Hildebrandt v. Illinois D.N.R.
| Decision Date | 30 October 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 01-3064.,No. 01-3690.,01-3064.,01-3690. |
| Citation | 347 F.3d 1014 |
| Parties | Reinee HILDEBRANDT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES and Richard Little, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Patricia L. Hayes (argued), Springfield, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Paul Racette (argued), Office of the Attorney General Civil Appeals Division, Chicago, IL, for Defendants-Appellees.
Before BAUER, RIPPLE and MANION, Circuit Judges.
Reinee Hildebrandt brought this action against her employer, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources ("IDNR"), for sex discrimination pursuant to Title VII and the Equal Pay Act. She also brought claims against her coworkers and supervisors, in their individual capacities, for unequal treatment on the basis of her sex in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court granted summary judgment to the IDNR on Dr. Hildebrandt's Title VII claims and to the individual defendants, with the exception of Richard Little, Dr. Hildebrandt's immediate supervisor, on the § 1983 claims.
At trial, the district court entered a directed verdict for Mr. Little on the remaining § 1983 claim, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of Dr. Hildebrandt on her Equal Pay Act claim. The district court also awarded Dr. Hildebrandt attorneys' fees; however, the court denied her the full amount sought because of her limited success on the merits.
Dr. Hildebrandt now appeals the district court's entry of summary judgment, the directed verdict and the court's reduced fee award. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm in part and reverse in part the judgment of the district court, we vacate the award of attorneys' fees, and we remand for further proceedings.
Reinee Hildebrandt, who holds a Ph.D. degree in forestry, was hired as a program administrator by the IDNR in 1991. When hired, she was paid the second highest salary among the four program administrators. The other three administrators, John Sester, Pete Skuba and Robert Schmocker, were male. All held bachelor's degrees; none of them had a doctoral degree.
Each program administrator oversaw different forestry programs in Illinois; Dr. Hildebrandt oversaw Urban Forestry. Her direct supervisor was Richard Little. Mr. Little evaluated the performance of each program administrator annually and assigned a performance rating according to the following scale: exceptional, accomplished, acceptable and unacceptable.1 Mr. Little also recommended annual raises based on the evaluations and budgetary restrictions. In performing this task, he was constrained by the IDNR's Merit Compensation Guidelines, which provided a range of appropriate raises for each rating. Stewart Pequignot, the State Forester, was Mr. Little's supervisor. Mr. Pequignot reviewed Mr. Little's evaluations and raise recommendations, and approved all annual raises.
By July 1, 1994, Dr. Hildebrandt's salary was less than all three of the other program administrators. In 1993 and 1994, she had received a "needs improvement" overall rating and, consequently, had received no raise in 1993 and a smaller raise than others in 1994. From 1994 to 1997 Hildebrandt received a lower overall salary than the other three administrators. In each of those years, at least one of the male program administrators received a larger percentage raise than did Dr. Hildebrandt. In 1997, Dr. Hildebrandt and two of the other administrators, Skuba and Schmocker, all received the same rating of "accomplished." Nevertheless, although all three raises were within the IDNR's Merit Compensation Guidelines for the "accomplished" rating, Dr. Hildebrandt received a lower percentage raise than the other two.2 In 1998, no employee received a raise because of budget constraints. In 1999 and 2000, the four administrators all received either 4.39% or 4.40% raises.
Dr. Hildebrandt also alleges that she experienced unfair treatment in her working conditions apart from compensation. For example, she alleges that she, unlike the men, was not allowed to communicate directly with forestry employees; that she was required to submit monthly goal statements that she was denied adequate support staff; that staff workers were disrespectful to her and were more friendly to the male administrators; that she was provided fewer interns; that she was denied computer equipment; and that she was provided slower reimbursement. More generally, Dr. Hildebrandt complains about the treatment she received from Anna May Brown, who was Mr. Pequignot's secretary and was in charge of the secretarial staff for the forestry division. The defendants dispute the claims of discriminatory treatment and claim that Dr. Hildebrandt received the same treatment as the male program administrators.
