David v. Caterpillar, Inc.

Decision Date17 March 2003
Docket NumberNo. 02-1354.,02-1354.
Citation324 F.3d 851
PartiesLori DAVID, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CATERPILLAR, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Patricia C. Benassi, Athena M. Papachronis (argued), Benassi & Benassi, Peoria, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Michael A. Warner (argued), Laura A. Lindner, Seyfarth Shaw, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before EASTERBROOK, RIPPLE and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge.

Lori David filed this action against Caterpillar, Inc. ("Caterpillar"); she claimed that Caterpillar had violated Title VII by discriminating and/or retaliating against her when it denied her promotions to five different positions while she was employed in its security department. A jury returned a verdict for Caterpillar on four of Ms. David's claims, but found that Caterpillar had retaliated against Ms. David by selecting another candidate, Joni Lusher, to fill a sergeant position. The jury awarded Ms. David $100,000 in compensatory damages and $750,000 in punitive damages. Following the verdict, Caterpillar renewed its motion for judgment as a matter of law or, alternatively, for a new trial. The district court granted Caterpillar's motion in part with respect to the damages award and denied the motion in all other respects. The district court reduced the compensatory award to $50,000 and the punitive award to $150,000. The district court also awarded Ms. David $35,606.71 in back pay and $20,697.81 in prejudgment interest. Caterpillar appeals both the liability and damages determinations. For the reasons set forth in the following opinion, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I BACKGROUND
A. Facts

Caterpillar hired Ms. David on March 6, 1989, as a fire and security officer at its East Peoria, Illinois facility. Ms. David continued to work in the security department until June 1996, when she transferred to Caterpillar's marketing department. As of 1994, no woman had ever been promoted in Caterpillar's security department. Ms. David repeatedly had expressed interest to her supervisor, Sergeant Gary Shilling, in being promoted to the rank of sergeant. Sergeant Shilling responded by telling Ms. David that no woman would ever be promoted in the department.

It was the sergeants' duty to evaluate officers and to make recommendations to the captains for promotions. In turn, the captains would recommend certain candidates to Tom Ruxlow, the corporate security manager, and to Larry Beckner, the assistant security manager. Although the captains played a significant role in the selection process, Ruxlow and Beckner made the final decisions with respect to promotions. It is undisputed that Sergeant Shilling did not recommend Ms. David for promotion despite her excellent performance reviews.

On October 19, 1994, Ms. David and Kenny Hendrick, her union steward, met with Ray Richardson, captain of security at the East Peoria facility. Ms. David complained to Captain Richardson about only males being promoted in the security department. Captain Richardson told her that, in order to be promoted, she needed to have a four-year college degree; Ms. David responded that men who did not have degrees were being promoted. At this point, Richardson hit his desk and stated: "If it's a lawsuit you want, I don't want no part of it." R. 120 at 371.

In November 1994, Ms. David filed charges with the EEOC. She alleged that she had been denied promotions due to sex discrimination. Both Captain Richardson and Sergeant Shilling were informed of Ms. David's charges. After Ms. David complained internally about discrimination and filed her EEOC charges, Richardson and Shilling began to treat Ms. David differently. Ms. David testified that they would go out of their way to avoid speaking to her and, when they did speak, that the encounters were "angry" in tone. Id. at 379. Additionally, Ms. David testified that Richardson and Shilling attempted to deny her an educational leave of absence and avoided completing paperwork that would have allowed her the opportunity to apply for a promotional opportunity outside of the security department.

In June of 1995, a sergeant position became available in the East Peoria security department. The position was not posted. In a meeting with all the captains and Beckner, Captain Richardson recommended that Joni Lusher, a woman, be promoted. Caterpillar had hired Lusher in September 1991. Lusher had not requested or shown any interest in being promoted until Tony Kegley, her sergeant, and Captain Richardson approached her and specifically asked her if she was interested in a promotion. Ms. David was not asked if she was interested in the promotion, nor was she recommended for the position. Upon her promotion, effective July 3, 1995, Lusher was the first woman promoted in the security department. Ms. David believed that she was denied the promotion given to Lusher because Ms. David had made a complaint of sex discrimination.

