Joyner v. AAA Cooper Transp.

• Decision Date: 18 November 1983
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 82-884-N.
• Citation: 597 F. Supp. 537
• Parties: Timothy L. JOYNER, Plaintiff, v. AAA COOPER TRANSPORTATION, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama

597 F. Supp. 537

Timothy L. JOYNER, Plaintiff, v. AAA COOPER TRANSPORTATION, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 82-884-N.

United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, N.D.

November 18, 1983.

L. Gilbert Kendrick, R.B. Moore, Montgomery, Ala., for plaintiff.

Lange, Simpson, Robinson & Somerville, Peyton Lacy, Jr. and Harry L. Hopkins, Birmingham, Ala., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

HOBBS, District Judge.

Plaintiff, a former employee of defendant, brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2 for alleged sexual harassment during his employment with defendant. Plaintiff contends that this condition caused plaintiff's layoff and subsequent termination from employment. This Court has jurisdiction by virtue of 28 U.S.C. § 1343. This matter was tried before the Court without a jury on September 14, 1983. The Court, having considered the evidence presented at trial, and the arguments of the parties as reflected in their post-trial briefs, now enters this memorandum opinion pursuant to Rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, reflecting its findings of fact and conclusions of law. For the reasons stated herein, the Court finds for the plaintiff.

FINDINGS OF FACT

AAA Cooper Transportation, defendant in this cause, is a motor carrier operating in interstate commerce. It operates terminals in various states, and during the time in question, operated a freight terminal in Montgomery, Alabama.¹ Plaintiff began employment with defendant in March 1980 as a shop mechanic. At that time the wage rate for mechanics was $7.45 per hour. Sometime thereafter, plaintiff requested a transfer from shop mechanic to the employment classification known as P & D driver. The job functions of a P & D driver include loading and unloading freight at the terminal as well as delivering freight to and from destinations within the city and its immediate surroundings.

Approximately six or seven months after plaintiff had first begun his employment with defendant, while he was still employed as a shop mechanic, plaintiff was approached by the terminal manager at a local drive-in restaurant. Plaintiff testified at trial that the terminal manager invited him to enter his automobile. While inside the automobile, the terminal manager allegedly placed his hands on plaintiff's private parts and asked plaintiff to engage in homosexual activities. Plaintiff emphatically refused to accede to the requests and left the automobile.²

Sometime after this incident, plaintiff had an encounter with Earl Dove, chairman of the board at AAA. When Mr. Dove asked plaintiff about his employment, plaintiff told him about the occurrence with the terminal manager. Mr. Dove expressed his shock and disbelief concerning this matter, and assured plaintiff that he would investigate further. Promptly upon Mr. Dove's return to company headquarters in Dothan, Alabama, he called Mr. William Buntin, general manager for the company, and relayed to him the information he had received from plaintiff's accusations, and the terminal manager denied that it had ever occurred. Mr. Buntin testified that he did not believe plaintiff's allegations, but nevertheless warned the terminal manager that the allegation made by plaintiff was a serious matter in violation of company policy and that if there were any future allegations, he would be immediately suspended pending investigation by company officials. Mr. Buntin later telephoned plaintiff that the problem had been resolved, and it would not recur.

Shortly after his conversation with Mr. Buntin, the terminal manager approached plaintiff and told him that he knew plaintiff had complained to officials at the Dothan headquarters about the homosexual advance. In his direct testimony plaintiff stated that the terminal manager told him during this meeting that if he could find a reason to fire plaintiff he would. However, on cross-examination, plaintiff recanted and testified that although the terminal manager never made exactly that statement, he interpreted the statement to indicate such an intention.

On October 19, 1981, plaintiff transferred from the shop mechanic classification to the pickup and delivery driver classification when a position became vacant in the latter classification. Although this transfer resulted in a wage increase from $7.45 per hour to $9.30 per hour, plaintiff testified at trial that he strenuously objected to the transfer to Everett Norris, the assistant terminal manager, because he feared retribution from the terminal manager, who would be his direct supervisor at this new job. However, Mr. Norris testified that plaintiff never expressed to him any reluctance to assuming this new position as a P & D driver. As a result of the transfer, plaintiff, pursuant to company policy,³ relinquished all seniority he had acquired while working as a shop mechanic and became the lowest in terms of seniority of the P & D drivers.

