Guzman v. News Corp.
| Decision Date | 28 October 2013 |
| Docket Number | 09 Civ. 09323 (LGS) |
| Parties | SANDRA GUZMAN, Plaintiff, v. NEWS CORPORATION, NYP HOLDINGS, INC. d/b/a THE NEW YORK POST and COL ALLAN, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Plaintiff Sandra Guzman brings employment discrimination claims on the basis of her sex, race and national origin against three defendants News Corporation ("News Corp."), NYP Holdings, Inc., d/b/a the New York Post (the "Post") and Mr. Col Allan, Editor-in-Chief of the Post (collectively "Defendants"). Plaintiff asserts claims against all Defendants based on section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C. § 1981 ("§ 1981"), the New York State Human Rights Law, New York Executive Law §§ 290 et seq. (the "NYSHRL"), and the New York City Human Rights Law and New York Administrative Code §§ 8-101 et seq. (the "NYCHRL"). Plaintiff asserts claims based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq. ("Title VII") only against the Post and News Corp. Her claims allege discriminatory firing, retaliation and a hostile work environment.
News Corp. moves for summary judgment arguing that Plaintiff's claims against it fail because News Corp. is not Ms. Guzman's employer and is not liable as a single or joint employer with the Post. The Post and Mr. Allan move for summary judgment, arguing that Plaintiff's harassment, discrimination and retaliation claims fail as a matter of law.
For the reasons that follow, News Corp.'s motion for summary judgment is granted. The Post's and Mr. Allan's summary judgment motion is denied.
The following facts are drawn from the parties' submissions in connection with the instant motions. The facts are undisputed unless otherwise noted.
Sandra Guzman, who is a black, Hispanic, Puerto Rican female, worked at the Post as an associate editor from July 2003 to September 29, 2009.
News Corp. owns hundreds of companies worldwide. News Corp.'s subsidiaries, which are primarily media companies, employ approximately 50,000 to 60,000 individuals.
The Post publishes the daily newspaper, New York Post, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of News America Incorporated ("NAI"), which in turn is a subsidiary of News Publishing Australia Holdings Ltd., which in turn is a subsidiary of News Corp.
News Corp. and the Post both have offices at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York. While they each pay rent separately to a third party, the companies share conference rooms on the third floor, and Post employees have access to News Corp.'s cafeteria. Plaintiff maintains, and Defendants dispute, that the Post and News Corp. share offices on the eighth floor. Each company has its own human resource, finance, information technology and security departments. The companies maintain separate bank accounts and separate financial books and records. News Corp. employees are not involved in the printing or distribution of the Post's daily newspaper.
Defendant Col Allan has been employed as Editor-in-Chief of the Post since 2001. Defendant Allan was a member of the Post's Executive Committee and had the authority to make certain decisions concerning Plaintiff's employment.
During the relevant times, the Post's Executive Committee was comprised of Paul Carlucci (Publisher), Col Allan (Editor-in-Chief), Jennifer Jehn (Human Resources), Michael Racano (Chief Financial Officer) and Amy Scialdone (Human Resources), who were employees of the Post. In addition, Les Goodstein attended Executive Committee meetings starting in January 2006 as head of the Community Newspaper Group, a separate company owned by NAI. Plaintiff contends that Mr. Goodstein was employed by both NAI and News Corp.; Defendants maintain that Mr. Goodstein was employed only by NAI.
Plaintiff highlights individuals who had roles at News Corp. or NAI, who also were involved at the Post. Of the four members on the Post's Board of Directors, two—Mr. Rupert Murdoch and Mr. David Devoe—occupied similar positions on News Corp.'s Board. Mr. Lachlan Murdoch, the Publisher of the Post from 2002 to 2005, was simultaneously COO at News Corp., when he hired Ms. Guzman. Mr. Rupert Murdoch, the Chairman of News Corp. as well as the Post, had a role in hiring two successive Publishers of the Post: Mr. Paul Carlucci and Mr. Jesse Angelo. As publisher of the Post, Mr. Carlucci reported directly to the COO of News Corp. Jordan Lippner, Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at NAI, also had roles at the Post and News Corp. For example, Post employees could lodge complaints with Mr. Lippner relating to their work environment at the Post, and Mr. Lippner served as a 30(b)(6) witness for the Post in the present litigation.