Shortly after Lusher's promotion, Ron Dieckow, another security officer, spoke with Larry Mitzelfelt, the captain of security for the Mossville facility. Mitzelfelt learned of Lusher's promotion in a captains' meeting in which Beckner and Richardson were present. According to Dieckow, he asked Mitzelfelt why Lusher received the promotion, and Mitzelfelt replied that "he had been told by upper management that the next promotion in the department would have to be a woman in response to a lawsuit that was recently filed in East Peoria by another female security officer." Id. at 266. In a later conversation, Mitzelfelt told Dieckow "that they had looked at every female employee in [the] department as a candidate for sergeant" and "even considered his secretary, Sandy Daniels, as a possible candidate for a sergeant's job." Id. at 267.

B. District Court Proceedings

A jury found that Caterpillar had selected Lusher in retaliation against Ms. David, and awarded Ms. David $100,000 in compensatory damages and $750,000 in punitive damages. Following the jury's verdict, Caterpillar made a renewed motion for a directed verdict or, alternatively, for a new trial. The district court granted Caterpillar's motion, in part, by reducing the compensatory award to $50,000 and the punitive award to $150,000. However, the district court denied Caterpillar's motion in all other respects.

First, the district court concluded that the exclusion of Dieckow's testimony was not required under Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as a sanction for Ms. David's failure to timely disclose the substance of Dieckow's testimony. Specifically, the district court determined that Caterpillar was not prejudiced by any discovery violation because it had introduced evidence that directly rebutted Dieckow's testimony when it called Mitzelfelt to testify that he had no such conversation with Dieckow. The district court also noted that there was no showing that Ms. David's counsel had acted in bad faith. Second, the district court concluded that, even assuming that the admission of Dieckow's testimony was improper, Caterpillar would not be entitled to judgment as a matter of law because the jury's verdict was supported by legally sufficient evidence. In particular, the district court pointed to (1) substantial testimony concerning the respective qualifications and experience of both Ms. David and Lusher; (2) Ms. David's testimony that she was treated differently by her superiors after complaining about discrimination; and (3) Rebecca Smith's testimony that she had been discharged from the security department after complaining about sexual harassment.

The district court also awarded Ms. David back pay from July 3, 1995, the date the jury found that she should have been promoted to security sergeant, through the end of May 1996, when she transferred to Caterpillar's marketing department, in the amount of $35,426.71, which represents the difference between what Ms. David earned during this period and what was earned by Lusher, the person who received the promotion.

II DISCUSSION
A. Discovery Violation

Caterpillar asserts that the district court erred in permitting Dieckow to testify at trial because Ms. David had failed to supplement her Rule 26(a)(1) disclosures to identify Dieckow as having evidence supportive of her claims. Caterpillar claims that Ms. David's violation of Rule 26 was severely prejudicial.

Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires a party to provide other parties with "the name and, if known, the address and telephone number of each individual likely to have discoverable information that the disclosing party may use to support its claims or defenses ..., identifying the subjects of the information." Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(a)(1)(A). Rule 26 also requires a party to supplement or amend its disclosures and discovery responses if it learns that the information disclosed or the response is "incomplete or incorrect and if the additional corrective information has not otherwise been made known to the other parties during the discovery process or in writing." Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(e)(1). To ensure compliance with these discovery requirements, Rule 37 provides that "[a] party that without substantial justification fails to disclose information required by Rule 26(a) or 26(e)(1) ... is not, unless such failure is harmless, permitted to use as evidence at a trial ... any witness or information not so disclosed." Fed. R.Civ.P. 37(c)(1).

This court has stated that "the sanction of exclusion is automatic and mandatory unless the sanctioned party can show that its violation of Rule 26(a) was either justified or harmless." Salgado v. Gen. Motors Corp., 150 F.3d 735, 742 (7th Cir.1998). However, we also have stated that "[t]he determination of whether a Rule 26(a) violation is justified or harmless is entrusted to the broad discretion of the district...

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