Equal Employment Opportunity Comm. v. University of Chicago Hospitals

• Decision Date: 02 January 2002
• Docket Number: No. 00-4065,00-4065
• Parties: (7th Cir. 2002) Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. University of Chicago Hospitals, Defendant-Appellee
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 326

276 F.3d 326 (7th Cir. 2002)

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. University of Chicago Hospitals, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 00-4065

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Argued May 16, 2001

Decided January 2, 2002

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 98 C 6109--Blanche M. Manning, Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Anne N. Occhialino (argued), E.E.O.C., Office of Gen. Counsel, Washington, DC, for Appellant.

Nina G. Stillman, James E. Bbayles (argued), Vedder, Price, Kaufman & Kammholz, Chicago, IL, for Appellee.

Before Harlington Wood, Jr., Coffey, and Williams, Circuit Judges.

Williams, Circuit Judge.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the University of Chicago Hospitals alleging that the Chicago Hospitals had unlawfully discriminated on the basis of religion when it constructively discharged Victoria Leyva. The district court granted summary judgment to the Chicago Hospitals, finding that the EEOC had not demonstrated constructive discharge nor any religious discrimination, only voluntary resignation. The EEOC appeals seeking reversal of that decision, so that it can move forward with its case. We believe that the EEOC has adequately demonstrated constructive discharge on the basis of religious discrimination, as alleged, so as to defeat summary judgment and proceed to trial. Therefore, we reverse.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Facts

Victoria Leyva is an Evangelical Christian Baptist. Leyva was a recruiter in the University of Chicago Hospitals' ("Chicago Hospitals") Employment Department between December 1990 and July 1992, and before JoAnn Shaw arrived, she had received high marks from her immediate supervisor, Employment Department Manager William Thornton. For instance, in a June 30, 1991 annual performance evaluation, Thornton rated her a 3+ overall on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the highest), where 3 was defined as performing at "levels which should be expected and considered acceptable" and as "doing a good job." He praised her abilities, describing her as an "excellent" recruiter and team member who achieved "excellent results and [had] gotten many compliments from her departments."

JoAnn Shaw is a Roman Catholic. In May 1991, she was hired by the Chicago Hospitals as Associate Director of the Chicago Hospitals and Director of Human Resources, which included the Employment Department. One of her explicit tasks was to improve the human resources function. So with her arrival came changes, particularly in evaluations of Leyva's performance. Leyva believed that this change was because of her evangelical religious beliefs.

Before she officially began her duties, Shaw met with Leyva in Leyva's office, ¹ where she noticed a calendar entitled "Treasures of Inspiration: A Woman's Guide to Daily Living" and a five-inch clock inscribed with "Armitage Baptist Church, Chicago-Illinois. Pastor Charles Lyon." on Leyva's desk. Concerned that the items were too "religious in nature," Shaw directed Thornton to have Leyva remove the items. Thornton told Leyva to remove the items because they were "too religious, [and] too denominational." Leyva removed them. Shaw also attached a handwritten Post-It Note to Thornton's performance appraisal of Leyva, which stated "Baptist church referrals off desk."

Before Shaw was hired, Thornton and Leyva had recruited employees from churches, but after she arrived, Shaw issued a directive to all employees to stop recruiting at churches or church job fairs. This directive was a recurrent source of tension between Shaw and Leyva, as Shaw believed Leyva continued to recruit from her church. According to the Chicago Hospitals, however, the problems with Leyva were much more than recruiting from churches. Some of her supervisors believed she recruited exclusively from her church and hired unqualified people.

In October 1991, Thornton resigned (at Shaw's request), and he was replaced by Ralph Borkowicz. As the new middleman between Shaw and Leyva, Borkowicz reiterated Shaw's directive to Leyva not to recruit at church job fairs, and he told her that Shaw thought she was an "uncreative recruiter." Leyva denied recruiting at churches since the directive. Borkowicz and Shaw also carpooled together, and Leyva was a source of common discussion. According to Borkowicz, Shaw made it "very clear that she had a problem with [Leyva's] religious beliefs and bringing religion into the workplace," calling her a "religious fanatic." In addition, Shaw repeatedly stated that she wanted Leyva fired, which Borkowicz believed was because of Leyva's religion.

