Stevens v. Del Webb Communities, Inc., C.A. No. 9:05-2657-PMD-GCK.

• Citation: 456 F.Supp.2d 698
• Decision Date: 08 September 2006
• Docket Number: C.A. No. 9:05-2657-PMD-GCK.
• Parties: Susan K. STEVENS, Plaintiff, v. DEL WEBB COMMUNITIES, INC., Defendant.
• Court: United States District Courts. 4th Circuit. United States District Court of South Carolina

456 F.Supp.2d 698

Susan K. STEVENS, Plaintiff, v. DEL WEBB COMMUNITIES, INC., Defendant.

C.A. No. 9:05-2657-PMD-GCK.

United States District Court, D. South Carolina, Beaufort Division.

September 8, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Robbie M. Nichols, Berta E. Nichols Law Office, Hilton Head, SC, for Plaintiff.

Jeffrey A. Lehrer, Ford and Harrison, Spartanburg, SC, Leanne C. Mehrman, Ford and Harrison, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant.

ORDER

DUFFY, District Judge.

This matter is before the court upon the Magistrate Judge's recommendation that this court grant Defendant Del Webb Communities, Inc.'s ("Del Webb" or "Defendant") motion for summary judgment. The record includes a Report and Recommendation ("R & R") of a United States Magistrate Judge, which was made in accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B). A party may object, in writing, to an R & R within ten days after being served with a copy of that report. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). Plaintiff has filed timely objections to the R & R.

BACKGROUND

On September 15, 2005, Plaintiff Susan K. Stevens ("Stevens" or "Plaintiff') filed her complaint against Defendant, wherein she alleges that she was disciplined and ultimately terminated on the basis of her sex in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000(e), et seq. On October 7, 2005, Del Webb answered Plaintiffs complaint, denying Plaintiffs substantive allegations. Thereafter, on April 10, 2006, Del Webb filed a motion for summary judgement, to which Plaintiff filed a response in opposition. Del Webb filed a reply to Plaintiffs response. Subsequently, at the request of the Magistrate Judge, the parties filed a joint factual brief. On June 20, 2006, the Magistrate Judge filed a 34-page R & R recommending that this court grant Del Webb's motion for summary judgement. Plaintiff filed objections to the R & R on July 10, 2006, and Defendant filed a response to Plaintiffs objections.

Pursuant to the parties' joint factual brief, the parties have agreed upon the following facts:

In January of 2003, Glenda Morgan ("Morgan"), Vice President of Sales for Del Webb, interviewed and hired Plaintiff as a sales associate; the employment relationship was at-will. During Stevens' tenure with Del Webb, all three of her supervisors, Morgan, Elizabeth Cain ("Cain"), and Joanne Sutcliffe ("Sutcliffe"), were women. On her first day of work, Stevens received and signed a job description setting forth her duties as an employee. This job description required Stevens "to communicate properly to the appropriate departments any customer request for information or services" and "to work efficiently and cheerfully in an environment which may be stressful, due to adversarial situations resulting from the performance of the department's mission."

Del Webb paid Stevens on commission for performing her job duties, which included showing and selling single-family homes, condos, and lots in Del Webb's Sun City development in Hilton Head, South Carolina. During the first year of Stevens' employment, she and a male sales associate, Art Kelly, became partners. Kelly and Stevens shared all commissions and split the seven-day work week so that one of them was in the office every day. It is undisputed that Kelly and Stevens were among the top in sales for their category.

During Stevens' employment, Del Webb conducted weekly sales meetings, at which management provided the staff with information regarding pricing, lot releases, home standards, and other business concerns. Morgan preferred that sales associates, regardless of their sex, did not raise issues in sales meetings because one of the reasons for sales meetings was to inspire the sales associates to prepare them to make sales. Stevens believed that during these meetings, management, particularly Morgan, "never cared to have any input from the sales people . . . Very unopen to any kind of new ideas, therefore if you broached a new subject with them[,] they would try to put you in your place, so to speak." Stevens claimed that even when male sales associates raised issues, management "might not always be nice about it, but sometimes they would say well, see me about that later . . . ." Stevens believed that Jack Tuney ("Tuney") could verify that "[Morgan] was never one to solicit opinions from salespeople and that when they did it would get shut down." Stevens testified that* Tuney had "learned not to say anything because he was afraid of [Morgan] as well." Tuney testified that "Stevens and I would both speak very openly in meetings, the morning meetings. I learned to stop. She never did."

