Conner v. Schrader-Bridgeport Int'l, Inc.

• Decision Date: 25 January 2000
• Docket Number: SCHRADER-BRIDGEPORT,V,DEFENDANT-APPELLEE,No. 98-2055,PLAINTIFF-APPELLAN,98-2055
• Citation: 227 F.3d 179
• Parties: (4th Cir. 2000) CHERYL S. CONNER,INTERNATIONAL, INCORPORATED, . Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 179

227 F.3d 179 (4th Cir. 2000)

CHERYL S. CONNER, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT,

V.

SCHRADER-BRIDGEPORT INTERNATIONAL, INCORPORATED, DEFENDANT-APPELLEE.

No. 98-2055.

U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: January 25, 2000.

September 13, 2000.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at Danville.

Jackson L. Kiser, Senior District Judge. (CA-96-38-D) [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Counsel Argued: Barbara Rubin Hudson, Evanston, Illinois, for Appellant. Arthur Bruce Sternberg, Pedersen & Houpt, Chicago, Illinois, for Appellee.

Before Motz and King, Circuit Judges, and John T. Copenhaver, Jr., United States District Judge for the Southern District of West Virginia, sitting by designation.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge King wrote the opinion, in which Judge Motz and Judge Copenhaver joined.

OPINION

King, Circuit Judge

Cheryl Conner appeals the district court's adverse judgment on her Title VII hostile work environment claim. The lower court vacated a jury verdict in favor of Ms. Conner and granted judgment as a matter of law and a conditional new trial to her former employer, SchraderBridgeport International ("SBI"). We now reverse the district court's judgment and remand for reinstatement of the jury's verdict.

I.

Ms. Conner originally raised three claims against SBI in her civil action filed on July 1, 1996 in the Western District of Virginia. She claimed SBI: (1) discharged her on account of her gender, in violation of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. ; (2) subjected her to a hostile work environment, also in violation of Title VII; ¹ and (3) willfully violated the Equal Pay Act, 29 U.S.C. § 255(a). Prior to trial, the district court dismissed the claim of discriminatory discharge. After a five-day trial in late November and early December 1997, the jury found in Ms. Conner's favor on both the hostile work environment and equal pay claims. On her hostile environment claim, the jury awarded Ms. Conner $20,000 in compensatory damages and granted punitive damages against SBI in the sum of $500,000. On the Equal Pay Act claim, the jury found the employer's violation "willful," and it awarded Ms. Conner $1,700 in compensatory damages. Upon considering post-trial motions, the district court, on April 30, 1998, entered judgment on the jury's verdict against SBI for $1,700 on the equal pay claim, plus an additional $1,700 in liquidated damages for willfulness. The district court, however, granted SBI's motion for judgment as a matter of law on the hostile work environment claim, and it awarded SBI a conditional new trial pursuant to Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The district court alternatively granted a reduction in damages and a remittitur of an unspecified amount, unless Ms. Conner elects a new trial. Ms. Conner appeals the judgment in favor of SBI on the hostile work environment claim.

II.

A.

When reviewing a district court's entry of judgment as a matter of law, we must view the facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. See, e.g., Brown v. CSX Transp., Inc., 18 F.3d 245, 248 (4th Cir. 1994). We accordingly recite the facts presented in support of Ms. Conner's hostile environment claim in that light.

B.

SBI manufactures high-performance valving for automotive systems, and it includes Ford, General Motors, Toyota, and Honda among its customers. SBI's corporate headquarters is in Illinois, and it has several manufacturing plants in the United States (Virginia, North Carolina, California, New York, and Oklahoma) as well as in Ireland, Italy, India, Brazil, and Mexico. Its annual gross sales from 1993 to 1995 were about $75 million, with sales to approximately six thousand customers worldwide.

Ms. Conner began work in 1984 as a temporary unskilled factory worker at the manufacturing plant in SBI's Piedmont Manufacturing Division in Altavista, Virginia. By 1992, she was working as a permanent employee in SBI's "cap and core room," assembling the stems on car and truck tires. J.A. 93.

In 1993, SBI moved a production process to its Altavista plant that used complex specialty equipment -- Acme-Gridley multi-spindle machines.² SBI created its Department 710 for this new production work at Altavista, and it advertised for skilled machine operators. After Ms. Conner passed an initial screening examination, she was permitted to enroll in a special training class for such operators at a local community college. Upon completing the class, Ms. Conner and twenty others took a mandatory hands-on examination. This examination tested each student's ability to diagnose and correct malfunctioning machines within a limited time period. Ms. Conner and one of her co-workers tied for the highest score on this exam.

