Miranda v. B & B Cash Grocery Store, Inc., s. 91-3295

Decision Date28 October 1992
Docket Number91-3338,Nos. 91-3295,s. 91-3295
Citation975 F.2d 1518
Parties60 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 295, 60 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 41,857, 61 USLW 2331, 123 Lab.Cas. P 35,728, 1 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 318 Karen MIRANDA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. B & B CASH GROCERY STORE, INC., Defendant-Appellant. Karen MIRANDA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. B & B CASH GROCERY STORE, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Gregory A. Hearing and Thomas M. Gonzales, Tampa, Fla., for B & B Cash Grocery Store.

Douglas L. Gross, Tampa, Fla., for Karen Miranda.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before KRAVITCH and DUBINA, Circuit Judges, and RONEY, Senior Circuit Judge.

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge:

This case consists of two consolidated appeals resulting from a lawsuit filed by Karen Miranda Hopewell ("Miranda" or "plaintiff") against B & B Cash Grocery Store, Inc. ("B & B" or "defendant"), alleging gender-based discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. ("Title VII") and the Equal Pay Act of 1963, 29 U.S.C. § 206 ("Equal Pay Act"). Miranda also filed a claim under Florida law for intentional infliction of emotional distress. The action was referred to a Magistrate-Judge pursuant to the parties' consent and referral from the District Court. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(c).

Defendant moved for partial summary judgment on plaintiff's claims grounded in the Equal Pay Act and Florida tort law. The Magistrate-Judge granted defendant's motion on both counts, holding that the plaintiff did not sustain her burden of establishing a prima facie case of sex-based wage discrimination under the Equal Pay Act. 1 The Magistrate-Judge held a bench trial on the claims under Title VII, found that the defendant had discriminated against Miranda on the basis of her sex, and awarded the plaintiff backpay in the amount of $52,765.83.

Miranda appeals the grant of summary judgment to the defendant on her Equal Pay Act claim; B & B cross-appeals the finding of sex-based discrimination under Title VII. For the reasons discussed below, we REVERSE the Order of the Magistrate granting summary judgment to the defendant under the Equal Pay Act, AFFIRM the judgment in favor of the plaintiff under Title VII and the damages awarded to her, and REMAND to the district court for a trial on the Equal Pay Act claim.

Facts 2

B & B Cash Grocery Stores, Inc. is a family-owned business of twenty-four supermarkets operating under the name of U-Save in central and southwest Florida. In 1988, B & B's enterprise employed 1,900 workers.

Each store contains grocery, meat, produce, dairy and non-foods departments, with managers in charge of each department. The store management team consists of a fourth manager, third manager, assistant manager and store manager. Each store also employs a head cashier, cashier, "stock boy" and "bag boy." 3 To become a store manager at B & B, one normally progresses from stockboy or bag boy to third and fourth manager, and assistant manager. Only two women have ever become store managers and they both came up through the cashier or head cashier's position.

Buyers work out of the main office in downtown Tampa and have responsibility for buying either grocery, meat, dairy or non-food items for all of the stores. A separate buyer works with vendors who sold such items as soft drinks, bread, soda, wine and beer directly to the stores. The buyers are responsible for meeting with vendors, maintaining appropriate inventories of items assigned to them, replenishing supplies, and ordering new items. Except for Miranda, all of B & B's buyers have some experience in store management.

Miranda began working at U-Save in June, 1976, as a part-time cashier while she was still in high school. After approximately six months, she became a full-time cashier. From 1976 through April, 1979, Miranda worked at various U-Save grocery stores in the Tampa area, progressing from cashier, to head cashier, and then to non-foods manager. In this last position, her work included stocking shelves in the non-foods area (including "health and beauty aids" and "housewares") and performing various office duties, including depositing checks.

Plaintiff was transferred to the accounting department at her request in late April, 1979, and worked there for several months logging expenses for the individual stores. She was subsequently offered a transfer to the bookkeeping department, a position she accepted and kept for approximately two years.

In February, 1982, James E. Duffy, B & B's grocery buyer and warehouse and distribution director, offered Miranda a job as an inventory control clerk. The position involved working at Duffy's direction processing buyer orders, forwarding information to store managers or brokers, cross-checking inventory received with the invoices, and back-ordering when necessary, as well as performing secretarial duties.

