruz met her minimal burden of establishing a prima facie case of discrimination. See Cruz, 1998 WL 812045, at . The burden then shifted to Coach to articulate a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for terminating Cruz, which Coach satisfied by pointing to its company policy prohibiting any physical or verbal assault on company premises. In response, Cruz was required to produce evidence from which a jury could infer that Coach's reliance on the policy was pretextual and that its real reason for terminating her was discrimination. We find that Cruz failed to create a jury question as to pretext, and that summary judgment was therefore appropriate on this claim. 16 Cruz attempted to show pretext mainly by claiming that although Coach purportedly terminated her for violating the no-assault rule, similarly situated non-Hispanic employees who violated the rule were not terminated. For example, on appeal Cruz directs the Court's attention to a report she filed about her former supervisor David Otani, who, she claims, verbally assaulted her by telling her that she should lose weight. She also cites multiple instances of racially or sexually offensive remarks by other non-minority Coach employees. Cruz argues that these verbal assaults violate Coach's prohibition on physical or verbal assaults while on company premises, and that Coach's failure to terminate the perpetrators is evidence of an enforcement policy that discriminates against Hispanic employees. She supports this claim, moreover, by noting that the three employees (other than Cruz and Heriveaux) whom Coach has terminated for fighting, pursuant to the no-assault policy, have Hispanic surnames. 17 Cruz's theory fails to create a jury question on pretext, however, because she has not established that she was similarly situated to the non-Hispanic employees whose violations of the policy Coach allegedly overlooked. Specifically, Cruz engaged in a physical fight, while the other employees' behavior -- offensive though it may have been -- involved words only. 3 This distinction is fatal to Cruz's discriminatory enforcement claim. Not only did Cruz fail to produce evidence that non-Hispanic employees who engaged in a physical assault escaped termination, the record reveals that Coach also terminated Heriveaux, who is not Hispanic, on the basis of the fight with Cruz. The reasonable inference, therefore, is that Coach enforced the policy against Cruz not because she is Hispanic, but because she slapped Heriveaux. 18 Cruz's argument that she acted in self-defense also fails to support her claim of pretext. First, as the district court noted, the no-assault rule contains no self-defense exception. Second, even if Cruz herself believed that she was acting in self-defense, she has produced no evidence showing that Coach believed that to be the case. She therefore has failed to demonstrate that Coach viewed the altercation as anything other than an assault within the meaning of the company's prohibition. Indeed, the documents and deposition testimony in the record all indicate that Human Resources personnel decided to terminate both Cruz and Heriveaux for engaging in a fight. Cruz has offered no evidence to establish that Coach's stated reliance on that policy was a pretext for race discrimination.
19 The district court rejected Cruz's claim of race- and gender-based hostile work environment harassment on two separate bases. First, the court found that her complaint had not pled such a claim. Second, in ruling on the merits, it found that Cruz had not adduced sufficient evidence of severe and pervasive harassment to sustain a hostile work environment charge. The court concluded that because Cruz could name only one instance on which she overheard a racial epithet, and could cite only vague and unspecified instances of inappropriate sexual behavior, she had not demonstrated the level of pervasive hostility necessary to support her hostile environment claim. We disagree and remand for further proceedings on this issue.
20 Turning first to the issue of Cruz's complaint, we find that although the complaint did not refer specifically to hostile work environment harassment, it did describe the harassment Cruz experienced in enough detail to put the claim before the court. In particular, the complaint states that Human Resources Manager Rick Bloom is notorious at Coach for his discriminatory attitudes towards minorities -- particularly Hispanics -- which he expresses by racial and ethnic slurs. Since August 1, 1995, Bloom a) has frequently referred to Hispanics as 'spics,' African Americans as 'Niggers,' and b) has stated that 'they are only capable of sweeping the floor at McDonalds' . . . . Later in the complaint, under the heading of Discriminatory Harassment and Violence, Cruzreferred to the sexual harassment she allegedly experienced from her former co-worker David Otani: Coach ratified and accepted Lewis', Otani's, Betts', and Heriveaux's action by their failure to act on Ms. Cruz's complaints, by not disciplining Otani for his harassment of Cruz, and by terminating Cruz's employment under the pretext of fighting in the workplace after she was physically beaten and sexually assaulted . . . . 