Samedi v. Miami-Dade County

• Decision Date: 26 January 2001
• Docket Number: No. 98-3055-CIV.,98-3055-CIV.
• Parties: Francoise SAMEDI, Plaintiff, v. MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida

134 F.Supp.2d 1320

Francoise SAMEDI, Plaintiff, v. MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, et al., Defendants.

No. 98-3055-CIV.

United States District Court, S.D. Florida.

January 26, 2001.

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Patricia Clarice Ellis, Patricia C. Ellis, Opa-Locka, FL, for Francoise Samedi, plaintiff.

Thomas A. Tucker Ronzetti, Dade County Attorney's Office, Miami, FL, for Miami-Dade County, Donald Godwin, Lem Jones, David White, defendants.

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANTS' MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

HOEVELER, Senior District Judge.

THIS CAUSE comes before the Court upon various dispositive motions. The Court heard oral arguments on these motions on January 13, 2000. Having been advised in the premises, it is hereby ORDERED AND ADJUDGED as follows:

(I) Defendant David White's Motion for Summary Judgment, filed September 10, 1999, is GRANTED with regard to Counts VI and IX of the Second Amended Complaint.

(II) Defendants Donald Godwin and Lem Jones's [joint] Motion for Summary Judgment, filed November 24, 1999, is GRANTED with regard to Counts VII and VIII of the Second Amended Complaint.

(III) Defendant Miami-Dade County's Motion for Summary Judgment, filed November 24, 1999, is GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. The motion is granted with respect to Counts III, IV, V, X, XI, XIII, of the Second Amended Complaint. The motion is denied regarding Counts I, II, and XII of the Second Amended Complaint.

(IV) Defendants Don Godwin and Lem Jones's [joint] Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings, filed August 27, 1999, is GRANTED with regard to Count XV of the Second Amended Complaint.

Background

Plaintiff is a black woman who arrived in Miami, Florida from her native Haiti in 1992. Shortly after her arrival in Miami, Plaintiff found employment through various temporary agencies. These agencies secured work for Plaintiff as a temporary employee in the Trash Division of the Solid Waste Management Department of Metro Dade County ("County"), beginning in 1992 and continuing at least until 1999. See Deposition of Samedi, Vol. 1 at p. 26, l. 12.¹ Plaintiff registered with these employment agencies at one of the County's Trash Division offices. Plaintiff has received her paychecks from the various temporary employment agencies that employ her, and not from County. At no time has Plaintiff ever been hired as a County employee.

When Plaintiff began working at County, she spoke only Creole. She completed four years of formal schooling while in Haiti. At all times relevant to the instant case, Plaintiff spoke and understood very little English² and was unable to read English. Plaintiff's lawsuit stems from numerous incidents of heinous sexual assaults that two County employees, Lem Jones and Donald Godwin, allegedly committed against her at various times beginning in September 1992 and ending, at the latest, by August 25, 1997. See Deposition of Samedi, Vol. II at p. 147-48 (testifying that she has not had any improper encounters with Godwin or Jones after August 25, 1997). For the purposes of summary judgment, the Court shall construe the following facts in the light most favorable to Plaintiff as the non-moving party on summary judgment. See Rollins v. Tech-South, Inc., 833 F.2d 1525, 1528 (11th Cir. 1987).

During the time period when she was subjected to the events underlying the instant case, Plaintiff was routinely assigned job duties both "in the field" and in office environments. In the field, Plaintiff rode on a clean-up truck that visited different dumping stations. She also worked with crane operators who used their machines to collect trash from residential areas or from the side of the road. Plaintiff functioned as a grounds person, responsible for picking up trash from those areas. During her assignments in the offices at County, Plaintiff performed custodial tasks. On more than two occasions, she was instructed to clean and cook fish that County employees brought to the office.

From September of 1992 until August 25, 1997, Lem Jones was a County employee working as a trash crane operator for the Trash Division of the Solid Waste Department. Donald Godwin was also a County employee within the Trash Division, working as a Waste Supervisor I.³ In the course of her work at County, Plaintiff came into contact with both Jones and Godwin. Plaintiff does not remember the number of incidents nor the particulars of every incident, however, Jones and Godwin separately forced Plaintiff to have sex with each of them, separately, on many occasions during working hours.⁴ Both Jones and Godwin told Plaintiff that she had to submit to them because they were her superiors at work. Plaintiff feared that she would be fired if she did not comply. She also believed that County would permanently hire her if she engaged in sex with Jones and Godwin. See Plaintiff's Statement of Material Facts in Support of Plaintiff's Memorandum of Law in Opposition to Defendants' Motions for Summary Judgment at ¶ 17 (describing Plaintiff's fear of losing her job, as well as her "embarrassment and shame," as reasons why she did not report Jones and Godwin's abuse of her) (internal citations omitted).

