Brady v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
| Decision Date | 29 September 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. CV 03-3843(JO).,CV 03-3843(JO). |
| Citation | 455 F.Supp.2d 157 |
| Parties | Patrick S. BRADY, Plaintiff, v. WAL-MART STORES, INC., et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
Douglas Holden Wigdor, Thompson, Wigdor & Gilly LLP, New York City, for Plaintiff.
I. Michael Kessel, Joel L. Finger, Brown, Raysman, Millstein, Felder & Steiner LLP, New York City, for Defendants.
Plaintiff Patrick S. Brady ("Brady") filed this discrimination action against his former employer, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. ("Wal-Mart"), and two of their managers, Yem Hung Chin ("Chin") and James Bowen ("Bowen") alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), 29 U.S.C. § 12101, et seq. and the New York Human Rights Law ("NYHRL"), N.Y. Exec. Law § 290, et seq. Docket Entry ("DE") 33 (Amended Complaint). Following a trial, and on the basis of the jury's verdict, I directed the Clerk to enter judgment in favor of Brady jointly and severally against Wal-Mart and Chin in the amount of $2,500,000 and against Wal-Mart alone in the additional amount of 3300,002. See DE 111. The jury did not find Bowen personally liable on any of Brady's claims, and I therefore dismissed with prejudice the charges against him. Wal-Mart and Chin now seek judgment in their favor as a matter of law pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure ("Rule") 50(b) as well as a new trial, or in the alternative for remittitur of compensatory damages, pursuant to Rule 59(a). Brady also seeks relief in the form of an application for costs, including attorneys' fees, pursuant to Rule 54(d). For the reasons set forth below, I now deny the Rule 50(b) motion, deny the Rule 59(a) motion provided Brady agrees to remittitur in the amount of $600,000 in compensatory damages, and award Brady $644,145.22 in costs including reasonable attorneys' fees.
On August 6, 2003, Brady filed a complaint against Wal-Mart, Chin, and Bowen alleging several claims arising from his experience applying for, and subsequent employment in, the position of a part-time sales associate at the Wal-Mart store in Centereach, New York during the summer of 2002. Brady suffers from cerebral palsy, and all of his claims are related to his contention that Wal-Mart and its employees discriminated against him because he is disabled.
Specifically, Brady alleged that Wal-Mart violated the ADA during the application process by asking him prohibited questions before making a conditional offer of employment. He also contended that after he accepted Wal-Mart's offer to work in their pharmacy, the defendants further discriminated against him by subjecting him to two adverse employment actions: first by transferring him from his position as a sales associate in the pharmacy to an assignment collecting shopping carts in the store's parking lot, and then, after Brady protested the first transfer, by transferring him again to the store's food department and putting him on a work schedule that required him to work during hours in which, as he had previously informed Wal-Mart, he was unavailable. Brady complained of each transfer as a discriminatory act, and also alleged that Wal-Mart had subjected him to a hostile work environment and then constructively discharged him on the basis of his disability. Finally, Brady claimed that Wal-Mart failed to provide a reasonable accommodation for his disability and accused Chin and Bowen of participating in the conduct giving rise to his claims. The defendants denied engaging in any such discrimination, denied that Brady is disabled within the meaning of the pertinent federal statute, and denied that they believed or had reason to believe that Brady was disabled during the events in issue.
On February 14, 2005 the Honorable Leonard D. Wexler, United States District Judge, selected a jury to consider the case. Following that proceeding, all of the parties consented to the referral of this case to a magistrate judge for all purposes, including the entry of judgment, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1) and Rule 73. DE 66. I then presided over the jury trial, which began on February 16, 2005, and concluded on February 23, 2005, when the jury returned its verdicts.
