Wyninger v. New Venture Gear, Inc.

• Decision Date: 19 March 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-1632.,03-1632.
• Citation: 361 F.3d 965
• Parties: Joella K. WYNINGER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NEW VENTURE GEAR, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

361 F.3d 965

Joella K. WYNINGER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NEW VENTURE GEAR, INC., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 03-1632.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued October 29, 2003.

Decided March 19, 2004.

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Michael K. Sutherlin (argued), Sutherlin & Associates, Indianapolis, IN, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Kathleen M. Anderson (argued), Barnes & Thornburg, Fort Wayne, IN, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before FLAUM, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

KANNE, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiff, Joella Wyninger, alleges multiple violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C.2000e et seq. (2003), by her former employer, New Venture Gear, Inc. ("NVG").¹ Wyninger asserts that NVG tolerated or condoned a hostile work environment based on gender, maintained unequal terms of employment, and fired her because of her sex and in retaliation for a sexual harassment complaint she made against her coworkers. The district court, after denying a motion to consider newly discovered evidence, granted summary judgment to NVG on all of Wyninger's Title VII claims. We affirm both the decision to exclude evidence and the grant of summary judgment.

I. History

NVG, a joint venture created by General Motors Corp. and the former Chrysler Corp., produces automobile parts. Vendors supply NVG with unfinished component parts, which NVG processes and assembles into manual transmissions and drive-line components. One of NVG's facilities is located in Muncie, Indiana. This facility employs approximately 1300 workers on three shifts.

Joella Wyninger engaged in a variety of occupations before joining NVG. She worked as a gear cutter and in the tool crib at a manufacturing concern for nearly two years. She also worked for a short period of time as a car-seat inspector at a different manufacturer. Aside from manufacturing-related jobs, Wyninger worked as a waitress, a telemarketer, and at various retail establishments. Her brief experiences in supervisory roles came as a waitress and in retail.

After interviewing for the position of production supervisor at NVG's Muncie facility in April of 2000, Wyninger was hired under a ninety-day written contract. NVG informed her that she would be monitored during this trial period and that her employment could be made permanent if she performed well. NVG cites Wyninger's lack of manufacturing experience as the reason for this probationary period.

At about the same time Wyninger was hired, NVG hired three other production supervisors, all males. NVG placed Bill Timbs and Scott Brand as full supervisors. NVG placed Steve Lawrence as a supervisor-in-training, an intermediate position between full supervisor and a probationary contract position like that afforded to Wyninger. Timbs had over twenty years of experience in the military and nine years of supervisory experience in manufacturing. Brand had fourteen years of experience in manufacturing as a project manager. Lawrence had twenty years of experience in manufacturing and sixteen years of military experience. Wyninger was the only production supervisor who was not salaried and who lacked benefits. Her $25 per hour contractual rate of payment, however, meant that Wyninger earned roughly the same pay as her colleagues.

NVG initially assigned Wyninger as a trainee to the first shift in Department 5600, a machinery area. She "shadowed" a first-shift production supervisor, Randy Johnson, for at least three-to-four weeks to learn the job. Usually, production supervisors received this form of training for two weeks. Wyninger also received about twenty-nine hours of formal classroom training during the course of her employment with NVG. The other newly hired production supervisors received similar amounts of formal training: Brand received about twenty-eight hours, Lawrence received about seventeen hours, and Timbs received more than forty hours. The record is silent about the amount of on-the-job training provided to Brand, Lawrence, and Timbs. NVG did not formally train Wyninger to calculate overtime for her employees or to prepare inventory sheets for the next shift.

Department 5600 is divided into two sections: component preparation and an assembly line. Wyninger worked in the component preparation section, where hourly laborers perform preliminary tasks on unfinished components so that the components can be assembled into final products on the assembly line. Of particular importance to component preparation is "heat treating" the components. Production supervisors like Wyninger manage the hourly employees to ensure efficient production. Among other things, the supervisors monitor and instruct forklift drivers, known at NVG as "truckers," so that the component materials are transported in a timely fashion to the heat-treat operation and subsequently to the assembly line.

