Greenbaum v. Handelsbanken
| Decision Date | 08 September 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 95 Civ. 3850 (SS).,95 Civ. 3850 (SS). |
| Citation | 67 F.Supp.2d 228 |
| Parties | Victoria GREENBAUM, Plaintiff, v. Svenska HANDELSBANKEN, NY, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Cooper, Sapir & Cohen, Melville, New York, Robert E. Sapir, of counsel, Sapir & Frumkin LLP, of counsel, White Plains, NY, Donald L. Sapir, Robert T. McGovern, Steven R. Shapiro, of counsel, for plaintiff.
Chadbourne & Parke LLP, New York City, Peter N. Hillman, Debra M. Patalkis, Mitchell P. Hurley, of counsel, for defendant.
Defendant Svenska Handelsbanken, N.Y. ("SNY") moves under Rule 50(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for judgment as a matter of law vacating a jury verdict in favor of plaintiff Victoria Greenbaum on her claims of sex discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and the equivalent provisions of the New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Administrative Code. In the alternative, SNY moves to reduce the jury's compensatory damage award of $320,000 by $181,303 because the jury awarded damages for activities that allegedly occurred outside the relevant statute of limitations. SNY also moves to vacate the $1.25 million punitive damage award granted by the jury as unsupported by the evidence or, alternatively, to remit a substantial portion of the award as excessive. Finally, SNY moves to vacate the entire jury verdict on the ground that Greenbaum's counsel allegedly committed various prejudicial errors during the trial. For the reasons to be discussed, the Court denies all of SNY's motions.
All of the events relevant to this case occurred in the period beginning in late 1987, when SNY first hired Greenbaum, and ending in April 1995, when SNY terminated her employment. The following facts are either undisputed or could have been found by a reasonable jury.
Defendant SNY is the New York branch of Svenska Handelsbanken, AB ("SHB"), an international banking corporation headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. SHB has had more than 500 employees during all the times relevant to this action. In May 1987, SNY opened up as a startup branch with approximately fifteen employees, and by the end of 1994, the branch had approximately eighty employees.
SNY was divided into departments, each of which was managed by a department head with the title of either vice president or senior vice president. Each department head managed a team of employees, some of whom supervised others in the department and some of whom also held the title of vice president. The branch as a whole was managed by a general manager ("GM"), who had a deputy general manager working under him. Together, the GM, the deputy GM and the department heads made up the management committee (the "GM committee"), which had the authority to make many of the major decisions for the branch, including all decisions concerning employees' salary increases, bonuses and promotions. Throughout the period in question, all of the members of this committee were men, and the only person who was a member of the committee for the entire period was Harry Roberts, the deputy GM.
In its corporate brochure, SHB described itself as a highly decentralized organization, consisting of a network of local branches, which had nearly complete autonomy to govern their internal affairs and client relations. The brochure stated that "[a] decentralized organisation [sic] ... requires a strong corporate culture" and a "clear set of instructions." JT 41 at VG678.2 Part of SHB's "strong corporate culture" was the ambition to "grow its own leaders," and "[a]s far as possible, promotion [was] done internally." Id. at VG682. Furthermore, according to SHB's brochure:
Our aim is to hire the best people and to keep them in the bank until they retire. Exceptions to this rule are usually signs of a failure.... We might have hired somebody who proved to be a disappointment. Or we might have failed to offer a good person a sufficiently challenging job.
