Dawson v. County of Westchester

Decision Date14 June 2004
Docket NumberDocket No. 03-7858.
PartiesStarr DAWSON, Deborah Johnson, Deborah MacDonald, Pauline Deans, Deloris Cherry, Millicent McFarlane, and Velma Lee, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER, William Decuiceis, Warden, Phillip Banks, Sergeant, Rocco Pozzi, Commissioner of Corrections, County of Westchester, Joseph Miranda, Chief of Operations and Robert L. Davis, Deputy Commissioner, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Joseph A. Maria, White Plains, New York (Frances Dapice Marinelli, on the brief), for Plaintiff-Appellants.

Mary Lynn Nicolas, Westchester County Attorney's Office, White Plains, New York, for Charlene M.

Indelicato, Westchester County Attorney (Stacey Dolgin-Kmetz, Chief Deputy County Attorney, and Linda M. Trentacoste, Associate County Attorney, on the brief), for Defendants-Appellees.

Before: VAN GRAAFEILAND, LEVAL, and CALABRESI, Circuit Judges.

CALABRESI, Circuit Judge:

Female corrections officers at a male correctional facility in Westchester County filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging that the County of Westchester, a sergeant at the Westchester facility, and various county corrections officials subjected them to a hostile work environment and retaliated against them in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000(e) et seq., the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and New York anti-discrimination laws, N.Y. Civ. Rts. Law § 40-c; N.Y. Exec. Law § 296. In a decision and order dated July 25, 2003, the district court (William C. Conner, J.) granted summary judgment to the defendants on all of plaintiffs' federal claims, and declined to exercise pendent jurisdiction over their state law claims. Plaintiffs now appeal. We affirm the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' Title VII and Section 1983 retaliation claims, but vacate its grant of summary judgment on plaintiffs' claims of hostile work environment discrimination under Title VII and Section 1983, and remand these causes of action for further proceedings. Accordingly, we also vacate the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' state law claims, and remand those claims to the district court as well.

I. Factual Background

Plaintiffs-appellants Starr Dawson ("Dawson"), Deborah MacDonald ("MacDonald"), Pauline Deans ("Deans"), Deloris Cherry ("Cherry"), Millicent McFarlane ("McFarlane"), and Velma Lee ("Lee") were female corrections officers ("COs") employed at a male correctional facility (the "facility") in Westchester County. Plaintiff-appellant Deborah Johnson ("Johnson") and defendant-appellee Phillip Banks ("Banks" or "Sgt. Banks") were both sergeants at the facility, a rank superior to that of CO.

The events at the center of this suit began on or about October 7, 1999, when CO Kelli Reckard gave Deans a letter ___ apparently written by inmates at the facility ___ addressed to all female COs. The typed document contained degrading, explicit, and violent sexual references to individual female COs, including the plaintiffs, Reckard, and others. It also featured an obscene drawing. Deans showed the letter to MacDonald, who made photocopies for Dawson and Johnson. MacDonald and Johnson gave a copy of the document to Warden William DeCuiceis ("DeCuiceis"), who said he would investigate the matter.

On or about October 8, a second letter of a similar sort was found in the facility. CO Donna Alford showed it to Deans, who gave a copy to Sgt. Banks, apparently at his request. The parties agree that Banks expressed indignation at the letters and told Deans that if their author could be identified, Banks would have him transferred and written up. According to his own testimony, however, Banks never reported the letters to his captain or to the warden.

Plaintiffs allege that Sgt. Banks was responsible for the subsequent dissemination of the letters throughout the facility. On October 10 or 11, plaintiffs assert, Banks circulated the letters among various personnel in the mess hall. Cherry testified in her deposition that she witnessed CO Middleton asking Sgt. Banks to show him "that" letter, and that after Banks complied, Cherry told him, "I know what you are doing," i.e., distributing the letters. Upset, Cherry reported the incident to Johnson. In his deposition, Banks gave a different account of his encounter with Cherry in the mess hall. He testified that Cherry had approached the table where Banks was eating with Sgt. Reynolds, and that Banks had said, "`You look down[,] Cherry. I hope those letters aren't getting you down," to which she responded in the negative and joked that the authors of the letter were mistaken about the size of her breasts.

