Opinion ID: 759223
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: gleason's challenges to the judgment

Text: 46 In his cross-appeal, Gleason contends that he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law or, alternatively, to a new trial. We are unpersuaded. 47
48 Gleason contends that the district court should have granted him judgment dismissing Gierlinger's retaliation claim as a matter of law on the ground that Gierlinger did not, in this dual motivation case, prove substantially more than simply that a bad or impermissible motive was a factor in the employer's employment decision (Gleason brief on appeal at 35 (emphasis in original)), i.e., did not prove that it was a substantial or predominating factor (id. at 36; see also Gleason reply brief at 2 (predominating  (emphasis in original))). Preliminarily, we note that this argument does not state the correct legal standard, for in a case in which the defendant has advanced a neutral reason for the employment decision, the plaintiff's burden is to show that the impermissible factor was a substantial or motivating factor in her adverse treatment, Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 287, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977) ( Mt.Healthy ). She is not required to show that the impermissible factor dwarfed all other factors. See, e.g., Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 247, 109 S.Ct. 1775, 104 L.Ed.2d 268 (1989) (plurality opinion) (in a mixed-motives case it makes no sense to ask whether the legitimate reason was 'the true reason '  for the decision (emphasis in original)); id. at 259, 109 S.Ct. 1775 (White, J., concurring) (a plaintiff is not required to prove that the illegitimate factor was the ... principal ... reason for petitioner's action). Even aside from Gleason's misdescription of the burden of proof, however, we reject his contention that he should have been granted judgment as a matter of law because that contention has not been preserved for appeal. 49 A party is not entitled to challenge on appeal the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury's verdict on a given issue unless he has timely moved in the district court for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) on that issue. See, e.g., Cone v. West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., 330 U.S. 212, 218, 67 S.Ct. 752, 91 L.Ed. 849 (1947); Pittman v. Grayson, 149 F.3d 111, 119 (2d Cir.1998); Galdieri-Ambrosini v. National Realty & Development Corp., 136 F.3d 276, 286-87 (2d Cir.1998). See also id. at 287 (review may be granted in the absence of compliance with the pertinent principles if required to prevent manifest injustice (internal quotation marks omitted)). In the district court, a party who seeks JMOL may move for that relief during trial at any time prior to the submission of the case to the jury. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(a)(2). The party may renew the motion within 10 days after judgment, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(b), and must do so in order [t]o preserve for appeal a challenge to the denial of a pre-verdict motion for JMOL, Varda, Inc. v. Insurance Co. of North America, 45 F.3d 634, 638 (2d Cir.1995). 50 The JMOL motion must at least identify the specific element that the defendant contends is insufficiently supported. Galdieri-Ambrosini v. National Realty & Development Corp., 136 F.3d at 286. A generalized challenge is inadequate. See, e.g., Cruz v. Local Union No. 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 34 F.3d 1148, 1155 (2d Cir.1994); Lambert v. Genesee Hospital, 10 F.3d 46, 53-54 (2d Cir.1993) (the specificity requirement is obligatory), cert. denied, 511 U.S. 1052, 114 S.Ct. 1612, 128 L.Ed.2d 339 (1994). 51 In the present case, Gleason states that he moved for JMOL after the entry of judgment, but the record does not reveal any proper motion for that relief. He made a posttrial motion that referred in passing to Rule 50, as well as to Fed.R.Civ.P. 59, which governs motions for new trials; but the only relief requested in that motion was the granting [of] a new trial. His motion was accompanied by a document entitled Declaration in Support of a Motion for a New Trial  (emphasis added). The memorandum of law that he eventually submitted stated tersely that JMOL was sought, but it challenged only evidentiary rulings and jury instructions, and did not present any arguments as to why the court should grant JMOL. 52 Not surprisingly, the district court did not view Gleason's motion as a request for JMOL. In its ruling, the court stated: 53 Although the Notice of Motion filed September 17, 1996 facially indicated that relief was additionally sought pursuant to FRCvP 50, such provision applies only to a motion seeking a judgment as a matter of law. As the arguments offered by Gleason make clear, the granting of a new trial was the only relief sought by him. 54 Posttrial Order at 2 n. 1. Gleason did not thereafter ask the district court for reconsideration or otherwise suggest that there was any aspect of his motion that the court had overlooked. We conclude that there was no proper posttrial motion by Gleason for JMOL. 55 More fundamentally, it does not appear that Gleason ever, during the trial, moved for