Bagwe v. Sedgwick Claims Mgmt. Servs., Inc.
| Decision Date | 26 January 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 14–3201.,14–3201. |
| Citation | 811 F.3d 866 |
| Parties | Ratna BAGWE, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. SEDGWICK CLAIMS MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC., et al., Defendants–Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
J. Bryan Wood, Law Office of J. Bryan Wood, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff–Appellant.
Nadine C. Abrahams, Monica H. Khetarpal, Jason A. Selvey, Jackson Lewis P.C., Chicago, IL, for Defendant–Appellee.
Before FLAUM, RIPPLE, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.
Ratna Bagwe, who was born in India and is of Indian descent, brought this action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Inc. ("Sedgwick") and her former supervisors, Tammy LeClaire1 and Angela Papaioannou. Alleging claims under the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C. § 1981, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, and the Illinois Human Rights Act ("IHRA"), 775 ILCS 5/1–101, she stated that Sedgwick had paid her a comparatively low salary because of her race and national origin. She also alleged that she was terminated for retaliatory and racially discriminatory reasons. The district court granted summary judgment to theon all counts. Ms. Bagwe now seeks reversal of that judgment.2 For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm.
Because the district court entered summary judgment for the defendants, we must view the facts in the light most favorable to Ms. Bagwe, the nonmoving party. See, e.g., Gerhartz v. Richert, 779 F.3d 682, 685 (7th Cir.2015).
Sedgwick is a claims management services company headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee. Ms. Bagwe began working in Sedgwick's Chicago office in March 2001. She was promoted to Assistant Manager II in 2005, and received a corresponding pay raise. She was then asked to serve as Interim Operations Manager in 2007. In late 2007, Ms. Bagwe was promoted to Operations Manager III. Ms. LeClaire, a Managing Director at Sedgwick, made the decision to promote Ms. Bagwe. Delaine Simmons, Ms. Bagwe's direct supervisor at the time, counseled Ms. LeClaire against promoting Ms. Bagwe. In Ms. Simmons's view, Ms. Bagwe had demonstrated poor leadership skills and had not provided sufficient direction to her subordinates.
As Operations Manager III, Ms. Bagwe oversaw short term disability claims for Sedgwick's AT & T account. Ms. Papaioannou, the Area Manager for the AT & T account, was her direct supervisor.3 At the time of her promotion, Ms. Bagwe received a promotional pay raise of $10,000. She received another pay raise of $3,000, sometime in 2008.4
Ms. Bagwe did have some managerial problems as Operations Manager III. In early 2008, one of Ms. Bagwe's subordinates, Tonya Warner, requested that Ms. Papaioannou reassign her to a different supervisor. Ms. Warner claimed that Ms. Bagwe had failed to provide her with important information and was overly confrontational. Ms. Papaioannou and Ms. LeClaire considered the complaints and decided to reassign Ms. Warner so that she reported to Ms. Papaioannou instead of Ms. Bagwe.
Ms. Bagwe was also dissatisfied with her compensation. During an April 2008 conference call with Ms. Papaioannou and Carla Street, a Colleague Resources Manager, Ms. Bagwe expressed general concerns about her pay increases over the three previous years. Ms. Bagwe concedes that she did not mention race, national origin, or discrimination in the course of that conversation. Ms. Papaioannou allegedly warned Ms. Bagwe "that we have to be careful because we don't want to be perceived as a whiner."5 Ms. Papaioannou later discussed Ms. Bagwe's complaints with Ms. Simmons in a series of text messages:
Ms. Bagwe submitted a memorandum to Ms. Street a few days later, expressing similar concerns about her compensation. The memorandum was then forwarded to Ms. LeClaire. Like the earlier conference call, the memorandum did not mention race, national origin, or discrimination. Instead, Ms. Bagwe claimed that Ms. LeClaire had pressured Ms. Simmons, her direct supervisor before the promotion, to deny her a promotional increase in 2005. Ms. Bagwe also claimed that, sometime shortly after she sent this memorandum, Ms. Le–Claire raised her voice to Ms. Bagwe and told her that "[you] think [you're] good but [you're] no good."7
Ms. LeClaire determined that Ms. Bagwe had received appropriate raises since 2005. In her affidavit, Ms. LeClaire stated that Ms. Simmons had recommended above-budget pay increases for Ms. Bagwe in 2003 and 2004. As a result, Ms. Bagwe's salary already was above the median salary of an Assistant Manager II. In addition, Ms. LeClaire determined that her subsequent pay raises were average for her peer group. Based on these observations, Ms. LeClaire concluded that Sedgwick need not take any further action regarding Ms. Bagwe's salary at that time.