Early in her employment, Stevens was counseled following a sales meeting in which she openly challenged management's pricing decisions. One of her supervisors, Cain, verbally warned her that the company "would not tolerate salespeople being disruptive, that it was none of [her] business how [properties were] priced, and if [she] was disruptive like that in the future she could be asked to leave."

At some point, Stevens informed management that "in California[,] we wouldn't dream of building a house without a smooth ceiling because you could never sell it." Stevens testified that she "would throw [this criticism] in a lot," so much so that it became a "joke" within the office and her co-workers began to refer to smooth ceilings as "California Susan ceilings." Ross Turpin stated that "[i]t seemed like in a majority of the sales meetings, [Stevens] would raise the issue of popcorn ceilings. She would not let it drop." Also, Reid McCall testified that "Stevens repeatedly brought up the issue of popcorn ceilings during sales meetings." Greg Price stated that, "[w]hile other sales associates may be outspoken, the difference was that [Stevens] was not outspoken in a diplomatic way. For example, when bringing up popcorn ceilings, she would say `my customers do not like them' and `that is not how they do it in California' in a tone of voice that was not diplomatic."

Stevens expressed her belief that the Sun City Development was "20 years behind the times." Stevens explained that Morgan did not understand that the property was behind the times because "she [was] not from the west where the west is more progressive in home building. California typically sets the standard for the rest of the country in home building contracts and everything else." One of Stevens' co-workers stated that "if a manager disagreed with her, she would say that out in California, we did it this way." Reid McCall testified that "Stevens could come across very mean during sales meetings," and Carole Richardson testified that she "truly remember[ed Stevens] as being challenging in sales meetings."

Stevens' managers believed that she disrupted sales meetings by engaging in distracting conversation with co-workers. On one occasion, Stevens disrupted a meeting by talking with a co-worker, and at the next meeting, Morgan asked Stevens to sit in front with her so she would not talk. Ross Turpin stated that while he believed that separating Stevens "was totally unprofessional, this may have been a knee jerk reaction to [Stevens'] constant badgering." Turpin stated that a couple of times, he had been afraid that Stevens would be asked to leave the meeting.

Melba Burns Windham thought being separated was humiliating for Stevens. While Windham felt that Morgan "relates better to men than she does with women," Windham believed that "we all relate to a particular gender better than we do to the other," and that it is "not necessarily a negative or a positive." Windham testified that Morgan was a good manager and that she did not think Morgan was capable of deliberately discriminating because of "sex, race, or anything like that." Stevens testified that she was not humiliated by being separated at the meeting because she was "pretty thick skinned." During the sales meetings that Stevens attended, she did not recall male sales associates being asked to sit in the front of the room. However, Morgan recalls asking male sales associate Mike Martin to move to the front of the room to prevent him from talking during a meeting, and Veronica Cadman recalls Morgan asking male associate Rick Malone to move to the front of the room during a sales meeting. According to Plaintiff, on other occasions, Morgan sat between male associates to prevent them from talking during meetings.

On March 31, 2004, Stevens received a performance evaluation completed by Morgan. The evaluation indicated that Stevens needed to improve her performance in five areas: (1) Core Values, defined as "[c]ommunicating and living by a set of non-negotiable core values; helping to define and apply the work group and organization's culture, value and ethics;" (2) Agreement, defined as "[b]uilding consensus, developing win-win solutions, resolving situational conflicts;" (3) Organizational Learning, defined as "[a]nticipating problems and trends, seeking continuous improvement, learning from mistakes;" (4) Vision, defined as "[u]nderstanding organizational vision and applying it to person vision, inspiring others;" and (5) Strategic Direction, defined as "[b]uying into corporate strategic initiatives, focusing on steps necessary to achieve strategy." Morgan believed that Stevens was not a good employee because, despite her sales goals, these were "very strong points [ ] that needed to be improved upon." Stevens does not claim that any other sales associate received more favorable treatment in his or her evaluation.

In July of 2004, Stevens had an incident with Heddy McCraw, a decorator for Del Webb. Specifically, while McCraw was adding flower arrangements to the lobby as Morgan had instructed her to do, Stevens asked McCraw "do we have to have big flower arrangements like that? Why can't we stick to the small flower arrangements?" Stevens had no authority over McCraw or the decor of the model. Sutcliffe testified that McCraw was so upset about the incident that sh...