McFarlane also testified that she saw Sgt. Banks showing what she believed were copies of the letters to other officers in an area of the jail known as the "bubble." Plaintiffs further contend that Banks directed CO Carol Merrill to make copies of the letter for distribution to personnel in the facility's booking office.1 MacDonald alleges that a Sergeant Hittman informed her that Banks was disseminating the letters to other personnel in the control or "tac" room.

Plaintiffs complain of various inappropriate remarks by Sgt. Banks in connection with the letters. Thus, McFarlane alleges on October 11 Banks asked her in the presence of Sgt. Reynolds "what other body parts [did she] have pierced," to which McFarlane responded, "I find this line of conversation offensive and I wish you would stop." When Banks repeated the question, and McFarlane gave a similar answer, Reynolds advised Banks to cease and desist, warning him that McFarlane had filed a harassment complaint against another officer in the past. McFarlane reported her encounter with Banks in a statement to the facility's Special Investigations Unit ("SIU") on October 15.2

Also on October 11, Lee returned from vacation and allegedly witnessed Sgt. Banks giving a piece of paper to CO Bush in the lobby of the Department of Corrections. According to Lee, Banks said to her, "I see you made the top 15," asked Lee if she "had her sense of humor" with her, and told Bush to show her the letter. Lee claims that Banks commented to her, "At least [yours] was the mildest of them all." Lee reported this incident to a union representative, another CO, and two captains, and wrote a statement for the SIU. Other female COs apparently reported to Johnson that Banks made similar "top 15 list" remarks to them, and Johnson testified that she advised Warden DeCuiceis that Banks was distributing the letters throughout the facility. Several of the plaintiffs contend that Banks would stop and stare inappropriately at them, and Lee claims that Banks approached her work area unnecessarily to ask, "How are you, Miss Lee? Everything all right with you today, Miss Lee?"

Plaintiffs claim that, as a result of the letters' dissemination, they were subjected to a barrage of inappropriate stares, whispers, laughter, and remarks from their colleagues. Thus, Deans alleges that after the letters circulated throughout the facility, male officers made countless lewd and demeaning comments to her. Deans described "constant stuff being said that had no business in the workplace," including sexually charged references to her physical appearance. The atmosphere grew worse, Deans said, when she returned from a scheduled two-week vacation. Remarks were then made such as "Did you enjoy your vacation? We hear you [...] a mean dick on your days off," "When is your next day off, could we hook up?" and "I'll take you to Victoria's Secret and you can get whatever you want as long as you wear it for me."

Dawson, too, testified that male officers taunted her with comments such as "is it true you're about that, you do things like [the sexual acts described in the letters]? Ew, that's nasty, you're nasty." She recalled that at morning briefings after the letters circulated, officers, mostly male, gathered in groups and laughed about their contents, and that the letters were a prevalent topic of conversation for civilian workers at the facility as well.

The plaintiffs also report that the dissemination of the letters led to a diminution of their authority over the facility's inmates. Deans asserted that while she had never experienced problems with inmates in the past, after the letters "[i]t became difficult to ... tell them the littlest thing, clean your room, and [they would give me] attitude."

The plaintiffs sought and received medical treatment for various mental health problems allegedly resulting from stress caused by the letters and their impact on the plaintiffs' workplace environment. Some took job injury leave; others continued to work while receiving treatment.

The record reveals that the defendants did take steps to investigate both the letters' source and plaintiffs' complaints about Sgt. Banks's subsequent behavior. On October 9, shortly after the letters were found in the facility, Sergeant Bizzarro filed a Special Report indicating that he had interviewed a commissary staff member who had found one of the letters in the commissary bin.3 On October 11, plaintiffs and other female employees submitted a written complaint to Warden DeCuiceis regarding the letters, Sgt. Banks' distribution of them, and the hostile work environment plaintiffs perceived. The female officers requested Banks' immediate suspension and called for formal charges of sexual harassment to be filed against him. On October 12, DeCuiceis asked Commissioner Rocco Pozzi to authorize a special investigation based on the October 11 complaint. Pozzi approved the request, instructed that the investigation be expedited, and referred the matter to his Special Assistant, Anthony Czarnecki, for assignment to the SIU on October 13. Subsequently, various...

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