Court Opinion

ID: 9492729
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:49:04.568127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:27.933322
License: Public Domain

CLAY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the majority’s decision to reverse the district court’s order granting summary judgment to Plaintiff on her Title VII retaliation claim against the County, as well as her Kentucky Civil Rights Act (“KCRA”) retaliation claim against the County and Likins. However, because I believe that questions of fact remain for trial regarding Plaintiffs sexual harassment claim brought under Title VII against the County; her sexual harassment claim brought under KCRA against the County, Likins, and Black; her § 1983 claim against Likins and Black for violation of her equal protection rights; as well as her state law claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress against Likins, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision to affirm the district court’s grant of *796summary judgment to Defendants on these claims.
A. Title YII Sexual Harassment Claim Against County1
The majority holds that Plaintiffs claim for sexual harassment fails as a matter of law inasmuch as Likins’ conduct toward Plaintiff that can be considered “because of sex” amounted to four incidents — “(1) several dirty jokes he told in plaintiffs presence; (2) his alleged verbal sexual advance related to plaintiffs evaluation; (3) his one-time reference to plaintiff as ‘hot lips’; and (4) his isolated comments about plaintiffs state of dress[ ]” — which did not amount to discriminatory changes in the terms and conditions of Plaintiffs employment. In so holding, the majority declines to accept Plaintiffs contention that Likins’ other acts against her — such as his alleged post-transfer visits at the Road Department and telephone calls to Plaintiff; sitting in his truck outside of the Road Department and making faces at Plaintiff; following Plaintiff home, pulling his vehicle up beside her mailbox, and giving Plaintiff “the finger”; destroying the televison set that Plaintiff occasionally watched at the Road Department; and throwing roofing nails onto her home driveway on several occasions — should be considered as evidence to support her sexual harassment claim.
The majority maintains that to accept Plaintiffs contention “would be a mistake, as Morris does not claim that Likins acted this way ‘because of sex.’ ” The majority equates Likins’ actions with personal animus and belligerence toward Plaintiff, but not sexual harassment under Title VII, and therefore concludes that the other incidents upon which Plaintiff relies cannot be used to show that she suffered a change in the terms or conditions of employment “because of her sex.” I disagree with the majority’s position which takes a narrow view of the evidence and applies a literal interpretation of the phrase “because of sex,” in contravention to the Supreme Court’s directive that in a claim for sex discrimination brought under Title VII, the evidence should be “judged from the perspective of a reasonable person in the plaintiffs position, considering ‘all the circumstances.’ ” See Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Sews., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 118 S.Ct. 998, 1003, 140 L.Ed.2d 201 (1998). As the Supreme Court stated in Oncale, “[t]he real social impact of workplace behavior often depends on a constellation of surrounding circumstances, expectations, and relationships which are not fully captured by a simple recitation of the words used or the physical acts performed.” Id. at 1003.
Here, I agree that Likins’ conduct such as placing roofing nails on Plaintiffs driveway; following her home, pulling his vehicle beside her mailbox and giving her “the finger;” and starring at Plaintiff through her window at work while making faces at her, was done in retaliation against Plaintiff. However, I disagree that Likins was retaliating against Plaintiff solely because she complained to Judge Black. Indeed, the litany of severe harassing incidents began when Plaintiff refused Likins’ sexual advance, and I believe that the jury should be able to decide whether Likins’ conduct after Plaintiff rejected him sexually was “because of sex;” the majority’s conclusion otherwise is in complete contravention of the state of the law as it exists today. See Williams v. General Motors Corp., 187 F.3d 553, 564-65 (6th Cir.1999) (collecting cases).
