Robinson v. City of Lake Station

• Decision Date: 19 March 1986
• Docket Number: Civ. No. H 83-396.
• Citation: Robinson v. City of Lake Station, 630 F.Supp. 1052 (N.D. Ind. 1986)
• Parties: Karen I. ROBINSON, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF LAKE STATION, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana

630 F. Supp. 1052

Karen I. ROBINSON, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF LAKE STATION, Defendant.

Civ. No. H 83-396.

United States District Court, N.D. Indiana, Hammond Division.

March 19, 1986.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Ruth M. Hennage, Portage, Ind., for plaintiff.

James A. Greco, Merrillville, Ind., for defendant.

ORDER

MOODY, District Judge.

On February 4, 1986, a bench trial commenced in this action, brought by plaintiff Karen I. Robinson, against defendant City of Lake Station. The plaintiff alleged a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq. Both parties were represented by counsel. Having examined the entire record and having determined the credibility of the witnesses after viewing their demeanor and considering their interests, the Court hereby renders the following Findings of Fact and Conclusions of law pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a).

I. Findings of Fact

Plaintiff initiated her case by filing on June 15, 1981 a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. On May 24, 1983, the EEOC terminated its processing of plaintiff's charge and issued her a Notice of Right to Sue. The plaintiff then filed a complaint in this court on June 23, 1983.

The City of Lake Station hired Karen Robinson on September 18, 1979. She was hired by Isaac "Red" Loving and was assigned to the job of reading water meters under the supervision of Jim Barnes, the General Foreman. The plaintiff received no oral or written reprimands with regard to her performance as a meter reader; nor was she informed of any customer complaints about her work. Her supervisors never complained or commented to the plaintiff about poor work quality, attendance, or excessive talking on the job.

On January 16, 1980, Jim Barnes hand-delivered to the plaintiff a letter he had signed (Exhibit A) informing the plaintiff that, due to a lack of funds, she would be laid off as of that date. In this letter to Robinson, the City notified her that she would be contacted if funds became available. In March of 1980, Karen Robinson, who had not been rehired by the City, went to the office of George J. Boby, the General Superintendent of Public Works for the City of Lake Station. She spoke to Boby about the possibility of being rehired by the City and indicated to Boby that she had previous employment experience in a city sewer department. Although the plaintiff's original employment application was lost at some time after she filed it with the City of Lake Station in 1979, it too indicated that the plaintiff had previous work experience in the sewer department in the City of Portage, Indiana. At the March meeting with Boby, Robinson expressed an interest in working in the sewer department to which Boby responded that he did not hire women in the sewer department and made a joking comment as to whether Robinson was a "women's libber." She was not rehired at this time.

In May of 1980, Robinson returned to Boby's office to express an interest in being rehired by the City. She indicated her willingness to perform any type of work available and reminded Boby of her field experience with the City of Portage. After this meeting, the City rehired Robinson to mow grass. She operated a riding lawn mower and a hand-pushed lawn mower for two or three weeks and was then transferred to the job of yard attendent at the City dump. Boby told Robinson that she was being assigned to the position of yard attendant because he had discovered recordkeeping discrepancies there and needed someone "more competent" to perform the yard attendent duties. The plaintiff performed the yard attendent duties until July 31, 1980 when Boby orally informed her that she was again being laid-off because of a lack of funds and that the regular yard attendant was returning to work after his vacation.

Subsequent to the time Robinson was laid off in July of 1981, she contacted the City on several occasions to express her continued interest in employment with the City. She also engaged the aid of her political representative, then Councilman Don Miller, to request the City officials to rehire her. Miller met with Boby on Robinson's behalf at Boby's office and told Boby that Robinson was willing to take any position and requested that Boby rehire her. Boby then told Miller that he would not hire females for work on the garbage trucks because of a lack of bathroom facilities and unpleasant sanitary conditions.

