Medina-Rivera v. MVM, Inc.

• Decision Date: 10 April 2013
• Docket Number: No. 11–2419.,11–2419.
• Citation: 713 F.3d 132
• Parties: Estrella MEDINA–RIVERA; Omar Cajigas–Quiñones; Conjugal Partnership Cajigas–Medina, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. MVM, INC., Defendant, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

713 F.3d 132

Estrella MEDINA–RIVERA; Omar Cajigas–Quiñones; Conjugal Partnership Cajigas–Medina, Plaintiffs, Appellants,

v.MVM, INC., Defendant, Appellee.

No. 11–2419.

United States Court of Appeals,

First Circuit.

April 10, 2013.

Eugenio W.A. Géigel–Simounet, with whom Géigel–Simounet Law Offices C.S.P. was on brief, for appellants.

Shiara L. Diloné Fernández, with whom Anabel Rodríguez–Alonso and Schuster Aguiló LLP were on brief, for appellee.

Before TORRUELLA, LIPEZ, and THOMPSON, Circuit Judges.

THOMPSON, Circuit Judge.

Setting the Stage

Estrella Medina–Rivera (Medina) appeals from a summary judgment dismissing her Title VII case against MVM, Inc. Medina's husband Omar Cajigas–Quiñones (Cajigas) and their conjugal partnership also appear as plaintiffs and appellants. Their rights, however, derive from hers, so we can ignore them for now and treat her as if she were the only plaintiff-appellant—though our decision is binding on all parties, naturally. Medina offers a number of reasons why the summary-judgment ruling cannot stand. Exercising de novo review, Soto–Padró v. Pub. Bldgs. Auth., 675 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir.2012), we conclude that none persuades. But before getting into all that, we summarize the key facts as favorably to Medina as the record will allow, id. at 2, keenly aware that we cannot accept “conclusory allegations, improbable inferences, and unsupported speculation,” Medina–Munoz v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 896 F.2d 5, 8 (1st Cir.1990); accord Ahern v. Shinseki, 629 F.3d 49, 54 (1st Cir.2010).

In January 2008 Medina took a job as a part-time, on-call detention officer with MVM, a private firm that provides security services ( e.g., unarmed guards and other personnel) on a contract basis to the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), among others. Having no set schedule, Medina worked when and as needed (mornings, afternoons, or evenings), filling in for full-time detention officers who could not make their shifts. Sometimes she worked only one day a week, probably because MVM used a seniority system for doling out work to part-time detention officers, and she was near the bottom of the seniority list—roughly 16 out of the 20 or so persons in her position had more seniority than she. Also affecting her work hours was the fact that she started taking afternoon classes at the University of Puerto Rico in August 2008.

Medina and her MVM colleagues worked with ICE agents, but she and her MVM co-workers were supervised by MVM, not by ICE. Anyway, sometime before late October 2008 (oddly, the record does not say exactly when), Medina told one of her supervisors, Rubén Velázquez Ferrer (Velázquez), that an ICE agent—she did not say who—had gotten her phone number off a list posted at an ICE control room and was “bothering” her with calls. “Bothering,” that is the word she used in her deposition, though she later used “harassing” in her post-deposition affidavit. Hoping to end the calls, Medina asked Velázquez to take her number off the list. Velázquez said that he could not do that (“I can't take that out,” Medina quoted Velázquez as saying) because MVM and ICE rules required that detention officers' phone numbers be kept in that room. But “don't worry,” he added, because he would run this by one of his bosses, Elba Navarro Calderón (Navarro). MVM insists that no such conversation occurred between the two. But we must resolve any genuinely disputed facts in Medina's favor. See Galloza v. Foy, 389 F.3d 26, 28 (1st Cir.2004).

Fast forward to October 23, 2008. Medina and detention officer Isabel Orengo Muñiz (Orengo) were guarding a female detainee and her daughter at a hotel. ICE agent Ramón Ortiz showed up, tasked with taking the mother and daughter to a hospital for x-rays. Becoming visibly nervous, Medina turned to Orengo and asked “why him?” Orengo then escorted the mother and daughter to the transport van, at Ortiz's request. Alone with Medina in the hotel room, Ortiz grabbed her and started kissing her against her will. He touched her all over. She tried to push him off her but could not. He stopped when Orengo got back.

The next day, Medina told Navarro about her frightening encounter with Ortiz. She also revealed for the first time that before this incident Ortiz would sometimes move very close to her, tell her she “smelled good,” and try to hug her. This, apparently, had been going on for months. Navarro spoke up, saying that when Velázquez had talked to her about the harassing-phone-call situation, she suspected that Ortiz might have been the caller. Navarro denies saying this, we are told. Again, though, at this stage of the lawsuit all reasonable doubts must be resolved against MVM. See id.