Ms. Bagwe first raised the issue of racial discrimination in a May 2008 conversation with Stephanie Simpson, Regional Colleague Resources Manager. The record does not indicate whether Ms. Simpson actually reported this complaint to Ms. LeClaire or to Ms. Papaioannou, as required by Sedgwick's policies.
In June 2008, Ms. Bagwe took a business trip to Atlanta with Ms. LeClaire and another Sedgwick employee, Anne Coyle. One evening, at the bar of the hotel where they were staying, Ms. LeClaire began discussing her pending divorce with Ms. Bagwe and Ms. Coyle. During this conversation, Ms. LeClaire allegedly told Ms. Bagwe that she should get rid of her "old Indian husband" and get a "white man because white men are more fun."8 Ms. Coyle made similar remarks.
About six months later, in January 2009, Ms. Bagwe and Ms. Coyle got into a heated exchange at work. Charles French, the AT & T Workers' Compensation Account Executive, overheard the conversation. He sent an email to Ms. Papaioannou on January 22, 2009, expressing his concerns about Ms. Bagwe's leadership and some other staffing issues on Ms. Bagwe's team. He then met with Ms. Bagwe and Ms. Street on February 10, 2009, to discuss the incident involving Ms. Coyle. At the meeting, Ms. Bagwe relayed Ms. LeClaire's and Ms. Coyle's comments about finding a "white husband." Ms. Bagwe also mentioned that Ms. Coyle previously had made a hand gesture to make fun of a co-worker's sexual orientation. Following this meeting, Ms. Bagwe repeated the information to Ms. Papaioannou.
Mr. French later sent a memorandum to Ms. Street and Ms. Papaioannou, expressing his concerns about Ms. Bagwe's leadership. The memorandum mentioned the altercation between Ms. Bagwe and Ms. Coyle, a series of emails from Ms. Bagwe in which she questioned a final decision that she had previously approved during an earlier meeting, and a failure by Ms. Bagwe's team to share reports with others in the company.9
In March 2009, Sedgwick placed Ms. Bagwe on a Performance Improvement Plan ("PIP"). The PIP cited several criticisms of Ms. Bagwe's behavior over the prior year, notably that she had not brought any solutions to the February meeting with Mr. French, that she had been unresponsive to emails, and that she refused to listen to criticism. The PIP also mentioned Ms. Bagwe's complaints about Ms. Coyle's comments, noting "that if you overheard comments being made by another colleague about someone else, it was your role and responsibility to address the issue at that time and not a year later."10 Ms. LeClaire and Ms. Papaioannou presented the PIP to Ms. Bagwe in a meeting on March 12, 2009. During this meeting, Ms. LeClaire allegedly pointed her finger at Ms. Bagwe and warned her that she "better be careful."11
In April 2009, Ms. Bagwe complained about the PIP to Ms. Papaioannou, Ms. LeClaire, Ms. Street, and Ms. Simpson. She also sent a complaint to Ms. Simpson in which she described "discrimination, harassment, bullying, and hostile work environment."12 The latter complaint mentioned "disparities in salaries for some of [the] other colleagues," and Ms. LeClaire's "retaliation" for Ms. Bagwe's previous complaints.13 Ms. Simpson forwarded this complaint to Ms. Browne and Rachel Jackson, the Senior Vice President of Colleague Resources.
Ms. Simpson then investigated the complaint and issued a report on June 15, 2009. The report discussed Ms. Bagwe's complaints about her work environment and set forth her coworkers' perspective of the situation. According to the report, Ms. Warner noted "a perception [that Ms. Bagwe] is retaliatory."14 Mr. French felt "like [Ms. Bagwe] is the one attacking him."15 One coworker said that Ms. Bagwe "would talk over her and it was her natural instinct to raise her voice."16 Another co-worker observed that "it was very difficult to get the benefit of the doubt from [Ms. Bagwe] or change her perception to be favorable."17 The report also concluded that Ms. Bagwe was compensated fairly, considering her level of experience.18
On June 22, 2009, Ms. Bagwe sent Ms. Simpson another email about her concerns, stating that "[i]f discrimination is not the reason, please help me understand why my repeated requests to have the compensation addressed based solely on the merits of the situation have not been considered[.]"19 Ms. Simpson sent Ms. Bagwe a letter on July 28, 2009, stating that "[w]e were unable to obtain tangible evidence or additional witness[es] to confirm that harassment and/or discrimination occurred," and that "we analyzed your pay and determined that your compensation is fair."20
At some point around early July, after a lunch outside the...
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