Hulsey v. Pride Restaurants, LLC

• Decision Date: 27 April 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-11960.,03-11960.
• Parties: Belinda HULSEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PRIDE RESTAURANTS, LLC, d.b.a. Burger King, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

367 F.3d 1238

Belinda HULSEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PRIDE RESTAURANTS, LLC, d.b.a. Burger King, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 03-11960.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

April 27, 2004.

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Mary Ellen Bates, Bernard D. Nomberg, Hardin, Nomberg & Bates, LLP, Birmingham, AL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Stacey Thurman Bradford, Anne R. Yuengert, Bradley, Arant, Rose & White, Birmingham, AL, for Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Before CARNES and WILSON, Circuit Judges, and JORDAN^*, District Judge.

CARNES, Circuit Judge:

This is Belinda Hulsey's appeal from a summary judgment entered against her in the Title VII sexual harassment lawsuit she filed against her former employer. In deciding her appeal, we view the evidence the way the district court should have viewed it, which means that we construe it in the light most favorable to her as the non-movant. See Hyman v. Nationwide Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 304 F.3d 1179, 1185 (11th Cir.2002). We cannot tell how the district court viewed the evidence, or much else about its reasoning, because of the cursory nature of its order granting summary judgment. We can tell, however, that the court should not have thrown out Hulsey's case without a trial.

I.

Belinda Hulsey applied to work at a Burger King restaurant in Jasper, Alabama on July 7, 2001. The restaurant was one of nine in Alabama owned and managed by Pride Restaurants, LLC. Tim Garrison, an assistant manager who supervised the night shift at the Jasper Burger King, interviewed Hulsey and hired her the next day. Hulsey told Garrison that she needed to work the night shift, because her younger sister Krystal already did and their grandmother could drive the two sisters home from the restaurant together each night. At the time Hulsey began working at the restaurant, she was 17 years old. Garrison was either 20 or 21.

About ten to fourteen days after Hulsey began working, Garrison expressed a desire to date her. He told Krystal that if she could get her sister to date him, he would set up Krystal with his brother Adam in return. Hulsey rejected the overture. She had Krystal tell Garrison that she was not interested, and that she already had a boyfriend.

The night after Krystal told Garrison that Hulsey was not interested in him, the three were closing the restaurant together. Garrison tried to persuade Hulsey and Krystal to ride home with him and Adam after work, even though the girls' grandmother was waiting for them in the parking lot. Hulsey told Garrison that she "didn't want him, that he was [her] boss," and the girls then left with their grandmother.

Not willing to take no for an answer, Garrison stayed after Krystal — in Hulsey's words, he "kept on and on and on about it" — to convince Hulsey to change her mind about dating him. Hulsey would not budge. On five or six occasions Garrison tried to convince Hulsey to break up with her boyfriend and date him, promising that he would "show [her] what a man really was." Unimpressed with that prospect, Hulsey declined all those offers.

Garrison's conduct became more offensive. He cut Krystal's hours to one day per week so that Hulsey would work with him, and she would be "basically the only girl that he put working [on the] night shift." That meant she was left to work with Garrison, his brother Adam, and his cousin Rusty. One night Garrison asked Hulsey to come to the back of the restaurant to "do a quickie ... before his brother came back" from taking out the garbage. She refused. On two or three other occasions while she was cleaning up the restaurant, Garrison told her he could drive her home "and on the way we could stop and do it." She refused. Another time, Garrison told Hulsey, "come on, let's go to the bathroom and I'll show you how much of a man I am." She refused.

On two occasions Garrison approached Hulsey from behind while she was sweeping or mopping and tried to touch her breasts by reaching over her shoulder and putting his hand down the top of her shirt. She pushed him away both times. Once or twice after closing time, Garrison even followed Hulsey into a stall in the women's restroom where she had gone to relieve herself, causing her to leave prematurely.

Twice Garrison tried to pull Hulsey's pants down. The first time, Adam grabbed Hulsey and wrapped his arms around her while Garrison pulled at the front of her pants above her knees. Rusty and Hulsey's female cousin Shay both observed the incident and laughed while Hulsey struggled with the Garrison brothers and hollered for them to let her go. They kept at it until a customer walked in the door. The second time, Garrison approached Hulsey from behind while she was cleaning a bathroom stall, took hold of her pants on both sides, and tried to pull them down. Hulsey had to turn and knee him in the groin to escape.

