Brewster v. Barnes
| Citation | 788 F.2d 985 |
| Decision Date | 10 April 1986 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 83-1582,s. 83-1582 |
| Parties | 46 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1758, 28 Wage & Hour Cas. (BN 1110, 40 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 36,098, 104 Lab.Cas. P 34,759 Joyce H. BREWSTER, Appellee, v. George F. BARNES; W.H. Forst and Charles K. Trible, Appellants, and G. Wayne Pike; Buford E. Shockley, former Sheriff of Wythe County; Wythe County, Virginia; Wythe County Board of Supervisors; George F. James; James E. Hagee; Ralph L. Blair; Garland Groseclose; Willard M. Smith; John King, Jr.; C.D. Moore, Jr.; J. Addison Jones; James E. Dunkley and Compensation Board, Defendants. Joyce H. BREWSTER, Appellant, v. G. Wayne PIKE; Buford E. Shockley, former Sheriff of Wythe County; Wythe County, Virginia; Wythe County Board of Supervisors; George F. James; James E. Hagee; Ralph L. Blair; Garland Groseclose; Willard M. Smith; John King, Jr.; C.D. Moore, Jr.; J. Addison Jones; James E. Dunkley; Compensation Bd. of Virginia; George F. Barnes; W.H. Forst and Charles K. Trible, Appellees. (L), 83-1830. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit) |
Harriet D. Dorsey (Dorsey & Long, Blacksburg, on brief) for appellant/cross-appellee.
Kenneth W. Thorson, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Richmond, Va., James P. Jones
(Penn, Stuart, Eskridge & Jones, Abingdon; William G. Broaddus, Atty. Gen., Barbara M. Rose, Asst. Atty. Gen., Gerald L. Baliles, Atty. Gen., Richmond, Va., on brief) for appellees.
Before SPROUSE and CHAPMAN, Circuit Judges, and BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge.
Defendants George F. Barnes, W.H. Forst, and Charles K. Trible, members of the Compensation Board of the Commonwealth of Virginia, appeal from the district court's judgment awarding damages and attorneys' fees to Joyce H. Brewster for negligent deprivation of constitutionally secured property rights under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 (1982). Brewster cross-appeals the district court's judgment denying her claims of sex discrimination by all the defendants 1 in violation of, among other things, Title VII 2 and the Equal Pay Act. 3 We reverse the district court's Sec. 1983 judgment in favor of Brewster. We also reverse the court's Equal Pay Act judgment in favor of the Compensation Board, the Wythe County Board of Supervisors, and their respective members. We affirm the district court's Title VII judgment in favor of all the defendants. The net result is that we affirm the amount of the district court's award to Brewster, but we hold the Compensation Board, the Board of Supervisors, and their respective members jointly liable under the Equal Pay Act.
The Wythe County, Virginia Sheriff's Department employed Brewster from June 1968 to December 1979. At all times during her employment, Buford E. Shockley was the Sheriff and her ultimate supervisor. From 1968 to 1974, Brewster performed primarily secretarial work for Shockley, who had hired her with an oral understanding that her job would end when Shockley left office. In early 1974, Brewster began working as a substitute matron for female and juvenile prisoners housed at the Wythe County jail, although she remained primarily a secretary to Shockley. After the regular matron took a medical leave of absence in March 1974, Brewster was appointed to the position of deputy sheriff. Later that spring, she completed Correctional Officers Training School along with several male deputies. At that point, Brewster began performing primarily the duties of a correctional officer rather than a secretary, although she continued to perform secretarial tasks for a time.
In order for a deputy sheriff to receive the salary of a correctional officer, the county sheriff and the county board of supervisors each had to certify to the Compensation Board that the deputy spent more than fifty percent of his or her time on the job performing the duties of a correctional officer. 4 Once the Compensation Board received both certifications, it routinely approved the pay requests for that deputy. Shockley first certified that Brewster's duties as a correctional officer occupied more than fifty percent of her time in June 1974. The Wythe County Board of Supervisors, however, refused to certify Brewster. It based its refusal on the low number of female prisoners housed in the jail and Brewster's continued concomitant work as a secretary for Shockley. As a result of the Board of Supervisors' refusal to certify Brewster, the Compensation Board declined to pay her the higher salary of a correctional officer.
