Thomas v. Ragland
| Decision Date | 14 July 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 03-C-343-C.,03-C-343-C. |
| Citation | 324 F.Supp.2d 950 |
| Parties | Kia THOMAS, Plaintiff, v. Enis RAGLAND, in his official and individual capacity; Wisconsin Municipal Mutual Insurance Company, a Wisconsin corporation; and the City of Madison, a governmental entity, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Wisconsin |
Timothy D. Edwards, Oregon, WI, for Plaintiff.
Michael J. Modl, Axley Brynelson, LLP, Madison, WI, for Defendant.
This civil rights action arises out of the same events as Owens v. Ragland, 313 F.Supp.2d 939 (W.D.Wis.2004), in which Selina Owens, a former coworker of plaintiff Kia Thomas in defendant City of Madison's affirmative action department, accused defendant Enis Ragland of sexually harassing her and then retaliating against her in various ways when she complained. In an opinion and order dated April 12, 2004, I concluded that Owens had failed to show that there were any genuine factual disputes for trial with respect to her claim for retaliation under the First Amendment. However, I concluded that Owens was entitled to present her harassment claim to a jury, which later found that Ragland had made sexual advances toward Owens but that his conduct had not been unwelcome to her.
In this case, plaintiff contends that both defendant Ragland and defendant City of Madison retaliated against her because she sided with Owens when Owens first came forward in 2000 and because she filed an ethics complaint against Ragland and a discrimination complaint against both Ragland and the City after Ragland became director of the affirmative action department in May 2003. Plaintiff asserts claims under both the First Amendment (via 42 U.S.C. § 1983) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e.
Defendants have filed a motion for summary judgment on all of plaintiff's claims. They advance multiple grounds for dismissal: plaintiff's speech is not protected under the First Amendment or Title VII; many of the actions about which plaintiff complains are not sufficiently severe to be actionable under federal law; plaintiff has failed to show a causal connection between any protected speech and adverse actions taken by defendants; and defendant Ragland is entitled to qualified immunity.
Defendants' motion will be granted in part and denied in part. Plaintiff's ethics and discrimination complaints were protected speech under both the First Amendment and Title VII. Further, there are genuine issues of material fact with respect to whether plaintiff's protected speech motivated defendants to reduce her duties, initiate and conduct investigations against her, restrict her access to the City's computer system and spread false rumors about her. Together, these actions could deter a reasonable person from exercising her rights under Title VII and the First Amendment. Finally, defendant Ragland is not entitled to qualified immunity on these claims. Plaintiff's remaining claims will be dismissed, for the reasons discussed below.
From the parties' proposed findings of fact and the record, I find that the following facts are undisputed.
In December 1999 or January 2000, plaintiff Kia Thomas began working in the City of Madison affirmative action department as a contract compliance clerk. Plaintiff was later promoted to "Secretary I". The "class description" for the "Secretary I" position provides:
This is responsible secretarial and administrative support work. Employees in this class exercise judgment and discretion in the performance of a variety of activities requiring the interpretation and/or application of policy. Secretary I's often serve as the first level of review and resolution on correspondence and personal contact, and independently gather information, draft routine correspondence, or take other appropriate action to assist managers in the most effective utilization of their time by relieving them of administrative detail. Work at this level may involve leadership responsibilities in coordinating the completion of assignments. Secretary I's typically work under the general supervision of a department or division head.
The position description for the "Secretary I" position in the affirmative action office lists additional duties, such as directing staff and interns, "manag[ing] overall office operations" and "establish[ing], review[ing], maintain[ing] and audit[ing] the work unit filing system and budget process."
Over time, Kirbie Mack, plaintiff's supervisor and the director of the affirmative action department until February 2003, delegated a number of responsibilities to plaintiff, including: budgeting for the department, staffing for the affirmative action commission, taking minutes at department meetings, coordinating work for the clerical pool and supervising clerical workers. As a result, plaintiff was given the "unofficial" title of "office manager." Through these additional duties, plaintiff was able to make important contacts with other management staff and department heads in the city.