The majority’s decision to view these other acts as somehow divorced from the four express acts of a sexual nature is precisely the type of flawed legal analysis the Williams Court rejected. Specifically, in Williams, this Court found that the district court had improperly “disaggregated the [sexual harassment] plaintiffs claims, contrary to the Supreme Court’s ‘totality of circumstances’ directives, which *797robbed the incidents of their cumulative effect ... [and] improperly concluded that the conduct alleged to have created a hostile work environment must be explicitly sexual.” 187 F.3d at 561-62 (footnote omitted). The Williams Court further criticized the district court because it “mis-construefd] the ‘based on sex’ requirement of a hostile-work-environment claim and, in doing so, too narrowly construe[d] what type of conduct can constitute sexual harassment.” Id. at 564. The Court went on to expressly hold “that the conduct underlying a sexual harassment claim need not be overtly sexual in nature. Any unequal treatment of an employee that would _ not occur but for the employee’s gender may, if sufficiently severe or pervasive under the Harris standard, constitute a hostile environment in violation of Title VII.” Id. at 565; see Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 114 S.Ct. 367, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993).
The Williams Court opined as follows regarding the proper analytical approach for a claim of sexual harassment under Title VII, as adopted by our sister circuits:
[T]he law recognizes that non-sexual conduct may be illegally sex-based where it evinces “anti-female animus, and therefore could be found to have contributed significantly to the hostile environment.” Lipsett v. University of Puerto Rico, 864 F.2d 881, 905 (1st Cir. 1988). To establish that the harm was “based on her sex,” Williams “must show that but for the fact of her sex, she would not have been the object of harassment.” Henson v. City of Dundee, 682 F.2d 897, 904 (11th Cir.1982).
Thus, harassing behavior that is not sexually explicit but is directed at women and motivated by discriminatory animus against women satisfies the “based on sex” requirement. See, e.g., Andrews v. City of Philadelphia, 895 F.2d 1469, 1485 (3d Cir.1990) (“[T]he offensive conduct is not necessarily required to include sexual overtones in every instance.”); Lipsett, 864 F.2d at 905
(“[verbal attack,] although not explicitly sexual, was nonetheless charged with anti-female animus, and therefore could be found to have contributed significantly to the hostile environment.”); Hall v. Gus Constr. Co., 842 F.2d 1010, 1014 (8th Cir.1988) (“Intimidation and hostility toward women because they are women can obviously result from conduct other than sexual advances.”); Hicks v. Gates Rubber Co., 833 F.2d 1406, 1415 (10th Cir.1987) (rejecting narrow definition of sexual harassment that requires predicate acts to be clearly sexual in nature); McKinney v. Dole, 765 F.2d 1129, 1138 (D.C.Cir.1985) (“We have never held that sexual harassment or other unequal treatment of an employee or gourp of employees that occurs because of the sex of the employee must, to be illegal under Title VII, take the form of sexual advances or of other incidents with clearly sexual overtones. And we decline to do so now.”). Cf. Daniels v. Essex Group, Inc., 937 F.2d 1264, 1273 (7th Cir.1991) (“Even though the physical threat by Art was not specifically racial in nature, it may be considered as a predicate act in establishing racial harassment in a hostile work environment, because it would have occurred but for the fact that Daniels was black.”).
Williams, 187 F.3d at 565.
Therefore, based upon the state of the law as it exists today, it is clear that the majority’s analysis falls short when it declines to include Likins’ conduct such as his post-transfer visits to Plaintiff at the Road Department, phone calls to Plaintiff, and other allegedly harassing behavior directed at Plaintiff, into the hostile work environment equation. As such, the majority’s legal conclusion that to consider the other acts would be a “mistake” is erroneous.
Contrary to the majority’s assertions, Plaintiff does claim that these alleged post-transfer incidents of harassment were “because of sex” inasmuch as she relates them *798to the other four incidents of an explicitly sexual nature — particularly the incident where she declined Likins’ sexual advance; and there is sufficient evidence on the record to suggest that Likins’ alleged post-transfer conduct was committed “because of sex” — particularly at the summary judgment stage of the proceedings where the acts in question were not committed by Likins until after Plaintiff refused his sexual advance and where the record is void of Likins treating any male co-worker in this fashion. See Williams, 187 F.3d 565-66 (holding that “[t]he myriad of instances in which Williams was ostracized, when others were not, combined with the gender-specific epithets used, such as ‘slut’ and ‘fucking women,’ create an inference, sufficient to survive summary judgment, that her gender was the motivating impulse for her co-workers’ behavior[,] ... [and that] non-sexual abuse can undermine competency as much as explicitly sexual harassing behavior”).
