Sheehan v. Donlen Corp.

• Decision Date: 18 March 1999
• Docket Number: Nos. 98-1020,98-1095,s. 98-1020
• Citation: 173 F.3d 1039
• Parties: 79 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 540, 75 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,791 Regina SHEEHAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DONLEN CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 1039

173 F.3d 1039

79 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 540,

75 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,791

Regina SHEEHAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DONLEN CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant.

Nos. 98-1020, 98-1095.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Sept. 24, 1998.

Decided March 18, 1999.

Cynthia H. Hyndman (argued), Robert L. Margolis, Robinson, Curley & Clayton, Chicago, IL, for Regina Sheehan.

David J. Parsons (argued), Littler Mendelson, Chicago, IL, for Donlen Corporation in No. 98-1020.

David J. Parsons, Allison Despard, Littler Mendelson, Chicago, IL, for Donlen Corporation in No. 98-1095.

Before CUMMINGS, BAUER and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges.

CUMMINGS, Circuit Judge.

Regina Sheehan was five months pregnant with her third child when she was fired by her employer, Donlen Corporation ("Donlen"), leading to this lawsuit under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, 42 U .S.C. § 2000e(k). Donlen is a family-owned business with about 100 employees that leases vehicles to corporate clients. Sheehan was hired in July 1991. She had previously worked for some other employers, but had not reported them all on her resume or application to Donlen.

A year after she started, Sheehan became pregnant with her first child. Donlen did not then have an official maternity policy. Decisions about retention after maternity leave were made on a case-by-case basis. Zeno Wisniewski, her then-supervisor in the Customer Service Department, told her that he would not hold her job open when she went on maternity leave, but Donlen President Gary Rappeport countermanded this decision, telling Sheehan she was a "treasured employee." Sheehan's 1992 performance evaluation rated her overall as "meeting requirements" or better, although she had had some conflict with Steve Anderson, another employee in the department. Wisniewski spoke to her about this difficulty but nonetheless wrote in her evaluation that Sheehan "sometimes comes across a bit tough to deal with, but [this is] merely perception rather than reality."

On her return in September 1992, Sheehan was placed as an accounts manager in the Purchasing Department, where her duties mainly involved arranging the purchase of vehicles from dealers. Sheehan's supervisor, Eileen Kelm, rated Sheehan as "meeting or above requirements" in her 1993 performance evaluation, in all areas except "teamwork," with respect to which there were personal conflicts with two other employees in Purchasing who had complained to several managers about Sheehan's abrasiveness.

In spring 1993, about six months after taking up the Purchasing assignment, Sheehan became pregnant with a second child. A few months later, she reported the pregnancy to Kelm and to Kelm's boss, Brad Miller. Kelm expressed concern about how Sheehan's work would be done while she was on maternity leave, and Kelm indeed had to put in extra time during Sheehan's six-week leave in January and February 1994. This leave was covered by a newly instituted maternity policy at Donlen. On her return, Sheehan remarked on the volume of work and said, "Maybe I should go home and have another baby." Kelm said to her, "If you have another baby, I'll invite you to stay home."

In the spring of 1994 Sheehan became pregnant once more. She informed Kelm and the new Purchasing Department head Bill Graham in June. Kelm said, "Oh, my God, she's pregnant again." Sheehan went on disability leave for three weeks, which was burdensome to Kelm. On Sheehan's return in July, Kelm shook her head at Sheehan and said, "Gina, you're not coming back after this baby." That month Sheehan was also placed in a "performance matrix," a management tool to improve employee productivity by setting goals and measuring performance. She was the only employee in her department placed in this program and was chosen because her job objectives were easily measurable. Sheehan expressed some concern to Kelm and to Graham that the goals had been set entirely by Kelm, without her participation. Kelm was upset that Sheehan had gone over her head to Graham and told him so.

It is unclear precisely when the decision to fire Sheehan was made. Donlen claims that a decision was made in June by Graham, Kelm, and Suzanne Gutowski, Donlen's human resources director, before any of them knew of her third pregnancy. But Sheehan and Donlen agree that those three people made a final determination in August 1994, when they knew she was pregnant. The firing was a mutual decision among these managers. Graham put off the firing until fall because he "needed her services during the busy summer season," when many businesses need cars.

