Montero v. Agco Corp.
| Decision Date | 12 August 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 98-16806,98-16806 |
| Citation | 192 F.3d 856 |
| Parties | (9th Cir. 1999) CARRIE ANN MONTERO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AGCO CORPORATION, GLENN CARPENTER, and RUSS NEWMANN, Defendants-Appellees |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
David A. Prentice, McGuire & Prentice, Sacramento, California, for the plaintiff-appellant.
Benton J. Mathis, Jr., and Mary Anne Ackourey, Freeman Mathis & Gray, Atlanta, Georgia, for the defendants appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California; Frank C. Damrell, Jr., District Judge, Presiding, D.C. No. CV-96-01920-FCD.
Before: David R. Thompson and Susan P. Graber, Circuit Judges, and Earl H. Carroll,2 District Judge.
In addition to filing several state law claims, Plaintiff filed a Title VII claim against her supervisors and her employer, alleging that she had been subjected to a sexually hostile work environment. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants on Plaintiff's Title VII claim and, accordingly, dismissed her state law claims without prejudice. We affirm.
"Because the district court granted summary judgment, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party." Christie v. Iopa, 176 F.3d 1231, 1233 (9th Cir. 1999).
In April 1993, defendant AGCO Corporation hired plaintiff Carrie Ann Montero to perform secretarial and clerical duties in its Parts Division Distribution Center, which is located in Stockton, California. During the relevant period, the Stockton facility had eight employees. Plaintiff was the only female employee there.
The Stockton facility's "Warehouse Manager" was defendant Glen Carpenter. Carpenter's immediate supervisor was Jamie Berk, the Parts Division Operations Manager, who was located at the Parts Division's headquarters in Batavia, Illinois. Defendant Russ Newmann was the Stockton facility's "Warehouse Supervisor."3 Newmann reported directly to Carpenter. Robert Weeks worked in the warehouse at the Stockton facility in a non-supervisory capacity.
On Thursday, March 16, 1995, Plaintiff contacted Karin Rudin, AGCO's Human Resources Manager for the Parts Division, and complained that she had been sexually harassed and subjected to a hostile work environment. On Monday, March 20, 1995, Rudin and Berk met with Plaintiff. At that meeting, Plaintiff stated that Carpenter, Newmann, and Weeks had subjected her to offensive and unwanted sexual behavior, both verbal and physical.
Specifically, Plaintiff claimed that Carpenter had called her a "butt-kiss," used foul language around her, told her that he was going to spank her, rested his chin on her shoulder while she worked, grabbed her arms until she said "ouch," and frequently stood on one leg, grimaced, and threatened to pass gas.
Plaintiff complained that Newmann had frequently made remarks of a sexually suggestive nature, made sexually suggestive gestures, grabbed his crotch while speaking with her, placed his face on her bottom, told her that he had sexual dreams about her, put mice and bugs on her desk, asked if he could sit under her desk, spat water at her, put his hands in the air as if he were going to grab her breasts, posted "pin-ups" on his desk, put his hand on her chair as she sat down, attempted to bite her neck, and knelt in front of her and tried to put his head between her knees.
Plaintiff stated that Weeks had pulled her pants up from behind by the belt loop, openly passed gas, commented about the small size of his penis, and placed notes on her desk telling her to dance naked on the desk or to take off her clothes.
At the March 20 meeting, Plaintiff also told Rudin that Carpenter, Newmann, and Weeks had ceased to display sexually inappropriate conduct by December 1994, that is, about four months earlier. Additionally, Plaintiff said that she had not confronted Carpenter or Newmann before contacting Rudin, because she was not a confrontational person and was afraidof losing her job. Rudin agreed to place Plaintiff on paid administrative leave during the investigation, which Rudin anticipated would be completed by Monday, March 27, 1995.
Also on March 20, 1995, after meeting with Plaintiff, Rudin and Berk met with Carpenter, Newmann, and Weeks, as well as with other employees at the Stockton facility. Carpenter admitted that most of what Plaintiff had said was true. Newmann admitted that he had used foul language and sexual innuendo and had engaged in some "joking around. " Newmann, however, denied most of Plaintiff's other allegations against him. Weeks admitted that he had used foul language, joked about passing gas, and snapped Plaintiff's belt loop.