judgment as a matter of law dismissing Gierlinger's retaliation claim for insufficiency of the evidence. Although his brief on appeal makes vague reference to a JMOL motion made at the close of the plaintiff's case (Gleason brief on appeal at 32), he furnishes no record citation to that motion, and our review of the record reveals only a motion that did not address Gierlinger's claim for retaliation. Gleason's motion at the close of Gierlinger's case described her claim as basically a complaint that Gleason was responsible for harassment [she] suffered, and he argued that there was no evidence that he was directly responsible for some misconduct or knew of it and failed to stop it even though he had the capacity to do so. (Third Trial Tr. Aug. 21, 1996, at 175.) Gleason went on to argue that the unrebutted evidence showed also that he lacked the authority to look into Gierlinger's harassment complaints after his own superior officer had completed an investigation (id. at 176), and he concluded that there's simply no theory by which liability under 1983, under the plaintiff's Equal Protection claim, can be premised and so the defendant's entitled to judgment as a matter of law as to that claim (id. at 177). 56 Gleason's motion at the close of Gierlinger's case contained no reference whatever to her claim for retaliation or to any failure of proof with respect to the motivation for the termination of her employment. And although we have found one point at which, following the close of all the evidence, Gleason requested the dismissal of the retaliation claim, that request said simply, We should focus this case on the retaliation claim and dismiss that before we go any further. (Transcript of Third Trial, separately paginated Charging Conference, Aug. 28, 1996 (Third Trial Tr. Charging Conf.) at 33.) This cryptic statement did not indicate that the request was based on any insufficiency of the evidence, much less specify the element on which the proof was supposedly deficient. 57 We conclude that Gleason's present challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support Gierlinger's retaliation claim has not been preserved for appellate review.
58 Alternatively, Gleason argues that he is entitled to a new trial on the ground that the district court (1) improperly excluded evidence that would have proved that the termination of Gierlinger's employment was not motivated by retaliation, and (2) gave the jury erroneous instructions with respect to Gleason's burden in a dual-motivation case. Both contentions lack merit.
59 At trial, Gleason's principal defense to the retaliation claim was that he was not the person who made the ultimate decision to terminate Gierlinger's employment and that Gierlinger would have been terminated even if he had not made his negative recommendation. In aid of this defense, he presented the testimony of Deputy Superintendent O'Grady, whose responsibility it was to review a probationary trooper's file with a view to making a recommendation, for or against retention, to the ultimate decisionmaker, the NYSP superintendent. 60 O'Grady testified that in making the recommendation that Gierlinger not be retained, he reviewed copies of the various reports, memoranda, and evaluations in Gierlinger's file, including Gleason's memorandum to the field commander, Deputy Superintendent Strojnowski, recommending that Gierlinger not be retained. However, O'Grady testified that in every case, when he reviewed a probationary trooper's file for these purposes, he gave less weight to the recommendation of the troop commander, a major, than to the recommendations written by supervisors such as the zone commander, who could be a sergeant or a lieutenant and hence lower ranking than the troop commander. He weighted the evaluations in this way because the troop commander is not the one that is supervising the individual and making the firsthand determinations and accounts of the individual's performance and actions. (Third Trial Tr. Aug. 27, 1996, at 16.) O'Grady testified that he followed this practice in recommending that Gierlinger not be retained. 61 Gleason's counsel then sought to pose a hypothetical question, to wit, whether O'Grady would have recommended that Gierlinger not be retained if her file had contained the same performance evaluations, the same investigative reports, and the same negative recommendation from the zone commander, but Gleason's recommendation had instead been to retain her. The district court sustained Gierlinger's objection on the ground that the hypothetical was too contrived. (Id. at 17.) O'Grady ended his direct testimony by reiterating that the lower-level supervisors' recommendations had the greatest influence on my analysis ... and my eventual recommendation, while the troop commander's recommendation was given the least weight. (Id. at 38-39.)On this appeal, Gleason argues that the court's ruling that O'Grady could not answer his hypothetical question unfairly deprived him of the opportunity to prove that, regardless of Gleason's recommendation, Gierlinger would not have been retained. We disagree. 