The majority’s claim that Williams is inapplicable because Likins’ post-transfer acts were “quite distinct, and separated by explicit intimations of retaliation, not sex discrimination,” flies in the face of the holding and spirit of Williams. See Ante at n. 7. Simply put, Williams is indistinguishable. Likins’ harassing conduct against Plaintiff began when she declined Likins’ sexual advance, thereby providing the motivating force behind his harassing post-transfer conduct. Again, Williams expressly holds that incidents of non-sexual abuse should be considered in a sex harassment claim where the motivating factor behind the abuse is sexual. See 187 F.3d at 565-66. The fact that the post-transfer events may also be considered retaliatory in nature is of no moment to the fact that Likins’ harassment was motivated by Plaintiffs rejection of Likins’ sexual advance. I believe that this is particularly so at the summary stage of these proceedings where a factual issue remains for the jury as to whether Likins’ post-transfer conduct against Plaintiff would have occurred “but for Plaintiffs sex.” See Williams, 187 F.3d at 565 (citing Henson v. City of Dundee, 682 F.2d 897, 904 (11th Cir.1982)).
Furthermore, the case upon which the majority relies in support of its position was decided pre-Williams and, in any event, is distinguishable. Specifically, the majority relies upon Barnett v. Department of Veterans Affairs, in support of its position that Likins’ conduct at issue could not be used to support Plaintiffs claim of sex discrimination inasmuch as the conduct was not “because of Plaintiffs sex.” However, in Barnett, unlike in the case at hand, the only evidence presented by the plaintiff to support her claim for sexual harassment was that her supervisor had made it known that he disliked the plaintiff and had used her as the butt of office jokes. See 153 F.3d 338, 342-43 (6th Cir. 1998). Notably, although the Barnett Court found that the plaintiffs allegations amounted to personal dislike as opposed to discriminatory animus, the Court specifically qualified its holding by stating that “[wjhile, under other circumstances, proof of personal conflict may provide some indi-cia of discriminatory animus, such is not the case here.” Id. at 343. Therefore, even the Barnett Court recognized that in order for alleged harassing conduct to be “because of sex” it need not be sexually explicit, and that incidents of “personal conflict” may be sufficient to create an inference of discrimination. The facts of the instant case are indicative of those “other circumstances” where proof of “personal conflict” — as claimed by the majority — provides an indicia of discriminatory animus “based on sex,” inasmuch as the harassing conduct in question began after Plaintiff refused Likins’ sexual advance.
Accordingly, because I believe that the majority impermissibly divorces and segregates Likins’ post-transfer conduct from the four alleged acts which are of an explicitly sexual nature so as to prevent Plaintiff from going forward with her claim for sexual harassment under Title VII, I *799must dissent. The majority’s decision rests upon an abdication from the controlling precedent in this Circuit which requires a reviewing court to consider a Title VII plaintiffs hostile work environment claim under the totality of the circumstances, and expressly provides that in order for conduct to be considered “because of sex,” the conduct need not be sexual in nature. See Williams, 187 F.3d at 562-66.
B. Section 1983 Claim for Violation of Rights Guaranteed by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
The majority holds that because Plaintiffs claim of sexual harassment fails as a matter of law, her § 1983 claim against Black and Likins for violation of her rights guaranteed under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment fails as well. However, as stated, I believe that the majority erred in holding that Plaintiff could not go forward with her sexual harassment claim under the KCRA against Likins and Black inasmuch as the majority’s conclusion is contrary to controlling law in this Circuit. Because I believe that Plaintiff should be allowed to go forward with her claim for sexual harassment against Likins and Black, I therefore believe that she should be allowed to go forward with her § 1983 claim against these Defendants as well. See Grano v. Department of Dev., 637 F.2d 1073, 1082 (6th Cir.1980).
C. Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress Claim
I also disagree with the majority’s holding that Plaintiff cannot go forward with her claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress against Likins under Kentucky law. Although I agree that Plaintiffs claims against the County and Black for this tort fail as a matter of law inasmuch as Plaintiff cannot show that the actions of the County and Black rises to the requisite level of extreme and outrageous conduct, I believe that her claim against Likins presents a different scenario.
The majority accurately states that Kentucky recognizes a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress when “[o]ne who by extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to another.... ” Craft v. Rice, 671 S.W.2d 247, 251 (Ky.1984). However, the majority inaccurately applies this standard to the facts of this case.
Likins’ conduct against Plaintiff was not only intentional, it clearly was outrageous enough to allow Plaintiffs claim to survive summary judgment. For example, Likins 1) told several “dirty” jokes in Plaintiffs presence; 2) made a verbal advance toward Plaintiff insinuating that she could improve her performance evaluation if she had a sexual encounter with him; 3) referred to Plaintiff on one occasion as “hot lips”; 4) made comments about Plaintiffs’s state of dress; 5) visited the Road Department unaccompanied a total of fifteen times and called Plaintiff on the telephone over thirty times solely for the purpose of harassing Plaintiff; 6) destroyed the television that Plaintiff occasionally watched at the Road Department; 7) stared at Plaintiff and made faces at her through the window where she worked; 8) followed Plaintiff home from work one day, pulled his vehicle up beside Plaintiffs mailbox, and gave her “the finger”; and 9) threw roofing nails onto Plaintiffs home driveway on several occasions. Although it is true that the Kentucky Supreme Court has stated that an action for outrage will not lie for “petty insults, unkind words and minor indignities,” inasmuch as the action lies only for conduct which is truly “outrageous and intolerable,” clearly Plaintiff has presented sufficient evidence to create an issue of fact as to whether this Likins’ conduct rises to the level of “outrageousness.” See Kroger Co. v. Willgruber, 920 S.W.2d 61, 65 (Ky.1996).
In Willgruber, the plaintiff filed a claim for intentional infliction of emotional dis*800tress against his former employer in relation to the plaintiffs termination. 920 S.W.2d at 62-63. The Kentucky Supreme Court found that “the jury had a right to conclude that [the defendant’s actions constituted] a plan of attempted fraud, deceit, slander, and interference with contractual rights, all carefully orchestrated in an attempt to bring Willgruber to his knees. Conduct such as this constitutes the very essence of the tort of outrage.” Id. at 67. Likewise, in the case at hand, Likins’ actions — such as deliberately harassing Plaintiff so as to interfere with her job performance, destroying property which Plaintiff used on the job, making an obscene gesture at Plaintiff, and throwing roofing nails on her home driveway — could be construed as intentionally creating an environment so intolerable that Plaintiff could no longer continue her employment out of physical and emotional fear. Therefore, I believe that a jury has a right to decide whether these actions rise to the level of outrageous behavior so as to allow Plaintiff to recover damages for her alleged resulting severe emotional distress.
D. Conclusion
Because I believe that the majority fails to follow binding precedent from this Circuit in holding that Plaintiff cannot go forward with her claim against the County for sexual harassment under Title VII and against the County, Likins, and Black under the- KCRA2, and because I therefore believe that the majority improperly held that Plaintiff could not proceed with her § 1983 claim against Likins and Black; coupled with my belief that the majority misapplies the standard for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress under Kentucky law in concluding that Likins’ conduct does not meet the threshold level of outrageousness, I respectfully dissent. Plaintiff' should be allowed to proceed with these claims along with her claim for retaliatory harassment where genuine issues of material fact remain for trial.

. I will consider Plaintiff's claim for sexual harassment against the County, Likins and Black brought under the KCRA in tandem with this issue.

. Unlike Plaintiff's claim for retaliation brought against Black under the KCRA, because the law regarding sexual harassment was established at the time Plaintiff brought her claim, Black was not entitled to the defense of qualified immunity.