Greer v. St. Louis Regional Med. Center

• Decision Date: 02 May 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-1757EM,00-1757EM
• Citation: 258 F.3d 843
• Parties: (8th Cir. 2001) Patrice Diane Greer, Appellant, v. St. Louis Regional Medical Center, also known as St. Louis Connectcare, also known as Connectcare, Appellee. Submitted:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 843

258 F.3d 843 (8th Cir. 2001)

Patrice Diane Greer, Appellant, v. St. Louis Regional Medical Center, also known as St. Louis Connectcare, also known as Connectcare, Appellee.

No. 00-1757EM

United States Court of Appeals FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

Submitted: May 2, 2001

Filed: July 31, 2001

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Before MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, RICHARD S. ARNOLD, and FAGG, Circuit Judges.

RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

Patrice Greer appeals the District Court's adverse grant of summary judgment in her employment discrimination case against St. Louis Regional Medical Center (Regional), her former employer. Ms. Greer was employed at Regional as a full-time, hourly paid biomedical engineering technician (BET) in the dialysis unit, where she was on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. She was called in to repair equipment on her days off, including days when she was on vacation or sick leave. In her complaint in this action, Ms. Greer alleged that Regional discriminated against her because of her race and gender, in violation of Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981, and treated her differently from white male employees by: (1) requiring her to be on call and calling her in to work when she was sick or on vacation; and (2) subjecting her to less favorable terms with respect to time off and pay for overtime, travel, sickness, and being on call or called back. The plaintiff also alleged she was harassed and constructively discharged in violation of section 1981. After de novo review, see Winkle v. S.W. Bell Tel. Co., 195 F.3d 418, 420 (8th Cir. 1999), we affirm in part and reverse in part.

Regional argues first that the appeal is procedurally deficient. Regional filed, and won, three separate motions for summary judgment in the District Court. The first motion, made in June of 1999, concerned claims of harassment and constructive discharge, and argued that plaintiff had failed to exhaust those claims before the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission. The second motion, filed in October of 1999 and granted in November of that year, concerned plaintiff's claims of disparate treatment. The third motion, filed in February of 2000, concerned remaining claims of constructive discharge and racial harassment under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Final judgment was entered on March 1, 2000. The notice of appeal, filed on March 7, 2000, specified the following as the orders or judgments being appeal: "The final judgment entered in this action on the 18th day of February, 2000; 1st day of March, 2000." We take the reference to "the final judgment entered in this action on the 18th day of February, 2000," to mean the entry of summary judgment on that date in response to Regional's third motion for summary judgment. Thus, the notice of appeal refers expressly only to the final judgment and the third summary-judgment order. It does not mention either of the first two summary-judgment orders.¹

Fed. R. App. P. 3(c) requires a notice of appeal to "designate the judgment, order, or part thereof appealed from." Fed. R. App. P. 3(c)(1)(B). Ordinarily, a notice of appeal that specifies the final judgment in a case should be understood to bring up for review all of the previous rulings and orders that led up to and served as a predicate for that final judgment. Orders granting summary judgment on fewer than all claims are not immediately appealable. Review must await a final judgment disposing of all claims and, normally, attended by the formalities specified in Fed. R. Civ. P. 58. Thus, there is no question that the notice of appeal here is timely. The only question is whether it brings up for review the first two summary-judgment orders. Regional, when reading the notice of appeal, might have thought that the only summary-judgment order contested was the third one, but it does not claim that it took any detrimental action in reliance on such an impression, and plaintiff's brief, when filed, does argue her disparate-treatment theory (the subject of the second summary-judgment order), though it does so inartfully.² We do not think that the rules specifying the contents of notices of appeal should be interpreted strictissimi juris, especially in dealing with pro se litigants, where the appellee shows no prejudice. In addition, the judgment entered on March 1 recites, as its basis, the fact that "summary judgment has been ordered against the plaintiff on all counts of her complaint . . .." App. 279. It is fair to interpret this language as incorporating the three summary-judgment orders previously entered. Accordingly, we hold that the entire case is properly before us for review on this appeal. "[I]t is important that the right to appeal not be lost by mistakes of mere form." Advisory Committee Note to 1979 Amendments to Fed. R. App. P. 3(c).

As to her disparate-treatment claims, we conclude that the plaintiff established a prima facie case of race and gender discrimination. The summary-judgment evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to Ms. Greer, showed that she identified four...