Hall v. State Farm Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 24 September 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 97-CV-71925.,97-CV-71925. |
| Citation | 18 F.Supp.2d 751 |
| Parties | Cynthia HALL, Plaintiff, v. STATE FARM INSURANCE CO., James Roderique, Robert Schmid, and Mary Lollar, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan |
Horace D. Cotton, Detroit, MI, for Plaintiff.
Robert C. Ludolph, Detroit, MI, for Defendants.
The Plaintiff, Cynthia Hall, is an African-American female who has charged her former employer, State Farm Insurance Companies (State Farm), and three of her supervisors (Robert Schmid, Mary Lollar, and James Roderique) with wrongful acts of racial and gender discrimination, in violation of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and the Michigan Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA), Mich.Comp.Laws § 37.2101 et seq. She has also brought a claim against these four Defendants for their intentional infliction of emotional distress upon her. As a result of these alleged violations, Hall seeks two million dollars in exemplary and punitive damages, plus costs and attorneys fees.
On March 17, 1998 the Defendants filed a motion for a summary judgment. At the conclusion of the hearing, this Court took the motion under advisement and subsequently issued an Order that (1) granted Hall additional time in which to pursue discovery, and (2) provided each party with an opportunity to file supplemental briefs. Those briefs have now been submitted. In her supplemental brief, Hall asks this Court to (1) deny the Defendants' motion, or (2) continue this matter under advisement pending a decision on her motion to compel the production of certain documents from State Farm. However, the official record in this cause indicates that her motion was denied by Magistrate Judge Marc L. Goldman, to whom it had been referred. Furthermore, it appears that the time for Hall to file her objections to his Order has expired. Consequently, this matter is now ripe for a decision on the merits of the Defendants' summary judgment motion. For the reasons that have been set forth below, the motion is granted in part and denied in part.
Hall began her employment with State Farm on January 3, 1977. Between 1978 and 1986 she was promoted or laterally moved to several positions within the Personnel Department. During her tenure with State Farm, Hall sought to obtain a promotion to a Personnel Manager position, a process which necessarily involved interviews with the Company persons with promotional authority. Hall asserts that she was informed by a colleague that the interviewers thought of her as nothing more than a black female from the streets of Detroit.1 As a result, she became "temporarily devastated" and demoralized at her prospects for promotional opportunities in the Personnel Department,2 and was extremely disappointed at the end of 1986 when she was moved from her level-MA5 Personnel Representative II position to an MA4 Claims Supervisor position. Although the record shows that she received the same base pay, Hall characterizes this as a demotion because her salary raises were reduced.3
In February 1988, Hall was interviewed by Schmid and his supervisor, Robert Conley, both white males, for the position of Bodily Injury (BI) Claims Superintendent and Office Manager, level MA6, in the Madison Heights, Michigan office. This position entailed the responsibility for, among other things, supervising Claim Representatives and the claim files that had been assigned to the unit. Although Hall was selected for the job, State Farm did not offer it to her until December 14, 1988.4 As a result, she did not receive a pay increase for this promotion until March 18, 1989.5
After obtaining the Claims Superintendent position, Hall logged an "Open Door" grievance in February 1993 with David Rost, a white male, who was the Division Manager.6 In this fourteen-page, single-spaced document, Hall described the difficulties that she had experienced with State Farm as a result of having "broke[n] the `glass ceiling' for blacks in the Detroit Metro area." She reported that, upon assuming the BI Claims Superintendent position, Schmid blatantly told her that (1) she took the job from more deserving candidates, and (2) he was not in favor of her promotion. According to Hall, he began to openly act out his hostility after Conley left. Among her chief complaints is that Schmid continually tried to force her to switch positions with his friend, Bill Sutton, a white male, who was the Personal Injury Protection (PIP) Claims Superintendent in the Madison Heights office. Although the BI and PIP superintendent positions received the same salary and had the same classification, the latter job was more demanding due to a heavier caseload (277 files compared to 1,080 files, respectively), and came without the authority of Office Manager. Her grievance further documents (1) the uncooperative, rude, and dismissive treatment that she received from