Parker v. General Extrusions, Inc.

• Decision Date: 26 June 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-3353.,06-3353.
• Citation: 491 F.3d 596
• Parties: Nancy PARKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. GENERAL EXTRUSIONS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

491 F.3d 596

Nancy PARKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. GENERAL EXTRUSIONS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 06-3353.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: March 9, 2007.

Decided and Filed: June 26, 2007.

ARGUED:

Martin S. Hume, Martin S. Hume Co., L.P.A., Youngstown, Ohio, for Appellant. Richard C. Haber, Haber Polk LLP, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF:

Martin S. Hume, Martin S. Hume Co., L.P.A., Youngstown, Ohio, for Appellant. Richard C. Haber, Haber Polk LLP, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.

Before: DAUGHTREY and ROGERS, Circuit Judges; OBERDORFER, District Judge.^*

OPINION

MARTHA CRAIG DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiff, Nancy Parker, appeals the district court's order granting judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50(b) to the defendant, General Extrusions, Inc., on the plaintiff's claim for punitive damages in relation to her Title VII gender discrimination suit, which she brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2000e-17. The jury found for the plaintiff on her hostile working environment claim and, along with compensatory damages, awarded Parker punitive damages. On motion of the defendant, however, the district court struck down the punitive damages award, holding that punitive damages were not available pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1981 a(b)(1) because (1) only one of the employees who discriminated against Parker was a "managerial agent" of the defendant, (2) this single employee did not act with the requisite malice or reckless indifference to justify punitive damages, and (3) in any event, the defendant had made a good faith effort to comply with Title VII, thereby insulating itself from punitive damages liability. The plaintiff appeals this ruling on all three grounds. For the reasons stated below, we reverse.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

From August 2000 until February 2004, Parker was employed by General Extrusions as a shop worker on the night shift in the defendant's fabrication department, which was responsible for creating aluminum parts by extruding, cutting to size or punching such products out of metal. The fabrication department was predominately male, with an average of five females employed in a department of approximately 20 people. According to witnesses, a "loose" atmosphere pervaded the night shift in the fabrication department: there was a "tremendous amount of horseplay"; the workers as well as the management spoke freely in "shop talk" or "locker room talk," meaning they used profanity including crude and vulgar terms; and the male employees made sexual comments about and to female employees.

The plaintiff established that while working within this environment, she was subjected to pervasive sexual harassment from several co-workers. Although she reported a number of these incidents of sexual harassment to her immediate supervisors, including foremen Rob Greenway, John Alexander and Steve Kopkash, and, on occasion, to the human resources manager, Terry Maloney, the record demonstrates that her complaints were not adequately addressed.

For example, one of Parker's co-workers, Justin O'Hara, called Parker a "fucking whore" and made vulgar comments about her sexual activities, implying that she was promiscuous. The plaintiff reported this incident to her supervisor, foreman Steve Kopkash, who replied that the comment "could be considered a compliment." He did not report the incident to the Human Resources manager, Terry Maloney, in violation of the company's sexual harassment policy.

The most severe and pervasive harassment came from another co-worker, Eric Rendes, who repeatedly referred to Parker in derogatory terms such as "whore," "bitch," "slut," and "crybaby." These comments were at times made even in the presence of the foremen on duty, but Rendes was not disciplined. On one occasion Rendes typed "fuck you" on Parker's output card, and he repeatedly used vulgar language to tell the plaintiff, or tell others while the plaintiff was in earshot, about the sexual acts that he was going to perform on his girlfriend after work. On at least one occasion Rendes made unsolicited comments to Parker regarding sexual acts Parker should perform in order to "keep" her husband. When the plaintiff asked Rendes to stop this behavior, he told her that he liked to harass women and that he had been fired from a previous job for harassing women.

Parker complained verbally to at least one foreman about Rendes's behavior, specifically about his vulgar language. Rendes was subsequently called into the foreman's office, told that Parker was complaining about his language, and informed that Parker was going to be reassigned so that she no longer worked with him. Rendes did not, however, receive any discipline for his actions, and none of the foremen reported the incident to the human resources manager, Terry Maloney, again in violation of the company's sexual harassment policy. In fact, Rendes testified that the foremen generally "hushed it up" and tried to "keep it in house" when these kinds of complaints were brought to their attention.

