Miller v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of Minn.

• Decision Date: 06 September 2019
• Docket Number: Case No. 15-CV-3740 (PJS/LIB)
• Citation: 402 F.Supp.3d 568
• Parties: Shannon MILLER, Plaintiff, v. The BOARD OF REGENTS OF the UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota

402 F.Supp.3d 568

Shannon MILLER, Plaintiff,

v.The BOARD OF REGENTS OF the UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, Defendant.

Case No. 15-CV-3740 (PJS/LIB)

United States District Court, D. Minnesota.

Signed September 6, 2019

Sharon L. Van Dyck, VAN DYCK LAW FIRM, PLLC; Donald Chance Mark, Jr., FAFINSKI MARK & JOHNSON; Dan Siegel and Jane Brunner, SIEGEL, YEE, BRUNNER & MEHTA, for plaintiff.

Jeanette M. Bazis and Katherine M. Swenson, GREENE ESPEL PLLP; Douglas R. Peterson and Timothy J. Pramas, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, for defendant.

ORDER

Patrick J. Schiltz, United States District Judge In 1998, plaintiff Shannon Miller was hired as the head coach of the women's hockey team at defendant University of Minnesota Duluth ("UMD"). After several extensions, Miller's contract was set to expire on June 30, 2015. Throughout the summer and fall of 2014, UMD rebuffed Miller's attempts to negotiate a new contract and then, on December 9, 2014, UMD abruptly informed Miller that it would not be renewing her contract.

Miller, along with former UMD coaches Jen Banford and Annette Wiles, brought this lawsuit against UMD, asserting claims of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and retaliation under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. (along with several other claims). The Court granted UMD's motion for summary judgment on all of Banford's and Wiles's claims and on all of Miller's claims save her Title VII sex-discrimination claim and her Title IX retaliation claim, which were tried before a jury in March 2018.

The jury found that, by refusing to offer Miller a new employment contract, UMD had discriminated and retaliated against her. The jury awarded Miller $744,832 in back pay and benefits and $3 million in other past damages. ECF No. 569. The Court later awarded Miller front pay and benefits in the amount of $461,278 and entered judgment. ECF Nos. 615, 616.

This matter is before the Court on the parties' post-judgment motions. UMD moves for judgment as a matter of law, a new trial, or remittitur. Miller moves for an award of attorney's fees and expenses and to amend the judgment to add pre- and post-judgment interest. For the reasons that follow, UMD's motion is denied except that the Court will conditionally grant a new trial on the amount of past non-economic damages and offer Miller the option of remitting the award to $750,000. Miller's motion for pre- and post-judgment interest is granted in part and denied in part, and Miller's motion for attorney's fees and expenses is granted.

A. Judgment as a Matter of Law

UMD moves for judgment as a matter of law, arguing that (1) UMD's decision not to renew Miller's contract does not constitute an adverse employment action; and (2) there is insufficient evidence to support the verdict.

Judgment as a matter of law is warranted when a party has been fully heard on an issue and "the court finds that a reasonable jury would not have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis to find for the party on that issue ...." Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a)(1). In considering a motion for judgment as a matter of law, the court must view the facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and grant the nonmoving party the benefit of all reasonable inferences. See Canny v. Dr. Pepper/Seven-Up Bottling Grp. , 439 F.3d 894, 899-900 (8th Cir. 2006). The court should not grant the motion unless "all of the evidence points one way and is susceptible of no reasonable inference sustaining the position of the nonmoving party."

Howard v. Mo. Bone & Joint Ctr. , 615 F.3d 991, 995 (8th Cir. 2010) (citation and quotation marks omitted).

With respect to UMD's argument that failing to renew Miller's contract was not an adverse employment action: The Court has already rejected this argument, which UMD made when moving for summary judgment. See ECF No. 501 at 8-9. The Court adheres to its view that UMD's decision not to renew Miller's contract was an adverse employment action.

With respect to UMD's argument regarding the sufficiency of the evidence: UMD argues that "overwhelming evidence" showed that athletic director Josh Berlo and UMD chancellor Lendley Black decided not to renew Miller's contract because they were dissatisfied with her recent performance, particularly in light of her high salary. This was indeed UMD's story at trial, and a reasonable jury could have credited it. But a reasonable jury could also have found that UMD's story was pretextual, and that the real motivation for UMD's decision was discrimination and retaliation.