4 21 While we acknowledge that Cruz might have stated her claim of hostile work environment harassment more artfully, the essential elements of the charge do appear in the complaint. Moreover, several of the numerous discovery disputes that took place over the course of the litigation concerned Cruz's belief that she was the victim of sexual and racial harassment, thereby foreclosing any argument that the defendants lacked notice of Cruz's claim. See, e.g., Plaintiff's First Set of Interrogatories, PP 5-10, 13 (requesting information about complaints of discrimination or harassment); Defendant's Response to Plaintiff's First Set of Interrogatories (objecting to plaintiff's requests). 22 The totality of the circumstances convinces us that, despite Cruz's imprecise complaint, the district court was correct in considering Cruz's hostile work environment claim on the merits. Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(b), a district court may consider claims outside claims outside those raised in the pleadings so long as doing so does not cause prejudice. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(b) (When issues not raised by the pleadings are tried by express or implied consent of the parties, they shall be treated in all respects as if they had been raised by the pleadings.); see also Jund v. Town of Hempstead, 941 F.2d 1271, 1287 (2d Cir. 1991) (refusing to exclude claims not alleged in complaint where claims had been addressed on the merits both on summary judgment and at trial) (citing Rule 15(b)). In opposing a Rule 15(b) amendment, a party cannot normally show that it suffered prejudice simply because of a change in its opponent's legal theory. Instead, a party's failure to plead an issue it later presented must have disadvantaged its opponent in presenting its case. New York State Elec. & Gas Corp. v. Secretary of Labor, 88 F.3d 98, 104 (2d Cir. 1996). 23 In this case, Coach failed to demonstrate any prejudice arising from the district court's consideration of Cruz's hostile work environment claim. Although Coach's counsel objected at the summary judgment hearing to Cruz's belated claim for harassment, she did not claim that Cruz's tardiness had disadvantaged Coach in any respect. Rather, she attacked Cruz's claim on the merits. In these circumstances, Cruz's failure explicitly to plead a hostile work environment claim in her Second Amended Complaint did notpreclude the district court's consideration of that issue on summary judgment. 5 24
25 Having found no procedural obstacle to considering Cruz's hostile work environment claim, we now turn to the merits. In order to survive summary judgment on a claim of hostile work environment harassment, a plaintiff must produce evidence that the workplace is permeated with 'discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult,' that is 'sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim's employment.' Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21, 126 L. Ed. 2d 295, 114 S. Ct. 367 (1993) (quoting Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 65, 67, 91 L. Ed. 2d 49, 106 S. Ct. 2399 (1986)). Isolated instances of harassment ordinarily do not rise to this level. See, e.g., Kotcher v. Rosa & Sullivan Appliance Ctr., Inc., 957 F.2d 59, 62 (2d Cir. 1992). Rather, the plaintiff must demonstrate either that a single incident was extraordinarily severe, or that a series of incidents were sufficiently continuous and concerted to have altered the conditions of her working environment. Perry v. Ethan Allen, Inc., 115 F.3d 143, 149 (2d Cir. 1997) (quoting Carrero v. New York City Housing Auth., 890 F.2d 569, 577 (2d Cir. 1989)) (internal quotation marks omitted). 26 Determining whether workplace harassment was severe or pervasive enough to be actionable depends on the totality of the circumstances. Because the crucial inquiry focuses on the nature of the workplace environment as a whole, a plaintiff who herself experiences discriminatory harassment need not be the target of other instances of hostility in order for those incidents to support her claim. See 115 F.3d at 150-51. Nor must offensive remarks or behavior be directed at individuals who are members of the plaintiff's own protected class. Remarks targeting members of the other minorities, for example, may contribute to the overall hostility of the working environment for a minority employee. See Schwapp v. Town of Avon, 118 F.3d 106, 111-12 (2d Cir. 1997) (finding that harassment of other minorities was relevant to whether a black police officer experienced a racially hostile or abusive working environment). 27 In this case, the record on summary judgment contains sufficient evidence of both racial and sexual harassment to create a triable question on Cruz's hostile work environment claim. Cruz's case primarily involves the behavior of Rick Bloom, a supervisor in another Coach department to whom Cruz frequently turned for assistance on various work-related matters. Regarding the racial claim, Cruz testified that beginning on her first day at Coach, Bloom repeatedly would make loud racial comment[s] -- including use of the word nigger -- during Cruz's daily trips to the mailroom. Marva Brown, another Coach employee, further testified that Bloom constantly made racially derogatory remarks, including references to spics and Colored People's Time. In addition, former employee Eugene Bampoe stated in his affidavit that between 1993 and either 1995 or 1996, the period during which he was employed at Coach, he repeatedly heard Bloom use racial epithets and make remarks such as, the only other job you [Hispanic] people can do is sweep the floors in McDonald's. 28 With respect to her claim of sexual harassment, Cruz testified that during her same daily trips to the mailroom, Bloom would make repeated remarks to the effect that women should be barefoot and pregnant. Furthermore, Cruz testified, Bloom would stand very close to women when talking to them and would look[] at [them] up and down in a way that's very uncomfortable. On these occasions, Cruz testified, Bloom would move increasingly close to her, so usually if there is a wall I end up against the wall talking to him, and what I'll do is cut the conversation short and leave. When Cruz informed Bloom that she disliked this behavior, he would either laugh or ignore her. 29 Viewing this evidence -- and the other instances of harassment to which Cruz and others testified -- as we must, in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, we find that Cruz has met her burden of demonstrating an atmosphere of both racial and sexual hostility. 