Katz v. Dole

• Decision Date: 01 June 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-1379,82-1379
• Citation: 709 F.2d 251
• Parties: 31 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1521, 32 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 33,639 Deborah Ann KATZ, Appellant, v. Elizabeth DOLE, Secretary of Transportation, Appellee, American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, Amicus Curiae.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 251

709 F.2d 251

31 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1521,

32 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 33,639

Deborah Ann KATZ, Appellant, v. Elizabeth DOLE, Secretary of Transportation, Appellee, American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, Amicus Curiae.

No. 82-1379.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued Feb. 11, 1983.

Decided June 1, 1983.

George M. Chuzi, Washington, D.C. (Kalijarvi, Delate & Chuzi, Washington, D.C., on brief), for appellant.

James H. Phillips, Sp. Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C. (Elsie L. Munsell, U.S. Atty., Alexandria, Va., on brief), for appellee.

Before PHILLIPS, ERVIN, and CHAPMAN, Circuit Judges.

ERVIN, Circuit Judge:

Deborah Ann Katz is a former federal air traffic controller whose employment was terminated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in September, 1981, for alleged participation in an illegal strike against the FAA. Prior to that, on June 9, 1981, Katz, after exhausting her administrative remedies, began the present action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, naming the FAA's statutory superior, the Secretary of Transportation, as defendant. Katz' complaint claimed that she had been subjected to sexual harassment and to disparate and adverse personnel actions amounting to gender discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-16 (1981). The action was subsequently transferred to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. At the close of the trial, that court found that Katz had not been the object of intentional discrimination on the basis of her sex and entered judgment for the Secretary. The court granted Katz limited relief on her prayer for a correction of her government employment files. Katz appeals. We conclude that Katz did make out a case of sexual harassment actionable under Title VII but find no error in the district court's handling of Katz' disparate treatment claim. We therefore affirm in part and reverse in part. ¹

I.

Katz entered the federal air traffic controller training program in 1974. In 1977, she was assigned to the Washington Air Traffic Control Center, and in August, 1980, she was certified as a fully trained controller. At the Washington Center, Katz was assigned to controller crew 1F, supervised by John J. Sullivan. She was the only woman on the crew. She was transferred to another crew in May, 1981, at her own request. While working on crew 1F and under Sullivan's supervision, Katz alleges she was subjected to substantial sexual harassment by FAA employees, including Sullivan and other supervisory personnel. She also asserts that she brought this harassment to the attention of Sullivan, who responded with further sexual harassment, and of Sullivan's superior, who reacted with indifference.

The record ² confirms Katz' allegations. The FAA workplace was pervaded with sexual slur, insult and innuendo, and Katz was personally the object of verbal sexual harassment by her fellow controllers. This harassment took the form of extremely vulgar and offensive sexually related epithets addressed to and employed about Katz by supervisory personnel as well as by other controllers. The words used were ones widely recognized as not only improper but as intensely degrading, deriving their power to wound not only from their meaning but also from "the disgust and violence they express phonetically." C. Miller & K. Swift, Words and Women 109 (1977).

FAA supervisory personnel had been alerted to the problem. One of the Secretary's witnesses, the manager of the controller training program, testified that he was aware from female workers' complaints that sexual intimidation was a "common" experience at the agency. Sullivan testified that he had heard controllers referring to Katz by obscenities. Sullivan himself admitted that he had suggested to Katz that her problems with another controller, about whose sexual advances Katz was complaining, might be solved if Katz submitted to him. Uncontradicted testimony by Katz indicated that the supervisor of crew 2F once stated in her presence that he would consider accepting her transfer to his crew because of her sexual abilities. Katz' witnesses corroborated Katz' testimony that Sullivan and other crew members frequently referred to Katz by obscene words. ³

The record is devoid of significant evidence to contradict Katz' claims that her employment by the FAA was conditioned by a pattern of personally directed sexual insult and innuendo. Furthermore, despite their knowledge of this harassment, her employer's supervisory personnel did nothing effectual to stop it, and indeed, in Sullivan's case, took part in it.

