Court Opinion

ID: 9493194
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:00:53.415593+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:56.995292
License: Public Domain

FISHER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part:
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion that.Aybike Kortan faded to raise genuine issues of material fact regarding her retaliation and hostile working environment claims. Admittedly, this is a close case, and there is an attraction to the majority’s resolution in not setting the bar for Title VII claims so low as to encourage litigation t over commonplace, although objectionable, behavior in the workplace. Nonetheless, I believe that, given the particular circumstances here and that this is a ruling on summary judgment where the close call should go to the plaintiff, Kortan has met her burden for both claims and should be allowed to proceed to trial on the merits.
The significant aspect of this case that causes me to differ with the majority is the overt retaliation against Kortan by her supervisor, Atesalp-conduct that elevates *1114this case from a misogynist’s rantings against his female colleagues into a hostile work environment for this individual subordinate. For this supervisor did more than demean with words; he used his superior position to punish Kortan with a dramatically lowered and undeserved performance evaluation that even Atesalp’s supervisor,' Schulman, recognized as retaliation for Kortan’s complaints against Atesalp. The majority, I fear, diminishes the true nature of the hostile work environment Kortan faced by isolating the retaliatory performance review from its analysis of the work environment, notwithstanding that retaliation was a critical aspect of the totality of the circumstances we are bound to consider. See Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 23, 114 S.Ct. 367, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993) (“[Wjhether an environment is ‘hostile’ or ‘abusive’ can only be determined by looking at all the circumstances.”); see also Drake v. Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co., 134 F.3d 878, 886 (7th Cir.1998) (“[Retaliation can take the form of a hostile work environment.”). Although Schulman took some steps to ameliorate Atesalp’s retaliatory review, Atesalp — on the undisputed record before us — remained recalcitrant and unrepentant, suffered no reprimand other than a memorandum directing him to avoid the perception of retaliation or harassment and retained his supervisory authority over Kortan. I believe Atesalp’s offensive and demeaning outbursts, his humiliating treatment of Kortan and — most significantly — the undeserved, retaliatory performance review comprise a totality of circumstances sufficient to withstand summary judgment on Kortan’s hostile work environment claim.
Moreover, even Schulman’s revised evaluation largely relied upon Atesalp’s tainted evaluation and left Kortan with the lowest performance rating of her career with the California Youth Authority (“C.Y.A.”) notwithstanding her having just been awarded “Outstanding Employee of the Year” for the same time period. Thus, I believe Kortan has also raised a triable issue that even Sehulman’s evaluation was impermis-sibly tainted by retaliation.
I. HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT: THE TOTALITY OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES
The record, construed favorably to Kortan, reasonably shows the following circumstances that turned Kortan’s work environment into one of gender-based hostility. Until February 1994, Kortan and Atesalp — her immediate supervisor — enjoyed a relatively congenial professional relationship in a close-knit work environment. They interacted frequently to coordinate responsibility given Kortan’s special designation as acting senior psychologist in Atesalp’s absence, and Atesalp occasionally turned to her as a confidant. As Kortan testified in her deposition, however, this relationship made her “a captive audience” for Ates-alp’s sexist remarks — and ultimately captive to his retaliation as well. Kortan on several occasions had to listen as Atesalp unburdened himself of his offensive and demeaning attitudes toward women, with particular invective for certain women who were superintendents at C.Y.A.1 These sexist, hostile statements about others are relevant to show Kor-tan was subjected to a hostile work environment. See Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs. Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 80, 118 S.Ct. 998, 140 L.Ed.2d 201 (1998) *1115(concluding that actionable hostile work environment includes “general hostility to the presence of women in the workplace”); Heyne v. Caruso, 69 F.3d 1475, 1480 (9th Cir.1995) (concluding that “conduct tending to demonstrate hostility towards a certain group” is relevant to show discrimination against an employee who is a member of that group). Most offensive in Atesalp’s misogynistic vocabulary was his use of certain terms to label women he held in highest contempt: “castrating bitch” and “regina,” a term he let Kortan know was a double-enten-dre for vagina.2 The term “regina” is not the gutter language other cases have condemned, but given its intended meaning is just as offensive to women. See Steiner v. Showboat Operating Co., 25 F.3d 1459, 1461, 1463 (9th Cir.1994) (relying on supervisor’s references to women in a “derogatory fashion using sexually explicit and offensive terms,” such as “dumb fucking broads” and “cunt” as evidence he created a hostile work environment); Burns v. McGregor Elec. Indus., Inc., 989 F.2d 959, 964-65 (8th Cir.1993) (concluding that such “vulgar and offensive” words “ ‘are widely recognized as not only improper, but as intensely degrading’ ” and thus frequent use of such words “clearly violates Title VII” (quoting Katz v. Dole, 709 F.2d 251, 254 (4th Cir.1983))); Andrews v. City of Philadelphia, 895 F.2d 1469, 1485 (3d Cir.1990) (holding that “pervasive use of derogatory and insulting terms relating to women generally and addressed to female employees personally may serve as evidence of a hostile work environment”). Although Kortan for a time tolerated Atesalp’s derogatory statements about other women, and acknowledges that as to her personally Atesalp was “a perfect gentleman,” his offensive references bothered her and she objected to his use of them. Nonetheless, during the four to five month period before February 1994, Atesalp’s verbal attacks on women “got worse and worse” and eventually contributed to her February 3 decision to step down from her role as acting senior psychologist.3
At that point, Atesalp’s attitude toward Kortan plainly shifted and became hostile. In a particularly emotional outburst, Ates-alp directed invective at other female colleagues and females in general that, in context, Kortan could and did reasonably understand now included her — including relegating her to the despised “regina” category. Had that been the end of it— the emotional outburst of a supervisor who felt his trusted subordinate had unfairly abandoned him — there would not be cause for invoking Title VII. But that was not the end of it. Atesalp persisted in his retaliation, committing acts of increasing severity which transform this case from mere offensive conduct into a valid hostile work environment claim.
