E.E.O.C. v. Mitsubishi Motor Mfg. of America, Inc.
| Citation | 990 F.Supp. 1059 |
| Decision Date | 20 January 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 96-1192.,96-1192. |
| Parties | EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff, v. MITSUBISHI MOTOR MANUFACTURING OF AMERICA, INC., f/k/a "Diamond-Star Motors Corporation," Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Central District of Illinois |
Peter W. Brandt, Livingston Barger Brandt & Schroeder, Bloomington, IL, Walter B. Connolly, Jr., Miller Canfield Paddock & Stone, Detroit, MI, Alison B. Marshall, Peter W. Waldmeir, Miller Canfield Paddock & Stone PLC, Washington, DC, for Mitsubishi Motor Mfg. of America, Inc.
Jeffrey B. Rock, Hasselberg Rock Bell & Kuppler, Peoria, IL, Julie L. Galassi, Hasselberg Rock Bell & Kuppler, Peoria, IL, for Peoria Journal Star.
This is a civil pattern or practice action filed pursuant to §§ 706 and 707 of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Civil Rights Act of 1991, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") against Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, Inc. ("Mitsubishi"), alleging that Mitsubishi is liable for hostile work environment sexual harassment, quid pro quo sexual harassment, gender discrimination, retaliation, and constructive discharge at its auto assembly plant located in Normal, Illinois. The Complaint requests the following relief: a permanent injunction enjoining Mitsubishi from continuing its prohibited activities; a mandatory injunction requiring Mitsubishi to adhere to certain equal employment policies; and compensatory damages for the victims including backpay, reinstatement, past and future pecuniary and nonpecuniary losses; punitive damages; prejudgment interest; and costs.
There are two motions currently before the Court: Mitsubishi's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Doc. # 78-1); and the EEOC's Motion for Leave to File an Amended Complaint (Doc. # 93-1). The Court's discussion of these motions proceeds in two parts. Part I addresses the limited legal question1 presented by Mitsubishi's motion for partial summary judgment.2 Part II addresses the procedural questions presented by Mitsubishi's motion3 and the EEOC's motion for leave to file an Amended Complaint, which seeks to cure the procedural deficiencies raised by Mitsubishi's motion.
The principal legal question presented by Mitsubishi, whether a pattern or practice action can be brought for sexual harassment claims, requires the Court to grapple with the essential principles that animate Title VII. This has not been an easy task, but it is one which the Court recognizes as a privilege. To the Court's knowledge, this is the first time that this legal question has ever been raised. After careful consideration of the parties' arguments and the relevant case law, this Court finds that a pattern or practice action for sexual harassment is authorized by Title VII and can be brought by the EEOC, both as a legal matter and in this case.
The EEOC seeks to hold Mitsubishi liable for a pattern or practice of hostile environment and quid pro quo sexual harassment. The pattern or practice theory is that Mitsubishi created and maintained a sexually hostile and abusive work environment at its Normal, Illinois, auto assembly facility because it tolerated, from the facility's inception, individual acts of sexual harassment by its employees by refusing to take notice of, investigate, and/or discipline the workers who sexually harassed other employees. As a consequence, the EEOC argues that Mitsubishi's "standard operating procedure — its regular rather than unusual practice" — was to ignore most (if not all) of its female employees' complaints that they were individually, or as a group, being subjected to a sexually hostile and abusive environment, in violation of Title VII, based upon: unwelcome sexual advances, demands for sexual favors, and other offensive verbal and physical conduct of a sexual nature.
If such a "standard operating procedure" of unlawful tolerance within the company's confines exists, it constitutes a "pattern and practice" of sexual harassment. Pattern or practice liability, rather than liability for individual conduct, is the primary focus of the EEOC's case. The EEOC argues, however, that the evidence which establishes a pattern or practice of sexual harassment by the company goes at least half the distance toward establishing the individual cases of sexual harassment brought by the class members, because it establishes the objective portion of their case. According to the EEOC, the pattern or practice case for injunctive relief, therefore, can and should be tried together with the individual claims for relief that stem from this pattern or practice.
Mitsubishi disagrees. In fact, Mitsubishi argues that proving a pattern or practice of sexual harassment simply cannot be done, because the gravamen of a sexual harassment claim, as it has been defined by the United States Supreme Court in Meritor Sav. Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 68, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986) and Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21-22, 114 S.Ct. 367, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993), is that the allegedly offensive conduct was subjectively unwelcome.4 At first glance, this argument may appear to have some merit; but, in reality, the argument constitutes the proverbial "straw man." Although it is true that Meritor and Harris require individuals, in an individual case of sexual harassment, to prove that the conduct they experienced was subjectively unwelcome, this is not an individual case; it is a pattern or practice case, and the rules of engagement in this context are different. The Meritor and Harris cases involved individual charges of sex discrimination alleging individual acts of sexual harassment. They were not and did not purport to be pattern or practice cases, and the holdings regarding the proofs necessary to establish an individual case of sexual harassment must, accordingly, be modified.
To scrap the entire pattern or practice case, as Mitsubishi would have us do, would ignore the statutory base for bringing Title VII actions for sex discrimination. Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination. Therefore, Title VII authorizes a pattern or practice suit for sexual harassment. This Court has concluded that a pattern or practice case for sexual harassment can be brought and maintained by the EEOC on behalf of the public for injunctive relief under §§ 706 and 707 of Title VII, based solely on an objective showing of the employer's unlawful pattern or practice. A pattern or practice case seeks to eradicate systemic, company-wide discrimination and focuses on an objectively verifiable policy or practice of discrimination by a private employer against its employees. To establish an unlawful pattern or practice, there is no need for the individual, subjective showings required by Meritor and Harris and, thus, no need for an employer's individual defenses. Once pattern or practice liability is established, individual relief is possible for the victims of an unlawful pattern or practice if these individuals can satisfy the subjective showings required by Meritor and Harris. As part of the individual relief phase, this Court believes that the victims of an unlawful pattern or practice are entitled to a presumption in their favor. The rationale for these conclusions and the methods of proof for such a case follow. Our analysis is broken down, as the case will be, into the "pattern or practice" phase and the "individual relief" phase.
This Court does not need to make a great leap of faith to state the obvious: Title VII authorizes a pattern or practice action for sexual harassment. The statutory authority for the EEOC to bring a civil action on behalf of alleged victims of discrimination is found at § 706(f)(1) of Title VII. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1). The EEOC also has the power to bring a pattern or practice suit under § 707(e) of that Title, subject to the administrative prerequisites of § 706, for systemic discrimination by private employers against their employees. Id. § 2000e-6. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Civil Rights Act of 1991, makes it "an unlawful employment practice for an employer ... to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex or national origin." Id. at § 2000e-2(a)(1). It is now well-established that "sex discrimination" includes claims for sexual harassment, both for quid pro quo harassment and for hostile environment harassment. Meritor, 477 U.S. at 64-66. Title VII, therefore, expressly authorizes the EEOC to bring a pattern or practice action for claims of sexual harassment.
The question in this case, then, is not whether a pattern or practice action for sexual harassment can be brought at all, but rather how such a pattern or practice case can be tried and proven, given the unique element of subjectivity found in a sexual harassment claim. Questions of proof are the questions that this Court has spent a considerable amount of time trying to satisfactorily resolve. These questions are not easy ones. The pattern or practice model established in Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 97 S.Ct. 1843, 52 L.Ed.2d 396 (1977), which works for every other form of prohibited discrimination under Title VII, breaks down for sexual harassment claims, as Mitsubishi suggests, because the two seminal cases defining the essence of a claim of sexual harassment — Meritor and Harris — require...
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