62 The trial court has considerable discretion in determining whether to admit or exclude evidence, see, e.g., Perry v. Ethan Allen, Inc., 115 F.3d 143, 150 (2d Cir.1997); Healey v. Chelsea Resources, Ltd., 947 F.2d 611, 619 (2d Cir.1991), and to exclude even relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice or confusion, or by its cumulative nature, see Fed.R.Evid. 403. Further, [e]rror may not be predicated upon a ruling which ... excludes evidence unless a substantial right of the party is affected.... Fed.R.Evid. 103(a); see also Fed.R.Civ.P. 61 (erroneous evidentiary ruling will not justify the grant of a new trial unless allowing the judgment to stand would be inconsistent with substantial justice). 63 In the present case, we see no injustice or abuse of discretion in the court's refusal to allow O'Grady to answer Gleason's hypothetical question. First, as the district court noted in denying Gleason's motion for a new trial, 64 the substance of [Gleason's] theory--to wit, that Gleason's recommendations did not carry significant weight in the particular decision-making process--was fully presented to the jury through Gleason's own testimony and the testimony of others; any further evidence would have been cumulative. 65 Posttrial Order at 4. Indeed, O'Grady himself had repeatedly so testified. Thus, at every stage, Gleason has argued to the court that O'Grady's testimony was ample to permit the jury to infer that Gleason's recommendation played no role in the decision that Gierlinger should not be retained. (See, e.g., Third Trial Tr. Aug. 28, 1996, at 9-10 (Gleason's counsel: from the evidence that was presented, the jury could certainly ... infer that Gleason's recommendation did not meaningfully influence O'Grady's recommendation); Gleason Memorandum of Law in Support of Post-judgment Motion at 8 ([t]he substance of O'Grady's testimony clearly would have allowed a jury to find, whatever the defendant's recommendation or motivation might have been, that the plaintiff would have been terminated for the deficiencies in her performance)). 66 Further, one premise of the hypothetical was that O'Grady would possess the same negative reports and evaluations as to Gierlinger's conduct and performance. Yet it was Gierlinger's contention that the investigations leading to those reports were ordered by Gleason in retaliation for her sexual harassment complaints, and that the reports themselves were thus contrived bases for evaluating her performance. That theory found some support in evidence that the early, routine evaluations as to Gierlinger's performance made by the senior trooper to whom she was assigned and who observed her daily were positive; that the spate of special investigations and negative reports came on the heels of Gierlinger's complaints of sexual harassment; and that one of those investigations explored a matter that typically was not investigated. Thus, as the district court noted in its Posttrial Order, even a negative answer by O'Grady to the hypothetical, would not have insulate[d] or absolve[d Gleason] of his personal conduct which the jury found to have violated Gierlinger's constitutional and state-law rights. Posttrial Order at 4. 67 Given the trial evidence, it was well within the bounds of the court's discretion to exclude Gleason's hypothetical which artificially segmented Gierlinger's theory and supporting evidence.
68 Gleason also contends that he is entitled to a new trial because he did not receive the 'Mt. Healthy ' dual or mixed motive charge (or a close approximation thereof). (Gleason brief on appeal at 39.) He does not identify any portion of the district court's charge that he contends was flawed, and he provides little further explanation as to the charge he contends the district court should have given. At trial, he urged the court to instruct the jury that[f]or you to find in the plaintiff's favor on this claim, it is not enough that you find that the improper factor, that is, an intent to retaliate, played some part in the defendant's recommendation, but you must also determine that the plaintiff has met her burden of establishing that an [ ] intention to retaliate played a motivating and substantial role in the eventual termination of the plaintiff. 69 (Gleason Proposed Jury Instructions dated August 22, 1996, at 16-17 (emphasis added).) In the circumstances of the present case, this was not an appropriate instruction, and our review of the record reveals that the instructions given were adequate. 70 In order to prove a § 1983 claim for retaliation, a plaintiff bears the burden of demonstrating that her engagement in protected conduct was at least a 'substantial' or 'motivating' factor in the adverse action taken against her by the state defendant. White Plains Towing Corp. v. Patterson, 991 F.2d 1049, 1058 (2d Cir.) (quoting Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. at 287, 97 S.Ct. 568), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 865, 114 S.Ct. 186, 126 L.Ed.2d 145 (1993); see, e.g., Lowrance v. Achtyl, 20 F.3d 529, 535 (2d Cir.1994) (plaintiff must show that a retaliatory motive played a substantial part in the state action at issue (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted)). If the plaintiff satisfies her burden, the defendant has the opportunity to escape liability by proving that [he] would have taken the same adverse action in the absence of the protected [conduct]. Heil v. Santoro, 147 F.3d 103, 110 (2d Cir.1998); see, e.g., Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. at 287, 97 S.Ct. 568; Howard v. Senkowski, 986 F.2d 24, 26 (2d Cir.1993) (the alleged offender is entitled to the defense that [he] would have taken the same action in the absence of [a retaliatory] motive). 