Reed v. A.W. Lawrence & Co., Inc.

Citation95 F.3d 1170
Decision Date11 September 1996
Docket NumberD,Nos. 1121,1467,s. 1121
Parties72 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1345 Joann S. REED, Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross-Appellant, v. A.W. LAWRENCE & CO., INC., Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee. ockets 95-7770, 95-7831.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit)

James D. Featherstonhaugh, Albany, NY (Nadine Feiden Shadlock, Featherstonhaugh, Conway, Wiley & Clyne, LLP, on the brief), for defendant-appellant.

Ronald G. Dunn, Albany, NY (Gleason, Dunn, Walsh & O'Shea, on the brief), for plaintiff-appellee.

Before: MINER, JACOBS, and CABRANES, Circuit Judges.

JOSE A. CABRANES, Circuit Judge:

In this appeal from a judgment entered by the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Thomas J. McAvoy, Chief Judge ), we consider, among other things, the factors necessary to establish a prima facie case of retaliatory discharge. The plaintiff, Joann Reed ("Reed," "plaintiff," or "employee"), claimed that her former employer, A.W. Lawrence & Co., Inc. ("Lawrence," "defendant," or "employer") discharged her in retaliation for complaining about a vulgar comment made to her by a co-worker. Reed alleged that the employer's response to her complaint--firing her--violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. ("Title VII"), and N.Y. EXEC. LAW § 290 et seq. (McKinney 1993). At the close of the plaintiff's case, the defendant moved for judgment as a matter of law. The district court deferred ruling on that motion and instructed the defendant to proceed with its case. Lawrence elected not to present any witnesses but, rather, to rely on the evidence presented by the plaintiff, its own cross-examination of witnesses and its opening and closing statements, as well as its motion for judgment as a matter of law. 1

The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff on her New York state law claims, awarding her back pay and compensatory damages. Following the return of the jury's verdict, the defendant renewed its motion for judgment as a matter of law. In its Memorandum, Decision and Order of July 3, 1995, the district court denied the defendant's motion and resolved the plaintiff's Title VII claims in favor of the plaintiff. 2 The defendant appeals the district court's denial of its motion and the award to Reed of "front pay" and attorneys' fees. In its cross-appeal the plaintiff challenges the omission of pre-judgment interest in the judgment of the district court, the limitation on her front pay award, and the denial of a portion of her attorneys' fees.

We affirm the judgment of the district court in all respects, other than with regard to the reduction of the award of attorneys' fees by the amount attributable to the litigation of the fee award, and we remand for the sole purpose of having the district court re-compute the award of attorneys' fees and awarding pre-judgment interest in a manner consistent with this opinion.

I. BACKGROUND

Because the defendant rested without presenting any witnesses at trial, the facts we describe are drawn entirely from the record of the testimony of the plaintiff's witnesses, and of exhibits presented by both parties.

The plaintiff claims that she was fired by the defendant on October 1, 1991, in retaliation for voicing her objections to a comment made to her by a co-worker, Chuck Infantino. The defendant contends, in response, that the plaintiff's dismissal was due to the plaintiff's poor performance as well as the lack of profitability of the one-person office she operated for the defendant in Lake Placid, New York.

The defendant is part of an interrelated group of insurance companies known as the Lawrence Group and employs more than 500 employees. At the time she was fired, the plaintiff had worked for the defendant in several capacities over a period of five years, but from 1987 until she was dismissed in late 1991, she had operated the one-person Lake Placid office and had coordinated the defendant's entry into the "sports insurance" market. In the spring of 1991, the plaintiff and two other Lawrence employees, Infantino and Gerald Lumley, were part of a "team" assembled to prepare a competitive bid for the sports-insurance account of the World University Games.

