Bouchet v. National Urban League, Inc.
| Decision Date | 23 March 1984 |
| Docket Number | 82-1250,Nos. 82-1130,s. 82-1130 |
| Citation | 730 F.2d 799,235 U.S. App. D.C. 37 |
| Parties | 34 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 545, 34 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 34,302, 235 U.S.App.D.C. 37 Margo BOUCHET, Appellant, v. The NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE, INC., et al. Margo BOUCHET, Appellant, v. The NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE, INC., et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Thomas G. Corcoran, Jr., Washington, D.C., for appellant.
Alphonso A. Christian, II, Washington, D.C., with whom Vincent H. Cohen, Washington, D.C., was on the brief, for appellees.
Before BORK and SCALIA, Circuit Judges, and BAZELON, Senior Circuit Judge.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SCALIA.
Appellant Margo Bouchet appeals from two orders of the District Court. The first order (appealed from in No. 82-1250) entered judgment in favor of appellees, the National Urban League and its employee, Napoleon Johnson, following a bench trial on appellant's initial complaint, containing a Title VII claim of sex discrimination. The second order (appealed from in No. 82-1130) granted summary judgment dismissing her second complaint, containing claims for defamation and "sexual extortion" under District of Columbia law. Because all the claims arise from the same set of circumstances, and were indeed originally joined in a single complaint, we have consolidated these actions on appeal. They present the issues, among others, whether jurisdiction over pendent state claims requiring a jury trial, which jurisdiction may have required common factual issues in the equitable Title VII claim to be governed by the jury determination, was properly declined; whether the District of Columbia's one-year or three-year statute of limitations applied to the state claims; whether that statute is tolled by the pendency of a suit that is subsequently dismissed without prejudice; and whether the evidence in the Title VII suit adequately supported the District Court's judgment. Preliminary to all these, and perhaps most difficult of all, it presents the issue--recurrently wasteful of the efforts of the judges of this court and of the District Court--of what was the basis for an unexplained order of the trial judge.
The National Urban League, Inc., is a non-profit civil rights and social service organization many of whose projects are funded by the United States government. On November 23, 1977 Napoleon Johnson, Director of the League's Economic Development Department with an office in New York City, hired appellant Margo Bouchet, an attorney, as an employee of the League. Johnson was appellant's first contact with the League, having met her at a social function in Los Angeles in March 1977, and he remained appellant's immediate supervisor throughout her period of employment.
Bouchet was hired to administer the National Youth Participation Observer Committee ("NYPOC") project that was being financed by the Department of Labor. According to the findings of the District Court, it became painfully obvious within a matter of months that she was not qualified to handle her responsibilities. Officials of the Department of Labor became extremely dissatisfied with her performance, notified Johnson twice by letter of that dissatisfaction, and finally demanded, as a condition of continued funding of the NYPOC project that appellant improve her performance or be replaced. Although attempts were made by the League to assist her, the situation did not improve and appellant's employment was terminated on May 22, 1978.
Appellant saw things differently. According to her version of the facts, it was not her incompetence, but rather Johnson's sexual interest in her, combined with her steadfast refusal to favor his advances, that was responsible for the problems she encountered with her co-workers and Department of Labor officials, and for the eventual loss of her job. She alleged that Johnson conspired with Labor officials to make things difficult for her with the NYPOC project and then promised to resolve her difficulties if she would accede to his sexual advances. Early in 1978, appellant began to complain about Johnson's behavior. She first complained to the Deputy Director of the League in Washington, D.C., and then filed a written Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint on April 11, 1978. On November 13, 1978, after exhausting her administrative remedies, appellant filed her initial complaint in District Court against the League and Johnson. 1 The history of the litigation that followed is complex.
Paragraph 1 of appellant's complaint stated that Civil No. 78-2138, Complaint at 1 (filed Nov. 13, 1978). The complaint subsequently explained that "[j]urisdiction as to certain other claims is predicated on the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction." Id. (emphasis added). Various paragraphs of the complaint expressly alleged defamation, sexual harassment, assault, and malicious interference with contractual relationship. The relief sought included compensatory and punitive damages, an order directing the League to expunge all material relating to the matters complained of from appellant's personnel file, and other unspecified "appropriate" relief. Appellant also demanded a jury trial.
