Patton v. Keystone Rv Co.

• Decision Date: 01 August 2006
• Docket Number: No. 05-3891.,05-3891.
• Citation: 455 F.3d 812
• Parties: Brenda PATTON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. KEYSTONE RV COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

455 F.3d 812

Brenda PATTON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. KEYSTONE RV COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 05-3891.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 5, 2006.

Decided August 1, 2006.

Patrick F. O'Leary (argued), Goshen, IN, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Jeffrey A. Johnson (argued), May, Oberfell & Lorber, Mishawaka, IN, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before KANNE, WOOD, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

KANNE, Circuit Judge.

This appeal requires us to determine whether the facts of this employment discrimination case constitute an objectively hostile work environment supporting a claim of constructive discharge. The district court thought the case fell short of a hostile work environment, and, therefore, granted summary judgment for the employer. We disagree, and remand for trial.

I. HISTORY

What follows are the facts present in the summary judgment record, taken in a light most favorable to Patton, with a focus on the issue of hostile work environment.¹ Keystone RV Company manufactures high-end recreational vehicles ("RVs"), some of which come fully equipped with bedrooms, kitchens, and all the other amenities of a home. Brenda Patton began her employment with Keystone in April of 2001 at its Elkhart, Indiana location.

At the Elkhart plant, Patton's immediate supervisor was Joe Solis, a group leader. Solis reported to Glen Miller, an assistant plant manager, who in turn reported to the Elkhart plant manager, Keith Weaver. Rod Ramey, the alleged harasser, was the manufacturing manager who oversaw a number of Keystone's plants, including those in Elkhart and Goshen (where Patton was eventually transferred). Ramey's job was to ensure product quality, and to that end he could take any personnel action against the employees at the plants he supervised.²

Patton says the harassment began in October of 2002, with Ramey telling her, "Did you know that we are fucking according to the rumor over in Goshen?" There was no affair, as Patton had never before had a conversation with Ramey, and only knew him in passing. Patton responded by saying, "That's not very nice." Shortly thereafter, Ramey began to question Patton about whether she was having an affair with Solis, and informed her that if it were true the two would not be allowed to work together.

Part of Ramey's job was to monitor work performance, which at times required him to "hover" around individual employees. Patton, however, felt that Ramey was doing more than monitoring her work. She thought Ramey was always leering at her, staring at her body as she knelt, crouched, and bent over while working in the RVs. She also thought that Ramey spent an inordinate amount of time around her. This account was corroborated by Miller (the assistant plant manager), who averred that Ramey spent an unusual amount of time around Patton. Miller thought Ramey "seemed obsessed" with Patton and "acted like a disturbed man" around her.

Ramey also touched Patton inappropriately. The first (and most serious incident) occurred when she was wearing shorts, crouching in the doorway of a nearly finished RV. As she finished cleaning that portion of the vehicle, she spun around, legs open to the outside. Ramey was standing there, presumably observing her work, and he slid his hand under Patton's shorts, up her inner thigh, while commenting that her legs were smooth. His hand went as far as her underwear, at which point Patton fell backwards to break the contact. On another occasion, Patton was on her knees cleaning the floor of an RV and was working backward toward the door to the outside. Ramey was standing right outside of the RV, and he put his hand on her calf as she reached the doorway. Another incident occurred in the bedroom area of an RV. As Patton was squatting down to repair carpet, Ramey crouched down behind her and put his arm on her back with his hand near her neck. He then placed his face quite close to her ear and told her to meet him for a drink. Patton declined and squirmed away from him.

After the first instance of physical contact, Patton began to have panic attacks. Moreover, she became very nervous whenever Ramey was around her. She was worried all the time at work that Ramey would "sneak up" and touch her. She felt that her work environment was unsafe and she spent her days in fear, looking over her shoulder for Ramey. Nevertheless, Patton also testified at her deposition that the stress did not affect her ability to do her job in a timely manner. In fact, she thought the stress made her work harder and faster.

At the time of these events, the Elkhart plant was in the process of being phased out and all of its employees were either being terminated or moved to a new plant in Goshen. In November of 2002, Patton was told that Ramey wanted her to transfer to Goshen. She was not happy about the assignment because it would interfere with her children's daycare schedules. Patton also felt that a transfer to Goshen would mean more contact with Ramey. She thought the transfer "was a sexual thing and [Ramey] wanted [her] close to him." She requested to stay at Elkhart, but Ramey refused. When she first reported to work at Goshen on a Monday morning, Ramey was waiting at the door to greet her. He put his arm around her waist, letting his hand fall down toward her buttocks, and guided her while saying "you sure brighten up the place."

Not everyone at Goshen was so happy to see Patton. Another employee had been demoted because of Patton's arrival. An angry confrontation ensued on Patton's second day of work, with that employee claiming that Patton was being favored because of a sexual relationship with Ramey. After this incident Patton went to Miller (who had previously been transferred to Goshen) crying. He advised Patton to go back to the Elkhart plant to discuss the situation with Weaver. Patton left for Elkhart, but she was afraid she might run into Ramey. So instead of just going into the plant, she went to a security checkpoint outside of the plant and asked them to call for Weaver to come meet her. Weaver did not come, but Ramey did, and he told her to go back to work at the Goshen plant. Patton went home, and never returned to work at Keystone.

II. ANALYSIS

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing all facts in the light most favorable to Patton. Moser v. Ind. Dep't of Corr., 406 F.3d 895, 900 (7th Cir.2005). We are asked to decide whether Patton was subjected to a "hostile work environment," and, if so, whether that environment was sufficiently egregious so as to justify a finding of constructive discharge.

Title VII protects against employees being subjected to a workplace so permeated with harassment on the basis of sex that the conditions of employment are altered and a "hostile" (or "abusive") work environment is created. Id. at 902 (citations omitted). "The work environment cannot be described as `hostile' for purposes of Title VII unless a reasonable person would find it offensive and the plaintiff actually perceived it as such." Hostetler v. Quality Dining, Inc., 218 F.3d 798, 807 (7th Cir.2000) (citing Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 787-88, 118 S.Ct. 2275, 141 L.Ed.2d 662 (1998)).

The district court assumed Patton subjectively found her workplace to be hostile, and Keystone does not take issue with that ruling. Thus, our only task is to determine whether a reasonable person would have considered Patton's work environment hostile. We perform that task by evaluating all the circumstances. Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21-23, 114 S.Ct. 367, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993).

Not all offensive conduct violates federal law; Title VII is not a civility code. Hostetler, 218 F.3d at 807 (citing Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 80, 118 S.Ct. 998, 140 L.Ed.2d 201 (1998)). A hostile work environment is created when the conduct at issue is "sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the [victim's] employment and create an abusive working environment." Saxton v. Am. Tel. & Tel. Co., 10 F.3d 526, 533 (7th Cir.1993) (quoting Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 65, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986) (internal quotations omitted)). Our precedent provides some guidance on how to evaluate the severity of harassment:

On one side lie sexual assaults; other physical contact, whether amorous or hostile, for which there is no consent express or implied; uninvited sexual solicitations; intimidating words or acts; obscene language or gestures; pornographic pictures. On the other side lies the occasional vulgar banter, tinged with sexual innuendo, of coarse or boorish workers . . . .

Baskerville v. Culligan Int'l Co., 50 F.3d 428, 430 (7th Cir.1995) (citations omitted). One very severe act of harassment might create a hostile environment, Hostetler, 218 F.3d at 808, but that would be the rare case. In the typical case, it is a combination of severity and frequency that reaches the level of actionable harassment.

The conduct alleged in this case occurred over the course of approximately one month and consists of (1) four instances of physical contact, (2) a few sexually charged comments, and (3) alleged stalking. The most serious of these is the inappropriate touching. When entering a workplace, reasonable people expect to have their autonomy circumscribed in a number of ways; but giving up control over who can touch their body is usually not one of them. With that being said, it is certainly true that "[p]hysical harassment lies along a continuum just as verbal harassment does." Id. The mere existence of physical contact does not create a hostile environment. Casual contact that might be expected among friends—"[a] hand on the shoulder, a brief hug, or a peck on the cheek"—would normally be unlikely to create a hostile environment in the absence of aggravating circumstances such as continued contact after an objection. Id. And "[e]ven more intimate or more crude...