Several of the verdicts favored Brady. The jury found that Wal-Mart discriminated against Brady by subjecting him, on the basis of his disability, to one specific adverse employment action (the transfer from the pharmacy to the parking lot) and in general to a hostile work environment. The jury further found that Chin participated in these violations. In addition, the jury found that Wal-Mart failed to meet its obligation of offering Brady a reasonable accommodation. Finally, the jury found that Wal-Mart had violated the ADA with respect to one of the two pre-employment inquiries about which Brady complained; specifically, it found that a question on a form describing the job requirements of the position to which Brady had applied was unlawfully asked prior to Wal-Mart's conditional offer of employment. See generally DE 80 (Verdict Sheet) at 1-3. I directed the jury to make the latter finding based on my legal ruling that the inquiry would violate the ADA if made prior to the conditional job offer and on the parties' agreement that the record required the jury to find that timing element satisfied. See Transcript of Trial ("Tr.") 986-88.
Although Brady prevailed on much of his complaint, the jury also made a number of findings that favored some or all of the defendants. The jury decided that Brady had failed to prove that Bowen participated in Wal-Mart's discrimination. It also found that Brady had failed to prove that Wal-Mart's pre-employment questioning about Brady's use of prescription medications was prohibited. The jury also did not find that transferring Brady from the parking lot to the food department was an adverse employment action, that Brady was constructively discharged, or that any of the defendants intentionally inflicted emotional distress upon Brady. See generally Verdict Sheet, at 2-4.
In assessing damages on the claims that it found Brady did prove, the jury awarded a total of $5,000,000 in punitive damages, $2,500,000 in compensatory damages for emotional pain and suffering, $9,114 for damages related to lost back pay, and nominal damages of one dollar apiece on the reasonable accommodation and job application process claims. See id. at 4, 6. On the basis of Wal-Mart's post-trial motion, I reduced the total award of punitive damages to 5300,000 pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1981a and, with the parties' consent, allocated all of the $2,500,000 compensatory damage award to Brady's state law claims under the NYHRL. DE 111 at 9. I struck the jury's award of $9,114 for lost back pay because Brady did not prevail on his constructive termination claim. Id. at 10.
The defendants argue that they are entitled to judgment in their favor as a matter of law, notwithstanding the jury's verdicts, on a variety of grounds. First, they contend that although Brady was disabled within the meaning of the relevant state law, he did not fall within the ADA's definition of that term. Second, they assert that Wal-Mart's decision to transfer Brady from the pharmacy to the parking lot cannot be deemed to have been an adverse employment action. Third, they argue that the evidence before the jury was insufficient to support the verdict that Brady was subjected to a hostile work environment. Fourth, Wal-Mart claims that even if Brady was disabled, it was under no obligation to offer him any reasonable accommodation for his disability. Fifth, Wal-Mart denies that the ADA prohibited it from inquiring of Brady, before making him a conditional offer of employment, as to whether he could perform the job with or without a reasonable accommodation. Sixth, the defendants maintain that the evidence did not suffice to allow the jury to award punitive damages. See DE 120 at 3-4; see also DE 121 ("Rule 50 Memo.") at i.
To prevail on their motion for judgment as a matter of law as to any of the issues listed above, the defendants must show that "there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for that party on that issue." Rule 50(a)(1). In deciding the motion, I "may consider all the record evidence, but in doing so ... must draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving party, and ... may not make credibility determinations or weigh the evidence." Cross v. New York City Transit Auth., 417 F.3d 241, 247 (2d Cir.2005) (quoting Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 150, 120 S.Ct. 2097, 147 L.Ed.2d 105 (2000)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Where, as here, a jury has deliberated and returned a verdict, the standard is high: there must be either "such a complete absence of evidence supporting the verdict that the jury's findings could only have been the result of sheer surmise and conjecture, or ... such an overwhelming amount of evidence in favor of the movant that reasonable and fair minded men could not arrive at a verdict against him." Cross, 417 F.3d at 248 (citing Song v. Ives Labs., 957 F.2d 1041, 1046 (2d Cir.1992)) (internal quotation marks omitted). After addressing some threshold issues, I explain why, in my view, the defendants have failed to meet that heavy burden in any respect.
As a threshold matter, Brady asserts that the defendants waived their Rule 50 motion by failing to renew it at the close of all the evidence. DE 130 ("Rule 50 Opp.") at 1. His procedural argument ignores the reality that the defendants made every appropriate effort to do so, and that the existence of any question in this regard is due entirely to my own improvident efforts to achieve efficiency. As a result, the pertinent law...
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