Ms. Guzman was hired by Lachlan Murdoch, the Post's then Publisher and Deputy Chief Operating Officer of News Corp., in July 2003 as an associate editor to increase the Post's readers in the Latino community. Ms. Guzman originally was hired to create and edit a monthly newspaper section called Tempo, which was aimed at the Latino community and supported by advertisement sales.
Ms. Guzman's employment agreement was with the Post; she received her paychecks from the Post and sat in the Post's offices. After Ms. Guzman's original contract with the Post expired on July 6, 2005, she continued to work as an associate editor for the Post without entering a new contract.
Although Ms. Guzman received her review in an envelope that read "News Corp.," she was supervised and reviewed by Post employees. Ms. Guzman shared benefits with News Corp. employees (such as a retirement and health insurance plan), followed employment policies that were promulgated by News Corp. (such as the EEO and Electronic Communications policies) and attended a News Corp. holiday party. In addition to her work at the Post, Ms. Guzman served on two News Corp. committees, the Hispanic Counsel and the Cool Change committee, comprised of individuals from different News Corp. subsidiaries who met to discuss carbon-neutral initiatives.
Tempo initially was successful, running on average between 24 and 30.7 pages from 2003 to 2005, depending on the number of advertising pages sold. Its staff grew from one to six dedicated employees. In 2006, the average pages per issue dropped to 17.67. Tempo's advertising and total average pages continued to decrease in 2007, 2008 and 2009, with pages per issue averaging 15.83, 13.3 and 4.9 respectively.
According to Defendants, Mr. Carlucci, the Post's then Publisher, first decided to cancel Tempo and terminate Ms. Guzman's employment on or about April 17, 2006. The notes of the April 24, 2006 Executive Committee meeting reflect that the Committee discussed the severance package that Ms. Guzman would receive upon her discharge. In June 2006, Mr. Goodstein, head of the Community Newspaper Group, suggested implementing aggressive cost cutting measures and maintaining Tempo. Thereafter, the Post took steps to increase Tempo's profitability, including increasing the ratio of advertising to editorial content and cutting Tempo's staff from six to two full-time employees, Ms. Guzman and Sami Haiman-Marrero. From approximately June 2006 through November 2007, Mr. Goodstein assumed a more active role with Tempo, which required Ms. Guzman to work collaboratively with him.
Starting in 2007, Ms. Guzman assumed responsibility for editing additional sections of the Post. By July 2009, Ms. Guzman was responsible for the editorial content and production of at least 25 special sections per year, including the education, Parade, Black History Month, Harlem Week and Go Green sections. Ms. Guzman testified that she also produced special content for NAI's Community Newspaper Group. Defendants assert that these sections were reassigned from the Post's Special Sections editor to give Ms. Guzman work to justify her high salary in light of the decline in advertising sold for Tempo and the reduction in its size. Ms. Haiman-Marrero's employment was terminated to reduce Tempo's costs in June 2008, and responsibility for the sale of advertising was transitioned to the Post's general advertising group.
Plaintiff alleges that the Post had a racially and sexually hostile work environment. Ms. Guzman testified that she routinely heard sexually charged conversations in the news room, including sexual comments about "female body parts" by male employees. Ms. Guzman alsostated that she heard improper comments at the executive editorial meetings that she attended from 2003 until approximately 2005: for example, Defendant Allan expressed disapproval of a female editor's story list by saying, "It's hard to teach old bitches new tricks," and equated a Latino Major League Baseball pitcher to a "criminal" by asking if he had brought a "gun or machete" to the interview. Ms. Guzman testified that Photography Editor David Boyle regularly used the word "harem" when referring to his staff, which comprised a group of young, attractive women, whom he had hired.
Michael Riedel, the Post's Broadway columnist, regularly greeted Ms. Guzman by singing, "I want to live in America," from West Side Story with a Spanish accent.1 On one occasion, Anne Aquilina, the Post's administrative editor, asked Ms. Guzman if candles in her office related to "Santeria or Voodoo."
According to Ms. Guzman, Mr. Goodstein commented on her appearance whenever she saw him, telling her that she looked "sexy" or "beautiful." She further testified that Mr. Goodstein habitually looked her "up and down" as though she were "naked," leered at her body in an overtly sexual matter and licked his lips. Ms. Guzman declared that Mr. Goodstein also "routinely stared at the breasts and buttocks" of other female employees in her presence. In or around 2007, Mr. Goodstein called Ms. Guzman "Cha Cha #1" and referred to Ms. Haiman-Marreo, who...
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