Phillips v. Bowen
| Decision Date | 24 January 2002 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 00-7525. |
| Citation | 278 F.3d 103 |
| Parties | Pamela J. PHILLIPS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James BOWEN, individually and in his capacity as Sheriff of the County of Saratoga, M.T. Woodcock, individually and in his capacity as Chief Deputy Sheriff of the County of Saratoga, William S. Baker, individually and in his capacity as personnel director of the County of Saratoga, and the County of Saratoga, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
John W. Bailey, Ainsworth, Sullivan, Tracy, Knauf, Warner and Ruslander, P.C. (Rebecca A. Slezak, on the brief), Albany, NY, for Appellants.
John D. Charles, Clifton Park, NY, for Appellee.
Before: McLAUGHLIN and POOLER, Circuit Judges, and MARTIN, District Judge.*
Defendants James Bowen and M.T. Woodcock appeal from the March 31, 2000, judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Lawrence E. Kahn, Judge) in favor of plaintiff Pamela J. Phillips. A trial jury found that defendants, who were plaintiff's work supervisors, retaliated against Phillips after she exercised her First Amendment rights, but the same jury rejected Phillips' claims of sexual harassment. On her retaliation claim, Phillips had to show, among other things, that she suffered an adverse employment action at the hands of defendants. While we acknowledge that the trial proof on this issue was close, we hold that the evidence before the jury was sufficient. We thus do not disturb the jury's factual findings regarding liability. We also hold that the jury's award of $400,000 in damages was not excessive.
Beginning in 1978, Phillips worked in the Saratoga County Sheriff's Department, where she held different jobs, including that of civil deputy. Bowen was Saratoga County sheriff, which is an elected position, and Woodcock was chief deputy sheriff. In a lawsuit filed on April 2, 1996, Phillips claimed that defendants violated 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 when they harassed her at work because she supported the 1993 election campaign of Christopher Morrell, who contested for Bowen's job and lost. Phillips also alleged in her complaint that defendants discriminated against her on the basis of her gender in violation of Title VII.
In a memorandum-decision and order dated February 9, 1998, the district court granted partial summary judgment to defendants regarding plaintiff's claims that they denied her promotional opportunities and certain economic benefits in retaliation for her political support of Morrell. A jury heard Phillips' remaining allegations during a two-week trial in February 1998. The jury ruled in favor of defendants on the sex discrimination claims, which are not part of this appeal. We therefore discuss here the evidence that the jury heard in support of Phillips' claims of retaliation.
In early 1993, Phillips decided to support the campaign of Morrell for sheriff. She informed Bowen of her decision, and shortly thereafter Bowen stated during an office meeting that "for those of you gathering [nominating] petitions, there is only one politician in this department, and that's me." Phillips took this comment as a direction from Bowen for her to stop her political activity in favor of Morrell, and when she asked Bowen about it, he responded by asking if she had a "guilty conscience." During the campaign, a news story appeared indicating that the department failed to issue a bullet-proof vest to Phillips, contrary to Bowen's claim that all of his deputies had the equipment. In mid-October, Bowen and Woodcock made efforts to order Phillips a bullet-proof vest, which arrived in March 1994. By this time, Morrell had lost the election, and Bowen retained his office. The vest that Phillips received lacked a "carrier" allowing it to be worn outside of her shirt, so defendants ordered her to wear it under her shirt even though it did not fit comfortably under the uniform. According to Phillips, for two weeks — until she could order and receive larger uniform shirts — defendants forced her to wear the vest under her shirt irrespective of the fact that she couldn't fasten the center button of her shirt and had to appear in public in that way. At one time, defendants cited Phillips for not wearing her vest under her shirt. Plaintiff did not receive a carrier for her vest until two years later.
In September 1993, Phillips' supervisors directed her to make an unusual warrant arrest in which Phillips was to transfer a prisoner to Albany County for processing. Phillips made the arrest. But when Phillips called her office twice for help in making necessary calls to Albany officials, Bowen indirectly and then directly refused to assist her and told Phillips "to do [her] goddamn job and stop calling and... bothering the women [in his office]." Phillips ultimately had to release the prisoner.
