Black v. Zaring Homes, Inc.

Decision Date25 April 1997
Docket NumberNo. 96-3118,96-3118
Citation104 F.3d 822
Parties72 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1631, 69 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 44,468, 65 USLW 2536 Debra BLACK, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ZARING HOMES, INC., Defendant-Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Donald B. Hordes (argued and briefed), Schwartz, Manes & Ruby, Cincinnati, OH, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Deborah S. Adams (argued and briefed), Frost & Jacobs, Cincinnati, OH, for Defendant-Appellant.

Jennifer S. Goldstein (argued and briefed), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Office of the General Counsel, Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Before: KENNEDY and BATCHELDER, Circuit Judges; EDGAR *, District Judge.

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge.

In this action under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., defendant appeals both the jury's verdict in favor of plaintiff and the magistrate judge's denial of its post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law or, in the alternative, for a partial new trial or remittitur. The jury found that while plaintiff was an employee of defendant, she was subjected to sexual harassment in the form of a hostile work environment. The jury awarded plaintiff $50,000 in compensatory damages and $200,000 in punitive damages. Defendant first argues that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law because no reasonable interpretation of the evidence supports a finding of a hostile work environment. In the alternative, defendant asserts that (1) no justification exists for an award of punitive damages and (2) the magistrate judge erred in denying its motion for a new trial. 1 For the following reasons, we REVERSE.

I. Facts

Defendant is in the business of acquiring and developing land and building and selling homes. Plaintiff started working for defendant as Land Acquisition Manager on June 29, 1993. Her job entailed identifying pieces of land suitable for neighborhood development and working toward getting that land under contract to purchase. Her duties required that she be out of the office and in the field seventy percent of the time.

Every two weeks, employees of defendant's land department attended "land meetings" to discuss the status of acquisition efforts. Besides plaintiff, attendees included Jeff Hebeler, plaintiff's immediate supervisor; Ronald Benkert, defendant's then-President; Michelle Grigsby, Vice President and in-house General Counsel; Tim Zaring, Rick Iannitti, Tim Kramer, and Doug Hinger, the managers in charge of defendant's four product lines of homes; Jeff Hafer, development manager; and Mark Stenger, land development administration manager. Plaintiff asserts that sexually harassing comments were made at many of these meetings.

Sometime at the end of July, plaintiff was in a land meeting, sitting next to Tim Zaring. Zaring reached over to take a pastry from a plate in the center of the table and in front of plaintiff, and he said, "Nothing I like more in the morning than sticky buns," while looking plaintiff up and down, smiling, and "wriggl[ing]" his eyebrows. Plaintiff asserts that she reacted by saying "Tim, cut it out," whereafter Zaring turned to Iannitti, who was sitting on his other side, and laughed. Zaring's comment "bothered [plaintiff] a little bit."

At the next land meeting, sometime in mid-August, the meeting participants discussed a parcel of land adjacent to a Hooters Restaurant. Someone suggested that the area be named "Hootersville," and Zaring and Iannitti suggested "Titsville" or "Twin Peaks." Everyone at the meeting laughed. Plaintiff says she "looked down, and ... was devastated by this thinking this is going to continue on ... an ongoing basis." According to plaintiff, jokes about this particular parcel of land occurred at numerous meetings. Her ability to work was affected because she would worry that any remark she might make would "throw everybody off for awhile."

Also in August, plaintiff went to Hebeler to discuss her job performance and to ask about how her bonus would be affected by the number of parcels of land she acquired. Hebeler responded by telling plaintiff that she was "paid great money for a woman." Plaintiff was "deeply upset" about the comment.

In September, plaintiff was negotiating to purchase a parcel of land owned by an individual named "Dr. Paul Busam," apparently pronounced "bosom." Plaintiff gave a presentation regarding the parcel at a land meeting and, when she mentioned the owner's name, everyone laughed. Some participants, although plaintiff could only specifically name Iannitti, began joking again about the possible names for the property near the Hooters Restaurant. In order to avoid such laughter and joking at subsequent meetings, plaintiff would refer to the owner as "Dr. Paul."

