McMillan v. Massachusetts Soc. for Prevention of Cruelty To Animals

• Decision Date: 07 October 1997
• Docket Number: 97-1174,Nos. 97-1048,s. 97-1048
• Citation: 140 F.3d 288
• Parties: 77 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 589, 73 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,354 Dr. Marjorie C. McMILLAN, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, and Dr. Gus Thornton, Defendants, Appellants. Dr. Marjorie C. McMILLAN, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, Dr. Gus Thornton and Dr. Paul Gambardella, Defendants, Appellees. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 288

140 F.3d 288

77 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 589,

73 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,354

Dr. Marjorie C. McMILLAN, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO

ANIMALS, and Dr. Gus Thornton, Defendants, Appellants.

Dr. Marjorie C. McMILLAN, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO

ANIMALS, Dr. Gus Thornton and Dr. Paul

Gambardella, Defendants, Appellees.

Nos. 97-1048, 97-1174.

United States Court of Appeals,

First Circuit.

Heard Oct. 7, 1997.

Decided March 18, 1998.

Order on Rehearing June 16, 1998.

Marcus E. Cohn with whom Melissa Bayer Tearney and Peabody & Brown, Boston, MA, were on brief for defendants.

Dahlia C. Rudavsky, Boston, MA, with whom James S. Weliky, Jamaica Plain, MA, and Messing & Rudavsky, P.C. were on brief for plaintiff.

Before STAHL, Circuit Judge, GODBOLD, ^* Senior Circuit Judge, and CYR, Senior Circuit Judge.

STAHL, Circuit Judge.

In the late 1980s, Dr. Marjorie McMillan, head of the radiology department for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ("MSPCA"), learned that she was being paid less than the male heads of the organization's other departments. Defendants MSPCA and Dr. Gus Thornton now appeal the district court's denial of their motion to set aside verdicts in Dr. McMillan's favor on her various pay discrimination claims. They also appeal as excessive the jury's award of compensatory and punitive damages, and the district court's award of attorney's fees. Dr. McMillan cross-appeals the court's grant of judgment as a matter of law on her tortious interference with contractual relations claim against defendant Dr. Paul Gambardella, and its grant of summary judgment on her contract claims against the MSPCA and on her retaliation claim against all three defendants. We affirm the district court's ruling on the pay discrimination, tortious interference, contract, and retaliation claims, and, in part, the jury's compensatory damages verdict; reverse the award of punitive damages and compensatory damages representing lost benefits; and vacate the award of attorney's fees with directions that it be recalculated after remand.

I.

BACKGROUND AND PRIOR PROCEEDINGS

We begin with an overview of general facts and prior proceedings, and leave more detailed recitations to the appropriate contexts.

Defendant MSPCA is a charitable, non-profit organization that combats cruelty to animals through educational programs and veterinary services. It operates Angell Memorial Animal Hospital ("Angell"), whose staff, during the relevant time period, totalled more than 200 employees, including veterinarians, interns, residents in post-graduate veterinary training, and technical and support staff. Defendant Dr. Gus Thornton began working at Angell in 1957, and was its chief of staff from 1966 until 1989, at which time he became president of the MSPCA. Defendant Dr. Paul Gambardella worked as a staff surgeon at Angell from 1975 until 1984, and as the interim director of surgery from 1984 until 1989, when Dr. Thornton appointed him chief of staff.

Plaintiff Dr. Marjorie McMillan was first employed by Angell in 1969 and thereafter was employed in various capacities until she left in 1977 to work in private practice. She returned in 1981 as the director of the radiology department, employed part time. She left Angell again in 1984 to spend one year completing coursework necessary for board certification and returned to Angell in 1985, again as director of radiology on a part-time schedule. From 1987 until 1991, she worked full time as head of radiology. In addition, from 1981 to 1991, she worked approximately seven hours each week at Windhover Bird Clinic ("Windhover"), a part-time private avian practice that she had established in Walpole, Massachusetts.

Until 1988, Angell had seven veterinary departments: clinics, cardiology, intensive care, clinical pathology, pathology, surgery, and radiology. All of the departments were headed by veterinarians, who, in addition to fulfilling their clinical duties, also served as administrative directors of their departments. During this time, Dr. Thornton was In 1985 Dr. Thornton initiated a plan to restructure Angell's management, giving to the department directors greater responsibility, including the authority to make hiring, firing, compensation, and discipline decisions. As part of the reorganization, Dr. Thornton in 1988 consolidated Angell's seven departments into four departments: radiology, medicine, surgery, and pathology.

responsible for negotiating veterinarians' initial salaries and for setting discretionary annual increases from a fixed amount of funds. Although the department directors were responsible for such tasks as purchasing equipment, training interns and residents, scheduling, and making budget and compensation recommendations to Dr. Thornton, all of the staff reported to Dr. Thornton rather than to the individual directors.