After her initial training on first shift, Wyninger was assigned to second shift where she supervised approximately thirty employees. NVG assigned Earl Davis, an experienced supervisor, to help Wyninger with any difficulties she may have experienced during her first week on her own. She reported directly to the second-shift superintendent, Russell Wade. Bryant Allam, the Area Manager, was responsible for production in Department 5600 across all three shifts.

Wyninger faced obstacles to successfully maintaining the production flow on the second shift. Often the first-shift workers failed to leave the equipment and stock ready for continued production. Furthermore, the first-shift production supervisor (Johnson) did not always leave inventory lists for Wyninger to consult. Wyninger also frequently complained about inadequate trucker support. The strain of working in a fast-paced manufacturing environment was made more difficult by the vulgar language and fiery temper of the third-shift superintendent, Joe Crouch, who often talked to Wyninger at length when their time at the factory overlapped, and the similar behavior of second-shift superintendent Wade. Due to her lack of formal training in calculating overtime or preparing inventory sheets, Wyninger committed mistakes and was mocked by her supervisors. Wyninger was not paid overtime for routine paperwork she completed before or after her shift; she alleges that Johnson did receive overtime compensation.

On July 27, 2000, a production line went down in Department 5600. Wade had informed Wyninger that gears being welded on her shift had to be taken to the heat-treat operation so that the gears would be ready for assembly. Five hours into her shift, Wyninger had not yet been able to send any gears to the heat-treat operation. This resulted in the shutdown, since the assembly line had no parts to process. Wade and Allam attributed the production line shutdown to Wyninger's failure to properly marshal her resources and personnel. Wyninger blamed the truckers and Wade for failing to help when she could not locate the truckers.

On August 1, 2000, Wyninger received a phone call from union committeeman Bob Slaven, her subordinates' union representative. Because Slaven represented the interests of the workers on Wyninger's shift, Wyninger often had to consult with Slaven about employee issues that arose. Slaven asked Wyninger about a job posting. When Wyninger replied that she had posted a job and was surprised Slaven had not come to look at "it," Slaven — apparently using the speaker feature on his telephone so other men in his office could listen to the conversation — responded with a sexual innuendo about the "it" to which Wyninger referred.² Wyninger heard several men laughing. After Wyninger hung up the phone in disgust, the phone rang again about one minute later and an unidentified voice — Wyninger thinks it was again Slaven and that he was still using the speaker phone — asked twice, "You got any pussy you can hook me up with?"

On August 2, Slaven again called Wyninger and demanded that she come to his office to discuss an employee matter. Wyninger complied with Slaven's request. Once Wyninger entered, two union representatives followed her inside and locked the door — although in fact the door could still be opened by someone in the room. Wyninger unlocked the door, but the men re-locked it when she sat down. Slaven asked Wyninger about a sexual-harassment incident in her department involving another employee. After Wyninger described the resolution of the matter, Slaven asked Wyninger why she wouldn't answer the complaining employee's questions about her own preferences with regard to oral sex. The three men in the room laughed. Wyninger, again, was offended and distressed by the conduct of Slaven.

Wyninger initially complained to coworkers about the phone calls on August 1; she reported all of her complaints to human resources on August 2. On August 3, NVG human-resources personnel called Wyninger into work early, informed Wyninger that NVG had a "zero tolerance" policy with respect to sexual harassment, prompted Wyninger to write a report, gave her the night off with pay, and began an investigation into the complaint.

NVG was unsuccessful in its attempts to trace the August 1 phone calls, and Slaven denied involvement with the second call. Although Wyninger insists that both calls were received while Don Blakey (an NVG employee) was in her office, Blakey recalled only one phone call. NVG did place a device on Wyninger's phone to monitor all future calls to her office. NVG also investigated the August 2 meeting in Slaven's office. NVG interviewed all individuals present at the meeting; they insisted that they meant no harm and were only "kidding around." NVG determined that the door could not lock anyone inside the room. On August 7, NVG concluded that there was insufficient evidence to punish Slaven or anyone else based on Wyninger's complaint because of...