In Garber v. Saxon Business Products, Inc., 552 F.2d 1032 (4th Cir.1977), we recognized that "an employer policy or acquiescence in a practice" of sexual harassment can constitute a violation of Title VII. When such harassment pervades the workplace, or is condoned or carried out by supervisory personnel, it becomes an illegal and discriminatory condition of employment that poisons the work environment. See 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-2(a)(1). Sexual harassment erects barriers to participation in the work force of the sort Congress intended to sweep away by the enactment of Title VII. See Bundy v. Jackson, 641 F.2d 934, 944 (D.C.Cir.1981). See generally Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power v. Manhart, 435 U.S. 702, 707 n. 13, 98 S.Ct. 1370, 1375 n. 13, 55 L.Ed.2d 657 (1978) (in forbidding gender discrimination Congress intended to prohibit the "entire spectrum" of disparate treatment on the basis of sex).

Sexual harassment, like other forms of gender discrimination, can take many forms, but the Eleventh Circuit has identified two basic varieties: "harassment that creates an offensive environment ('condition of work') and harassment in which a supervisor demands sexual consideration in exchange for job benefits ('quid pro quo')." Henson v. City of Dundee, 682 F.2d 897, 908 n. 18 (11th Cir.1982), citing C. MacKinnon, Sexual Harassment of Working Women 32-47 (1979). See 29 C.F.R. Sec. 1604.11(a) (similar analysis in EEOC guidelines on sexual harassment). Katz' primary claim falls within the "condition of work" category: she alleged in her complaint and proved at trial that her fellow employees' unwelcome and demeaning sexually related behavior toward her created "an intimidating, hostile [and] offensive working environment." 29 C.F.R. Sec. 1604.11(a)(3). The evidence also indicates that Katz was made quid pro quo propositions at times.

Although such a claim of sexual harassment might be analyzed under the familiar Title VII disparate treatment formula, ⁴ we think that a somewhat different order of proof is appropriate. See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 n. 13, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824 n. 13, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973) (disparate treatment analysis not necessarily applicable in every aspect to all factual situations). In the usual case involving allegations of disparate treatment, once the plaintiff establishes that he or she was disadvantaged in fact by some employment decision or practice, the crux of the matter is the question of motive: was there an intent to discriminate along legally impermissible lines such as race or gender? ⁵ In cases involving claims of sexual harassment, on the other hand, the sexual advance or insult almost always will represent "an intentional assault on an individual's innermost privacy." Bundy, 641 F.2d at 945. Therefore, once the plaintiff in such a case proves that harassment took place, the most difficult legal question typically will concern the responsibility of the employer for that harassment. Except in situations where a proprietor, partner or corporate officer participates personally in the harassing behavior, the plaintiff will have the additional responsibility of demonstrating the propriety of holding the employer liable under some theory of respondeat superior. We believe that in a "condition of work" case the plaintiff must demonstrate that the employer had actual or constructive knowledge of the existence of a sexually hostile working environment and took no prompt and adequate remedial action. Henson, 682 F.2d at 905; Bundy, 641 F.2d at 943; 29 C.F.R. Sec. 1604.11(d). The plaintiff may do this by proving that complaints about the harassment were lodged with the employer or that the harassment was so pervasive that employer awareness may be inferred. ⁶ Thus, we posit a two step analysis. First, the plaintiff must make a prima facie showing that sexually harassing actions took place, and if this is done, the employer may rebut the showing either directly, by proving that the events did not take place, or indirectly, by showing that they were isolated or genuinely trivial. Second, the plaintiff must show that the employer knew or should have known of the harassment, and took no effectual action to correct the situation. This showing can also be rebutted by the employer directly, or by pointing to prompt remedial action reasonably calculated to end the harassment. Title VII is not a clean language act, and it does not require employers to extirpate all signs of centuries-old prejudices. But to avoid liability under Title VII, an employer on notice of sexual harassment must do more than indicate the existence of an official policy against such harassment. Where, as here, the employer's supervisory personnel manifested unmistakable...