In early May 1992, Shaw told Borkowicz that "she was not happy--this wasn't working out" and that she wanted him to fire Leyva. Borkowicz responded that he "didn't see any reason for terminating [Leyva], and [that Shaw] needed to do what she needed to do." A couple weeks later, Shaw told Borkowicz that she was going to start taking steps to remove him from his position because he refused to fire Leyva. She terminated him on May 21, 1992, and on that same day, according to Leyva, Borkowicz told her that he was terminated because he refused to fire her.

Leyva also testified that on June 6, 1992, Borkowicz warned her that Shaw said she "wanted [her] out, but that she was going to make it very hard for [her] so [she] would quit, and [she] would not be able to collect unemployment." Borkowicz told her that Shaw was "setting [her] up so that [she] would quit, gathering complaints and gathering whatever she could." Borkowicz told Leyva to "watch [her] back." In addition, he informed her of an example of Shaw's hostility toward her. Leyva had applied for a grant from the Chicago Hospitals' outreach program to her church for its tutoring program in the spring of 1992. In early May 1992, the employee advisory committee awarded Leyva's church $500 (which Shaw's assistant Roger Bottorff had lobbied for her to receive). Although Bottorff prepared a May 8, 1992 letter of congratulations signed by Shaw that notified Leyva that the $500 check could be picked up in a few days, at the time of her June 6th conversation with Borkowicz, Leyva had not received the letter. She did not know it existed. She stated that Borkowicz said to her, "the awards had been made, the checks had been cut and [Shaw] was holding it because [she was] a Bible thumper and a goody two-shoes, and [Shaw] was gonna make [her] sweat."

Borkowicz was replaced by Bottorff (Shaw's assistant and a project manager). Like Borkowicz, Bottorff told Leyva that Shaw did not want her to recruit at church job fairs, which Leyva again denied. He further instructed her (twice) not to hire "church people, the needy, or [her] friends." In June, Bottorff evaluated Leyva for her annual evaluation, giving her a rating of 2 overall, which is defined as performance "at or slightly above the minimum requirements for the job" and "improvements are needed." During her evaluation review, he implied that Leyva could be terminated if she did not improve. In preparing his evaluation, Bottorff did not ask Borkowicz for his input, though Bottorff had only been in his position for a month. Instead, his evaluation was based on Shaw's comments and his observations over that month.

In June, the Chicago Hospitals hired Lynda Cartwright as a recruiter. She had the same job title as Leyva and assumed part of her responsibilities. In July, Leyva left for vacation. Bottorff called her during that vacation to ask her about missing applicant test scores, but Leyva did not know their location. Bottorff told her that "this is the last straw, and that he told [her] three times not to refer church friends, and that [they] would talk about it when [she] returned," and that she should be "prepared."

Leyva talked to Borkowicz before she returned, and according to Borkowicz, she told him that "it looked like she was going to get fired." Leyva prepared her resignation letter, which she had ready when she returned to work. When she arrived, she found her desk packed up, her office used for storage, and boxes piled up. Bottorff then entered her office and said that they should talk. After briefly talking with Bottorff, Leyva resigned. In her resignation letter, Leyva stated that she resigned because she could not "continue employment at the hospital and obey" the directive "not to refer 'church people, church friends or the needy' into entry level position[s]."

B. District Court Proceeding

Leyva filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), and the EEOC in turn sued the Chicago Hospitals in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, under Titles I and VII of the Civil Rights Acts of 1991 and 1964 respectively. The EEOC alleged that the Chicago Hospitals unlawfully discriminated against Leyva when it constructively discharged her on the basis of her religion.² The Chicago Hospitals moved for summary judgment.

After initially struggling with the appropriate analysis to apply to this case (in part because the parties disagreed), the district court decided that this constructive discharge case best fit the hostile-work-environment- plus category and proceeded to analyze it under that rubric. The district court found that the harassment the EEOC had alleged to support its constructive discharge case failed to demonstrate an intolerable work environment that would have caused a reasonable person to resign, and therefore failed to demonstrate constructive discharge. Moreover, the district court found that none of the alleged harassment was based on religion. Accordingly, the district court granted summary judgment to the Chicago Hospitals. The EEOC now appeals.

II. ANALYSIS

The issue presented in this appeal is whether the EEOC has sufficiently demonstrated constructive discharge on the basis of religious discrimination so as to survive...