Court Opinion

ID: 9496016
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:15:51.896464+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:19.341437
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent from Section II. C. of the majority’s opinion, which misinterprets and misapplies the damages analysis presented in Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002). I would grant Appellants a new trial because the district court erred by narrowing Appellants’ damages period for their claim under the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA).
At trial, Appellants contended that they should be able to recover damages for all acts contributing to the hostile work environment that took place beginning in June of 1994 (the time the prior race discrimination suit was settled). The district court disagreed, and narrowed the damages period to one year under the MHRA. Thus, while the jury heard evidence of racially hostile acts occurring as far back as 1994, it could only award damages for a limited period for each plaintiff.12 The district court based its ruling on Madison v. IBP, Inc., 257 F.3d 780, 796-97 (8th Cir.2001), which held that plaintiffs may only recover damages on their hostile work environment claims for acts committed within the statute of limitations period, even if there were a continuing violation. This conflicts with the law as explained by the Supreme Court in Morgan.
In Morgan, the Court reaffirmed that claims are to be divided into two categories: those based on discrete discriminatory acts, and those based on a hostile work environment. Morgan, 122 S.Ct. at 2071-75. Discrete discriminatory acts include failing to promote, denial of a transfer, and refusing to hire. Id. at 2073. Because each of these acts could independently support a discrimination claim, the statute of limitations runs independently for each discrete act. Id. at 2071. In contrast, the Court held that because hostile work environment claims attack one continuing un*787lawful employment practice, the statute of limitations does not apply so strictly to these claims. Id. at 2075. Rather, a plaintiff alleging a hostile work environment can recover damages for acts occurring outside the statute of limitations, so long as any act contributing to the hostile environment occurred within the statutory period. Id. This, obviously, was at odds with our decision in Madison, and, consequently, also at odds with the framework used by the district court in this matter. See Madison v. IBP, Inc., 536 U.S. 919, 122 S.Ct. 2583, 153 L.Ed.2d 773 (2002) (mem.) (granting certiorari, vacating judgment, and remanding for further consideration in light of Morgan).
The majority recognizes that the district court used the wrong legal analysis, yet holds Appellants are not entitled to relief. In so doing, the majority posits that our analysis should be limited to Webb because he was the only plaintiff to recover damages. This is simply incorrect. Morgan, in fact, announced the opposite proposition: the plaintiff need not prove damages occurred within the statutory period so long as any act contributing to the hostile work environment did. See Morgan, 122 S.Ct. at 2073 (“The ‘unlawful employment practice’ therefore cannot be said to occur on any particular day. It occurs over a series of days or perhaps years and, in direct contrast to discrete acts, a single act of harassment may not be actionable on its own.”). Our circuit has, until now, interpreted Morgan accordingly. See Jensen v. Henderson, 315 F.3d 854, 859 (8th Cir.2002) (“Only the smallest portion of that [unlawful employment] ‘practice’ needs to occur within the limitations period for the claim to be timely.”). The majority diverges from that beaten path. By holding that a hostile work environment plaintiff must prove damages within the statutory period before a jury can consider acts beyond the statutory period, essentially returns our circuit to its position in Madison, a framework squarely rejected by the Supreme Court.
As illustrated above, the proper question is not whether Appellants proved damages from conduct within the statutory period, but rather whether any act contributing to the allegedly hostile work environment took place within the statutory period. Clearly, each of these plaintiffs produced such evidence: Smith was the subject of what he contends was an unreasonable search of his locker and belongings due to his race in 1996, and the B shift firefighters — Mems, Brown, Webb, and Khaliq— presented evidence that they were victims of a plethora of racially-motivated acts, all of which occurred within each’s respective statutory limitation period.
Each of the plaintiffs satisfied Morgan’s threshold requirement of alleging some act contributing to the hostile work environment that is not time-barred. Accordingly, each of the plaintiffs was the victim of trial court error when the court limited their respective damages periods. This error prevented the jury from fully considering numerous acts that occurred in 1994, 1995, and, for some of the plaintiffs, in 1996. Obviously, consideration of these acts may have changed the jury’s mind. I therefore believe a new trial is appropriate for all Appellants, with the district court employing the analysis put forth by the Supreme Court in Morgan.
Even if the majority’s position were to stand, its analysis with regard to Webb is flawed. The majority suggests that the district court properly limited the damages period for Webb because all of the acts that Webb alleged to have happened within the statutory period were discrete acts rather than part of a hostile work environment. See Ante at 785 (“[TJhese discrete acts, under Morgan, cannot be used to revive pre-limitations acts for the purpose of recovering damages because they are separate and distinct unlawful employment *788practices.” (citing Morgan, 122 S.Ct. at 2071-72)).
While it may be that Webb’s reprimand and the rejection of Webb’s discrimination claim were discrete acts of discrimination, see Morgan, 122 S.Ct. at 2073 (noting discrete discriminatory acts include failing to promote, denial of a transfer, refusing to hire), the majority overlooks the other acts complained of by the B shift firefighters: racially offensive cartoons and magazines left at the station; vandalism of B shift amenities at the station; and the loosening of Webb’s vehicle lug nuts while he was at work, to name a few. All of these acts happened within the statutory limitations period. Clearly, these are not independently actionable discrete acts, but rather are acts contributing to Webb’s claim that he, along with other B shifters, was subjected to a racially hostile work environment. Thus, the majority has not only misinterpreted Morgan, it has misapplied its own analysis to plaintiff Webb. Accordingly, I dissent.

. For Smith and Webb, the court limited the jury’s consideration of damages to acts occurring since November 5, 1995; for Mems, damages were limited to acts occurring since April 15, 1996; Brown’s statutory damages period was limited to acts occurring since April 16, 1996; and Khaliq's damages period was limited to act occurring since April 22, 1996.