Even after she was reassigned, Parker continued to have problems with Rendes. He played "tricks" on her, such as hiding her work equipment. At one point, Rendes purposefully blew metal saw chips in her direction and, on another occasion, threw large pieces of metal that she had to dodge in order to avoid being hit. One of the foremen, John Alexander, observed the saw-chips incident but did not discipline Rendes for it. Instead, he laughed and walked away.

The plaintiff testified that because she had not received an adequate response following her complaints to the foremen in her department, she went to Terry Maloney to discuss the situation. According to the plaintiff, she started to describe Rendes's reprehensible behavior toward her and indicated what Rendes had told her about being fired from a previous job for harassing women. Maloney allegedly cut her off, saying, "That's hearsay and I don't want to hear it." As a result, Parker felt that Maloney had taken Rendes's side without hearing her out. She became upset, began crying, and asked for a shift change. It is unclear from the record before this court whether her request was honored.

At a later point, the plaintiff again had cause to complain about Rendes, who had used the intercom system to make heavy breathing sounds obviously intended to be sexual in nature. The plaintiff felt that this behavior was directed at her, and she made a written complaint about it to Terry Maloney. As a result of this incident, Rendes was called into a meeting with Terry Maloney, foremen Steve Kopkash and Rob Greenway, and a union representative. He was told that Parker had accused him of sexual harassment and he replied that he "would rather jack off than touch her." Maloney reportedly "chuckled" at this comment, did not express disapproval of it, and then began discussing what action to take in response to the intercom incident. The discussion led to Rendes being given a verbal warning for "horseplay," but he was not disciplined for sexual harassment. When Rendes later testified about this meeting, he expressed his view that the company wanted to get rid of both him and Parker: him because of his sexual harassment, and her because she complained about things, including sexual harassment. He also testified that there was some speculation during the meeting that Parker was complaining in an effort to extort money from the company.

Parker testified that the result of this meeting was "humiliating" for her, explaining that although she was led to believe that Maloney would keep her complaint as confidential as possible, he loudly told her about the result of the meeting in a public work area where all her co-workers could hear it. Moreover, soon after this incident, Parker was assigned to work on a deburring machine, a job which was considered less desirable than most other jobs in the fabrication department.

At this point, Parker also ran into trouble with another co-worker, Eli Rodriguez, who teased her by unplugging a fan she was using. When Parker asked him to plug the fan back in, he screamed various derogatory terms at her, calling her, for example, a "mother-fucking bitch." Parker reported this incident to foreman Kopkash and, because she was upset, apparently left work early. Kopkash sent an e-mail to Terry Maloney indicating that Rodriguez and Parker had gotten into "a fight," that he thought Parker was just looking for a reason to go home early, and that he would make sure she was disciplined for absenteeism. Rodriguez was not disciplined for the incident, even though he admitted using the language at issue (he asserted that Parker used similar language, which she denied). Meanwhile, Parker took sick leave necessitated by the stress created by the on-going harassment. During this time, Maloney's assistant attempted to contact Parker regarding the fan incident, but the assistant was rude and demanding in the messages she left, and Parker did not reply because she did not feel mentally and emotionally able to do so.

By July 2003, Parker had contacted an attorney, who wrote a letter to the chairman of the board of General Extrusions, Herb Schuler Sr., outlining the harassment recounted above, as well as a number of other incidents. In response to the letter, a meeting was held in which Parker, her attorney, board chairman Schuler, and the company attorney were present. At the meeting Schuler agreed that Parker could report any further sexual harassment to him. After the meeting, Terry Maloney was instructed to and did investigate a number of the allegations made in the letter, although the company attorney instructed him to forgo at least one claim (that a co-worker had put a frozen water bottle between Parker's legs). According to the defendant, other allegations were not investigated because specific names were not given or because the individual named was no longer employed at...