Plaintiff was the "confidential secretary" for the director of the department. The confidential secretary deals with all forms of confidential personnel issues and has access to personnel files. The director and the confidential secretary must have a relationship of trust.
Defendant Enis Ragland was the chief of staff for Mayor Sue Bauman from April 1996 until April 2003. Since that time, Ragland has been the interim director for the affirmative action department.
Some time before the end of October 2000, Selina Owens, a coworker of plaintiff's in the affirmative action department, told plaintiff that defendant Ragland was making sexually inappropriate comments to her. (At this time, Ragland was still the mayor's chief of staff.) According to Owens, Ragland told her that he wanted to perform oral sex on her, that he imagined what sex between him and Owens would be like, that he could make her "come" without touching her, that she was an "undercover freak" with "sexual skills" and that he thought she must have "a sweet pussy." In addition, Owens showed plaintiff several emails that she believed were sexually suggestive. Plaintiff concluded that defendant Ragland was sexually harassing Owens. Plaintiff told Owens that she should "not allow it to continue."
Defendant Ragland invited plaintiff to lunch several times. She told him that she was married and had a child. When Owens reported her concerns to Mack, plaintiff went to Mack as well. Plaintiff told Mack that defendant Ragland was trying to hit on her while she was working, that he had invited her to lunch on multiple occasions but she did not want to go and that Ragland asked her, "Did you ever see something so good that you'd like to have but you know you can't?" (Defendants deny that Ragland made this remark, but not that plaintiff reported it to Mack.) Plaintiff told Mack that she believed Ragland used the department as "his playground" and that his interactions with her made her "uncomfortable."
After Owens and plaintiff talked to Mack, Mack went to the mayor. (The parties dispute whether Mack told the mayor that Ragland was sexually harassing employees in the affirmative action department or whether she told the mayor that he was "bothering" employees by spending too much time in the office.) As a result of this meeting, the mayor told Ragland not to visit the affirmative action department unless he had official business there.
Before Mack left the department in February 2003, she asked human resources to conduct a reclassification study of plaintiff's position. Reclassification may be justified when an employee is performing duties beyond those outlined in her job description. Reclassification may be accompanied by a pay increase.
Norman Davis was appointed interim director of the department after Mack left. Plaintiff retained her supervisory authority over Nancy Castillo (an employee in the affirmative action office), her responsibility over the budget and her responsibility to coordinate work assignments for the light duty and clerical pool. Although Davis reduced some of plaintiff's duties temporarily, Bauman told Davis to restore the duties that he had removed from her "until some issues are resolved."
David Cieslewicz became the mayor of the City of Madison in April 2003. When Mack learned that Cieslewicz was considering defendant Ragland to be the interim director of the affirmative action department, she contacted Lamarr Billups, an advisor to the mayor and close friend of Ragland. She told Billups that the City would have "a liability problem" if Ragland was given supervisory authority over plaintiff and Owens because they had complained about his behavior before.
Billups told Cieslewicz that there was a rumor involving defendant Ragland and female employees in the affirmative action department. Billups may have told Cieslewicz that the rumor involved "inappropriate romantic overtures." Cieslewicz asked either Billups or Janet Piraino, a member of the transition team, "to make sure that there wasn't anything to the allegations." (The parties do not propose any facts about what Billups or Piraino did, if anything, to investigate the allegations.) Cieslewicz appointed defendant Ragland as the interim director of the affirmative action office on April 21, 2003.
Between April 23-25, 2003, plaintiff, Owens and defendant Ragland attended a conference for the Wisconsin Association of Black Public Sector Employees, known as WABPSE. During this conference, Mary Ann Stalcup, the City's Director of Human Resources, received a telephone call from a news reporter, who told Stalcup about a sexual harassment allegation against Ragland. The...
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