Approximately two weeks after Plaintiff began working at County in September 1992, and until sometime in 1996, Lem Jones forced Plaintiff to have sex with him. The first incident happened at work while Plaintiff and Jones were in the cab of a trash crane vehicle. See Deposition of Samedi, Vol. I at p. 42, l. 23 to p. 43, l. 1. While Plaintiff fought against Jones, he pushed her, told her that he was her boss, and had forced sexual relations with her. Not until August 25, 1997, nearly five years after the incident, did Plaintiff lodge a complaint with anyone at County regarding what Jones had done to her on that day or at any other time.

On another occasion, Jones forced Plaintiff to have sex with him at a motel during their lunch break from work. Plaintiff did not tell anyone about this event for fear that she would lose her job. At another time, Jones removed Plaintiff's underwear and he, along with another co-worker, paid a female passerby "to stick her tongue in [Plaintiff's] private" against Plaintiff's will. See id., Vol. III at p. 30, l. 19. On yet another occasion, Jones instructed a male co-worker to remove his clothing. Jones then asked Plaintiff to join the nude man, but Plaintiff fled. In addition to these events, Jones would refuse to take Plaintiff to a restroom while they worked together in the field; Plaintiff would have to urinate on public streets, sometimes while Jones watched her.

For unspecified reasons, Plaintiff stopped working on Jones's crew in 1996. Thereafter, Jones no longer forced sexual encounters on Plaintiff. Even once Plaintiff resumed work on Jones's crew in 1997, Jones did not have any further sexual contact with Plaintiff. However, sometime in 1996 or 1997, Donald Godwin began to force sexual relations⁵ on Plaintiff. One incident occurred in the bathroom of an office at the Trash Division's 58th Street site in Miami. Plaintiff tried to fight Godwin, but he physically overwhelmed her, threatened to fire her if she did not comply, and forced her to perform fellatio on him. Perhaps a month later, Godwin forced sexual relations on Plaintiff in a "box house" where cleaning supplies were stored. Godwin threw Plaintiff to the floor, told her that he was her boss and/or her supervisor, and threatened her that he was going to fire her if she did not submit. As he committed the sexual act, Godwin called Plaintiff a "Haitian dumb." See id., Vol. II at p. 117, l. 25.

At another time, Godwin ostensibly was to drive Plaintiff home in one of the County's cars so she could get footwear more appropriate for her working conditions. Instead of proceeding to Plaintiff's home, Godwin parked the car in a wooded area and forced Plaintiff to have non-consensual sex on the ground outside the car. Sometimes while Godwin worked on Jones's crew, Godwin would come out to the field where Plaintiff worked, telling her that he had work for her to do. Several times, "when he got to the truck with me, sometimes he would get his pants down and he asked me to suck his private." Id., Vol. II at p. 123, l. 5-6. In addition, Godwin once took Plaintiff to his friend's home where Godwin had forcible sex with Plaintiff. Afterward, Plaintiff "tried" to tell Jones that Godwin had taken her to his friend's home and had sex with her, but Plaintiff believes that Jones did not understand her English. See id., Vol. II at 126, l. 5-16. Plaintiff admits that she told no supervisors or human resources personnel at County until August 25, 1997, about what Godwin had repeatedly done to her.

Plaintiff interviewed for a permanent job with County in March 1997, and on two other occasions.⁶ See id., Vol. III at p. 17, l. 21-22. That position required communication skills such that the employee can both "instruct[] citizens in backing their vehicles in order to dump their trash" and orally "inform[] the public as to the procedures for dumping." Exhibit 1 to Declaration of Cecilia Brewer. The position also requires an eighth grade education. See id. Plaintiff did not receive an offer for this position, yet she continued working at County as a temporary employee.

Matters between Plaintiff and County came to a head on August 25, 1997 when Alonzo Wright, a County employee, told Plaintiff and several other temporary workers that no work was available for them that day. Plaintiff and the other workers went to see Defendant White about the reduction in their work hours. White referred them back to Mr. Wright, who provided no response. The group was apparently directed to the office of Pamela Payne, Chief of the Human Resources Division for County's Department of Solid Waste Management. At that point, Plaintiff divulged to Ms. Payne the allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment against Jones...