In approximately July, 1984, plaintiff began to assume some buying duties along with her responsibilities as inventory control clerk. Initially, she took over the responsibility of purchasing cigarettes and tobacco products, which at least two of Duffy's previous secretaries had done. Later, Duffy assigned her candy products to buy and allowed her to buy items in accordance with a weekly re-order system when he was out of the office. The trial court found that Miranda received considerable on-the-job training working with Duffy, including learning his system of buying, which included computer generation of buying forms to assist in the buying process. She attended sales presentations and reviewed written sales proposals, providing comments to Duffy. B & B management was largely unaware of the extent of Miranda's buying responsibilities and the training she received while working for Duffy.

Duffy resigned from B & B in June, 1986. He told Miranda that he would recommend that she succeed him as grocery buyer at a salary comparable with what the other buyers were paid. The president of B & B, C.C. Bever, Jr., decided to split Duffy's grocery buyer job into two separate positions and add an assistant dairy buyer position. Miranda was offered one of the grocery buyer positions, and Donald Kelley, a store manager, was offered the other.

Duffy had been paid approximately $600.00 per week as a grocery buyer, and had also received a "salary adjustment" at the end of the year. 4 Miranda assumed that she would receive a comparable salary, but instead Bever told her that her starting salary would be $400.00 per week, which was only $34.00 more than she had earned as an inventory control clerk working for Duffy. When plaintiff told Bever that he could not hire a buyer for that position at that salary, Bever replied that "any third man would be astounded to hold the title that I am giving you." (Tr. I at 42). 5 At trial, Bever explained the salary disparity between Miranda and the other buyers as due to budgetary constraints. All other buyers were paid between $600.00 and $650.00 per week.

The trial court noted that during the applicable period, in-house transfers to the position of buyer generally were considered lateral moves with little or no salary increase. However, prior to Miranda, no one had ever been become a buyer from an accounting, bookkeeping, or clerical position. Most buyers, including Don Kelley, who was named grocery buyer with Miranda, and Bob Edenfield, the new dairy buyer, had been store managers. Both Kelley and Edenfield received the same weekly draw as buyers that they had received as store managers: $625.00 per week. Linda Sholes, a clerical assistant to a former dairy buyer, was appointed an "assistant dairy buyer" and received a raise from approximately $366.00 per week as a clerical assistant to $390.00 per week. 6

Miranda testified that although she was displeased with the salary offered to her, she agreed to accept the buyer position in July, 1986, because she thought the company would reevaluate her pay after she had a chance to prove herself at the job. In September, 1986, Miranda's weekly salary was increased from $400.00 to $420.00; it remained at this level until her buying job was eliminated and she left defendant's employment in July, 1988.

The trial court found that Miranda's job was similar to that of the other buyers employed by defendant except that the initial assignment of grocery buying duties between plaintiff and Kelley resulted in Miranda being assigned substantially fewer grocery items. Miranda was responsible for approximately one-third of the items; Kelley was responsible for approximately two-thirds. Kelley was also assigned a larger number of higher velocity (turnover) items to purchase, which was consistent with Bever's plan that Kelley handle the more difficult items because of his buying experience as a store manager. Duffy, however, denied at trial that he intentionally gave Kelley more items or more responsibility. He testified that he simply roughly divided the number of vendors between the two buyers, a division that Miranda and Kelley would refine as necessary.

Plaintiff protested the unequal distribution of work, but the situation remained unchanged until approximately May 23, 1988. At that point, Harold Tidwell, who had replaced Duffy as head buyer, assigned her the additional items she requested. With the addition of these responsibilities, Miranda and Kelley had an approximately equal number of items to purchase. However, from the end of May, 1988, until her position was eliminated in July, 1988, Miranda never received a salary increase. 7

The trial court found that during her tenure as a buyer, Miranda made several requests, both verbal and in writing, for her salary to be raised to the level that the other full buyers--all of whom were male--were receiving. Tidwell and Ben Phillips both told her that "something would be worked out"; Miranda was never told that...

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