Court Opinion

ID: 9478327
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:46:35.625094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:22.572181
License: Public Domain

ROTH, District Judge,
dissenting.
Defendant moved for summary judgment in this action on April 8, 1987, on the basis that plaintiff Elizabeth Levendos had freely resigned from her employment, giving notice by letter dated April 22, 1982. At this point in the litigation, discovery had been completed and both parties had filed their Pre-Trial Narrative Statement. Plaintiff opposed the motion for summary judgment on the ground that she had been constructively discharged. At trial, plaintiff would have the burden of proving constructive discharge. That burden would be to establish that her “employer knowingly permitted conditions of discrimination in employment so intolerable that a reasonable person subject to them would resign.” Goss v. Exxon Office Systems, Co., 747 F.2d 885, 888 (3d Cir.1984). The substantive law, i.e., constructive discharge in this case, will identify which facts are material. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1985). Where, as here, the nonmoving party will bear the burden of proof at trial on the issue of constructive discharge, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure, Rule 56(e) requires that she designate “specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 324, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2553, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1985). This evidence need not be in a form that would be admissible at trial. Id. Nevertheless, I dissent from the majority opinion in this case in part because I conclude that plaintiff has designated facts *1234that are presented in a form that would clearly be inadmissible as evidence at trial and in part because I conclude that plaintiff has not demonstrated that defendant “knowingly permitted conditions of discrimination in employment so intolerable that a reasonable person subject to them would resign.” In other words, I believe that the ultimate inadmissibility of plaintiffs designated facts should be a consideration here. In addition, I find plaintiff’s conclusory statements to be inconclusive.
On the question of the inadmissibility of plaintiffs designated facts, evidence of defendant’s discriminatory animus is presented by statements such as:
Many of the managers and employees of Les Nuages Restaurant and Heaven Discotheque did not prefer women and dismissed many other women upon false and trumped charges.
Affidavit of Elizabeth Levendos, para. 4.
The management of Les Nuages and Heaven Discotheque viewed females as inferior, and told other employees that I did not fit the “mold” for maitre’d [sic] because I was a woman. Chef David DeVos was asked by Richard Stern to find a male to replace me, and he ultimately hired Robert Ashurst, a male friend who had worked with him previously.
Id. at para. 8.
Elizabeth was the only female in the management level. Rick Stern liked the image of a male staff. He didn’t feel that Elizabeth fit in the way he wanted. I remember at the end Elizabeth could never get an appointment to sit down and talk to him. I think he had clearly decided to get rid of her, and Chef De-Vos acknowledged that it was a plan to get rid of her, and replace her with a male friend of DeVos.
Affidavit of Robert Roth, para, 7.
When the hearsay within hearsay and the speculation on the mental processes of others is removed from the above, very little is left of the discriminatory element. Plaintiff in essence is left with the fact that she was replaced by a man and that previous male maitre d’s had attended management meetings (who and when undes-ignated) while plaintiff was not included in any decision-making meeting (no further information given). Furthermore, in view of the fact that it is the alleged perpetrators of the discrimination against plaintiff who are the missing links in reducing double hearsay to admissible testimony of a statement by a party opponent, it does not appear that the above-quoted statements could be presented in admissible form. Nor, in view of the fact that discovery had been completed, can plaintiff argue that the motion for summary judgment curtailed her efforts to uncover additional evidence to support her burden of designating material facts.
In regard to the question of whether plaintiff demonstrated “conditions of discrimination in employment so intolerable that a reasonable person subject to them would resign,” I am concerned by the very short duration of plaintiff’s difficulties, a week or two at most. This fact is apparent from her letter of resignation. Moreover, one cannot determine from plaintiff’s PreTrial Narrative Statement and Affidavit whether there was just one incident in which wine bottles were placed in plaintiff’s locker and she was accused of dishonesty and drinking on the job, or whether there were other incidents and accusations against her made by management. The inadmissibility of most of plaintiff’s evidence on discrimination, the weakness of what’s admissible, together with her failure to be more specific in her designation of facts regarding harassment all lead me to conclude that she had presented an inadequate scintilla of evidence in opposition to defendant’s motion. If a situation, as vaguely described as plaintiff’s is, is deemed to constitute “constructive discharge,” I fear that the “reasonable person” test of Goss will be transformed into the test of the subjective reaction of the employee.
[T]he law does not permit an employee’s subjective perceptions to govern a claim of constructive discharge. Every job has its frustrations, challenges and disappointments; these inhere in the nature of *1235the work. An employee is protected from a calculated effort to pressure him into resignation through the imposition of unreasonably harsh conditions, in excess of those faced by his co-workers. He is not, however, guaranteed a working environment free of stress. The employment discrimination laws require as an absolute precondition to suit that some adverse employment action have occurred. They cannot be transformed into a palliative for every workplace grievance, real or imagined, by the simple expedient of quitting.
Bristow v. Daily Press, Inc., 770 F.2d 1251, 1255 (4th Cir.1985), cert. denied 475 U.S. 1082, 106 S.Ct. 1461, 89 L.Ed.2d 718.
I do not find that plaintiff has met her burden of demonstrating conditions so intolerable that a reasonable person would resign.
For the above stated reasons, I respectfully dissent.