71 Further, in a retaliation case, as in all § 1983 cases, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant's action was a proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury. See, e.g., Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 285, 100 S.Ct. 553, 62 L.Ed.2d 481 (1980); Warner v. Orange County Department of Probation, 115 F.3d 1068, 1071 (2d Cir.1996) (in cases brought under § 1983 a superseding cause, as traditionally understood in common law tort doctrine, will relieve a defendant of liability). Thus, even if the plaintiff shows that the defendant was motivated at least in part by retaliatory animus and the defendant fails to prove that, absent that retaliatory animus, he would have taken the same action, the plaintiff must still demonstrate that the causal connection between the defendant's action and the plaintiff's injury is sufficiently direct. See, e.g., Jeffries v. Harleston, 52 F.3d 9, 14 (2d Cir.1995) (reversing judgment in favor of a university professor on the ground that there was a superseding cause breaking the causal chain between the tainted [retaliatory] motives of [certain defendants] and the decision to limit [the professor's] term), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 862, 116 S.Ct. 173, 133 L.Ed.2d 114 (1995); see also Taylor v. Brentwood Union Free School District, 143 F.3d 679, 687 (2d Cir.1998) (reversing judgment in favor of a suspended teacher on the ground that no reasonable jury could find [the defendant's allegedly racially motivated] actions to be the cause of [the teacher's] injury), petition for cert. filed, 67 U.S.L.W. 3284(U.S. Sep. 22, 1998) (No. 98-606). 72 Under Mt. Healthy, therefore, Gierlinger's initial burden was to demonstrate that retaliation was a substantial or motivating factor in the actions taken against her by Gleason, i.e., to show that her complaints of sexual harassment were a substantial or motivating factor in Gleason's ordering one or more of the investigations or in his negative recommendation. Gierlinger was of course also required to prove that her termination was proximately caused by Gleason's retaliatory conduct. But since Gierlinger's claim was not that Gleason personally made the decision to terminate her but rather that he made retaliation-based decisions and recommendations that led to her termination, the proximate cause determination was governed by ordinary principles of causation, not by the Mt. Healthy substantial-or-motivating-factor test. Gleason's requested charge implied instead that Gierlinger was required to prove that the ultimate decisionmakers too were substantially motivated by retaliation. In this case, that request inappropriately conflated dual-motivation analysis with principles of proximate cause. The Mt. Healthy test was satisfied by proof that the recommendation and conduct of Gleason were substantially motivated by retaliation; and the jury could find the necessary causation if it concluded that the retaliatory actions by Gleason proximately led to the ultimate decision. 73 Our review of the district court's instructions leads us to the conclusion that the jury was given the proper Mt. Healthy framework. The court charged the jury that, in order to recover on her claim of retaliation, Gierlinger had the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that Gleason's reason or one of his reasons for his adverse decision and for recommending her termination was that she had filed complaints of having been sexually harassed. (Transcript of Third Trial, separately paginated Charge of the Court, Aug. 28, 1996 (Third Trial Tr. Instructions), at 13.) It instructed that if Gierlinger met that burden, but Gleason had certain legitimate and non-discriminatory reasons for his actions, Gleason had the burden to show that .... in spite of having that motivation he nevertheless would have recommended her termination. (Id.) And it instructed that Gierlinger was required to prove that Gleason's culpable acts proximately caused her termination. (See, e.g., id. at 9 ([Gierlinger's] injuries and harm, if you find any ... must have been proximately caused by the acts of the defendant.).) 74 Further, after receiving a request from the jury to clarify the second special-verdict question (2. If you [found plaintiff has proven unconstitutional retaliation by Gleason] do you find that the defendant has proven by the preponderance of the evidence that he would have taken the same action for non-discriminatory reasons?), the court again gave a correct supplementary instruction. It instructed that if the jury found Gierlinger to have satisfied her burden of showing that Gleason acted with improper reasons, unconstitutional reasons, namely ... that she had made those complaints of sexual harassment, then the jury must determine whether Gleason met his own burden of showing that those reasons aside he would have taken the same action. (Third Trial Tr. Sep. 3, 1996, at 21-22). 75 We see no basis for a new trial. 76