Bain v. City of Springfield
| Citation | 678 N.E.2d 155,424 Mass. 758 |
| Parties | , 73 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1435 Robin BAIN v. CITY OF SPRINGFIELD. |
| Decision Date | 18 April 1997 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts |
Edward M. Pikula, Assistant City Solicitor (Kathleen Tarpey Breck, Assistant City Solicitor, with him), for defendant.
Tani E. Sapirstein, Springfield, for plaintiff.
Harvey A. Schwartz, for American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.
Marisa A. Campagna, James E. Fitzgerald & Charles P. Wagner, Boston, for National Employment Lawyers Association, Massachusetts Chapter.
Before WILKINS, C.J., and O'CONNOR, LYNCH, FRIED and MARSHALL, JJ.
The plaintiff, Robin Bain, sought damages under G.L. c. 151B, § 4, from her employer, the city of Springfield, for discriminating against her on the basis of sex and for retaliating against her for seeking such relief. A jury found for the defendant on the sex discrimination claim and for the plaintiff on her claim of retaliation. The jury found that the plaintiff had suffered no actual damages, but awarded her $100,000 in punitive damages. The defendant appealed. We transferred the appeal to this court on our own motion. We remand to the Superior Court for reconsideration of damages.
The plaintiff had been employed since 1990 as plant superintendent at the city of Springfield's waste water treatment plant. This was a position with considerable responsibility, requiring her to manage technical, personnel, and budgetary matters. In 1992, the city posted the job of water department manager, and the plaintiff applied. She was never interviewed for the position nor did anyone discuss it with her, although she certainly met the qualifications for it. Shortly after applying, she learned from a newspaper account that John Lyons had been appointed at a salary exceeding that stated in the posting of the position. In his testimony, Mayor Robert Markel, the appointing authority, indicated that he had known Lyons from his previous service as director of the city's department of public works and had been impressed by his managerial skills and his ability to work with other city and State agencies. When he learned that Lyons, who was then working in the private sector, might be interested in again working for the city, he entered into negotiations with him to persuade him to accept the posted position. Believing that she had had no fair chance to compete, the plaintiff wrote a letter to the mayor, complaining that the appointment of Lyons was "blatant discrimination." She sent copies of this letter to the city's affirmative action and equal opportunity (AA/EEO) officer and to her immediate supervisor, Philip Pike. Her letter concluded that by sending a copy to the "City's AA/EEO Officer" she was making a "claim of discrimination based on [her] sex with regard to the appointment of a white male to the position of Water Department manager," and that she expected an answer within ten days. She never received an answer from Markel.
Shortly after receiving Bain's letter, Markel summoned Pike to his office. Markel complained about the letter and said that "there had been a history of issues involving Robin, this seemed to me to be the last straw, and I said something like 'Get rid of her.' " 1 When Pike next met with Bain, he reprimanded her for going over his head in writing a letter directly to the mayor. He told her that the mayor wanted her out of his administration, but in response to her question why he had not fired her, Pike said that there was no reason to fire her and that she was a good employee. Bain also told Pike that a reporter from a local newspaper had contacted her and that an article would soon appear regarding the controversy.
Several days later the newspaper printed an article about Bain's letter and quoted her directly. The article also gave Markel's account of his involvement in the Lyons appointment, in which he defended himself against charges of discriminatory practices and said that he thought Bain's complaint was "baseless," "meritless," and "an example of someone trying to manipulate the civil rights laws for personal gain." The day before the newspaper account appeared, Bain wrote Markel a second letter apologizing to him for criticizing him or questioning his legal authority and Lyons's qualifications in her previous letter. The letter went on to say that Bain wanted to withdraw her complaint filed with the AA/EEO officer. On the day the newspaper article appeared, she wrote Markel a third letter to "say how sorry I am that this matter has blown way out of proportion."
The next day the mayor appeared at a previously scheduled visit to Bain's facility. Bain testified that during that visit the mayor behaved in a "cold" manner toward her and would not address remarks to her, "looked right through her" and addressed remarks to her subordinate and to Pike, but not to her. In her testimony Bain offered a second instance of such behavior at a meeting held some two months later: She also testified that after the conversation with Pike in which he rebuked her for writing her first letter to the mayor, Pike Bain also testified that she developed certain physical symptoms as a result of having been denied the director's job and her treatment by Markel and Pike.
Some three months after writing the letters, Bain took a position at higher pay with a private firm in Springfield. Within a year she left that position for a higher paying position in the waste water treatment field in another State.
One month after leaving her position with the city, she filed suit in the Superior Court, alleging defamation, violation of G.L. c. 93, § 102 (equal rights act), sex discrimination in violation G.L. c. 151B, § 4(4), and retaliation in violation of § 4(4A) for exercising her rights under that provision. The equal rights and defamation counts were dismissed, and a jury found that there had been no sex discrimination. The jury did find, however, that the defendant had unlawfully retaliated against Bain. The jury found that Bain was not entitled to compensatory damages for economic or emotional harm for the unlawful retaliation, but did award punitive damages of $100,000.
At trial, the defendant moved to foreclose an award of punitive damages on the ground that sovereign immunity had not been waived. At the close of the plaintiff's case, the defendant moved for a directed verdict on the retaliation claim on the ground that the plaintiff failed to prove retaliation as a matter of law. In this appeal the city renews that argument. That issue is considered in part IIB of this opinion. The city goes on to argue here that the punitive damages were excessive. This issue was fully briefed and argued before us by both parties. We conclude that this further issue, which is considered in parts IIC and III, is properly before us. In its motion for a directed verdict the defendant argued that there was no evidence of objective adverse actions taken against the plaintiff such as termination of employment and that the incidents of retaliation adduced by the plaintiff were too subjective to be the basis of a retaliation claim. This is sufficient to raise the issues joined by the parties here concerning the sufficiency of the evidence to support a judgment of liability for the various incidents of retaliation we consider in part IIB. In parts IIC and III we address the defendant's argument that the punitive damages were excessive, although the defendant never made a postverdict motion for reconsideration of damages. Once two of the three bases for a finding of retaliation are removed, as we hold they are, the calculation of damages for retaliation is necessarily undermined and its validity should be reevaluated. This is particularly so where we consider punitive damages, which pass judgment on a whole course of conduct. Moreover, the issue as to excessiveness of punitive damages and the responsibility of trial and appellate courts to assure fairness by exercising some supervision over their imposition has come into much clearer focus since this case was tried, as a result of the United States Supreme Court's decision (though we hold it has no controlling force here) in BMW of No. Am. v. Gore, --- U.S. ----, ----, 116 S.Ct. 1589, 1595, 134 L.Ed.2d 809 (1996). As for the defendant's distinct argument that there can be no punitive damages where no compensatory damages have been awarded, we comment on it and reject it only so that we may dispose of the arguments briefed and argued before us by the parties.
The city is certainly correct that it is protected from liability in this civil suit unless its sovereign immunity has been waived. Broadhurst v. Director of the Div. of Employment Sec., 373 Mass. 720, 722, 369 N.E.2d 1018 (1977). This court confronted the common law doctrine of sovereign immunity most directly in Whitney v. Worcester, 373 Mass. 208, 366 N.E.2d 1210 (1977). Reviewing the long history of the doctrine in our courts, the maze of exceptions and qualifications to it, its capacity to work injustice, and its increasingly anachronistic status in view of judicial and legislative reactions in other States, we announced that, if the Legislature did not act definitively to address the issue by the end of the next legislative session we would abrogate the doctrine ourselves, leaving it to the Legislature then to...
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