Spicer v. Beaman Bottling Co.
| Decision Date | 28 October 1996 |
| Citation | 937 S.W.2d 884 |
| Parties | 72 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1202 Judy G. SPICER, Plaintiff/Appellant, v. BEAMAN BOTTLING COMPANY, Bob Baker, and Don Hollingshead, Defendants/Appellees. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Joyce M. Grimes, Nashville, for Plaintiff/Appellant.
James W. Cameron, III, D. Alexander Fardon, Leilani Boulware Southard, Harwell, Howard, Hyne, Gabbert & Manner, P.C., Nashville, for Defendants/Appellees.
In this appeal, we are asked to determine whether the plaintiff's action under the Tennessee Human Rights Act was timely filed within the one-year statute of limitations. The trial court held that a hostile environment existed which did not end until plaintiff's termination, and that therefore her claim of sexual harassment was not barred. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that no act of sexual harassment occurred within the one-year period, and that the alleged retaliatory actions did not extend the statute under the continuing violation exception to the statute of limitations.
Resolution of this case requires an examination of the continuing violation doctrine first developed by the federal courts in their interpretation of analogous federal anti-discrimination legislation. It is an issue of first impression in this jurisdiction.
After a careful review of the relevant case law, we adopt the continuing violation doctrine which allows a plaintiff to challenge an ongoing, continuous series of discriminatory acts in their entirety as long as one of those discriminatory acts falls within the limitations period.
In this case, however, the record establishes that all acts of sexual harassment occurred more than one year before the plaintiff commenced this action. Accordingly, the continuing violation doctrine does not apply and the plaintiff's action is time-barred. The Court of Appeals' judgment is, therefore, affirmed.
Judy G. Spicer was employed as a quality control technician for defendant, Beaman Bottling Company, from July 9, 1990, until her discharge on June 27, 1991. Spicer was responsible for starting a bottling line each morning, monitoring the finished product passing by at a rate of 500 units per minute, controlling the product content, performing a battery of tests on the product about every thirty minutes to ensure compliance with the quality and safety guidelines, and documenting in writing the tests and their results.
Don Hollingshead supervised Spicer, and at some point after her employment, he began to ask her out on dates. She refused to go out with him, and after her first rejection of his advances, Spicer said that Hollingshead asked her out more frequently. On at least one occasion, he grabbed her, told her that he thought she "would kiss good" and that "she would be good." She continued to refuse his advances and advised him that she did not wish to go out with him. He made other sexual comments that embarrassed her and made her feel uncomfortable. Finally, on May 14, 1991, while Spicer was in the window-walled product testing laboratory, Hollingshead grabbed her and pulled her towards him. She asked him to stop, pulled away from him, and walked away.
After this episode, Spicer immediately complained to Tony Kowalski, the production manager at Beaman, who reported the complaint to Bob Baker, Beaman's operations manager. Baker called both Spicer and Hollingshead into his office. Baker testified that Spicer did not complain to him at that time about sexual harassment, but said only that Hollingshead had grabbed her arm, was picky, and did not trust her. Baker harshly reprimanded Hollingshead for grabbing Spicer's arm and advised Spicer that she needed to listen to her supervisor.
Spicer was not satisfied with Baker's response, and after reviewing the sexual harassment policy in her employee handbook, she met the following day with Lonnie Hillis, Beaman's director of personnel. She told Hillis about Hollingshead's frequent requests for dates and his unwelcome touches. At the end of the meeting, Spicer gave Hillis a handwritten statement in which she recounted the acts of sexual harassment by Hollingshead.
Hillis investigated Spicer's complaint and interviewed fourteen co-workers. His investigation showed that Hollingshead had asked Spicer to meet him at a country-western bar to dance; that Hollingshead had grabbed Spicer by the arm or sleeve as she was walking away from him on May 14, 1991; that several employees thought Spicer did not know how to perform her job; and that Hollingshead had allowed Spicer to be away from work and to arrive late or leave early excessively. Although Hillis did not confirm Spicer's claim of sexual harassment, he concluded from the investigation that neither Hollingshead nor Spicer were properly performing their jobs.
Hillis testified that after the investigation, he gave Hollingshead a written warning, placed him on a thirty-day probation, and advised him that he would be fired if he did not improve his supervisory performance or if he ever touched or suggested dancing to a co-worker again.
Hillis also gave Spicer a written warning for poor job performance, placed her on a thirty-day probation, and assigned her to a different production line for retraining and evaluation.
Spicer testified that following the grabbing incident on May 14, 1991, the sexual harassment ended. She testified that Hollingshead instead became "mad and cold." Spicer's co-workers testified that prior to the incident, Hollingshead had shown Spicer and other female employees preferential treatment by allowing them to leave early or come in late or to be excessively absent. After the incident, however, Spicer, as well as her co-workers, testified that Hollingshead made everyone work harder and strictly enforced Beaman's rules and policies.
Although Spicer previously had never been "written up" during her employment with Beaman, Hollingshead gave her a written warning on June 5, 1991, for failing to wear a baseball cap that was considered part of her uniform. She was also given warnings for being late to work on June 11, 12, 19 and 25, 1991. On the afternoon of June 25, 1991, Hollingshead saw that Spicer was away from her line when she was supposed to be performing product tests. Hollingshead looked for her and had her paged. Eventually, he observed Spicer returning from the employee parking lot, and when he inquired as to where she had been, Spicer said she had gone outside while the line was down to roll up the windows on her car. Spicer, however, had previously told a co-worker that she needed to go to the bank, and another co-worker told Hollingshead that he had seen Spicer driving in the parking lot. Suspicious, Hollingshead checked the windows on Spicer's car and found the driver's side window was down. When confronted, Spicer admitted that not all the required tests had been run on her line. Hollingshead gave Spicer a written warning for violating a company policy by leaving without notifying her supervisor or clocking out.
Hollingshead then reported the incident to Baker, and upon investigation, Baker determined that the production and test reports for Spicer's line showed that her line had run from 2:47 p.m. to 3:40 p.m. without anyone performing the necessary tests on 1,400 cases of soft drink. Baker confronted Spicer, concluded that she was being untruthful about her absence, and after consulting with Hillis and Beaman's general manager, John Cohea, and with their concurrence, Baker terminated Spicer's employment on June 27, 1991.
On June 22, 1992, Spicer filed this action pursuant to the Tennessee Human Rights Act against defendants Don Hollingshead, Bob Baker, and Beaman Bottling, alleging sexual harassment, retaliatory discharge, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. At the close of the proof, summarized above, the Chancellor submitted a special verdict form to the jury, which contained the following questions:
1) Did the Defendant Don Hollingshead sexually harass the Plaintiff?
2) When he discharged the plaintiff, did the Defendant Bob Baker retaliate against the Plaintiff because she complained about or opposed the sexual harassment?
3) If you answered Questions 1 or 2 "Yes," is Beaman Bottling Company liable to the Plaintiff? and
4) If you answered Questions 1 or 2 "Yes," fix the amount of damages to be awarded to the Plaintiff.
Following deliberations, the jury responded to Questions 1 and 3 in the affirmative, reported that it was unable to reach a verdict as to Question 2, which resulted in a mistrial on the claim of retaliatory discharge, and fixed damages in the amount of $50,000 against Hollingshead and Beaman Bottling Company in response to Question 4. The Chancellor entered a judgment on the verdict, and the plaintiff took a voluntary nonsuit as to the retaliatory discharge claim against Baker. Thereafter, the defendants Hollingshead and Beaman Bottling Company appealed the jury's verdict in favor of the plaintiff on her claim of sexual harassment.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals concluded that the last act of sexual harassment occurred on May 14, 1991, more than one year before the plaintiff filed this suit on June 22, 1992. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals held that plaintiff's action was time-barred. In so holding, the Court of Appeals rejected Spicer's claims that Hollingshead's alleged retaliatory actions from May 16, 1991, through June 27, 1991, were sufficient to establish the continuing violation exception to the statute of limitations. The Court of Appeals emphasized that the plaintiff admitted that she violated certain rules and policies of Beaman, and that it was these violations which resulted in the written reprimands she challenged. In addition, the intermediate court observed that Spicer testified that Hollingshead, from May 16, 1991, through June 27, 1991, made everyone work harder and comply with all the rules and policies of Beaman. The...
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