Plaintiff continued working as a P & D driver until December 18, 1981, at which time plaintiff was laid off because of a slowdown in business. On this same date, three and possibly four⁴ other P & D drivers with more seniority than plaintiff were laid off for the same reason. Testimony offered by several witnesses at trial indicated that layoffs during this time of the year were common in the trucking industry generally and at AAA. Plaintiff at no time was recalled to work, and on January 29, 1982, plaintiff lost his "regular status"⁵ as an employee and was terminated.

After his layoff on December 18, 1981, plaintiff made several inquiries about reemployment. First, plaintiff asked Mr. Norris whether he could reacquire his former position as a mechanic in the shop department. He was correctly told by Mr. Norris that under company policy this would be impossible because another man had been hired as a mechanic and plaintiff had lost his seniority as a mechanic and hence could not "bump" the new employee and reacquire his old job. Next, plaintiff testified that he called the terminal manager several times to find out when he could return to work, and, during their last conversation, the terminal manager emphatically told plaintiff that there was no work available for him. Plaintiff told the terminal manager that he had talked with other drivers of AAA, and they had advised him that business had increased at AAA sufficiently so that work was available for plaintiff. The terminal manager told plaintiff that he could not come back to work and that he did not owe him "a damn thing." Finally, plaintiff contacted Mr. Buntin about the possibility of employment with the company as a line haul driver; however, Mr. Buntin told plaintiff that his personnel file indicated that he was not qualified to work as a line haul driver. Despite these and other efforts by plaintiff to return to work, the terminal manager refused to recall plaintiff, citing a depressed demand for trucking services as the basis for this refusal. Yet, shortly after plaintiff lost his regular status on January 29, 1982, Gaylan Grant and Ernest Battle were recalled to work. In fact, the personnel records of the company indicate that plaintiff was the only full-time P & D driver at the Montgomery terminal who was not recalled from layoff.⁶ More significantly, a new employee, Donald Webb, was hired as a P & D driver on March 15, 1982.

Discouraged about his future with defendant, plaintiff sought work elsewhere. On April 28, 1982, plaintiff, while employed at Flavorich, Inc., filed a charge of sex discrimination against AAA with the EEOC. After an administrative investigation, the EEOC issued its determination finding no probable cause to believe plaintiff's allegations were true. After receiving his right to sue letter from the EEOC, plaintiff timely filed suit in this Court on December 20, 1982.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.⁷ Although the language of Title VII does not specifically address the issue of whether sexual harassment constitutes discrimination on the basis of sex, it is now well established that Title VII does proscribe such conduct. See, e.g., Henson v. City of Dundee, 682 F.2d 897 (11th Cir. 1982); Bundy v. Jackson, 641 F.2d 934 (D.C.Cir.1981); Tomkins v. Public Service Electric & Gas Co., 568 F.2d 1044 (D.C.Cir. 1977). See generally, Note, Sexual Harassment and Title VII: The Foundation for Elimination of Sexual Cooperation as an Employment Condition, 76 Mich.L.Rev. 1007 (1978). Perhaps prompted by the judicial adoption of sexual harassment as a theory of recovery for sex discrimination, the EEOC Guidelines, 29 C.F.R. § 1604.11 (1982), take the position that sexual harassment is a violation of Section 703 of Title VII. While the decisions holding that unwelcomed sexual harassment violates Section 703 have dealt with harassment in the heterosexual context,⁸ this Court determines that unwelcomed homosexual harassment also states a violation of Title VII.

As in all Title VII disparate treatment cases, the Court must apply a three-part analysis to the evidence presented. Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981). In Burdine, the Supreme Court summarized this three-part analysis of the burdens and order of proof as follows:

First, the plaintiff has the burden of proving by the preponderance of the evidence a prima facie case of discrimination. Second, if the plaintiff succeeds in proving the prima facie case, the burden shifts to the defendant "to articulate some legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the employee's rejection." Third, should the defendant carry this burden, the plaintiff must then have an opportunity to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the legitimate reasons offered by the defendant were not its true reasons, but were a pretext for discrimination.

Id. 450 U.S. at 252-53, 101 S.Ct. at 1093. Additionally, Burdine teaches that the burden of persuasion remains at all...