Court Opinion

ID: 9497378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:50:01.507197+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:09.846837
License: Public Domain

TALLMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part.
I concur in Part IV(B) of the court’s opinion and agree that summary judgment on Porter’s claim for retaliation should be reversed and remanded. Porter has presented sufficient evidence to meet her pri-ma facie burden, and Clark County School District v. Breeden, 532 U.S. 268, 121 S.Ct. 1508, 149 L.Ed.2d 509 (2001), is not controlling ón the issue of causation. Because the court’s discussion of Porter’s showing of pretext under a quid pro quo claim also relates to her retaliation claim, I further agree that Porter has presented evidence of pretext sufficient to defeat summary judgment. I agree that the district court erred in finding Porter’s sexual harassment claims statutorily barred because there is a genuine issue of material fact relating to the date of alleged discrete discriminatory acts.
I write separately because Porter fails to make a prima facie showing of a quid pro quo tangible employment action claim where the alleged harassment by two coworkers occurred when they were not her supervisors and years passed before one of the coworkers was promoted to a position where he had some authority over her. I therefore respectfully dissent from Part rV(A)(l)(a).
I
Courts must distinguish the type of discriminatory action alleged when applying the Title VII statute of limitation under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1). See generally Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002). Under Morgan, discrete discriminatory acts are not actionable if they occurred outside of the statutory time period, even if they relate to later acts timely alleged. Id. at 113, 122 S.Ct. 2061. Discrete acts include termination, failure to promote, denial of transfer, or refusal to hire. Id. at 114, 122 S.Ct. 2061. The statute of limitation on Title VII claims is strictly applied; therefore, a claimant must allege that a discrete act has occurred within the limitation period, or the claim is barred. Id. at 108-10, 122 S.Ct. 2061.
*1032In this case, the district court found that the statute of limitation barred claims for any discrete acts occurring before June 26, 1998. Porter states that Sgt. DeSantis denied two of her transfer requests in June 1998, and the evidence of record does not establish conclusively the exact date in June on which the denials occurred. Because we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to Porter, and because the precise date is dispositive as to Porter’s claims, the possibility that the transfer denials occurred in the last four days of June is sufficient to establish a genuine issue Of material fact. Therefore, I agree that summary judgment must be reversed.
II
The district court found Porter’s sexual harassment claim time-barred and did not address the merits. I would therefore remand to the district court to determine in the first instance whether Porter has met her prima facie burden. However, the court has chosen to address the merits, and I write separately because I feel that the court inappropriately extends employer liability under Title VII.
Under Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742, 118 S.Ct. 2257, 141 L.Ed.2d 633 (1998), our first inquiry is whether Porter suffered harassment culminating in a “tangible employment action”; if not, then Porter must allege a severe or pervasive hostile work environment. Id. at 753-54, 118 S.Ct. 2257. “A tangible employment action constitutes a significant change in employment status, such as hiring, firing, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, or a decision causing a significant change in benefits.” Id. at 761, 118 S.Ct. 2257.
A tangible employment action claim may arise where a supervisor, exercising his authority to make critical employment decisions on behalf of his employer, takes a sufficiently concrete action with respect to an employee such that the employer may be held vicariously liable. Holly D. v. Calif. Inst. of Tech., 339 F.3d 1158, 1167 (9th Cir.2003) (citing Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 760-65, 118 S.Ct. 2257). Ellerth makes clear that a tangible employment action may be characterized by the following features: (1) it requires an official act of the enterprise; (2) it usually is documented in official company records; (3) it may be subject to review by higher level supervisors; (4) it often requires the formal approval of the enterprise and use of its internal processes; and (5) in most cases, it inflicts direct economic harm. 524 U.S. at 762, 118 S.Ct. 2257.
If not barred by the statute of limitation, then the transfer denials Porter complains about must be “tangible employment actions” to constitute an individual harassment claim. Supreme Court authority is well settled that a “denial of transfer” is a discrete act for purposes of applying the statute of limitation. Morgan, 536 U.S. at 114, 122 S.Ct. 2061. However, these transfers may not rise to the level of a tangible employment action if they did not involve “significantly different responsibilities” or a “significant change in benefits.” See Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 761, 118 S.Ct. 2257. The evidence indicates that the various post assignments had different responsibilities, and Porter states that she wanted to transfer shifts because the hours and days off were better. Whether these changes are “significant” is uncertain on this record.
Assuming, without deciding, that Porter has alleged a sufficient tangible employment action, she would still not meet the threshold test to establish a prima facie claim of a tangible employment action in the form of quid pro quo sexual harassment. Porter has presented insufficient *1033evidence for a jury to find that a reasonable woman in her position would have believed that refusing to engage in sex with either Wheeler or DeSantis would result in any tangible employment consequence, since neither was in a supervisory position at the time.
To establish quid pro quo sexual harassment, a claimant must show that a supervisor “explicitly or implicitly condition[ed] a job, a job benefit, or the absence of a job detriment, upon an employee’s acceptance of sexual conduct.” Holly D., 339 F.3d at 1169 n. 15 (citing Heyne v. Caruso, 69 F.3d 1475, 1478 (9th Cir.1995)) (alteration in original). Only those acting on behalf of an employer have the capacity to extort sex for purposes of a quid pro quo harassment claim. Id. (noting that “[wjithout the authority to act as an agent of the employer, a supervisor has no quid to give.”) A claimant need not prove that a supervisor made explicit quid pro quo demands. Instead, such demands may be established impliedly by showing that “the supervisor’s words or conduct would communicate to a reasonable woman in the employee’s position that such participation is a condition of employment.” Id. at 1173.