Dr. McMillan did not know the salaries of other veterinarians employed by Angell until 1987, when she learned that the salary of a newly-hired radiologist was $38,000. Dr. McMillan, whose salary at that time was $41,000, consulted Dr. Thornton and requested a raise so that her compensation would be comparable to that of the other department heads. Dr. Thornton eventually offered Dr. McMillan a raise to $47,000, which she did not accept because she had been offered a $50,000 salary for a non-administrative veterinary position at Tufts University Veterinary School. Dr. Thornton then agreed to adjust Dr. McMillan's salary to $51,000, effective in January 1988.

In 1989, Dr. McMillan discovered the disparity between her salary and that of the other department heads at Angell when a newspaper published a letter about the MSPCA that listed the various salaries. At the time, her salary was $58,000; her male counterparts in surgery, pathology, and medicine, by contrast, were earning $73,000, $80,244, and $73,199, respectively. On the basis of the salary disparity, Dr. McMillan filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

Also in 1989, Dr. Gambardella, who became chief of staff upon Dr. Thornton's accession to the MSPCA presidency, set out to reevaluate and to improve the level of department heads' compensation. He began by creating job descriptions for each of the department heads in which the list of duties for the head of radiology was substantially the same as those for the other department head positions. He also consulted a study of the salaries at another major animal hospital and an informal market survey, on the basis of which he tentatively suggested to Kathleen Collins, Angell's human resources director, that the heads of radiology and surgery receive $88,000, the head of medicine, $90,000, and the head of pathology, $95,000. Collins then undertook an analysis of the department head jobs in order to "rationalize" the MSPCA's salary structure, giving a range of points in a number of categories of responsibility. On the basis of the point totals, she determined an appropriate salary for each of the department heads. On completion of the analysis, in 1990, Dr. McMillan received a raise from $58,295 to $72,000, which was substantially larger than that received by any of the other department heads. ¹

Also in 1990, Dr. McMillan entered into negotiations with Angell over the status of Windhover. Dr. McMillan suggested that Angell acquire her practice or, alternatively, that it rent her space so that she could carry on her bird practice there or that it pay her a separate, additional amount for her treatment of Angell's avian patients. When the negotiations came to an impasse, Dr. McMillan refused to continue to treat birds at Angell, a duty to which she had been devoting approximately six hours per week.

In 1991, Dr. Gambardella began to receive complaints from veterinarians--other department heads and members of the surgery staff, in particular--that Dr. McMillan was uncooperative and had created an atmosphere of animosity and inflexibility in the radiology department. On November 21, 1991, Dr. Gambardella summoned Dr. McMillan as she was preparing to perform a On May 21, 1992, Dr. McMillan sued the MSPCA, Dr. Thornton, and Dr. Gambardella, alleging pay discrimination in violation of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-1; the Equal Pay Act ("EPA"), 29 U.S.C. § 206; and the Massachusetts anti-discrimination statute, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B, and Equal Rights Act, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93, § 102. The complaint also alleged retaliation in violation of Title VII, the EPA, and Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B and ch. 272, §§ 92A and 98; breach of contract and negligent performance of contractual duties against the MSPCA; and tortious interference with contractual relations against Dr. Thornton and Dr. Gambardella. On March 17, 1995, the district court awarded the MSPCA summary judgment on Dr. McMillan's claims for pay discrimination under Title VII and Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93, § 102, retaliation under state and federal law, breach of contract and negligent performance of contractual duties, and tortious interference with contractual relations against Dr. Thornton. The court also held that damages against the MSPCA were limited to $20,000, pursuant to the Massachusetts charitable immunity law, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 85K. The court later held that chapter 231 did not apply and granted Dr. McMillan's motion for reconsideration of the limitation on damages.

procedure on an anesthetized dog, fired her, gave her fifteen minutes to gather her belongings, and had her escorted out of the hospital. She was told not to return and was thereafter excluded from the premises. Although Angell had adopted in March 1990 a discipline policy directed at the correction of inappropriate behavior and retention of employees whenever possible, Dr. McMillan was given no advance warning of her termination.

In December 1995, plain...