Also after the election, in December 1994, Phillips testified that she responded to a dispatcher's call and a citizen who flagged her down to help subdue a man who was having an adverse reaction to medication. While she was at the scene, however, Woodcock ordered her to leave, which she did. Afterwards, a sergeant told her for the first time that she was not supposed to "handle calls." Phillips asked Bowen to explain what this new directive meant, and he first told her not to handle calls and then told her to "use [her] head" in deciding whether to respond to a call.
In addition to these specific instances, Phillips testified that she endured additional retaliation. For example, she stated that other members of the department with whom she had been friendly before the 1993 election "shunned" her because they were afraid of Bowen's potential retaliation. As a result of this conduct, Phillips was cut off from social interaction with her peers. On another occasion in December 1994, defendants initially denied her overtime pay because she had not obtained prior approval, which they had not required previously. A short time later, in January 1995, Woodcock yelled at Phillips, calling her "insubordinate" and "stupid," because she punched her time card at 2:02 instead of 2 p.m. During this incident, which took place in front of Phillips' co-workers, "he proceeded to demonstrate the workings of a clock, where the little hand had to be and the big hand had to be." In January 1996, Woodcock and a lieutenant conducted a "counseling session" with Phillips during which they admonished her for, among other things, not using a radio to sign in and out of service even though she had told the lieutenant that the radio in the car to which defendants assigned her was broken and irreparable.
Phillips' co-workers testified that they observed a change for the worse in the way the department administration treated Phillips and testified that the treatment took a toll on Phillips such that "she's basically a different person." Phillips herself said that defendants' conduct made her feel like a fool and that she could not depend on Bowen to make decisions necessary for her to perform her job. Plaintiff testified that the pressure and stress she experienced even affected her ability to shoot and possibly pass firing range certifications, which were required for her to keep her job. Phillips said that defendants' conduct caused her stress so that she cried excessively, was sick to her stomach, had diarrhea, and avoided going to work. Phillips' boyfriend testified that plaintiff came home from work crying many nights, was ill in the bathroom two or three hours every night, found it difficult to handle the pressure of dealing with her work superiors, and "there's a lot of things that we were doing before that we really can't do now because a lot of times she doesn't feel good, upset stomach and just nervous."
The jury ruled in favor of plaintiff on her retaliation claim and awarded damages of $400,000 by assessing $200,000 each against Bowen and Woodcock. The district court denied defendants' motions for judgment as a matter of law and a new trial, and defendants now appeal. We review de novo the district court's decision regarding a motion for judgment as a matter of law, and we review the district court's decision regarding a motion for a new trial for abuse of discretion. Song v. Ives Labs., Inc., 957 F.2d 1041, 1046-47 (2d Cir.1992).
Defendants principally argue that Phillips failed to prove a violation of her First Amendment rights as a matter of law because her complaints and allegations concern her subjective beliefs of mistreatment and trivial incidents not amounting to actionable retaliation or harassment. According to defendants, the treatment that Phillips experienced "can be deemed incidents that normally occur in a working environment." We disagree. Although defendants have attempted to minimize and isolate the experiences about which Phillips testified, the jury was entitled to conclude that Phillips adequately described a pattern of nearly constant harassment by her supervisors that took place over a period of several years.
As is so often the case, the standard of review plays a critical role in our assessment of the record. As noted, we review de novo the district court's decision regarding a motion for judgment as a matter of law, applying the same Fed.R.Civ.P. 50 standard as the district court below. Song, 957 F.2d at 1046. Under that stringent standard, we do not weigh the credibility of witnesses or the evidence and grant judgment as a matter of law only where there is "such a complete absence of evidence supporting the verdict that the jury's findings could only have been the result of sheer surmise and conjecture, or... [there is] such an overwhelming amount of evidence in favor of the movant that reasonable and fair minded men could not arrive at a verdict against him." Id. (quotation marks and citation...
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