Horner v. Mary Institute, 79-1352
| Decision Date | 14 January 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 79-1352,79-1352 |
| Parties | 21 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1069, 24 Wage & Hour Cas. (BN 436, 22 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 30,565, 88 Lab.Cas. P 33,880 Arlene HORNER, Appellant, v. MARY INSTITUTE, a corporation, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Nancy S. Everett, Anderson, Everett, Sedey & Van Amburg, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.
Timothy L. Stalnaker, Lewis, Rice, Tucker, Allen & Chubb, St. Louis, Mo., for appellee.
Before GIBSON, Chief Judge, * STEPHENSON and HENLEY, Circuit Judges.
Arlene Horner, a female teacher, appeals from a judgment in favor of Mary Institute her private school employer. Horner sued Mary Institute under the Equal Pay Act of 1963, 29 U.S.C. § 206(d)(1), for back pay, liquidated damages, and compensation for reasonable attorney's fees and costs. The district court, 1 after receiving testimony, exhibits, and the briefs of both parties, entered judgment for Mary Institute. The court held that Horner had failed to establish a prima facie case that Mary Institute had violated the Act by discriminating in payment of wages on the basis of sex. The court further held that any prima facie showing had been rebutted.
Horner's claim below was that she and male teachers employed at Mary Institute had jobs that were performed under similar working conditions and that required substantially equal skill, effort, responsibility, but that the males were paid higher salaries. Horner mainly relied on a comparison between her job as a physical education teacher and the job of Ralph Thorne, another physical education teacher at Mary Institute. The district court found that while Horner received lower salaries than Thorne's, 2 Thorne "was a credit to the school and outstanding on the faculty" whereas plaintiff "was not a particularly innovative teacher." On the basis of these and other findings, which compared other male and female salaries within Mary Institute, the court found there was no factual basis for Horner's charge that hiring and promotion at Mary Institute were related to sex.
Horner's contention on appeal is that the district court misapplied the Equal Pay Act and made clearly erroneous findings of fact. We affirm the court's judgment.
Defendant Mary Institute is a not-for-profit corporation which operates three private schools. Its lower school, called the Beasley School, is for boys and girls in grades K through 4. Its middle school is for girls in grades 5 through 8. Its upper school is for young women in grades 9 through 12. Each school has a head who reports to the administrative head of Mary Institute.
During the years relevant to this action, Mary Institute's administrative heads were Headmaster James P. Stearns, who resigned in July 1976, and Headmistress Edes P. Wilson, who has administered Mary Institute ever since. Stearns was responsible for setting faculty salaries for academic years 1974-75, 1975-76, and 1976-77. Wilson has had that responsibility for academic years 1977-78 and 1978-79.
Mary Institute's physical education department consists of four or five teachers. One teaches primarily in the Beasley School, the rest teach primarily in the middle and upper schools. One teacher in the department acts as department head and as such receives a five hundred dollar annual bonus for assuming administrative duties.
Headmaster Stearns hired teachers for the 1974-75 academic year in the early months of 1974. He hired Horner on March 11 to teach in the middle and upper schools. Horner had a Bachelor of Science degree in physical education, with some work completed toward a Master's. She had two years of part-time experience in teaching physical education to students ranging from ages eleven through adult. She had also taught, full-time, one summer session of general science to high school students. The court found she was not certified to teach in the Missouri public schools. Stearns offered Horner a starting salary of $7,500 which she accepted. Her previous salary, for her part-time work, had been $3,500.
In the same spring, Stearns hired a male physical education teacher, Dan Casey, at an identical $7,500 salary, and a female physical education teacher, Carol Diggs, at a salary of $6,500. Both Casey and Diggs, like Horner, were hired primarily to teach in the middle and upper schools. Casey received an additional $1,500 for teaching water sports at the neighboring Country Day School. 3 Casey left Mary Institute after the 1974-75 year. Cynthia Gill, a female physical education teacher hired for the following year, received a salary of $7,700. Diggs, during the period in question, had two children attending Mary Institute for whom she paid no tuition, which would have been $2,000-$2,500 per pupil per year.
