Jones v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority

• Decision Date: 17 March 2000
• Docket Number: No. 97-7186,97-7186
• Citation: 205 F.3d 428
• Parties: (D.C. Cir. 2000) Judy J. Jones, Appellee v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Appellant United States of America, Intervenor
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 428

205 F.3d 428 (D.C. Cir. 2000)

Judy J. Jones, Appellee v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Appellant

United States of America, Intervenor

No. 97-7186

United States Court of Appeals FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 9, 1998

Decided March 17, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia(No. 89cv00552)

Bruce P. Heppen argued the cause for the appellant. Robert L. Polk and Robert J. Kniaz were on brief. Gerard J. Stief entered an appearance.

Douglas B. Huron argued the cause for the appellee. Richard A. Salzman was on brief.

Seth M. Galanter, Attorney, United States Department of Justice, argued the cause for the intervenor. Bill Lann Lee, Acting Assistant Attorney General, United States Department of Justice, was on brief.

Before: Silberman, Henderson and Randolph, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge Henderson.

Karen LeCraft Henderson, Circuit Judge:

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) appeals judgments rendered against it in a suit brought by Judy J. Jones alleging discriminatory and retaliatory refusal to promote, discharge and failure to reinstate in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. 621 et seq., and of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq. The district court awarded Jones compensatory and liquidated damages under the ADEA, pursuant to a jury verdict, and reinstatement, back pay (including prejudgment interest) and retroactive promotion under Title VII. In addition, the court awarded attorney's fees and injunctive relief under each statute. WMATA challenges the both the ADEA and the Title VII judgments. We vacate the ADEA damage award because WMATA is immune from liability therefor under the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution. We affirm the Title VII award in toto.

Jones began working for WMATA as a bus driver in 1974 and in 1984 rose to the position of first-line TS-3 rail operations supervisor (TS-3) in WMATA's Department of Rail Service (Department). This dispute began on June 18, 1985 when Jones and four subordinates wrote a letter to Fady Bassily, WMATA assistant general manager in charge of the Department, complaining of employment discrimination against "white women." Joint Appendix (JA) 254. At Bassily's direction, Mark Miller, then his general deputy, and John Kirin, the Department's third ranking employee, met with Jones on August 6, 1985. According to Jones, during their meeting Miller told her that her job was "in jeopardy" and asked her to resign. JA 400.

In 1986 the Department promoted several other TS-3 supervisors to a newly created TS-4 position. According to WMATA personnel records, Jones was "disqualified" from consideration because of a "recent disciplinary action." JA 293.

In January 1987 a screening panel recommended Jones and thirteen other employees for promotion to TS-4. Kirin, who had switched positions with Miller, rejected the panel's list of candidates and asked Miller to draft a new one, taking into account factors he believed the panel had not adequately considered. Jones's name did not appear on Miller's list. In a letter to Jones dated October 30, 1987 Miller cited as reasons for not recommending her promotion: (1) her "marginal" score on a written exam and (2) her failure to follow WMATA policies and procedure, specifically by "transmit[ting] [her] personal views to [her] subordinates, (when in conflict with those of the Authority)," which he characterized as "unprofessional," and by giving a customer a cash refund from a farecard machine "contrary to station policy." JA 305.¹

Meanwhile, on September 11, 1987 Jones filed a complaint with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) alleging unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, age and sex and retaliation.

In September 1988 Jones again applied for a TS-4 position. The panel, headed by Miller, who was aware of Jones's pending EEOC claim, again rejected her despite her high ratings on objective job criteria. At trial, Miller indicated she was not recommended because she did "very, very poorly" during her interview. JA 558.

On March 1, 1989 Jones filed this lawsuit alleging discriminatory and retaliatory failure to promote in violation of Title VII and the ADEA. After her lawyer became ill the lawsuit "stalled" until she retained new counsel in February 1991.Jones v. WMATA, 946 F. Supp. 1023, 1029-30 (D.D.C. 1996).