The plaintiff's relationship with the other team members led ultimately to this lawsuit. The plaintiff believed that she was not "getting the proper credit for what she [did] and felt being a female she wasn't as appreciated," and consequently had difficulty working with her two male co-workers. She testified, in addition, that when working with Lumley on the World University Games project, he had told her that "[she] was acting like a bitch in heat and he was just not happy working with [her]." (Emphasis added.) On September 12, 1991, the plaintiff, Infantino, and Lumley agreed, after a meeting in Buffalo with Lawrence's prospective client, that they would return to their respective home offices (Infantino worked in the defendant's branch office in Syracuse and Lumley worked in the defendant's head office in Schenectady) and each would "jot down [their] notes over the night, think about it, [and] hook up in the morning about what to put in the addendum." The following morning, Infantino and the plaintiff engaged in a "heated telephone conversation," which the plaintiff at trial described as follows:

So, the next morning I called Gary [Lumley], got some information. I called Chuck [Infantino] and said, okay, Chuck, let's talk about the addendum and what do you want to put in. Chuck said, I have it all done, I will fax it to you, you can type it up and mail it out. I want it overnight to The World University Games. And frankly, I was irritated. I had wasted my time the night before working late thinking about what did I want in the addendum. So, I said, well, jeez, Chuck, like the good little secretary, I will type it up. And Chuck said to me, Joanne, if you think my pecker is getting in the way--and I just had it and I hung up the phone.

(Emphasis added.) 3 Infantino called back later that morning; it is not disputed that he apologized to the plaintiff, but the record is unclear as to whether he apologized when he first called the plaintiff back or in a phone call to her home a few days later.

According to the plaintiff, five days after the "heated telephone conversation," she discussed Infantino's remark with Rita Harfield, a personal friend and a vice president of both Lawrence and another Lawrence Group company, because she was uncertain as to how to deal with Infantino's "aggressive behavior" and because she believed that this latest in a series of incidents interfered with her working relationship with her co-workers. Harfield replied that the comment was vulgar and inappropriate, and advised the plaintiff to report it to the defendant's personnel director. The plaintiff did not do so because, she claims, she was afraid of retaliation. Reed testified that she told Harfield, "I know what The Lawrence Group does to people like that, I heard stories about it. I know what happens with people in the company that complain about this." Harfield nevertheless called Lawrence's personnel director, Carmella Roberson, to report the incident. Harfield also spoke with Gary Keehfus, the plaintiff's supervisor and a close friend of Infantino. It is undisputed that at the time of the incident the defendant had no policy, written or otherwise, with respect to sexual harassment complaints.

Keehfus asked Roberson to arrange a meeting with the plaintiff and Infantino to discuss the incident. The plaintiff travelled at the request of Keehfus to the head office in Schenectady, on September 26, 1991, but claims that initially she believed that she had been summoned there to discuss marketing with Keehfus. Upon her arrival, to the plaintiff's surprise, she met instead with Roberson to discuss Infantino's comment and apology. Roberson also met separately with Infantino, who admitted making the vulgar comment. Roberson, without conducting any further investigation of the incident or of the plaintiff's working conditions, reported to Keehfus that she considered the matter closed.

Later that same day, the plaintiff met with Keehfus. Although she had been expecting to discuss marketing with Keehfus, he instead confronted the plaintiff regarding the operations of the Lake Placid office and her job performance. The plaintiff testified that Keehfus told her that he considered her "weird," and that she "should be more like Chuck Infantino because there's somebody that's going to go far in this company." Keehfus also told Reed that he was unhappy with her performance and her practice of making personal phone calls at work. She was instructed to "keep expenses to the bare bones" and to report by fax to the Schenectady office her whereabouts while at work as well as her arrival and departure times. 4 One week later, on October 1, 1991, Keehfus telephoned the plaintiff and fired her. That same day, Reed telephoned Bill Mather, another Lawrence supervisor, to find out why she had been fired. Reed testified that Mather simply told her that she had been fired because "[she wasn't] being a team player." (emphasis added.) 5 Keehfus subsequently sent Reed a letter stating that she had been discharged because of "poor job performance."

On February 26, 1992, the plaintiff filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights ("SDHR"), alleging that she had been discriminated against on account of her sex. Because New York is a so-called "deferral" state, the complaint was deemed concurrently filed with the EEOC. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1) (1994); 29 C.F.R. § 1601.13(a) (EEOC's deferral policy and procedures); 29 C.F.R. § 1601.74 (1995) (SDHR accepted as a "deferral agency"); see also Yoonessi v. State University of New York, 862 F.Supp. 1005, 1013 (W.D.N.Y.1994), appeal denied, 56 F.3d 10 (2d Cir.1995), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, ...

