Settle v. Baltimore County
| Decision Date | 20 January 1999 |
| Docket Number | Civil No. AMD 97-651.,Civil No. AMD 96-2850. |
| Citation | 34 F.Supp.2d 969 |
| Parties | Calvin Westley SETTLE, Plaintiff, v. BALTIMORE COUNTY, Maryland, Michael Darrell Gambrill, Ronald Earp, Minda Foxwell, Howard Hall and Mary K. Ward, Defendants. Keith Harris, Plaintiff, v. Baltimore County, Maryland, Michael Darrell Gambrill, Ronald Earp, Minda Foxwell and Paul Franzoni, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
Gary Howard Simpson, Bethesda, MD, for Calvin Westley Settle.
Rebecca N. Strandberg, Bethesda, MD, for Keith Harris.
Virginia W. Barnhart, County Attorney, and Paul M. Mayhew, Asst. County Atty., Towson, MD, for Defendants.
OPINION SUMMARY: None of plaintiffs' claims survive summary judgment. Despite the sheer multitude of allegations, plaintiffs are unable to produce a scintilla of direct evidence of intentional racial discrimination or retaliation. Thus, all of plaintiffs' intentional racial discrimination and retaliation claims must satisfy the well-known burden-shifting proof paradigm common to federal employment discrimination jurisprudence. With few exceptions, plaintiffs are unable to establish a prima facie case of intentional racial discrimination or retaliation.
At virtually every turn, the record shows that any inference of intentional racial discrimination or retaliation is fatally undercut by facts demonstrating either or both that (1) non-African American officers and officers who have not filed discrimination charges are subjected to the same alleged "employment injuries" as are plaintiffs, and (2) other African American officers enjoy the full range of benefits and privileges of employment as do non-African Americans. Moreover, even in those few instances in which a prima facie case is otherwise established, plaintiffs either (1) suffered no cognizable "employment injury" under Fourth Circuit case law, (2) failed to rebut defendants' showing of legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for the disputed acts, or (3) failed to support with admissible evidence, non-conclusory factual allegations sufficient to sustain their burden to show that race (or retaliation) was the true motivation for any of defendants' acts. Consequently, notwithstanding plaintiffs' sincerely held subjective beliefs that defendants targeted them for disparate treatment, a dispassionate and objective analysis of the summary judgment record, consonant with controlling legal principles, refutes their beliefs as a matter of law.
Plaintiffs' hostile work environment claims fare no better than their intentional racial discrimination and retaliation claims. With but one exception, the acts and omissions plaintiffs point to as constituting abusive and harassing conduct tending to create a racially hostile work environment have no racial nexus whatsoever. As a matter of law, moreover, the facially neutral acts plaintiffs find subjectively unwelcome and hurtful are (1) the normal incidents of supervision (and supervision — even aggressive and unfriendly supervision — does not equate to harassment), or (2) viewed objectively, as they must be, acts which are episodic and sporadic in character so as not to support a rational inference that a reasonable member of plaintiffs' protected class would find his or her workplace environment so abusive as to alter the terms and conditions of employment or interfere with one's ability to perform the duties of a police officer.
Accordingly, defendants are entitled to summary judgment on all claims.
Plaintiffs Calvin Westley Settle ("Settle") and Keith Harris ("Harris") are African American officers in the Baltimore County Police Department ("the Department"). They have filed separate actions against Baltimore County and several present and former supervisory officers alleging discrimination based on race and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Harris also alleged a conspiracy claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1985 and constitutional claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for deprivation of his rights to freedom of speech and association and equal protection under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.1 By order dated August 29, 1997, I consolidated these cases for the purposes of discovery, with a view to a likely joint trial.2 The close interrelationship of the plaintiffs' claims and their factual bases make it sensible to adjudicate the pending motions for summary judgment in one opinion, and I do so here.
Defendants have filed motions for summary judgment as to all claims on a multitude of grounds. The parties' exhaustively-briefed submissions have been carefully considered, and no hearing is necessary. Local Rule 105.6 (D.Md.1997). After setting forth the undisputed facts established by the parties' submissions (section II), I shall proceed to explicate the legal framework and doctrinal backdrop from which the plaintiffs' myriad claims arise (section IV). Specifically, I shall analyze separately the legal principles underlying the plaintiffs' Title VII (and § 1981) claims, to wit: (1) disparate treatment/discrete act; (2) disparate treatment/hostile environment; and, (3) retaliation. Thereafter, the legal framework of Harris's constitutional claims is briefly considered; those claims are not further discussed because they are manifestly without merit or simply redundant of the statutory claims. Finally, in section V, I shall apply the law to the undisputed facts as to the above three categories of claims. For the specific reasons stated in section V, I shall grant defendants' motion for summary judgment.
The facts are many. I will, of course, present the plaintiffs' versions of the facts wherever the parties' evidence conflicts, at least to the degree that plaintiffs' allegations have support in affidavits, depositions or other admissible documentary evidence. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). The summary judgment record includes many unsworn statements taken from, inter alia, rank and file police officers who worked in the same unit...
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