Springing into action, Navarro passed Medina's complaints through MVM's administrative channels that very day. Word came back that Ortiz was to keep away from Medina. On October 27, Medina told an MVM manager that she was afraid to return to work, particularly since Ortiz was a gun-carrying ICE agent. Medina then took a three-day “bereavement leave.” A little later (by October 31), Ortiz was gone, transferred to a different office in a different city.

As part of the contract between MVM and ICE, all detention officers had to complete a 40–hour refresher training course, one part of which involved a training seminar on sexual harassment. MVM's Julio Pizarro Andino (Pizarro) ran the program. During a seminar in December 2008, Pizarro zeroed in on Medina and asked her to define sexual harassment. A nervous and embarrassed Medina did not want to answer. But Pizarro kept at her, demanding to know her definition. Sensing her anxiety, a co-worker tried to answer for her. “Is your name Estrella Medina?” Pizarro asked him sarcastically. When Medina started to cry, another colleague attempted to define the term. “Is your name Estrella Medina?” Pizarro shot back. Finally Medina exclaimed, “sexual harassment was when one person forces another to sexually humiliate another against her will,” like Pizarro had “just done.”

After exhausting her administrative remedies, Medina, together with her husband and their conjugal partnership, sued MVM under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., alleging sex discrimination in the form of hostile-work-environment harassment, plus retaliation for challenging the harassment. ¹ MVM eventually moved for summary judgment on all claims, and a magistrate judge recommended that the motion be granted. Over Medina's objections, a district judge accepted the recommendation and entered judgment accordingly. And it is this judgment that Medina now appeals to us.

A Summary–Judgment Primer

Because plenty of cases spell out the summary-judgment standard in splendid detail, see, e.g., Rockwood v. SKF USA Inc., 687 F.3d 1, 9 (1st Cir.2012), we just hit the highlights (repeating some of what we said above). Giving a fresh look to the judge's ruling, we resolve doubts and draw reasonable inferences in Medina's favor. See, e.g., Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of R.I., 373 F.3d 57, 61 (1st Cir.2004); Casas Office Machs., Inc. v. Mita Copystar Am., Inc., 42 F.3d 668, 684 (1st Cir.1994). But Medina cannot rely on speculation to avoid summary judgment. See Ahern, 629 F.3d at 58;Medina–Munoz, 896 F.2d at 8. And we need not accept her version of events if it is “blatantly contradicted” by the evidence. See Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380, 127 S.Ct. 1769, 167 L.Ed.2d 686 (2007); accord Statchen v. Palmer, 623 F.3d 15, 18 (1st Cir.2010) (emphasizing that “incredible assertions” by the nonmoving party “need not be accepted”). In the end, we will affirm the grant of summary judgment if (but only if) the record evidence (depositions, sworn statements, admissions, etc.) reveals “that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact” and that MVM “is entitled to judgment as a matter of law,” seeFed.R.Civ.P. 56(a), (c)—which is a fancy way of saying that no reasonable jury could find for Medina, see Farmers Ins. Exch. v. RNK, Inc., 632 F.3d 777, 784 (1st Cir.2011).

With this backdrop in place, we turn to the particulars of this case, laying out more facts as needed.

Analyzing the Issues

This appeal turns principally on issues of federal employment-discrimination law, which is a complex and evolving area. See Rodríguez–Machado v. Shinseki, 700 F.3d 48, 49 (1st Cir.2012) (per curiam). We can, however, simplify things a bit by focusing only on what is necessary to decide this dispute. And that is what we will do.

(a)Sex Discrimination

Title VII prohibits, among other things, sex-based discrimination that changes the terms or conditions of employment. See42 U.S.C. § 2000e–2(a)(1). And sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination, the Supreme Court tells us—by committing or tolerating sexual harassment against an employee, an employer has effectively altered the terms or conditions of the victim's job. See, e.g., Burlington Indus., Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742, 751–54, 118 S.Ct. 2257, 141 L.Ed.2d 633 (1998). One type of sexual harassment—the kind Medina alleges—involves “bothersome attentions or sexual remarks” so “severe or pervasive” that they create a “hostile work environment.” ²Id. at 751, 118 S.Ct. 2257. Accused-harasser Ortiz was not an MVM employee like Medina. But because, as we have just said, employers must provide their personnel with a harassment-free workplace, they may be on the hook for a nonemployee's sexually-harassing behavior under certain conditions—one of which being that they knew or should have known about the harassment and yet failed to take prompt steps to stop it. See, e.g., Rodriguez–Hernandez v. Miranda–Velez, 132 F.3d 848, 854–55 (1st Cir.1998); see also Lockard v. Pizza Hut, Inc., 162 F.3d 1062, 1072–74 (10th Cir.1998) (collecting cases, including Rodriguez–Hernandez ); 3 Lex K. Larson, Employment Discrimination § 46.07[4] (2d ed. 2011) (discussing, among other things, 29 C.F.R. § 1604.11(e), an EEOC guideline dealing...