To continue reading

Request your trial
680 cases
  • Howell v. Town of Ball
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Western District of Louisiana
    • 26 Enero 2018
    ...v. Hessemann, 846 F.3d 547, 592 (2d Cir. 2017), cert. denied, 17-355, 2018 WL 311335(U.S. Jan. 8, 2018) (quoting Reed v. A.W. Lawrence & Co., 95 F.3d 1170, 1183 (2d Cir. 1996)) (internal citation omitted).3 The only decisions from district courts in our circuit are in agreement. A district ......
  • Husser v. N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York
    • 30 Septiembre 2015
    ...followed in time by the adverse action.’ " Cifra v. Gen. Elec. Co., 252 F.3d 205, 216 (2d Cir.2001) (quoting Reed v. A.W. Lawrence & Co., 95 F.3d 1170, 1178 (2d Cir.1996) ). However, "the cases that accept mere temporal proximity between an employer's knowledge of protected activity and an ......
  • Jordan v. Cnty. of Chemung
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Western District of New York
    • 5 Septiembre 2017
    ...activity was closely followed in time by the adverse employment action." Gorman–Bakos, 252 F.3d at 554 (quoting Reed v. A.W. Lawrence & Co., 95 F.3d 1170, 1178 (2d Cir. 1996) ).Plaintiff points to her filing of another discrimination suit as her protected speech. (Dkt. 55–17 at 22). The oth......
  • Cross v. Cleaver
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit
    • 10 Abril 1998
    ...granted in part, Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 876, 139 L.Ed.2d 865 (1998); Reed v. A.W. Lawrence & Co., Inc., 95 F.3d 1170, 1180 (2d Cir.1996) (panel decision discussing the application of "agency" principles for employer liability for co-worker practices......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
4 books & journal articles
  • Remedies available under the adea
    • United States
    • James Publishing Practical Law Books Age Discrimination Litigation
    • 28 Abril 2022
    ...o൵ a plainti൵’s remedies. See, e.g., Archambault v. United Computing Syst., 786 F.2d 1507 (11th Cir. 1986); Reed v. A.W. Lawrence and Co., 95 F.3d 1170 (2d Cir. 1996). But see, Banks v. Travelers Cos, 180 F.3d 358, 363 (2d Cir. 1999), where the Second Circuit held that employers cannot argu......
  • Summary judgment
    • United States
    • James Publishing Practical Law Books Age Discrimination Litigation
    • 28 Abril 2022
    ...held that it should not take much for a plainti൵ in a discrimination case to overcome a summary judgment motion,” France v. Johnson, 7 95 F.3d 1170, 1175 (9th Cir. 2015), and that “a plainti൵’s burden to raise a triable issue of pretext is hardly an onerous one.” Schwartz v. Clark County , ......
  • Finding the appropriate standard for employer liability in Title VII retaliation cases: an examination of the applicability of sexual harassment paradigms.
    • United States
    • Albany Law Review Vol. 63 No. 1, September 1999
    • 22 Septiembre 1999
    ...controlling"). (13) See, e.g., Tarin v. County of Los Angeles, 123 F.3d 1259, 1264 (9th Cir. 1997); Reed v. A.W. Lawrence & Co., Inc., 95 F.3d 1170, 1178 (2d Cir. 1996); Long v. Eastfield College, 88 F.3d 300, 304 (5th Cir. 1996); Fennell v. First Step Designs, Ltd., 83 F.3d 526, 535 (1......
  • The emergence of self-directed work teams and their effect on Title VII law.
    • United States
    • University of Pennsylvania Law Review Vol. 148 No. 3, January 2000
    • 1 Enero 2000
    ...environment for women but later withdrew that claim and proceeded under other theories of liability, see Reed v. A.W. Lawrence & Co., 95 F. 3d 1170 (2d Cir. (100) See supra note 13 and accompanying text (noting the positive effect enhanced participation has on employee morale). (101) Se......

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT