Madison v. IBP, Inc.

• Decision Date: 14 December 2000
• Docket Number: BELOW-APPELLEE,PLAINTIFF-APPELLAN,UNITED,Nos. 99-2853,DEFENDANT-APPELLEE,99-2859,s. 99-2853
• Parties: (8th Cir. 2001) SHERI SAWYER MADISON, APPELLEE, v. IBP, INC., APPELLANT. SHERI SAWYER MADISON,STATES OF AMERICA, INTERVENOR, v. IBP, INC. Submitted:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 780

257 F.3d 780 (8th Cir. 2001)

SHERI SAWYER MADISON, APPELLEE, v. IBP, INC., APPELLANT.

SHERI SAWYER MADISON, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, INTERVENOR BELOW-APPELLEE, v. IBP, INC. DEFENDANT-APPELLEE.

Nos. 99-2853, 99-2859

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

Submitted: December 14, 2000

Filed: June 25, 2001

As Amended July 2, 2001

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Before McMILLIAN and Murphy, Circuit Judges, and Bogue, ¹ District Judge.

Murphy, Circuit Judge.

Sheri Sawyer Madison, a Caucasian women married to an African American man, brought this case against IBP, Inc. (IBP) for sex and race discrimination and harassment, retaliation, and constructive demotion, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et. seq.; 42 U.S.C. § 1981; and the Iowa Civil Rights Act (ICRA), Iowa Code § 216. Her claims grow out of her employment at IBP's meatpacking plant in Perry, Iowa.

After a four week trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Madison, awarding her backpay, benefits, and compensatory and punitive damages. The district court applied 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b)(3) to reduce the damage award, and both Madison and IBP filed post judgment motions. The district court denied Madison's motions for restoration of her damage award, front pay, and other equitable relief; it granted her motions for reallocation of damages, attorney fees, costs, and interest. The court denied IBP's motions for judgment as a matter of law, to alter or amend the judgment, and for a new trial. It then ordered the entry of an amended judgment against IBP.

Both parties appeal. IBP does not contend that Madison failed to present sufficient evidence of racial and sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, constructive demotion, or vicarious liability, but it contests the amount of emotional distress damages, the award of punitive damages, the admission of evidence of discrimination and harassment of other employees, the jury instructions on the period for which Madison could recover damages, and the way in which the district court applied § 1981a(b)(3). On her cross appeal, Madison challenges the court's reduction of the amount awarded by the jury and the constitutionality of § 1981a(b)(3). The United States intervened in the district court to uphold the statute and does so again in this court. We affirm the award of backpay, benefits, and compensatory damages, but we vacate the award of punitive damages and remand.

I.

IBP, the world's largest producer of beef and pork products, opened a hog processing plant in Perry, Iowa in 1989 and hired Sheri Sawyer Madison as a meatcutter. The Perry plant is divided into three sections: the kill floor, where hogs are killed; the cut floor, where workers split the hog carcasses; and the converting floor, where workers trim the meat and bones from the carcasses. The sections are organized into numerous production lines, each of which is responsible for a different facet of hog processing. The lines are composed of line workers, utilities, and trainers. Utilities and trainers must be familiar with all aspects of the line jobs since utilities substitute for absent workers and trainers teach new workers how to perform various line functions. A utility position is usually the first step towards promotion to such management support jobs as trainer. The lines are managed by front line supervisors and general supervisors. A training coordinator supervises the trainers. Supervisors are managed by plant superintendents, who are responsible for all production functions, and by the plant manager, who is the highest level manager in the plant. The Perry plant also employs a personnel director who is responsible for addressing employee grievances, conflicts, and disciplinary matters. The authority to terminate employees is vested in the plant manager and the personnel director.

Madison went to work in 1989 as a meatcutter on the cut floor's jowl line, where her responsibilities included trimming meat from the neck and jowls of hogs. At the time she started, she was dating James Madison, an African American man who was also employed at the Perry plant. The couple married in 1996 and have two children, James Jr. and Whitney. The uncontroverted evidence of her co-workers and supervisors indicates that Madison had excellent knife skills, produced a quality meat product, and was a reliable worker.

Madison presented a great deal of evidence at trial to show that she was subjected to a continuing pattern of racial and sexual harassment during her employment and that supervisors and managers failed to take action in response to her complaints. There was also evidence that supervisors often witnessed acts of harassment towards Madison and that some of them participated in these acts. Madison also introduced evidence from which the jury could find that in making promotion decisions IBP had discriminated against her because of her gender and because she was involved with an African American man and had biracial children. In addition, she produced evidence that she was retaliated against and was forced to take more than one constructive demotion in order to escape discrimination and harassment.

From the evidence the jury could and did find that IBP maintained at the Perry plant a hostile work environment for women and for workers in interrracial relationships and that Madison's civil rights were regularly violated up to, and even after, the time she filed this action in 1996. There was evidence that Madison was physically harassed on many occasions -- that other workers grabbed her buttocks, rubbed up against her, and picked her up and carried her around. Line workers frequently made vulgar remarks about women in her presence and were almost never disciplined for them, even though many of the remarks were made in front of supervisors. General supervisor Larry Sippel referred to female employees as "whores" and "dykes" and stated that "women don't belong in packinghouses." Co-worker Bill Teeples questioned why she was "with a fucking nigger" and said that "niggers and whites should stay with their own." Fellow line worker Gary Laird made racist comments about Madison's relationship and her two children. Gary asked Madison what she was "doing with a fucking nigger having fucking nigger babies," and told her that she had "ruined herself" by having children with an African American man. Gary's brother Gordy was a general supervisor, and Gary often made these racial comments in the presence of Gordy and general supervisor Sippel. Neither supervisor intervened in any way to stop the verbal harassment, even when Gary's comments caused Madison to leave the line crying. Gary continued to harass Madison and her family whenever he saw them until as late as 1998.

The jury could and did find that the promotion system was controlled by biased decisionmakers who discriminated against Madison because she was a woman and because she was involved in an interracial relationship. Although supervisors do not directly make promotion decisions, most decisions are based on their recommendations. There was evidence that many of Madison's supervisors had negative views about the ability of women to work on the line and that they interfered with her attempts to learn different jobs in order to improve her chances for promotion. General supervisor Larry Sippel told Madison that women "can't do physical jobs," and another general supervisor, Gordy Laird, told Madison that she could not learn to skin hams because "that's a man's job." Madison nevertheless learned how to skin hams and testified at trial that this job was one of her favorites. When Madison asked to switch assignments to learn shank boning, supervisors John McNamara and Eugene Jackson told her that shank boning was a "man's job" and that women were not capable of doing it. They only permitted her to switch jobs if she were certified by a trainer. Certification was not typically required of male workers, and she experienced a substantial delay in receiving a pay increase because she was required to go through a certification process.

Line workers can advance at IBP to utility, trainer, and higher management jobs by applying for open positions. After gaining expertise on the line, Madison expressed interest in being promoted. She applied for, and was denied, at least nine different promotions by December 1993. She was often passed over in favor of male employees with less job knowledge and seniority. In November 1993, Madison applied for a utility position which was eventually awarded to a male co-worker. Supervisor McNamara approved the appointment of the male employee without investigating the personnel files of both candidates, proceeding instead on the basis of recommendations by Jackson and other supervisors. Madison was told that her co-worker received the job because he had better knife skills, more seniority, a better attendance record, and greater job knowledge. She subsequently filed a sex discrimination grievance with the union. When management reviewed both personnel files in response to the grievance, it discovered that the male employee actually had a significant discipline and absentee record. The manager who resolved the grievance found that Madison was qualified for the job and recommended that she receive the next vacant trainer position.

In December 1993, Madison applied for and received the next open trainer position and became the plant's first female trainer on the cut floor. Eugene Jackson was her supervisor on this job. Jackson, an African American man, told her that he did not believe "the races should mix" and that she should not expect to receive favorable treatment from him because she was dating an African American. Jackson regularly assigned Madison...