6 Although the district court characterized Bloom's racial harassment as occurring on only one occasion, Cruz, 1998 WL 812045, at , Cruz has adduced evidence that Bloom in fact subjected her and others to blatant racial epithets on a regular if not constant basis. From this evidence, a jury reasonably might conclude that Bloom, a Coach supervisor, created a working environment that was hostile to Cruz on the basis of her race. Cf. Richardson v. New York State Dep't of Correctional Serv., 180 F.3d 426, 439 (2d Cir. 1999) (Perhaps no single act can more quickly 'alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment' than the use of an unambiguously racial epithet such as 'nigger' by a supervisor in the presence of his subordinates. (quoting Rodgers v. Western-Southern Life Ins. Co., 12 F.3d 668, 675 (7th Cir. 1993)). Moreover, even if Cruz herself were not present or were not the target of some of Bloom's racial remarks, a jury plausibly could find that his persistently offensive conduct created an overall hostile or abusive environment, Harris, 510 U.S. at 21, which exacerbated the effect of the harassment Cruz experienced individually. Cf. Schwapp, 118 F.3d at 112 (Whether Schwapp was aware of [harassment directed at others] during his employment, and, more significantly, whether in light of these incidents, the incidents Schwapp experienced more directly 'would reasonable be perceived, and [were] perceived, as hostile or abusive,' are factual issues that should be resolved by a trier of fact. (quoting Harris, 510 U.S. at 22) (alterations in original)). 30 Similarly, we find that a reasonable jury could view the sexual harassment Cruz experienced as severe and pervasive enough to alter the conditions of her working environment. The district court apparently considered the instances of sexual harassment in this case too vague or isolated to support a hostile work environment claim. See Cruz, 1998 WL 812045, at . We find, however, that the physically threatening nature of Bloom's behavior, which repeatedly ended with him backing Cruz into the wall until she had to cut the conversation short in order to extricate herself, brings this case over the line separating merely offensive or boorish conduct from actionable sexual harassment. Although the record does not reveal how often Bloom engaged in this behavior, it does suggest that Cruz encountered Bloom on a daily basis. Drawing inferences in favor of the plaintiff, a reasonable jury could conclude that Bloom physically harassed Cruz regularly throughout her tenure at Coach in a manner that was hostile to her because of her sex. 31 Cruz's claim finds further support, moreover, in the interplay between the two forms of harassment. Given the evidence of both race-based and sex-based hostility, a jury could find that Bloom's racial harassment exacerbated the effect of his sexually threatening behavior and vice versa. Cf. Hafford v. Seidner, 183 F.3d 506, 515 (6th Cir. 1999) (recognizing that evidence of religious harassment could help support racial hostile work environment claim); Hicks v. Gates Rubber Co., 833 F.2d 1406, 1416 (10th Cir. 1987) (noting that evidence of racial harassment may help establish sexually hostile work environment). 7 Based on the evidence Cruz presented of both racial and sexual harassment, therefore, a jury reasonably could conclude that Bloom's behavior alter[ed] the conditions of [her] employment based on her race and/or her gender. Harris, 510 U.S. at 21. Accordingly, we vacate the district court's grant of summary judgment on Cruz's hostile work environment claim. 8
32 The district court also granted summary judgment on Cruz's disparate impact claim, finding that her complaint [could] not fairly be read to state such a claim. Not only was the district court correct on this ground, but even assuming that Cruz had stated a disparate impact claim, she also failed utterly to establish a prima facie case, because she never alleged that any facially neutral Coach policy has a disparate effect on minority employees. See Brown, 163 F.3d at 712 (stating elements of a disparate impact case). Cruz argues that because, aside from Heriveaux, only Hispanic employees have been terminated under the no-assault rule, the rule has a disparate impact on minority employees. She further alleges, however, that this disparity is due to discriminatory enforcement of the no-assault policy, not to the disparate effect of the policy as neutrally applied. Moreover, Cruz has not alleged that a policy with a lesser disparate impact would accomplish the same goals. Under these circumstances, she has established no basis for disparate impact liability. See 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2(k)(1)(A) (stating proof required in disparate impact cases).