Barnes v. Callaghan & Co., s. 76-1654

• Decision Date: 29 July 1977
• Docket Number: Nos. 76-1654,s. 76-1654
• Parties: 15 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1783, 14 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 7758 Marian BARNES, Plaintiff-Appellant Cross-Appellee, v. CALLAGHAN & COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee Cross-Appellant. 76-1656.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 1102

559 F.2d 1102

15 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1783, 14 Empl. Prac.

Dec. P 7758

Marian BARNES, Plaintiff-Appellant Cross-Appellee, v. CALLAGHAN & COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee Cross-Appellant.

Nos. 76-1654 76-1656.

United States Court of Appeals,

Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 13, 1977.

Decided July 29, 1977.

Sidney Z. Karasik, John F. Skeffington, Michael A. Kreloff, Chicago, Ill., for Callaghan.

Jason E. Bellows, Carole K. Bellows, Chicago, Ill., for Barnes.

Before CUMMINGS and PELL, Circuit Judges, and CAMPBELL, Senior District Judge. ^*

CUMMINGS, Circuit Judge.

Four days after the commencement of trial, pursuant to prior leave, plaintiff filed her four-count Third Amended Complaint. ¹ Count One was brought under Section 703(a)(1) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1) ). Plaintiff, a female resident of Des Plaines, Illinois, alleged that on September 25, 1972, she was discharged as head of its Editorial Department by defendant publisher of law books. She claimed that she was discharged and otherwise discriminated against because of sex and that she was succeeded by a male. She filed a timely charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on October 4, 1972. That agency issued her a notice of right-to-sue letter on April 13, 1973. Plaintiff asserted that after she filed her EEOC charge, defendant retaliated and harassed and intimidated her. In Count One she sought appropriate injunctive relief and reinstatement with back pay, plus $10,000 in punitive damages, costs and attorney's fees. ²

Count Four was a pendent claim for slander and asserted that on September 26, 1972, Rae Smith, defendant's executive vice president, made the following slanderous statements to her former co-employees (including Richard Young and Stephen Hill):

"Marian Barnes was terminated because she was a non-communicator."

"Marian Barnes was terminated because she failed to communicate."

Count Four also alleged that on December 14, 1972, Michael Cudahy, defendant's president, made the following slanderous statements to Roger Sekara, the personnel director of Baxter Laboratories, concerning plaintiff's abilities as an employee of defendant:

"That we had to let Marian Barnes go because in our opinion her managing abilities were not keeping up with what we needed."

"That Marian Barnes had been managing our editorial department and the demands of that position had gotten beyond her."

"That Marian Barnes was not communicating company policy to people."

"That Marian Barnes said management was a bunch of bums."

"That Marian Barnes was attempting to isolate people from Mr. Cudahy."

After asserting that malice was the gist of Count Four, plaintiff sought $560,000 in damages plus costs and attorneys' fees and an additional $100,000 in punitive damages.

In a memorandum opinion of April 30, 1975, Judge Flaum adhered to a prior ruling by then District Judge Tone, to whom the case had been originally assigned, holding that the civil rights count could not be maintained as a class suit. Citing Van Hoomissen v. Xerox Corporation, 368 F.Supp. 829 (N.D.Cal.1973), Judge Flaum also held that punitive damages could not be awarded under Count One. In the same order, he decided that the slander action contained in Count Four was not barred by the one-year Illinois statute of limitations (1975 Ill.Rev.Stats. Ch. 83, § 14) even though the Count was not filed until March 25, 1975, long beyond the limitations period, because the "gravamen of the original complaint was clearly the injury to plaintiff's reputation and employment opportunity occasioned by the alleged malicious conduct of the defendant."

Judge Grady, to whom the case was subsequently transferred, simultaneously held a bench trial of the sex discrimination case and a jury trial of the slander case. The jury awarded plaintiff $35,000 compensatory damages and $10,000 exemplary damages on the slander count, and the district judge found in favor of defendant on the bench trial of the sex discrimination count. We reverse the slander judgment and affirm the Civil Rights Act judgment.

The Illinois Statute of Limitations Bars Recovery for Slander

We need not consider the merits of Count Four, the slander count, because of the bar of the one-year Illinois statute of limitations. ³ The slanderous statements purportedly occurred on September 26, 1972 and December 14, 1972. However, malice was not attributed to defendants until the January 27, 1975, First Amended Complaint, and the first time a slander count as such was alleged was in Count Four of plaintiff's March 25, 1975, Second Amended Complaint. This was more than two years after the allegedly slanderous statements.