In December 1974, the Board of Supervisors authorized the creation of a new full-time matron position at the jail. Shockley's daughter filled the position and worked the night shift. Brewster was then working primarily as a matron at the jail during the day shift. Shockley's daughter resigned the full-time matron position in March 1975. On March 18, 1975, Shockley again certified Brewster to the Compensation Board as a correctional officer. He stated that she would be taking over the full-time position created in December 1974 which Shockley's daughter first occupied. The Board of Supervisors, however, again refused to co-certify that Brewster was working primarily as a correctional officer, and the Compensation Board again declined to pay her the higher salary.
When Shockley moved his office from the jail to the courthouse in September 1975, the Sheriff's Department hired a new secretary to assume Brewster's remaining secretarial duties. Brewster and Shockley testified that from that point until her employment with the Department ended in 1979 she spent one hundred percent of her time performing the duties of a correctional officer. As the matron, Brewster was responsible for female and juvenile prisoners in the jail. In addition to that task, she also transported prisoners, handled violent prisoners, occasionally supervised male prisoners, searched visitors to the jail, served as chief jailer when required, sorted prisoner mail for inmates of both genders, and kept the jail record sheet for all prisoners. Shockley and Brewster both testified that any clerical functions she performed in the jail consumed no more than ten percent of her time on the job. Male correctional officers worked at the jail forty hours per week in regular eight-hour shifts five days per week. Brewster worked three twelve hour shifts per week and was on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Shockley certified Brewster to the Compensation Board as a correctional officer for a third time in March 1976. The Board of Supervisors once again refused to co-certify Brewster, and the Compensation Board refused to raise her salary. Not to be deterred, Shockley certified Brewster for a fourth time on July 6, 1977. On this occasion, the Board of Supervisors finally agreed that Brewster should be paid as a correctional officer, and it furnished the necessary co-certification on July 13, 1977. The Board of Supervisors recommended that Brewster's salary be adjusted effective July 1, 1977. The Compensation Board agreed and raised her salary to the starting salary for a correctional officer with no experience. As a result, Brewster's new salary was significantly lower than that of male correctional officers who had been certified in 1975. Shockley testified, however, that Brewster's duties were the same from 1975 through 1979, and that her July 1977 certification did not stem from any change in her duties at that time.
Brewster initially brought suit in the district court under the Equal Pay Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, and 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985 against Shockley, the Board of Supervisors and its members, and the Compensation Board and its members. The district court dismissed the Sec. 1985 claim and dismissed Shockley as a defendant altogether. 5 Brewster then brought a Title VII action against all the above defendants, including Shockley. The two cases were consolidated for a trial to the bench.
In a bench opinion delivered at the conclusion of the trial, the district court ruled in favor of the defendants on the Equal Pay Act claim, the Title VII claim, and the Sec. 1983 claim of denial of equal protection. The court ruled in favor of Brewster on her Sec. 1983 claim of deprivation of property without due process of law. The district court entered judgment against all the defendants except Shockley and the Compensation Board, holding that Shockley was not culpable and that the Compensation Board was protected by sovereign immunity. After the parties stipulated the amount of damages, the court awarded Brewster $2,777.25 in back pay with interest. The district court also awarded her $18,800 in attorneys' fees and costs. Acting on post-trial motions, the district court later set aside the judgment against the Board of Supervisors and its members on the grounds that the Sec. 1983 claim against them was barred by the statute of limitations. Brewster and the individual members of Compensation Board appealed the various judgments against them.
Upon receipt of the appeal, we remanded the case to the district court for additional findings of fact. Fed.R.Civ.P. 52. The district court then reported its revised findings of fact and conclusions of law. Brewster v. Pike, 608 F.Supp. 1163 (W.D.Va.1985). In its revised decision, the district court ruled that the Board of Supervisors, the Compensation Board, and their respective individual members all violated the Equal Pay Act by denying Brewster equal pay for performing the same work as the male correctional officers. The court ruled as a matter of law, however, that Brewster was not an "employee" under the Equal Pay Act; therefore, she could not recover on that claim. The district court ruled that none of the defendants violated Title VII because they did not intentionally discriminate against Brewster because of her sex. The court reiterated its earlier ruling that both the Board of Supervisors and the Compensation Board violated Sec. 1983 by negligently depriving Brewster of her...
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