In support of her claim of a hostile work environment with respect to women, Ms. Conner presented evidence of the following categories of conduct by her supervisors and other authorized personnel: (1) disparate, lesser training; (2) unauthorized disciplinary action against her; (3) extra burden in her job assignments; (4) disparate floor mopping duty; (5) verbal disparagement; (6) forced display of bloody pants; (7) failure to investigate her disparate treatment allegations; (8) lower pay rate; (9) timing her breaks with a stopwatch; and (10) termination threat as a response to her discrimination complaint.

1. Disparate, Lesser Training of Ms. Conner

In May 1993, SBI hired Ms. Conner and a number of men (who had also completed the community college course) for the position of "craftsman (skilled)" to operate the multi-spindle machines in Department 710. J.A. 1002. Men who did not have prior experience operating the Acme-Gridley machines were first temporarily placed in SBI's Department 767, where they received an additional six months of one-on-one, hands-on training, and were taught how to properly load metal bars into the machines. These men were then transferred to Department 710, where they began operating the machines. Like these men, Ms. Conner had no prior experience operating the AcmeGridley machines, other than the training acquired in the community college class. SBI, however, did not place Ms. Conner into Department 767, but placed her directly into Department 710. Thus, she did not receive the additional six months of training provided to the male machine operators initially placed in Department 767.³

George Schaefer, SBI's foreman and supervisor in Department 710, was responsible for pay raises, promotions, discipline, and terminations within the Department. On numerous occasions during the period when Ms. Conner was employed in Department 710, Schaefer stated explicitly that, in his view, women did not belong in the workplace at all. However, Schaefer testified at trial that he believed Ms. Conner had "excellent mechanical ability," and estimated that of the ten persons SBI hired from the community college training program, Ms. Conner was "probably number three from the top." J.A. 677.

In May 1993, Ms. Conner was assigned to work on the second shift (3:30 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., including mandatory overtime) in Department 710. J.A. 188. However, an auto accident the following month hospitalized her and caused an eight-week medically excused work absence. Upon her return, she did not receive the regular training in machine operations that the men hired with her were receiving. For example, when a machine malfunctioned, supervisor Bruce Boyd would explain and demonstrate to the male operators how to fix the machine, and he permitted the male machine operators to assist him. If Ms. Conner's machine malfunctioned, however, Boyd simply fixed it without showing or explaining what he did, "rolled his eyes" at her, and refused Ms. Conner's requests to participate and to learn how to fix the machines.⁴ J.A. 104. Ms. Conner specifically asked Mr. Schaefer to see that she was provided with comparable training. However, he dismissed her request by responding that she had a high rate of absenteeism. J.A. 660. Mr. Schaefer took no action to improve Ms. Conner's training in machine operating techniques.

Boyd also instructed the male machine operators, on an ad hoc basis, on special procedures essential to operation of the AcmeGridley machines. For example, some machines processed round metal bars, whereas others processed hexagonal bars. The round bars would fall into place when the machine operators beat them in to the machines. In contrast, beating on the hexagonal bars achieved nothing, as those bars had to be turned gently by hand until they slipped into place. Significantly, Ms. Conner received absolutely no instruction or assistance on how to load the hexagonal bars. When she tried to beat them into place, Boyd and Schaefer mocked her and laughed at her failure. In fact, they also encouraged other male employees to laugh at her.⁵ At home at night, Ms. Conner cried and soaked her blistered hands, acquired from her attempts to force the hexagonal bars into the machines. When she asked her brother, fellow employee Jay Shelton, to show her how to load the hexagonal bars, he came to work early on his own time and did so. Ms. Conner was thereafter able to load the bars successfully.⁶

However, supervisor Boyd and Mr. Schaefer both accused Ms. Conner of having her brother do her work for her, and they transferred her away from Mr. Shelton to work on the first shift (7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.). J.A. 109, 274. Even then, Mr. Shelton continued to donate his personal time to training his sister in machine set-ups⁷ and tool settings. Such set-ups and tool settings were difficult but necessary skills for a machine operator, in order to prevent a machine malfunction from disrupting production. When it became apparent to Ms. Conner's supervisors that she was not relying on her brother to do her work, and that she actually preferred working on the first...