On September 13, 1994, Graham told Sheehan that she was fired, saying, "Hopefully this will give you some time to spend at home with your children." Donlen claims that Graham told Sheehan the decision had been made because Sheehan was confrontational. The following day, however, Graham told Sheehan's co-workers in Purchasing that she had been fired because "[w]e felt that this would be a good time for Gina to spend some time with her family." Graham had fired only one other employee before then, Towanda Starling, who was also pregnant. Donlen continued Sheehan's health insurance through the birth of the third child. Sheehan remains at home with her three small children, having found no other work.

After obtaining her right-to-sue letter from the EEOC, Sheehan filed the employment discrimination lawsuit we now consider, asking nearly $700,000 in damages. It was tried by consent before Magistrate Judge Morton Denlow pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 73, exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 636(4)(c)(1). A jury found Donlen liable for violation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act ¹ and awarded her $30,000 in back pay. The trial court entered judgment for Sheehan in that amount, also giving her $76,913.40 in attorneys' fees ($4,350.40 for her first attorney and $72,563.00 for the firm that took over the case), and $10,000.00 in miscellaneous costs and interest, for a total of $116,913.40. At trial and after entry of the judgment, Donlen moved for judgment as a matter of law, Fed.R.Civ.P. 50, arguing that the evidence was legally insufficient. Donlen also challenged the trial court's refusal to consider Donlen's after-acquired evidence defense. Donlen appeals on these issues and on grounds of abuse of discretion in awarding attorneys' fees. Sheehan cross-appeals the trial court's ruling that she failed to mitigate her damages and asks us to enter judgment for her in the amount of $98,000 for lost wages and benefits. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

I.

Donlen argues that the evidence presented at trial was legally insufficient to support judgment for Sheehan on liability for pregnancy discrimination. Our standard of review for a trial court's denial of judgment as a matter of law is de novo. Sokol Crystal Products, Inc. v. DSC Communications Corp., 15 F.3d 1427, 1433 n. 2 (7th Cir.1994). To warrant judgment as a matter of law because of legal insufficiency of evidence, there must have been "no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for the non-moving party." Payne v. Milwaukee County, 146 F.3d 430, 432 (7th Cir.1998). Attacking a jury verdict is a hard row to hoe. In assessing whether there was such a reasonable basis after a trial on the merits, this Court considers whether the totality of the evidence supports a verdict of intentional discrimination. Whether the plaintiff has made a prima facie case drops away after trial. Diettrich v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 168 F.3d 961 (7th Cir.1999). We will not disturb the jury verdict unless Donlen can show that "no rational jury could have brought in a verdict against [it]." EEOC v. G-K-G, Inc., 39 F.3d 740, 745 (7th Cir.1994). Our inquiry "is limited to whether the evidence presented, combined with all reasonable inferences permissibly drawn therefrom, is sufficient to support the verdict when viewed in the light most favorable to the party against whom the motion is directed," Emmel v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Chicago, 95 F.3d 627, 629 (7th Cir.1996) (internal citations omitted)--here, most favorable to Sheehan.

In this case, the jury was presented with two radically different stories. According to Donlen, Sheehan was a contentious, difficult, rude, uncooperative, and argumentative employee, someone who regularly drove other employees to complain to management about her behavior and even reduced another employee to tears, and those are the reasons she was fired. Sheehan herself maintains that she was an acknowledgedly capable employee whose apparent roughness around the edges was tolerable but whose pregnancies, illegally, were not. The jury might rationally have believed Donlen, but it did believe Sheehan. There was a "reasonable basis in the record for [that] verdict." Accordingly, "we will not reweigh the evidence but will let the verdict stand." Knox v. State of Indiana, 93 F.3d 1327, 1332 (7th Cir.1996).

Evidence of discrimination may be direct or circumstantial. Graham's remarks to Sheehan and to her co-workers at the time of the firing that she would be happier at home with her children provided direct evidence of discrimination, "evidence which in and of itself suggests" that someone with managerial authority was "animated by an illegal employment criterion." Venters v. City of Delphi, 123 F.3d 956, 972 (7th Cir.1997). Even isolated comments may constitute direct evidence of discrimination if they are " 'contemporaneous with the discharge or causally related to the discharge decision making process.' " Kennedy v. Schoenberg, Fisher & Newman, Ltd., 140 F.3d 716, 723 (7th Cir.1998) (internal citations omitted). Direct evidence typically "relate[s] to the motivation of the decisionmaker responsible for the contested decision." Chiaramonte v. Fashion Bed Group, Inc., 129 F.3d 391, 396 (7th Cir.1997). Graham had managerial authority over Sheehan. His comments were contemporaneous with...