Dr. Hildebrandt began complaining about the inequity in her treatment in 1992.3 In 1995 or 1996, she asked the Illinois Central Management Services to provide her with information concerning her salaries and the salaries of the other administrators. At that time, she learned that her pay had fallen behind the others. In 1996, she complained about the salaries and asked to speak with the IDNR Director Brent Manning, but was directed to speak with Kirby Cottrell, who was the Director of the Office of Resource Conservation and supervised Mr. Pequignot.
On June 16, 1997, Dr. Hildebrandt filed an internal charge of discrimination with the IDNR's Equal Employment Opportunity Officer, Theresa Cummings. Cummings recommended that a meeting be held and that Dr. Hildebrandt's salary be reviewed for adjustment. On March 31, 1998, a meeting was held with Dr. Hildebrandt, John Comerio (who was the IDNR Deputy Director), Mr. Pequignot, Mr. Little and Cummings. At the meeting, there was no agreement as to whether a pay inequity existed. No adjustments were made to Dr. Hildebrandt's salary.
On May 6, 1998, Dr. Hildebrandt filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. She subsequently received a right-to-sue letter and then filed this action on December 29, 1998.
After the filing of this action, other pertinent events took place. Beginning with her 1998 evaluation, David Gillespie sat in on her annual evaluation conducted by Mr. Little,4 while Mr. Little alone attended the men's reviews. Additionally, Mr. Little advised Dr. Hildebrandt that she would be subject to semi-annual or quarterly evaluations, while the men had only annual evaluations. The record does not indicate whether or not these more frequent evaluations were ever imposed.
In her complaint, Dr. Hildebrandt brought claims against Mr. Little, Ms. Brown, Mr. Pequignot and Mr. Cottrell pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. She alleged that they had violated her right to equal protection of the laws by treating her less favorably than males with regard to pay raises and to the non-compensatory conditions of her employment. She also brought an Equal Pay claim and two Title VII claims against the IDNR; one of the Title VII claims concerned allegedly unlawful discrimination on the basis of her sex with respect to pay and other terms of her employment, and the other concerned retaliation that Dr. Hildebrandt allegedly experienced after she complained of the unlawful discrimination.
On February 20, 2001, the district court granted summary judgment to the defendants on several of Dr. Hildebrandt's claims. First, the district court held that the statute of limitations barred some of the claims. The court held that Dr. Hildebrandt's Title VII compensation discrimination claim was barred by the 300-day statute of limitations. The court pointed out that Dr. Hildebrandt had failed to demonstrate that she had been given a discriminatory raise after July 10, 1997, which marked the beginning of the limitations period. The court further held that Dr. Hildebrandt's Title VII claim concerning unequal treatment in the non-compensatory conditions of her employment also was limited by the statute of limitations. The court construed Dr. Hildebrandt's claim as one for a hostile work environment and held that Dr. Hildebrandt could rely only on acts that occurred after July 10, 1997, to support her claim. The court noted that "[m]ost of Hildebrandt's complaints concern actions taken by Brown and [staff] prior to that date." R.81 at 17. It concluded that "the acts that [Dr. Hildebrandt] documents after that date do not constitute a discriminatory work environment" because they do not suggest a workplace "so permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult" that they "alter the conditions of her employment and create[] an abusive work environment." Id. at 17-18.
Turning to the § 1983 claims, the court held that "the § 1983 two-year statute of limitations barred any claims for discrimination that occurred prior to December 29, 1996." Id. at 18. The court noted that "[a]fter that date, the only unequal treatment respecting compensation occurred on July 1, 1997, when Hildebrandt received the same rating as Skuba and Schmocker, but received a lower percentage raise than either of them." Id. The court determined that Dr. Hildebrandt could proceed to trial on the § 1983 claim against Mr. Little concerning whether he "intentionally gave her a smaller raise because of her gender" in 1997. Id. However, Dr. Hildebrandt could not proceed against any of the other individual defendants under § 1983 for the 1997 raise because Mr. Little was "the only Defendant who directly participated in this possibly discriminatory act" and § "1983 requires direct participation." Id. at 18-19.
In arriving at these determinations, the court rejected Dr. Hildebrandt's arguments that her claims were not barred by the statute of limitations because of the...
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