The focus of this inquiry is the conduct of a “supervisor.” A tangible employment action results from a refusal to submit to a supervisor’s sexual demands. Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 753, 118 S.Ct. 2257. In Ellerth, the Supreme Court established vicarious liability, without affirmative defense, for the actions taken by a supervisor, under the agency law principle that a supervisor is aided in accomplishing the tort by the existence of the agency relationship. Id. at 760, 118 S.Ct. 2257. It is the agency relationship that allows the supervisor to bring the official power of the enterprise to bear against a subordinate, and “invests his or her harassing conduct with a particular threatening character....” Id. at 762-63, 118 S.Ct. 2257. It requires a supervisor to leverage his authority to condition the terms of employment on participation in unwanted sexual acts. See Holly D., 339 F.3d at 1169.
In Porter’s case, the sexual demands were by coworkers. Later promotion of one of the coworkers cannot change the fact that at no time did a supervisor make any sexual demands. At the time of their respective sexual advances, neither Wheeler nor DeSantis were Porter’s supervisor such that either had authority to affect her employment. As a sergeant, Wheeler outranked Porter, but she does not assert that he was then in her chain of command. There is also no allegation that either of the men implied that they had any such authority over her, or that they had authority beyond the scope of any other coworkers. In fact, DeSantis’s official interaction with Porter at the time was in his capacity as a union representative, not as a CDC employee or agent of her employer. It was not until two years after his rejected demands that DeSantis was assigned as Personnel Assignment Sergeant, and arguably acquired sufficient authority to be considered a “supervisor” for this inquiry.
Furthermore, Porter does not allege that either Wheeler or DeSantis suggested that her employment circumstances were in any way conditioned upon submitting to their demands. During his period of alleged sexual advances, Wheeler stated once that he “owned” her, but no other potential reference to his employment position, or hers, is in evidence. Porter states that she “was afraid that Wheeler would use his position as a supervisor to retaliate against her if she rejected his advances,” but she does not provide any substantiation to support her assertion. The closest approximation to a quid pro quo suggestion is that Wheeler conditioned *1034a job benefit of Officer Thompson upon Porter’s acceptance of his advances, but it is overreaching to suggest that an adverse impact on an unrelated coworker would suffice in lieu of any direct impact on Porter. As to DeSantis, Porter does not even state that she was afraid he would “use his position against her,” and admits that “[a]t first, DeSantis’s only means of retaliation were slander and ridicule.”
Even if we ignore the substantial temporal discontinuity between Porter’s initial rejections of Wheeler and DeSantis and her thwarted attempts to be transferred to a different shift two years later, there is still no evidence that Wheeler (who was still not her supervisor) or DeSantis later impliedly conditioned acceptance of her transfer requests on any sexual conduct. There is no suggestion that either of them stated or implied that any of their offensive or adverse actions would have stopped if Porter submitted to their prior demands, or that either man ever renewed his sexual advances. See, e.g., id. at 1175-76 (finding insufficient evidence where no facts were presented connecting a discussion of job duties with requests for sex, nor of any discussion of job-related matters during any discussion regarding participation in sexual acts). While the men may have acted with hostility, Porter has alleged no sexual or sex-related offensive or harassing behavior by either man after the actual supervisory relationship began in 1998.
Although I do not feel it is necessary for the court to reach the merits of this issue now, if we must, I would hold that Porter has failed to make a prima facie showing sufficient to overcome summary judgment on her quid pro quo tangible employment action. I cannot join the court and find that a claimant may hold an employer vicariously liable, without affirmative defense, based on sexual advances made by coworkers without supervisory capacity, where there was no renewal of sexual advances after a supervisory relationship began almost two years later. This is simply a step I am not willing to take in light of the principles enunciated by the Supreme Court applicable to Title VII claims.
Ill
While I do not think Porter’s Complaint is sufficient to establish a freestanding claim for quid pro quo sexual harassment, the next step in the inquiry is to determine whether Porter has presented sufficient evidence to establish a hostile work environment claim. In applying the statute of limitation, actions occurring in the pre- and post-limitation periods may all be considered for purposes of establishing liability if they are part of the same hostile work environment. Morgan, 536 U.S. at 117-18, 122 S.Ct. 2061. “A court’s task is to determine whether the acts about which an employee complains are part of the same actionable hostile work environment practice, and if so, whether any act falls within the statutory time period.” Id. at 120, 122 S.Ct. 2061. Courts may consider whether the pre- and post-limitation events are the same type of employment actions, whether they occurred relatively frequently, and whether they were perpetrated by the same managers. Id.
The district court found that none of the acts comprising a hostile work environment occurred after the limitation date, and that conduct was not part of the same hostile work environment because Porter’s “allegations of sexual harassment as to Wheeler and DeSantis [were] entirely distinct, different in nature, and occurred years earlier than her allegations supporting her retaliation claim.” In contrast, the court now finds that harassing conduct took place after the limitation period, and concludes generally that pre- and post-limitation behavior involved the same type of sexist activity.
*1035I concur only in the conclusion that Porter has alleged sufficient evidence of a hostile work environment to warrant a trial on the merits. Only a jury can resolve whether all of the acts alleged by Porter are part of the same actionable hostile work environment practice and whether a sufficiently severe or pervasive hostile environment existed. And if her denied transfer requests are not significant enough to constitute tangible employment actions, they may still be considered along with the other evidence as part of a hostile work environment claim. See Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 763-65, 118 S.Ct. 2257.
IV
The district court erred when it determined that Porter failed to meet her prima facie case of a hostile work environment and retaliation. I concur in the reversal of these claims. However, contrary to the court’s decision, I would hold that the facts alleged by Porter do not support a quid pro quo claim that a tangible employment action resulted from refusal to submit to a supervisor’s sexual demands. Therefore, I would affirm summary judgment dismissing that claim.