Horner was one of four teachers whose basic duty was to teach physical education in the middle and upper schools. In her first year, Horner was assigned by the head of the department of physical education to set up and implement a gymnastics program in the winter trimester. She also supervised recess at the Beasley School, coached junior varsity field hockey in the fall and varsity tennis in the spring, and assisted in the upper school's May Day pageant. 4 Horner did not have the ultimate responsibility of determining curriculum; that responsibility belonged to the department head.
Late in the spring of 1974, after the customary hiring period had elapsed, Headmaster Stearns learned that the physical education teacher at the Beasley School would not be returning in the fall. The resigning teacher left virtually no formal physical education curriculum, apart from the swimming program, and the Beasley School had virtually no athletic equipment. Stearns needed a replacement who could set up and implement a Beasley School physical education curriculum. Stearns' search led him to Ralph Thorne, whom he hired on June 3. Thorne had a Bachelor of Science degree in education and was certified to teach in the Missouri public schools. He had two years of full-time experience in teaching physical education to boys and girls in grades K through 6 at the Twillman Elementary School in the Hazelwood School District. The principal at Twillman gave Thorne the highest ratings on his evaluation form, which Thorne had forwarded to Stearns. The principal commented, Stearns offered Thorne a starting salary of $7,500, the same salary he had offered Horner and Casey. Thorne was interested in the job, because it would afford him an opportunity to "set up a curriculum that (he) felt strongly about, and to pursue things (he had) always wanted to (pursue)." But Thorne did not accept Stearns' offer because his current salary at Twillman was over $8,000 and because he expected his new salary there would be $9,000. Stearns then got authorization from Mary Institute's governing board to offer Thorne $9,000, which Thorne accepted. 5
Thorne was the only physical education teacher assigned primarily to the Beasley School. In his first year, Thorne's duties were to coach junior varsity basketball, to teach swimming and physical education in the Beasley School, and, most significant here, to set up the Beasley School's physical education curriculum. Thorne reported directly to the Beasley School head as well as to the head of the physical education department. Thorne was also required to report on his Beasley School programs at the annual Parents' Day convocation, in conjunction with the department head's report on the overall physical education program.
Mary Institute has no formal faculty salary schedule. Each spring the administrative head takes the sum budgeted by Mary Institute's governing board and allocates it among faculty salaries for the coming academic year. In determining individual salaries the administrative head considers personal reactions, the reactions of students, parents, and faculty, and the recommendations of department and school heads. In the last two years Headmistress Wilson has relied on evaluation forms, with seventeen criteria, to assist her assessment of faculty performance.
For the years 1975-76, 1976-77, and 1977-78, Thorne received annual salary increases that were $200-$800 higher than those received by Horner. See note 2 Supra. For the year 1978-79, Horner received a raise $400 higher than Thorne's.
The largest discrepancy between salary increases occurred for the academic year 1975-76. Stearns and Thorne met to discuss Thorne's salary for that year in the spring of 1975. During his first year Thorne had, in addition to fulfilling his responsibilities, introduced the President's Physical Fitness Test and a Beasley School field day, an intramural athletic event. Stearns was pleased with Thorne's performance and wanted to induce him to stay. In response to Stearns' initial offer, however, Thorne reported that he had been asked by his previous public school employer to interview for a teaching position that would include a head coaching job. Thorne anticipated that the salary for that position would be higher than the salary Stearns was offering. Following the discussion, Stearns made a second offer, of $10,400, which Thorne accepted.
Meanwhile, Stearns and Horner met to discuss her new salary. During her first year Horner had initiated an after-school gymnastics club. Stearns was concerned, however, that Horner was not enthusiastic enough in supporting the school's athletic teams and that she left school during her free periods. He did not, however, inform her of his specific criticisms. Stearns offered Horner a raise of $600, or eight percent, to $8,100. Horner accepted Stearns' offer.
For the next two years, 1976-77 and 1977...
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