Albright v. City of Philadelphia

• Decision Date: 28 October 2005
• Docket Number: No. Civ.A. 04-CV-316.,Civ.A. 04-CV-316.
• Parties: Linda ALBRIGHT, Plaintiff v. CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

399 F.Supp.2d 575

Linda ALBRIGHT, Plaintiff v. CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, Defendant.

No. Civ.A. 04-CV-316.

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

October 28, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Andrew M. Calvelli, Law Firm of Andrew M. Calvelli, Wayne, PA, for Plaintiff.

May Mon Post, Daniel L. Garry, City of Philadelphia Law Department, Philadelphia, PA, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

BRODY, District Judge.

Plaintiff Linda Albright ("Albright"), a detective in the City of Philadelphia's Police Department, brings this suit against defendant City of Philadelphia ("the City"), alleging unlawful employment discrimination and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq., and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act ("PHRA"), 43 Pa.C.S. § 955 et seq., and violation of her First Amendment right to free speech under § 1983 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (" § 1983"), and the Pennsylvania Whistleblower Law, 43 Pa.C.S. § 1423. Jurisdiction is appropriate based on the existence of a federal question pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331. Albright invokes this Court's supplemental and pendent jurisdiction over her claims under the PHRA and the Whistleblower Law. The complaint was filed January 23, 2004.

Albright alleges that the City discriminated against her on the basis of her race and sex in denying her training and overtime opportunities, and that the City has discriminated and retaliated against her for complaining of what she believed to be gender and racial discrimination in the Southwest Detectives Division. Currently before me is the City's motion for summary judgment. The City argues that Albright's complaint alleges incidents of discrimination barred by the applicable statute of limitations periods; that Albright must be limited to alleging incidents contained with her second Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission ("PHRC") charge; that Albright cannot establish a prima face case of race or gender discrimination or retaliation under Title VII; that punitive damages are unavailable to Albright under Title VII and § 1983;¹ that Albright has not alleged material facts to support her claims of race and gender discrimination and retaliation under the PHRA; that Albright cannot establish that the City has municipal liability under § 1983 and that her even if municipal liability is found, her § 1983 claim fails against the City; and that Albright's claim under the Whistleblower Law is barred by the statute of limitations, and would fail even if it were not so barred.

A. FACTUAL BACKGROUND²

Plaintiff Linda Albright was first employed by the City Police Department in 1986 and has been a detective assigned to the Southwest Detectives Division from 1997 through the present time. (Albright Dep. at 12-14.)³ Albright is an African-American woman. (Def.'s Mem. Supp. Sum. J. Ex. B.) She does not claim any discrimination prior to 1999. (Albright Dep. at 14.)

In February 1999, Albright complained to Captain Bidley, her captain, that her supervisor Lieutenant Byrne was denying training to minority female police officers. (Albright Dep. at 16-17.) Captain Bidley told Albright that he would "try to correct the problem" and that she would be given the next available training. (Id. at 17.) Although Albright received the standard Municipal Police Officer training in 1999, she did not receive the outside training on crime scene processing that would help her with her career. (Id. at 17-18.) At her deposition, Albright stated that "Most of the males, as a matter of fact, the males were given this training. The females weren't given this training."⁴ (Id. at 18.) She specifically identified four white male detectives who received outside training in 1999. According to Albright, she was denied training in every year since 1999, and was also given fewer opportunities for overtime than male detectives.⁵ (Albright Dep. at 49-50.)

In 1999 and 2000, Lieutenant Byrne made comments to Albright's coworkers that "black females need to be kept in the kitchen making coffee." (Id. at 20-21.) Another captain approached Albright and told her that Lieutenant Byrne "didn't like black females," and that she should "watch herself." (Id. at 21-22.) Lieutenant Byrne also told Albright's coworkers that he didn't like Albright and that she was useless as a detective. (Id. at 22.)

On April 30, 2000, while on sick leave, Albright learned that Lieutenant Byrne had posted a computerized memorandum on the city-wide computer system accessible to all police personnel, stating that Albright was on "extended sick leave with a hysterectomy." (Def.'s Mem. Supp. Summ. J. Ex. B.) Albright considered this memorandum to be retaliation for her complaints about Lieutenant Byrne's discriminatory treatment of her. (Id.) Albright made a complaint within the department about the memorandum, and Lieutenant Byrne admitted to posting it. (Albright Dep. at 24.)