The evidence at trial left no doubt that Miller was a world-class hockey coach and that UMD's decision not to renew her contract shocked many people familiar with the world of Division I women's hockey. Of course, the mere fact that others were surprised by UMD's decision does not mean that UMD acted unlawfully. But it provides context for other evidence in the case—evidence that, taken together, provided a sufficient basis for the jury's findings of discrimination and retaliation.

This evidence included UMD's markedly disparate treatment of Miller and Scott Sandelin, the coach of the men's hockey team. Miller's and Sandelin's careers at UMD largely overlapped, and there is no dispute that, as of the date that UMD decided not to renew Miller's contract, Miller's overall coaching record at UMD was much stronger than Sandelin's. During Miller's career at UMD, the women's team won five national championships and had an overall record of .708. P118.¹ By contrast, as of the date of Miller's non-renewal, the men's team under Sandelin had won one national championship and had an overall record of .508. P118. Of course, as UMD strenuously argued at trial, UMD was entitled to place more weight on Miller's recent performance and to demand a lot from her in light of her high salary. But the jury could reasonably have concluded that Miller's and Sandelin's recent performances were not so dissimilar as to explain UMD's treatment of Miller, particularly in light of Miller's overall stellar record.

There was also robust evidence that, after Miller filed this lawsuit, UMD's explanation for terminating her shifted from primarily budget based to primarily performance based. UMD points to evidence that it had raised the issue of Miller's performance before it decided not to renew her contract. But UMD ignores the overall tenor of the parties' earlier discussions, which strongly suggested that UMD would happily have renewed Miller's contract if not for the budget problems it was experiencing. In particular, UMD ignores the tenor of the December 9 discussion at which Berlo and Black informed Miller that her contract would not be renewed. During that meeting, Miller repeatedly pushed for an explanation, and Berlo and Black repeatedly emphasized budget shortfalls and denied that their decision had anything to do with Miller's performance. P64. At trial, however, UMD reversed course and insisted that it decided not to renew Miller's contract because her performance had deteriorated so much in recent years that it would not have renewed her contract even if she had agreed to a drastic salary reduction.

The jury could also have found that UMD's claim that Miller's non-renewal was performance-based was inconsistent with UMD's actions. If UMD was so unhappy with Miller's recent performance that it was unwilling to keep her at any price, then why did UMD continue to suggest throughout the summer and fall of 2014 that the parties would eventually be able to reach an agreement? Alternatively, if UMD wanted to give Miller one last chance to improve her performance before making a final decision, why did it give her only half a season to improve—and then yank the rug out from under her when the team was improving (indeed, when the team was ranked sixth in the nation)?

Given the shock in the hockey community about Miller's firing, the disparate treatment of Miller and Sandelin, UMD's shifting rationales, and the mismatch between UMD's actions before and claims during trial, the jury was entitled to find that UMD's proffered explanation was pretextual, which in turn gave the jury a sufficient basis to find discrimination and retaliation. Estes v. Dick Smith Ford, Inc. , 856 F.2d 1097, 1101 (8th Cir. 1988) ("If Estes can establish that this proffered explanation was unworthy of credence, then he will have made an indirect showing of discrimination which may persuade the finder of fact."), overruled in part on other grounds by Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins , 490 U.S. 228, 109 S.Ct. 1775, 104 L.Ed.2d 268 (1989).

In addition to evidence of pretext, there was scattered evidence from which the jury could have concluded that Berlo had difficulty working with powerful women and, in particular, thought that Miller needed to be taken down a peg. For example, the jury heard about an incident in which Berlo objected to an April 2014 email blast to alumni touting the unparalleled success of the women's hockey team because, he said, it was "in poor taste." TT 313-14, 748-49, 953-54. In contrast, Berlo did not object to a large billboard celebrating his own selection as an athletic director of the year. TT 749. There were also other examples indicating hostility to women's hockey specifically and to powerful women generally. See, e.g. , TT 54 (Berlo gave the cold shoulder to Kathryn Martin, the former chancellor of UMD); TT 868 (the women's hockey team "didn't get a lot of love" on the athletic department Twitter account); TT 940-41 (Berlo called Miller on a game day to talk about the budget, which Miller found highly unusual, and to tell Miller that she'd "better win"); TT 941-42 (Berlo described another coach who raised Title IX issues as "a pain in the ass"); TT 954 (women's hockey did not get a lot of marketing support); TT 970 (after Berlo became athletic director, the "Skate With the Bulldogs" event was scheduled when the women's team could not attend); TT...