At a land meeting in October, when plaintiff asked about the location of a particular property, Benkert told her that it was near a biker bar. He then said, "Say, weren't you there Saturday night dancing on the tables?" Plaintiff testified that everyone laughed and that she was "hurt," "crushed," and "devastated" by the remark because "it was making a characterization of [her]." After the remark, plaintiff looked down and quietly said, "Not hardly, Ron," but she did not believe that anyone heard her.

Finally, sometime in October, plaintiff was sitting next to Hebeler, waiting for a land meeting to start, when she heard him tell Hafer, "Just get the broad to sign it." This comment was made supposedly in response to Hafer telling Hebeler that he was having problems getting a county official to sign a document. Plaintiff says that she immediately looked at Hebeler and that he looked at her and shrugged his shoulders. She then shook her head. 2

Plaintiff testified that she complained to Michelle Grigsby, defendant's general counsel, sometime at the end of the summer. Their discussion took place in the women's restroom after a land meeting. Plaintiff says she told Grigsby: "I can't stand this in this land meeting. This is crazy. It's gotten way out of hand. Has it always been like this?" Grigsby responded: "Well, that's just the way they are.... There's nothing you can do about it." Plaintiff then said: "Except that it takes up so much time. It doesn't make sense to spend quality business time to get our business done for them to go off on these little tangents and little schoolboy activities laughing and joking."

Plaintiff was terminated for performance deficiencies on November 8, 1993, a little over four months after she started working for defendant. On April 4, 1994, she filed a charge of sex discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Plaintiff received a right to sue notice on or about June 9, 1994. She then sued defendant alleging sex discrimination, sexual harassment, breach of contract, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress. She asserted claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., as well as claims under the comparable state statute, OHIO REV. CODE § 4112.02(A) (Anderson 1991), and Ohio common law. The parties agreed to have the case tried by a magistrate judge. Plaintiff dismissed the breach of contract claim, and the magistrate judge directed a verdict in defendant's favor on plaintiff's emotional distress claim.

On March 31, 1995, the jury rendered a verdict against plaintiff on her claim of sex discrimination related to her termination, but in favor of plaintiff on her claim of sexual harassment based on a hostile work environment. The jury awarded $50,000 in compensatory damages and $200,000 in punitive damages. Judgment on this verdict was entered on September 21, 1995.

Defendant timely filed a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law or, in the alternative, for a partial new trial on the sexual harassment claim or remittitur. The magistrate judge denied defendant's motions. The magistrate judge found that the evidence revealed "an atmosphere of a grade school level fascination with women's body parts combined within [sic] denigrating comments about women" which were "not appropriate in the workplace." Acknowledging that "[t]he more difficult question is whether this conduct was sufficiently offensive and occurred often enough to create an objectively and subjectively hostile and abusive working environment," the magistrate judge held that the evidence supported such a finding.

The magistrate judge also denied defendant's motion for a new trial, finding that (1) the verdict was not against the clear weight of the evidence; (2) its evidentiary rulings were not prejudicial to defendant; (3) the jury instructions were not misleading, inadequate, or prejudicial; and (4) the verdict did not shock the conscience. Finally, stating that the "propriety of a punitive damages award in this case is a close question," because plaintiff did not complain about many of the comments, the magistrate judge concluded that the jury could have determined that particular circumstances demonstrated reckless disregard for women's rights in general and plaintiff's rights in particular. Accordingly, the magistrate judge affirmed the judgment.

This timely appeal followed.

II. Discussion
A.

This Court's standard of review for a FED.R.CIV.P. 50(b) motion for judgment as a matter of law based on the sufficiency of the evidence is identical to that used by the District Court. K & T Enters., Inc. v. Zurich Ins. Co., 97 F.3d 171, 175 (6th Cir.1996). Thus, we do not weigh the evidence, evaluate the credibility of the witnesses, or substitute our judgment for that of the jury. Id. at 175-76; Wehr v. Ryan's Family Steak Houses, Inc., 49 F.3d 1150, 1152 (6th Cir.1995). Instead, we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom the motion was made, and give that party the benefit of all reasonable inferences. K & T Enters., Inc., 97...

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