From the beginning of 1987 and ending in 1994, Greenbaum consistently sought but was consistently denied the position of vice president. Throughout this time, SNY had a number of vice presidents, and Bengt Ragna, one of SNY's key witnesses and its GM from 1991 to 1994, testified that there were no formal quotas on this number. See Tr. at 1235.3 In principle, employees could be promoted to vice president without any substantial changes in duties or responsibilities, and these promotions were thus largely changes in title and status. See id. at 1276. To obtain the title, an employee ordinarily needed a "strong recommendation from a senior person, [the candidate's] superior." Id. at 1217. Ragna articulated six criteria that he used to assess candidates. These criteria, which "were not written in stone" but instead derived from the "culture of the bank" and the "heritage that [he] ha[d learned] as a general manager coming from the Swedish part of the bank," id. at 1203, included: (1) whether the bank would be comfortable having the individual represent the bank; (2) a strong performance record; (3) a good management record; (4) whether the person can be a good role model; (5) the importance of the job to SNY; and (6) dedication to the job. See id. at 1205-09.4 In practice, however, supervisors' recommendations were given strong deference and were rarely rejected. See id. at 1044-46, 1123-25.
In September 1987, John Pyron, senior vice president and head of SNY's treasury department, see id. at 89-90, and John Amoroso, vice president in charge of the money market and corporate desks, see id. at 88, interviewed plaintiff Greenbaum for a senior money market trader position in the treasury department, see id. at 91-92, which was one of the branch's main profit centers, see id. at 1202. During the interview, Pyron and Amoroso discussed job responsibilities, benefits, title and salary, and Greenbaum, who was then employed as an assistant vice president at another company, expressed interest in joining the bank with the title of vice president. See id. at 92-93. Pyron explained that although SNY was hiring for a vice-presidential level job, he would be unable to offer her that title from the start. See id. at 93. He indicated, however, that if she were to accept an offer of employment with SNY, she would be given the title after her first annual review in December. See id. Shortly after the interview, Pyron and Amoroso discussed Greenbaum's candidacy, agreed that she was qualified for the position, and Pyron offered her a position as assistant vice president. See id. at 94-95. Greenbaum accepted and began work under Amoroso on September 28, 1987. See PX 1.5
Three months later, in December 1987, the GM committee, which included Pyron, discussed Greenbaum's promotion to vice president but decided that it would defer its decision until March 1988, when she could be reviewed on the basis of six months' performance. See Tr. at 98-99. Amoroso was nevertheless asked to fill out a preliminary review for her. Greenbaum had already made money for SNY at the time, and Amoroso's review stated that:
Vicky in her short time with Svenska has contributed her expertise and excellent analytical skills in organizing and maximizing the potential of the deposit book. Vicky also has been instrumental in managing the short-date trading, both in training and in actual trading strategies. To be reviewed March 1988.
PX 1; see also Tr. at 101. Pyron concurred in this review and explained to Greenbaum that her promotion would not occur until March. See Tr. at 102.
In March 1988, Amoroso filled out a more extensive review of Greenbaum's performance to date, which stated that "Vicki has proven that she can properly head the money market and corporate desks when her supervisor [i.e., Amoroso] is not in." PX 2 at SNY000063A. The evaluation also recommended her for a promotion to vice president:
Vicki has demonstrated an excellent knowledge of sophisticated markets, an expertise in trading them and the managerial style to motivate the desk. She also readily offers her technical skills to the other traders assisting in their positions. In light of the above it is recommended that Vicky be promoted to Vice President.
Id. Pyron agreed with this recommendation, see Tr. at 110-11, and presented the evaluation to the GM committee. The committee decided not to promote Greenbaum, however, and Pyron explained to her that the committee felt that a promotion was inappropriate at that time because Greenbaum did not have any staff reporting directly to her. See id. at 111.
Following the March review, Amoroso and Pyron decided to give Greenbaum more responsibilities and make her a fulltime rather than a part-time arbitrage trader. See id. at 113-14. In doing so, they hoped in part to "give her a higher profile in the bank" so that she could "show her contributions more clearly to management." Id. at 114. Greenbaum was also given a staff that reported directly to her. See id. at 112. At the end of the year, Amoroso once again filled out a written evaluation for Greenbaum, which gave her an overall rating of five out of six: "Results consistently exceed job requirements." PX 3 at SNY000061. The evaluation also stated that "Vicki is the senior person on the desk when the chief trader is out and she has proven her ability to properly run the desk." Id. at SNY000060. The evaluation further noted that ...
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