On May 11, 2000, Albright dual-filed her first charge with the PHRC and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), PHRC Complaint No. E95551D, EEOC No. 17FA02417, alleging that the City discriminated against her on the basis of race and gender by denying her training that it provided to "males and/or whites" and that Lieutenant Byrne had retaliated against her by posting the memorandum, causing her harm and humiliation. (Def.'s Mem. Supp. Summ. J. Ex. B.) On July 16, 2002, the PHRC informed the parties that it was dismissing the complaint.⁶ (Id.)

When Albright returned to work in May 2000, after her complaints about the memorandum, none of her supervisors would talk to her. (Albright Dep. at 24.) The sergeants who worked with Albright would communicate with her by throwing notes on her desk before walking away. (Id. at 25.) Soon after Albright's return to work, her supervisors told her to input all of the complaints from the previous night, a condition which they had never imposed on any other officer. (Albright Dep. at 25). Albright was not paid for the extra hour required for this task. (Id.) Sergeant Nickels and Lieutenant Byrne yelled at Albright that night for making mistakes in typing complaints, threatened to give her "eighteens," a form of disciplinary action, and told her that they were putting her under close supervision. (Id. at 25-28.) Albright told the Sergeant and the Lieutenant that she knew this was about the complaint she had made, and in response, they told her that they were giving her close supervision because that was what they wanted to do. (Id. at 27-28.)

In June 2000, Albright went to Captain Glenn, a new captain at the time, and complained to him about the incidents since her initial complaint to Captain Bidley. (Id. at 31.) Captain Glenn allegedly responded by telling Albright that she could "go out and have a baby" to prove to the squad that she had not had a hysterectomy. (Id.) He also allegedly told her "You hurt my people. I will do what I have to do to hurt you. That includes eighteens." (Id. at 32.) After that, Captain Glenn would not allow Albright to work overtime under the Safe Streets program, because her paperwork was not completed, even though male detectives who were more delinquent in their paperwork were allowed to work Safe Streets overtime. (Id. at 91-93.)

After her return to work in May 2000, Albright's coworkers, including her close friend Detective Carter, told her that they felt pressure from their supervisors not to interact with her, so she ended up "isolated away from the rest of the squad." (Id. at 35.) Albright testified at her deposition that Lieutenant Byrne told several of Albright's coworkers that she had filed a PHRC complaint against him. (Id. at 33.) When Albright tried to get someone to accompany her on an investigation, she was unable to and had to investigate by herself, even if she did not feel comfortable doing so because of safety reasons.⁷ (Id. at 35.) Albright testified that she did not hear Lieutenant Byrne tell coworkers not to accompany her, nor did any of her coworkers ever tell her that Lieutenant Byrne told them not to accompany her. (Id. at 37.) Albright sought help from the Employee Assistance Program ("EAP") twice in 2000, and the EAP sent her to see a psychiatrist. (Id. at 11-114.) The psychiatrist put her on medication for depression, which she has taken from September 2000 through the present. (Id. at 111-114.)

Albright faced more allegedly retaliatory actions. In November 2001, Sergeant McGowan gave Albright an oral warning about completing paperwork in a timely manner, but after Albright demonstrated that she had completed the paperwork, Sergeant McGowan did not issue a warning memorandum. (Id. at 62-63.) Albright testified that she was under pressure to document everything she did, and that she could not work under those conditions. (Id. at 63-64.) Another time, Sergeant McGowan also took an arrest from Albright and gave it to another white male detective, who arrested the wrong person, and then Sergeant McGowan assisted the civilian with making a complaint against Albright.⁸ (Id. at 65-72.) Although the civilian filed a formal complaint against Albright, no disciplinary action was taken against her. (Id. at 71.)

In 2001, Sergeant McGowan told Albright that Sergeant Ryan placed notes in her drawer, telling her that Detective Albright and another woman were "problems in the squad." (Id. at 78-79.) Sergeant Ryan also told Lieutenant Maxwell that Albright was refusing to do paperwork, which was not true, provoking a rebuke from the Lieutenant. (Id. at 80-81.)

On March 5, 2002, Albright dual-filed a second complaint with the PHRC and the EEOC, PHRC Complaint No E102360D, EEOC No. 17FA201744. (Def.'s Mem. Supp. Summ. J. Ex. C.) In this complaint, Albright alleged that the City's agents harassed her because she filed the first complaint, and that Lieutenants Byrne and McGowan denied her overtime by taking jobs from her and assigning them to male...