Subsequent to the plaintiff's layoff of July 31, 1980, the defendant has hired nine male employees to perform "field work" for the City of Lake Station. The defendant also rehired for field work a male employee with one week less seniority than the plaintiff. The term "field work" describes outdoor work as opposed to indoor office or clerical work.

The defendant had no formal qualifications or formal job descriptions by which to assess the qualifications of its appplicants for field work positions. The City relied instead on the judgment of Boby to determine whether a particular applicant could fulfill the needs of a particular department. The department foreman would inform Boby of job openings and Boby decided upon a suitable person among the pending applicants. Boby had ultimate responsibility for hiring and firing City employees.

All ten employees the City hired for field work after Robinson's lay-off in July of 1980 were listed as "laborers" on their payroll records. Four of them were placed into a general "labor pool", five others were hired exclusively for work on the city garbage trucks, and one was hired exclusively to work as yard attendant at the city dump.

Employees in the labor pool were expected to perform mechanical and repair duties in any of the five departments under Boby's supervision. Because this often requires the laborers to repair city vehicles or assume on short notice, jobs in a different department, applicants with previous relevant work experience or abilities received hiring preference over applicants without training or skills. For example, of the four employees who were placed into the labor pool after Robinson's second lay-off, one was previously a welder, one was a mechanic and one had received training through the adult CETA (Comprehensive Employment Training Act, 29 U.S.C. § 801 et seq.) program and owned his own set of mechanics' tools and one had previously operated a water treatment facility. The fourth male employee, Steve Bogdon, was hired into the labor pool because Boby knew him personally and considered him especially ambitious and because he had a high school science background which would make him a good candidate for water treatment certification school in the future.

Although the plaintiff did not have significant mechanical skills or training, she did have previous experience as a laborer in the sewer department for the City of Portage. While working for the City of Portage, she gained experience in checking lift stations, painting, mowing grass, assisting in mechanical repairs on city vehicles, flushing sewer lines, and inspecting the laying of sewer lines. This work is similar to the type of work a laborer for the City of Lake Station would perform but did not prepare Robinson to perform the work of a skilled mechanic or welder.

The remaining six male employees who were hired after the plaintiff was laid off in July of 1980 did not possess any particular skills. Nor did the City of Lake Station formally specify job qualifications for the jobs these workers were hired to fill, one yard attendant at the city dump and five garbage truck packers. Robinson had previously performed the yard attendant duties and in doing so, never received a written or oral reprimand. Moreover, George Boby never heard any complaints or negative reports of Robinson's work at the dump until after this cause of action was filed and the City began investigating for reasons it had refused to rehire Robinson. In April of 1981, the regular yard attendant was replaced by Ray Wright, a male employee who weighed 600 pounds and was practically immobile. He had no special qualifications or relevant work experience and George Boby could not offer any explanation for hiring Ray Wright instead of rehiring Karen Robinson.

The position of garbage truck packer involves riding on the back of a garbage truck and unloading the contents of cans into the truck as the truck travels along its route through the city. This job required no extraordinary mechanical skills. It seems that the only qualification was the ability to lift trash cans and empty them into the truck quickly enough so as not to delay the truck in completing its scheduled route. Although several witnesses gave their subjective assessment that the trash cans were "heavy", only one witness with personal knowledge was asked to give an objective estimate of the weight of the garbage cans. This witness testified that the cans typically weighed between 25 and 70 pounds each.

Boby relied on his own judgment to determine whether a job applicant could adequately perform the garbage truck packer job. Boby took into consideration the applicant's height, weight, age, physical appearance and previous employment in deciding whether to hire that applicant. Of the four male employees hired to work as garbage truck packers since Robinson was laid off, three were "good-sized men" whom Boby considered qualified because of their size and for the physically demanding jobs they had previously held. One employee the defendant hired to work on the garbage truck, however, weighed 130 pounds and was only five feet two inches tall when Boby hired him. This employee had no particular skills and was not given any sort of physical test to determine whether he was qualified as a garbage truck packer despite his size. By objective standards, the plaintiff would have been more qualified as a garbage truck packer than he.

The defendant...