On March 6, 1991 Jones was directed to meet with Allen Brown, one of Bassily's deputies, who was investigating a recent employee protest in which Jones had participated.Brown had previously questioned Jackie Rhodes, one of Jones's subordinates, at great length about the protest, pressing for information about Jones's role in it. Familiar with Rhodes's experience, Jones refused to meet Brown without her lawyer and subsequently refused a request from Miller as well to meet in his office. After a confrontation with Miller in the lunch room, Jones called her division superintendent, Al Yorro to tell him she was going home sick. Later that afternoon Jones received a call at home from Yorro, directing her to report for a medical examination by 6:00 p.m., which she did. Following the exam, Aubrey Burton, General Superintendent of the Department's Rail Transportation office, recommended to Bassily that Jones be fired, after consulting with WMATA's personnel director and its Office of General Counsel. Bassily approved the discharge and signed Jones's termination form on March 7, 1991. In a certified letter to Jones, Brown identified as the cause for Jones's discharge "insubordination" in refusing orders to meet with Miller and himself. JA 252-53. After unsuccessfully requesting reinstatement in a letter to WMATA's Office of General Counsel, Jones amended her complaint to claim retaliatory discharge and failure to reinstate.

On August 6, 1993 the district court granted partial summary judgment in favor of Jones on her claim of retaliatory failure to reinstate in violation of both Title VII and the ADEA. The court reserved "[t]he issue of appropriate relief for this claim" to "be tried together with the remaining claims in this case." JA 74.

The ADEA claims were tried before a jury in October 1994.On October 20, 1994 the jury returned a verdict awarding Jones $50,000 in compensatory damages on the ADEA retaliation claims--$10,000 for the 1988 failure to promote to TS-4 and $20,000 each for the termination and failure to reinstate in 1991. In addition, the jury found that the ADEA violations were willful. Accordingly, the district court immediately entered a judgment on the verdict in the amount of $50,000.

In an opinion and order filed October 15, 1996 the court also found for Jones on three of her Title VII claims: retaliatory failure to promote both in 1987 (in retaliation for signing the 1985 letter complaining of discrimination) and in 1988 (for filing the 1987 EEOC complaint) and retaliatory discharge in 1991 (for filing and prosecuting the Title VII lawsuit).² At the same time, in accord with its own findings and with the jury's, the court entered a final judgment ordering the following relief: (1) reinstatement and retroactive promotion to TS4 effective October 1, 1987 under both the ADEA and Title VII; (2) back pay under Title VII (consisting of the difference between what Jones was actually paid after October 1, 1987 and what she would have been paid at the TS-4 level) plus prejudgment interest; (3) liquidated damages under the ADEA, 29 U.S.C. 626(b) (equal to the back pay owed after February 2, 1989, the date the jury found Jones was "willfully" deprived of the TS-4 promotion); (4) a permanent injunction prohibiting WMATA "from taking any form of retaliatory action against Jones for engaging in activity protected by Title VII or the ADEA"; and (5) "reasonable" expenses and attorney's fees. 946 F. Supp. at 1032-34.

II.

WMATA has challenged the district court's judgments on various grounds but, in light of the posture of the case and of our disposition, we need address only three of them. We discuss each separately.

A. Sovereign Immunity

We first consider WMATA's contention that state entities (including WMATA) are immune under the Eleventh Amendment from ADEA liability. Because the United States Supreme Court recently resolved this question in favor of immunity,³ we agree that the ADEA damages awards must be vacated.

Under the Eleventh Amendment, " 'an unconsenting State is immune from suits brought in federal courts by her own citizens as well as by citizens of another State.' " Morris v. WMATA, 781 F.2d 218, 222-23 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (quoting Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 662-63 (1974)). "Moreover, though the immunity is that of the state, 'some agencies exercising state power have been permitted to invoke the Amendment in order to protect the state treasury from liability that would have had essentially the same practical consequences as a judgment against the State itself.' " Id. at 223 (quoting Lake Country Estates v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U.S. 391, 400-01 (1979)). WMATA was created by a compact enacted by the Congress and to which the Commonwealth of Virginia, the State of Maryland and the District cf Columbia are signatories. We have consistently recognized that in signing the WMATA Compact, Virginia and Maryland each conferred its immunity upon WMATA, which therefore enjoys, to the same extent as each state, immunity from suit in federal court based on its performance of governmental functions.⁴ See, e.g., Morris v. WMATA, supra; Souders v. WMATA, 48 F.3d 546, 548 (D.C. Cir. 1995); Beebe v. WMATA, 129 F.3d 1283, 1287 (D.C. Cir. 1997); see also Hess v. Port Auth. Trans-Hudson Corp., 513 U.S. 30, 52, 50 n.20 (1994) (noting "decision in Morris is compatible with our approach" to determining multi-state authority's Eleventh Amendment immunity vel non)...