Hubbell v. World Kitchen, LLC

• Decision Date: 09 June 2010
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 06-1686
• Citation: 717 F.Supp.2d 494
• Parties: Janice L. HUBBELL, Plaintiff, v. WORLD KITCHEN, LLC, World Kitchen, Inc., United Steel Workers of America, AFL-CIO-CLC-Local 53 (A.K.A. The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union), and United Steelworkers of America D-10 (International), Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania

717 F.Supp.2d 494

Janice L. HUBBELL, Plaintiff,

v.WORLD KITCHEN, LLC, World Kitchen, Inc., United Steel Workers of America, AFL-CIO-CLC-Local 53 (A.K.A. The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union), and United Steelworkers of America D-10 (International), Defendants.

Civil Action No. 06-1686.

United States District Court,

W.D. Pennsylvania.

June 9, 2010.

Herbert A. Terrell, Lois E. Glanby, McMurray, PA, William F. Conway, The Law Offices of Lois Glanby, Pittsburgh, PA, for Plaintiff.

Adrianne C. Mazura, Brian A. Hartstein, Quarles & Brady LLP, Chicago, IL, Jayne A. Risk, DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, Philadelphia, PA, Renate Klass, Martens, Ice, Klass, Legghio & Israel, P.C., Royal Oak, MI, Joseph Stuligross, United Steelworkers of America, Pittsburgh, PA, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

CONTI, District Judge.

I. Introduction

Pending before the court is a motion for reconsideration (Docket No. 89) filed by United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO-CLC-Local 53 ("USW Local 53") and United Steelworkers of America District 10 ("USW D-10," and together with USW Local 53, the "USW entities" or the "Union"). For the reasons that follow, the motion will be denied.

II. Legal Standard

A motion for reconsideration is typically granted only if one of three situations is shown: "(1) an intervening change in controlling law, (2) the availability of new evidence not previously available, or (3) the need to correct a clear error of law or to prevent manifest injustice." Reich v. Compton, 834 F.Supp. 753, 755 (E.D.Pa.1993) (citing Dodge v. Susquehanna Univ., 796 F.Supp. 829, 830 (M.D.Pa.1992)).

Because of the interest in finality, at least at the district court level, motions for reconsideration should be granted sparingly; the parties are not free to relitigate issues the court has alreadydecided. Rottmund v. Continental Assurance Co., 813 F.Supp. 1104, 1107 (E.D.Pa.1992). Stated another way, a motion for reconsideration is not properly grounded in a request for a district court to rethink a decision it has already made, rightly or wrongly.

Williams v. Pittsburgh, 32 F.Supp.2d 236, 238 (W.D.Pa.1998).

III. Discussion ¹

The USW entities argue that the court erred in denying their motion for summary judgment with respect to the claims asserted by plaintiff Janice L. Hubbell ("Hubbell") concerning the failure of the Union to grieve her ten-day suspension for an incident occurring on June 1, 2006. (Doc. No. 90 at 4-12.) In a prior memorandum opinion dated February 24, 2010, the court determined that a genuine issue of material fact existed about whether Hubbell's employer, World Kitchen, LLC ("World Kitchen"), discriminated against her on the basis of sex when it imposed the suspension. Hubbell v. World Kitchen, LLC, et al., 688 F.Supp.2d 401, 423-29 (W.D.Pa.2010). The court also determined that a genuine issue of material fact existed concerning whether the USW entities discriminated against Hubbell on the basis of sex by abandoning the grievance process after James Watt ("Watt"), a staff representative for USW D-10, viewed a surveillance tape depicting the incident in question. Id. at 434-35. Only the latter determination is presently at issue.

Hubbell's claims arise under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq., and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act ("PHRA"), 43 Pa. Stat. §§ 951 et seq. The language of Title VII prohibiting sex and other kinds of discrimination by labor organizations is codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(c), which provides:

(c) Labor organization practices. It shall be an unlawful employment practice for a labor organization-

(1) to exclude or to expel from its membership, or otherwise to discriminate against, any individual because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;

(2) to limit, segregate, or classify its membership or applicants for membership, or to classify or fail or refuse to refer for employment any individual, in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities, or would limit such employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee or as an applicant for employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or

(3) to cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against an individual in violation of this section.

42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(c). The PHRA declares it to be an "unlawful discriminatory practice"

For any labor organization because of the ... sex, ... of any individual to deny full and equal membership rights to any individual or otherwise to discriminate against such individuals with respect to hire, tenure, terms, conditions or privileges of employment or any other matter, directly or indirectly, related to employment.