On two other occasions, Garrison attempted to put his hands down the front of Hulsey's pants and grope her between the legs while she was cleaning the restaurant. The first time this happened she elbowed him in the chest and told him to get away from her. Adam and Rusty, the only other people in the restaurant, observed the incident and laughed. The second time it happened Hulsey, Garrison, Adam, and Rusty were again the only people in the restaurant. And once again Garrison reached around Hulsey and tried to put his hand down the front of her pants. Hulsey kneed him between the legs and told him to leave her alone. After these incidents, Hulsey spoke to Adam and asked him to tell Garrison to leave her alone, to which Adam's astute response was: "[M]y brother wants to date you." Hulsey characterized Garrison's conduct as an "every-night thing when he would say stuff to me and do stuff."

While Hulsey was working her shift on the night of August 16, 2001, one of her sisters called and told her that some of Hulsey's family members would be stopping by the restaurant on their way in from Florida later that night. Hulsey asked Garrison if she could take her break when they arrived so she could visit with them. He told her that she could. But when Hulsey's relatives arrived Garrison told her that, "the only way you can go on break is if I get into your pants after work." Hulsey rejected the offer and walked from behind the counter to say goodbye to her relatives since she would not be allowed to visit with them. As Hulsey walked toward her family, Garrison told her that she "might as well clock out." Hulsey asked him if that meant she should clock out for a break, to which Garrison responded: "[N]o, you're fired."

Although Hulsey did not inform any member of Pride management about Garrison's conduct during her employment, she did file a complaint with the Jasper police department on August 17, 2001 — the day after she was fired — in which she alleged conduct similar to that described in her complaint. Hulsey also filed a complaint with the EEOC on August 31, 2001. The record does not reveal whether either complaint was ever investigated.

Pride first learned of Hulsey's problems with Garrison several days after her termination when she reported allegations of sexual harassment to Hillary Larry, the manager of a Burger King in Hoover, Alabama. Larry relayed these allegations to Nicole Whitmore, Pride's human resources manager. Whitmore then began an internal investigation of Hulsey's claims. She interviewed Hulsey by telephone and met individually with all the employees at the Jasper Burger King. Whitmore ultimately concluded that she could not corroborate Hulsey's allegations and Pride took no disciplinary action against Garrison at that time, though Pride later fired him for improper cash handling.

II.

Hulsey filed a five-count complaint in the Northern District of Alabama against Garrison and Pride. The complaint alleged violations of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and included four pendent state law claims. Hulsey asserted that the harassment she suffered "was sufficiently severe, pervasive, and extreme so as to alter the terms and conditions of her employment." She also stated that she "was terminated from her employment as a direct and proximate result of having rebuffed Garrison's advances." She requested injunctive and declaratory relief, monetary damages, and attorney's fees and costs.

The district court entered a default judgment against Garrison for failing to answer the complaint. After discovery, Pride moved for summary judgment on both the Title VII and state law claims. With regard to the Title VII claim, Pride contended that Hulsey's claim should fail because she did not report any alleged harassment until after her employment ended, and because she did not show that Garrison's conduct was severe and pervasive enough to constitute a Title VII violation. Specifically, Pride claimed that Hulsey failed to prove that she subjectively viewed Garrison's conduct as offensive because she did not report his conduct to Pride management until after her termination. Pride also contended that Garrison's conduct, which Pride characterized as a "handful of childish comments and workplace horseplay between teenagers," was not objectively severe and pervasive.

Hulsey answered that she had established an actionable hostile work environment because she subjectively perceived Garrison's conduct as abusive, and because his repeated harassing conduct in his position as a supervisor was objectively hostile and abusive. Hulsey also argued that Pride was strictly liable for Garrison's actions as a supervisor because Garrison fired her after she refused his sexual advances. Pride's summary judgment reply brief did not address Hulsey's strict liability theory.

The district court granted Pride's motion for summary judgment, providing only the following two-sentence explanation: "For the reasons appearing in the motion for summary judgment filed by defendant, Pride Restaurants, LLC,...