Atesalp publicly directed his scorn against Kortan and made mockery of her sexual harassment charge outside the door of her office. Such humiliating conduct is an important factor in determining whether an employee was subjected to a hostile or abusive work environment. See Harris, 510 U.S. at 23, 114 S.Ct. 367. Kortan also presented evidence, whieh on summary judgment we must construe in her favor, that Atesalp retaliated by purposely scheduling Kortan’s performance evaluation on the day Kortan was to meet with the C.Y.A.’s internal investigator and falsely accusing Kortan of not submitting a work order. Atesalp also stared and glared at her and became hypercritical of her work — prompting Schulman to admonish Atesalp to behave himself in a March 11 memorandum suggesting Atesalp was ha*1116rassing Kortan and retaliating against her through “excessive corrections on Psychological evaluations, lack of flexibility of work hours, and documentation for minor behavior irritants.”4
Atesalp did not back off, however. Instead he invoked his supervisory authority to retaliate against Kortan — using her annual performance review to send an unmistakable message of retribution. Thus Kortan, who had a five-year record of receiving the highest (“E”) rating in all performance categories (with the exception of one “M” — -an average rating — in one category in her first year), and who was awarded “Outstanding Employee of the Year” for 1993 (the evaluation period in question), dropped two levels in three categories to the substandard “I” rating in Atesalp’s evaluation. Those ratings were admittedly retaliatory, as the majority recognizes.
Although Schulman partially revised Atesalp’s evaluation, those revisions neither negated the hostility of the work environment nor defeat Kortan’s retaliation claim. In sum, C.Y.A. management effectively ratified Atesalp’s retaliation, and added to the hostility of the work environment, by failing to take any disciplinary action against him. Not surprisingly, Atesalp remained recalcitrant and refused to sign the upgraded evaluation. As the Supreme Court has observed, management’s knowledge of sexual harassment and failure to take any disciplinary action “may be seen as ... the employer’s adoption of the offending conduct and its results, quite as if they had been authorized affirmatively as the employer’s policy.” Faragher, 524 U.S. at 789, 118 S.Ct. 2275; accord Fuller v. City of Oakland, 47 F.3d 1522, 1529 (9th Cir.1995) (“Title VII does not permit employers to stand idly by once they learn that sexual harassment has occurred. To do so amounts to a ratification of the prior harassment.”). Faced with management’s failure to punish Atesalp for his known acts of retaliation, Kortan reasonably perceived her work environment as hostile.5
The majority effectively insulates Ates-alp’s retaliatory conduct, however, first by excluding his retaliatory evaluation from its analysis of the hostile work environment and, second, by finding no actionable retaliation because Schulman’s evaluation superseded Atesalp’s — essentially, “no harm, no foul.” I believe both grounds are in error: the totality of the circumstances, including Atesalp’s retaliatory evaluation, add up to a triable case of a hostile work environment; and — as I discuss next— even Schulman’s evaluation supports a separate claim of retaliation.
II. RETALIATION BASED ON THE POOR EVALUATION
The majority accepts that Atesalp’s performance evaluation was retaliatory, and recognizes that an undeserved performance evaluation is actionable under Yartzoff v. Thomas, 809 F.2d 1371, 1376 (9th Cir.1987). It attempts to distinguish Yart-zoff, however, because only Schulman’s “corrected” evaluation went into Kortan’s personnel file, and it characterizes Schul-man’s evaluation as not undeserved. See maj. op. at 1113. I disagree with this analysis in several respects. First, although Schulman did modify Atesalp’s retaliatory — and therefore undeserved — ■ evaluation, he did not go so far as to correct it. Rather, Schulman largely relied on the retaliatory evaluation to give Kortan the lowest evaluation of her five-year career at C.Y.A., and thereby ratified Atesalp’s retaliation.
As to the three undeserved ratings Ates-alp gave Kortan, in the categories “rela*1117tionships with people,” “work habits” and “meeting work commitments,” Schulman merely struck a compromise between the highest (“E”) rating and Atesalp’s unwarranted “I” ratings — moving Kortan up one rating to “M”. Schulman may have independently investigated Kortan in the “relationships with people” category, but he did not independently investigate the other two. Schulman contends he lacked a “sufficient record of her performance ... to give her anything more than ‘M’ ratings” in those categories because she was on ¿vacation or leave for a significant part of the yearly evaluation period, between May and August 1993. This “justification” rings hollow given that Kortan was named “Outstanding Employee of the Year” for the same year, absences and all. Moreover, rather than allow Atesalp’s punitive ratings to drag Kortan down, Schulman could have declined to rate Kortan in those two categories for want of personal knowledge, defaulted to Kortan’s prior history of “E’s” over the years or otherwise memorialized his uncertainty. Instead, he simply compromised and left Kortan with her lowest performance evaluation at C.Y.A. At the end of the day, Schulman’s evaluation was at least as harmful to Kortan because, by failing to remove the retaliatory taint of Atesalp’s evaluation, Schulman made clear to Kortan that management would not eliminate the adverse effect of Atesalp’s retaliation — only lessen it.6
Not only does the majority decline to recognize the effect of Schulman’s tainted evaluation on Kortan, it also declines to address the “chilling effect which [a supervisor’s] retaliatory conduct might have on the remaining employees under his supervision.” Hashimoto v. Dalton, 118 F.3d 671, 676 (9th Cir.1997); accord EEOC v. Hacienda Hotel, 881 F.2d 1504, 1511 (9th Cir.1989). No doubt many C.Y.A. employees observed the conflict between Atesalp and Kortan and learned that the consequence of Kortan exercising her Title VII rights was that she went from “Outstanding Employee” to a disfavored employee and became the focus of Atesalp’s wrath. These employees will likely be deterred from reporting sexual harassment out of fear of retaliation by Atesalp and ending up in the same predicament as Kortan.
Because Schulman’s evaluation did not cure, but effectively ratified and perpetuated the “ ‘deleterious effect on the exercise of [Title VII] rights,’ ” caused by Atesalp’s evaluation, Hashimoto, 118 F.3d at 676 (quoting Garcia v. Lawn, 805 F.2d 1400, 1405 (9th Cir.1986)), I would hold that Kortan has presented sufficient evidence to defeat summary judgment on her retaliation claim.