Appellees moved to strike the claim for legal damages and the demand for a jury trial, arguing that appellant had based her complaint solely on Title VII, under which only equitable relief and never a jury trial is available. Appellant opposed their motion, explaining that her complaint included additional causes of action which "involve[ ] rights and remedies of the sort typically enforced in an action at law ... [and] require a jury trial on demand." Plaintiff's Response to Defendant's Motion to Strike at 1 (filed Jan. 22, 1979). Judge Hart granted appellee's motion on March 7, 1979, stating no basis for his order.
Shortly after that order was issued, appellant filed a motion to certify the case for interlocutory appeal. That motion was denied by Judge Hart on March 30, 1979. Appellant then filed a petition with this court on April 12, 1979, seeking permission to appeal Judge Hart's first order. She abandoned that course of action because the pleading was not authorized by the applicable rules of appellate procedure. On April 23, 1979, appellant properly filed a Petition for a Writ of Mandamus with this Court seeking to review Judge Hart's order. After changing counsel, however, she voluntarily withdrew that petition on the ground that she intended to file an amended complaint that "might well moot the issues presented by the petition." Appellant's Brief (No. 82-1130) at 2.
On July 20, 1979, appellant moved to file an amended complaint which clarified her claims by reorganizing them in separate counts and requesting specific relief for each. The proposed amended complaint opened with the explanation that "[t]his action is brought pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ... and the common law," Civil No. 78-2138, First Amended Complaint at 1 (filed Feb. 29, 1980) (emphasis added). Judge Penn, to whom the case was reassigned, initially granted the amendment, but later denied it, having concluded, upon appellees' request for reconsideration, that the amended complaint presented issues which were identical to those before Judge Hart when he had granted the Motion to Strike, and that it was therefore barred by the doctrine of law of the case. The order also relied upon the alternative ground of the statute of limitations, reasoning that since all the claims had arisen on or before May 31, 1978, and appellant had filed the Motion to Amend on July 20, 1979, the District of Columbia's one-year statute of limitations for defamation and sexual extortion, D.C.Code Sec. 12-301(4) (1981), barred her allegedly "new" claims.
Following the denial of her motion to amend, appellant filed a second complaint, which in two separate counts requested relief for alleged defamation and sexual extortion. Appellees immediately moved to dismiss this complaint, arguing that the previous orders barred these claims under the doctrine of law of the case and the statute of limitations. On January 29, 1982, Judge Penn granted appellees' Motion for Summary Judgment with regard to this second complaint.
Trial went ahead on appellant's original complaint without a jury. After nine days of testimony, Judge Penn entered judgment for defendants. Bouchet v. National Urban League, Civil No. 78-2138 (D.D.C. Mar. 3, 1982).
We must first consider appellant's argument that the District Court erred in striking her jury-trial demand and denying her motion to file an amended complaint. This action had potential significance beyond its effect of ultimately terminating her state-law claims. As a general rule, when a case contains claims triable to a jury and claims triable to the court that involve common issues of fact, the jury's resolution of those issues governs the entire case. See Dairy Queen v. Wood, 369 U.S. 469, 82 S.Ct. 894, 8 L.Ed.2d 44 (1962); Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U.S. 500, 79 S.Ct. 948, 3 L.Ed.2d 988 (1959). If, as appellant asserts, this rule is applicable with respect to Title VII (non-jury) claims, then the alleged erroneous disregard of her state-law claims and the consequent denial of her demand for jury trial would infect the disposition of her Title VII claim as well, since most if not all of its elements would have been presented to the wrong trier of fact. Not only would a jury trial on her tort claims be required, but the Title VII judgment--even if otherwise valid--would have to be vacated, and the whole case retried, giving preclusive effect to all findings of fact by the jury. See Calnetics Corp. v. Volkswagen of America,...
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