On Thursday, March 23, Rudin telephoned Plaintiff to clarify the timing of certain instances of misconduct by Carpenter, Newmann, and Weeks. During that conversation, Plaintiff advised Rudin that she would not be at work on Monday, March 27, because her doctor did not want her to return until she had seen a psychologist.
On the morning of Monday, March 27, Rudin fired Carpenter and held disciplinary conferences with Newmann and Weeks. Around noon on the same day, Plaintiff called Rudin and advised her that she had yet to see a psychologist, because the psychologist whom she was to see was ill. Plaintiff asked if Carpenter and Newmann were still employed at the Stockton facility. Rudin told Plaintiff that appropriate disciplinary measures had been taken but that she would not discuss them with specificity, because the disciplinary process was confidential. Rudin also told Plaintiff that all the employees had been strongly warned that the company would not tolerate any retaliation against Plaintiff for complaining of conduct that she found inappropriate.
On Wednesday, March 29, 1995, Plaintiff provided AGCO with documentation from her psychologist, stating that she would not be able to return to work until April 13, 1995. Subsequently, Plaintiff's psychologist extended Plaintiff's return-to-work day to July 15, 1995.
On July 17, 1995, Plaintiff's lawyer wrote to AGCO and informed it of Plaintiff's resignation. In response, Rudin wrote to Plaintiff, urging her to reconsider leaving her job and informing her that AGCO had hired a new manager for the Stockton facility, Ms. Shirley Batalla, who was committed to ensuring that all employees were treated fairly and appropriately.
On September 10, 1996, Plaintiff filed a complaint in district court. She alleged various state law claims and alleged that she had been subjected to a sexually hostile work environment in violation of Title VII. On August 12, 1998, the district court granted AGCO's motion for summary judgment on Plaintiff's Title VII claim and dismissed Plaintiff's state law claims without prejudice. The district court held that Plaintiff's employer had established an affirmative defense to liability by establishing (1) that it exercised reasonable care to prevent and to correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior and (2) that Plaintiff unreasonably had failed to take advantage of preventive and corrective opportunities provided by her employer.
We review de novo a district court's grant of summary judgment. See Margolis v. Ryan, 140 F.3d 850, 852 (9th Cir. 1998). We must determine whether there are any genuine issues of material fact and whether the district court correctly applied the relevant substantive law. See id. The court must not weigh the evidence, but only determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial. See Dodd v. Hood River County, 136 F.3d 1219, 1224 (9th Cir. 1998).
Under Title VII, it is "an unlawful employment practice for an employer . . . to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." 42 U.S.C. S 2000e2(a)(1). The scope of Title VII's prohibition is not limited to "economic" or "tangible" discrimination. See Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 118 S. Ct. 2275, 2283 (1998). Title VII also is violated if sexual harassment is so "severe or pervasive" as to " `alter the conditions of [the victim's] employment and create an abusive working environment.' " Meritor Savs. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 67 (1986) (quoting Henson v. Dundee, 682 F.2d 897, 904 (11th Cir. 1982)). "Conduct must be extreme to amount to a change in the terms and conditions of employment." Faragher, 118 S. Ct. at 2284. To be actionable under Title VII,"a sexually objectionable environment must be both objectively and subjectively offensive, one that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive, and one that the victim in fact did perceive to be so." Id. at 2283. For purposes of deciding this appeal, we assume that Plaintiff was subjected to actionable sexual harassment by Carpenter and Newmann.4
In Burlington Indus., Inc. v. Ellerth, 118 S. Ct. 2257, 2270 (1998), and Faragher, 118 S. Ct. at 2292-93, the Supreme Court held that
[a]n employer is subject to vicarious liability to a victimized employee for an actionable hostile environment created by a supervisor with immediate (or successively higher) authority over the employee. When no tangible employment action is taken, a defending employer may raise an affirmative defense to liability or damages, subject to proof by a preponderance of the evidence. The defense comprises two necessary elements: (a) that the employer exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior, and (b) that the plaintiff employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer...
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