. Several months prior to February 1994, Atesalp made clear to Kortan that he intended regina to mean vagina when he told her the Georgia O’Keeffe poster in her office was "suggestive” because it reminded him "of a regina.”

. Atesalp also subjected Kortan to his racist comments. He repeatedly referred to one African-American employee as a "black ape,” referred to another as a "black goon” and referred generally to African-American wards as "thugs.”

. Schulman’s memo contradicts the majority's statement that “there is no evidence showing” Atesalp retaliated by becoming hypercritical of Kortan. See maj. op. at 1112.

. Kortan had reason to be disheartened, because Schulman had initially encouraged her to "take him [Atesalp] on,” suggesting Atesalp was a known abuser who needed to be challenged. Yet when Kortan did "take him on,” she was the one who suffered adverse consequences.

. The majority also seems to distinguish Yart-zoff because Shulman’s evaluation was not "subaverage.” Ratings need not be subaver-age, however, to constitute retaliation. Rather, it is "undeserved performance ratings, if proven, [that] would constitute ‘adverse employment decisions' ” actionable under the retaliation provision of Title VII. Yartzoff, 809 F.2d at 1376 (quotation marks and citation omitted) (emphasis added); accord Brooks v. City of San Mateo, 214 F.3d 1082, 1094 (9th Cir.2000); see also Steiner, 25 F.3d at 1465 (holding that performance evaluation with only three below average ratings out of seven categories was sufficient adverse employment decision to create prima facie case of retaliation).