Sutton, (2) Schmid's lack of effort in addressing this misbehavior, (3) efforts by Schmid and Sutton to avoid hiring minorities in any units other than BI, despite affirmative action mandates from State Farm, which led to claims by other personnel that Hall was attempting to create an all-minority unit, (4) dismissive treatment from Schmid, such as disregarding her input when designing the space allocation in a new building, (5) Schmid's efforts to undermine her supervision through "purely sexist ... professional sabotage," such as (a) soliciting "Open Door" grievances from employees whom she had reprimanded, (b) criticizing her regardless of the merit of the employee's reprimand, and (c) advising those employees who were still in training that they need not follow her instructions, and (6) Schmid's unjustified characterization of her as being a "hardnosed," "tough," and "mean" administrator.7
Hall also complains that in August 1993 State Farm allowed Schmid to force her to involuntarily exchange job duties with Sutton and to relinquish her title as Office Manager. During this period of time, State Farm had asked the Superintendents, who were under Schmid's supervision, to transfer between the BI and PIP units for the purpose of cross-training. Under this plan, the transfers were to last for a period of three years. However, before the end of the three-year period, Sutton was transferred out of the Madison Heights office.8 Instead of returning Hall to her Madison Heights BI Claims Superintendent and Office Manager position, State Farm moved a white male into that slot in March 1996.9 Thus, from August 1993 until her termination, Hall worked as a PIP Claims Superintendent in the Madison Heights center.
Schmid acted as Hall's supervisor from January 1989 until June 1994, when Lollar, a white female, served as his successor. Lollar acknowledges that she had conversations with Schmid pertaining to his difficulties with Hall.10 According to Hall, Lollar maintained a personal desk file (as distinguished from the official Company personnel file), which contained many disparaging documents about her from the preceding three years, in contravention of a Company policy which restricted the retention of such a file for more than one year.11 Although at least one document demonstrates that Hall was considered by Lollar to be a very good employee,12 Hall complains that Lollar continually berated the quality of her work in an unprofessional manner.13 Among Hall's complaints are that Lollar unfairly and improperly criticized her writing to the point of insinuating that she could not write a simple memo without assistance.14 Hall subsequently received medical treatment for atypical chest pains, which were attributed to tension and stress, and thereafter took a one week disability leave.15
When Lollar left the Madison Heights office in June 1996, she was replaced by Roderique, a white male. Hall complains that Lollar perpetuated a cycle of discrimination by providing Roderique with her personal desk file.16 During this general time period, Hall was fielding customer complaints regarding a Claims Representative named Patricia Sebenick, a white female.17 On August 23, 1996 Hall sent Roderique a memo, in which she voiced some of her concerns about Sebenick.18 Roderique testified at a deposition that he told Hall the memo "contained a lot of BS."19
On Friday, September 20, 1996 at 5:00 p.m. Roderique met with Sebenick, and two other white employees (Jeff Gabriel and Kim Smith), all of whom expressed their frustration at the treatment that they were receiving from Hall, and the hostile environment that had been created by her.20 On the following Monday morning, Roderique called Hall into his office to inform her of the complaints and issue a verbal warning.21 Roderique acknowledges that (1) he did not make an attempt to speak to anyone else in the unit to investigate or verify the complaints prior to his meeting with Hall,22 and (2) none of the African-American adjusters complained about Hall.23
On September 27, 1996 Hall prepared an eleven-page, single-spaced "Open Door" grievance against Roderique and faxed it to Rost on September 30, 1996.24 This grievance, which recounts numerous incidents in the unit involving Sebenick, complains of a racially hostile environment that had been created by Roderique whom she contends turned their disagreements into a race issue by consulting only with non-minorities and ignoring the African Americans in her PIP unit. Hall explains that she was upset at Roderique for joining a "clique" of employees to take a critical stance against her despite having served as her supervisor for only about three months. It should be noted that Hall neither mentions or alleges sex discrimination in her grievance.
On the following day, Roderique criticized the timeliness of Hall's reports.25 Although this criticism was oral, Roderique issued his first written disciplinary memo to her on October 1, 1996.26 Roderique...
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