Plaintiff can take no comfort from paragraph 8 of Count II of the original complaint, drafted by earlier counsel, because that count (as amended) was voluntarily dismissed by her during the trial. Moreover, Count II was plainly for breach of a year-to-year employment contract and only casually mentioned in paragraph 8, as one aspect of the damage resulting to plaintiff from the breach, that plaintiff's discharge injured her professional reputation. The alleged defamation injury which went to the jury concerned statements made subsequent to plaintiff's dismissal. But paragraph 8 speaks only to the dismissal itself; it intimates neither the fact nor content of any subsequent defamatory statements. Count II was entirely devoid of any allegations of slander as a cause of action as distinguished from allegations of impairment of reputation as part of damages for which a remedy was sought under a contract action.

Under Illinois law, ⁴ the slander allegations contained in Count Four of the Second and Third Amended Complaints do not relate back to the filing of the original complaint but are regarded as a new cause of action. Millsaps v. Bankers Life Company, 35 Ill.App.3d 735, 342 N.E.2d 329 (1976); Colucci v. Chicago Crime Commission, 31 Ill.App.3d 802, 334 N.E.2d 461 (1975); Larkin v. Gerhardt, 21 Ill.App.2d 122, 157 N.E.2d 426 (1959) (abst. op.). We cannot agree with the district judge that the gravamen of the original complaint "was clearly the injury to plaintiff's reputation * * * " (Plaintiff's App. 3). Instead, Count I of that April 23, 1973, initial pleading was a civil rights action and Count II (the only other count) was for breach of contract. Under Illinois law, a well-pleaded slander action requires allegations of malice, Judge v. Rockford Memorial Hospital 17 Ill.App.2d 365, 150 N.E.2d 202 (1958), and of publication of the defamation to a third party. Ginsburg v. Black, 237 F.2d 790 (7th Cir. 1956), certiorari denied, 353 U.S. 911, 77 S.Ct. 669, 1 L.Ed.2d 665; Libert v. Turzynski, 129 Ill.App.2d 146, 262 N.E.2d 741 (1970). Neither the Title VII nor contract counts of the original complaint mention either malice or publication. An allegation of malice of any kind did not appear until the first amended complaint and no publication was detailed until the second amended complaint. Since there were no timely specific allegations of slanderous conduct, ⁵ the Illinois one-year statute of limitations for slander suit applies. 1975 Ill.Rev.Stats. Ch. 83, § 14.

Count Four of the Second and Third Amended Complaints setting forth allegations of slander cannot relate back under federal law to the date of the original pleading of April 23, 1973, for the slander claim did not arise "out of the conduct, transaction or occurrence set forth" in the original pleading as required by Rule 15(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Under the circumstances of this case, as we have demonstrated above, the amendments to the complaint did "introduce a new and different cause of action." Russell v. New Amsterdam Cas. Co., 303 F.2d 674 (8th Cir. 1962). The original complaint was based only on the discharge of September 25, 1972, claiming in Count I that it violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and in Count II that it violated plaintiff's employment contract. Wiren v. Paramount Pictures, 92 U.S.App.D.C. 347, 206 F.2d 465, 468 (1953); Pendrell v. Chatham College, 386 F.Supp. 341, 345-346 (W.D.Pa.1974). Also, the original complaint did not give defendant "such notice of the institution of the (slander) action that he * * * (would) not be prejudiced in maintaining his defense (thereto) on the merits" as required by Rule 15(c)(1). Rosenberg v. Martin, 478 F.2d 520, 526 (2d Cir. 1973), certiorari denied, 414 U.S. 872, 94 S.Ct. 102, 38 L.Ed.2d 90. Therefore, Rule 15(c) does not save the slander count from the state time bar.

Plaintiff's Discharge Did Not Violate the Civil Rights Act

At the close of the bench trial, Judge Grady announced his findings of fact and conclusions of law against the plaintiff on Count One (Plaintiff's App. 6-11). Those findings may be summarized as follows:

Plaintiff's fifteen years of experience with the defendant company was "almost an exemplar in equal employment opportunity for the sexes" (App. 6). In 1969, she was made head of the Editorial Department consisting of 19 men and one woman who were peers in her legal profession. As of 1969, fourteen of the male editors had been in the Editorial Department since 1967, many of them as far back as the 1950's and some even as far back as the 1940's. All were reasonably competent, and very few of them were discharged after plaintiff became head of the department. Despite the competence of the male editors, the important position as department chief was given to plaintiff in 1969. Indeed as far back as 1967, plaintiff was preferred over 18 males in the Editorial Department and named the top assistant to Gene Lowenthal, then head of that department. The foregoing statistics bespeak no sexual discrimination. The editors were all selected and promoted on the basis of merit.

Until 1970, plaintiff won the highest praise for her work. However, Jerome Pritz, a former subordinate of plaintiff, was promoted to Director of Publications at the...