43 Pa. Stat. Ann.. § 955(c). The Pennsylvania courts generally construe the provisions of the PHRA to be consistent with their federal counterparts. Stultz v. Reese Bros., Inc., 835 A.2d 754, 759 (Pa.Super.Ct.2003). Therefore, the court's analysis of the claims under Title VII will also be dispositive of the parallel claims under the PHRA.

The United States Supreme Court has admonished that a distinction exists between what constitutes a violation of Title VII and what a plaintiff must show to establish such a violation in a judicial proceeding. Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506, 510-15, 122 S.Ct. 992, 152 L.Ed.2d 1 (2002) (recognizing a distinction between the allegations needed to state a claim and the evidence needed to establish a claim). The USW entities argue that Hubbell did not present evidence sufficient to establish that they violated her rights under Title VII. (Doc. No. 90 at 10-12.) In order to address properly the issues raised by the pending motion for reconsideration, the court must delineate the scope of Title VII's statutory protections before discussing the evidence contained in the record. The evidentiary issues must be understood in relation to the underlying legal issues.

The plain language of § 2000e-2(c)(1) declares it to be an "unlawful employment practice" for a labor organization "to exclude or to expel from its membership, or otherwise to discriminate against, any individual because of his [or her] ... sex...." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(c)(1) (emphasis added). Since Hubbell does not allege that the Union "excluded" or "expelled" her from its membership, any liability of the Union under subsection (1) must stem from an allegation that it otherwise discriminated against her. In Goodman v. Lukens Steel Co., 482 U.S. 656, 107 S.Ct. 2617, 96 L.Ed.2d 572 (1987), the Supreme Court held that a union "discriminates" within the meaning of Title VII when it "pursue[s] a policy of rejecting disparate-treatment grievances presented by blacks solely because the claims assert racial bias and would be very troublesome to process." Id. at 669, 107 S.Ct. 2617. The decision in Goodman affirmed a decision which had been issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Goodman v. Lukens Steel Co., 777 F.2d 113 (3d Cir.1985). In affirming the court of appeals' decision, the Supreme Court expressly relied on subsection (1) without basing its holding on subsection (3). Goodman, 482 U.S. at 667, 107 S.Ct. 2617. The Supreme Court explained:

The Unions submit that the only basis for any liability in this case under Title VII is § 703(c)(3), which provides that a Union may not "cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against an individual in violation of this section," 78 Stat. 256, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(c)(3), and that nothing the District Court found and the Court of Appeals accepted justifies liability under this prohibition. We need not differ with the Unions on the reach of § 703(c)(3), for § 703(c)(1) makes it an unlawful practice for a Union to "exclude or to expel from its membership, or otherwise to discriminate against, any individual because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." 78 Stat. 255, 42 U.S.C. § 2000-2(c)(1) [sic]. (Emphasis added.) Both courts below found that the Unions had indeed discriminated on the basis of race by the way in which they represented workers, and the Court of Appeals expressly held that "[t]he deliberate choice not to process grievances also violated § 703(c)(1) of Title VII." 777 F.2d, at 127. The plain language of the statute supports this conclusion.

Goodman, 482 U.S. at 667, 107 S.Ct. 2617. This language makes clear that the Supreme Court's decision in Goodman was premised on the idea that a union itself discriminated within the meaning of subsection (1) when it refused to process grievances initiated by black employees alleging racial discrimination. The rationale in Goodman was not based on the idea that a union's failure to process such grievances could be characterized as the "cause" of racial discrimination perpetrated by an employer within the meaning of subsection (3).

The USW entities contend that a finding of union liability in this case is precluded by the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Anjelino v. New York Times Co., 200 F.3d 73 (3d Cir.1999). They base their argument on the following passage from Anjelino:

We will affirm the dismissal of all claims against the Union because the Union was not the employer of the appellants; this is so even though some of the supervisors and workers who are alleged to have discriminated against the appellants may have been members of the Union. While a union may be held liable under Title VII, the record here does not demonstrate that the Union itself instigated or actively supported the discriminatory acts allegedly experienced by the appellants. Therefore, the Union is not liable. See Carbon Fuel Co. v. United Mine Workers, 444 U.S. 212, 217-18, 100 S.Ct. 410, 62 L.Ed.2d 394 (1979); Berger v. Iron Workers, Local 201, 843 F.2d 1395, 1429-30 (D.C.Cir.1988); see

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