Trustees of Health v. Com'n against Discr.

• Citation: 871 N.E.2d 444,449 Mass. 675
• Decision Date: 10 August 2007
• Docket Number: SJC-09811.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: TRUSTEES OF HEALTH AND HOSPITALS OF The CITY OF BOSTON, INC. v. MASSACHUSETTS COMMISSION AGAINST DISCRIMINATION & others.<SMALL><SUP>1</SUP></SMALL>

871 N.E.2d 444

449 Mass. 675

TRUSTEES OF HEALTH AND HOSPITALS OF The CITY OF BOSTON, INC. v. MASSACHUSETTS COMMISSION AGAINST DISCRIMINATION & others.¹

SJC-09811.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued April 5, 2007.

Decided August 10, 2007.

Anne L. Josephson, Boston (Marc L. Breakstone with her) for Gloria Coney.

Christine M. Hayes (John M. Townsend, Boston & Fatema Fazendeiro with her) for the plaintiff.

Martin S. Ebel, for Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, was present but did not argue.

Kelly M. Bonnevie, Newton, for Veronica Higginbottom & others, was present but did not argue.

Patricia A. Washinenko & Rebecca G. Pontikes, for American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts & others, amici curiae, submitted a brief.

Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, & CORDY, JJ.

SPINA, J.

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) adopted a hearing commissioner's determination that the Trustees of Health and Hospitals of the City of Boston, Inc. (Trustees), unlawfully discriminated against the five individual complainants on the basis of their race (African-American) and gender (female) by subjecting them to harsh treatment in the implementation of layoffs on July 19 and 20, 1994²; and awarded them damages for emotional distress, plus attorney's fees and costs. The Trustees sought judicial review under G.L. c. 151B, § 6. A judge in the Superior Court allowed the Trustees' motion for judgment on the pleadings, see Superior Court Standing Order 1-96, and vacated the MCAD's decision on the ground that the complainants had not established a prima facie case because, in his view, they had not shown that they were situated similarly to a Caucasian male who was laid off at the same time, but not subjected to the same harsh treatment. The Appeals Court reversed the judgment of the Superior Court and ordered entry of a judgment affirming the MCAD's decision awarding damages, fees, and costs, but it modified the MCAD decision by ordering reinstatement of the hearing commissioner's award of prejudgment interest. Trustees of Health & Hosps. of Boston, Inc. v. Massachusetts Comm'n Against Discrimination, 65 Mass.App.Ct. 329, 339, 839 N.E.2d 861 (2005). We granted the Trustees' application for further appellate review, limiting the scope of review to issues concerning whether the Trustees discriminated against the complainants. For substantially the reasons stated by the Appeals Court, we conclude that the judgment of the Superior Court must be vacated.³ We also conclude that the complainants are entitled to prevail on the merits of their claims and affirm the decision of the MCAD, as modified.

1. Facts. The following is a summary of the facts found by the hearing commissioner. The Trustees operated several community-based health programs in Boston, and had a central office on Massachusetts Avenue. One such program was the Healthy Baby/Healthy Child Program (HBHC) in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston. The five complainants were employed by the Trustees at the Hyde Park site during July, 1994, at the time they were laid off.

In the fall of 1993, Marjorie Perkins, HBHC program director, became aware of funding restrictions that would affect the program. Some time after mid-June, 1994, the Trustees assigned Teri McNamara, director of labor relations, to assist Perkins in planning a layoff of employees yet to be determined. Perkins and McNamara had numerous conversations in preparation for the layoffs. Perkins determined who would be laid off. Under the procedure to be followed, all selected employees would receive no advance notice,⁴ and they would be monitored as they gathered their belongings. On July 11, 1994, Perkins sent a memorandum to one of the Trustees' upper level managers in which she identified eight employees, including the complainants, selected to be laid off.⁵

At approximately 4:30 P.M. on July 19, 1994, McNamara summoned Gloria Coney and Marlene Hinds to Perkins's office at the Hyde Park site, informed them that they were being laid off effective immediately, and that they were to leave by 5 P.M.

McNamara monitored Hinds as she packed her belongings. Hinds's daughters happened to be present and asked their mother if she was being monitored because the employer thought she might steal something. Hinds felt numb and humiliated during the process. She felt she had been treated like a common thief in the presence of her daughters and coworkers. One of her daughters had to take her home because she was in no condition to drive. She was treated by a physician for resulting problems.

Coney's departure was monitored by Steve O'Brien. He inspected her belongings as she packed, and he grabbed her lunch bag to inspect its contents. Perkins was present part of the time, and she examined Coney's lunch bag. O'Brien told Coney she could remove nothing issued by the Trustees. Coworkers cried as they looked on and asked if Hinds and Coney were being taken to jail. Coney felt humiliated, mortified, and angry at being treated like a criminal. She did not have an opportunity to say goodbye to her coworkers because she had to go to her second job. She obtained permission to return and finish packing the next day, which she did while being monitored by Jacqueline Nolan, associate director of the HBHC program. She cried "all night long," feeling that her employer had acted on a presumption "that black women steal things" and had treated her accordingly. When she learned that Christopher Navin, a white male who also was laid off, had not been monitored while he gathered his belongings and was allowed to move about the building freely, she felt angry and "lower than low."

Victoria Higginbottom, Belinda Chambers, and Betty Smith did not work on July 19, 1994. As with Hinds and Coney, the Trustees had not given them advance notice of the layoffs. On the morning of July 20, 1994, McNamara summoned Higginbottom, Chambers, and Smith to Perkins's office and told them they were being laid off, effective immediately. Marcus DeFlorimonte monitored Higginbottom as she packed her belongings while coworkers looked on. She felt degraded and "stripped of her dignity," a source of stress that exacerbated a preexisting medical problem and contributed to a new problem that required surgery.

Smith was monitored by O'Brien as she gathered her personal effects. She was unable to pack all her belongings and had to leave photographs and certificates behind. She was too upset to return and retrieve those items later. She felt deeply disturbed, humiliated, and saddened by the manner in which she was laid off, and she received medical treatment for certain resulting problems.

McNamara stood at Chambers's desk and pulled papers out of her hands as she packed. McNamara "boss[ed]" Chambers around during the process, which took place in the presence of a coworker who shared the office with Chambers. Chambers broke down in tears. McNamara refused to allow Chambers, a full-time health advocate, to notify clients that she would not be able to keep her appointments with them that day. Only after Chambers persisted did McNamara allow her to take telephone numbers home to telephone clients. Devastated by the layoff, Chambers walked home with her belongings. She could not bear to pass by the HBHC building for years. She received medical treatment for a resulting problem.

The Trustees notified Christopher Navin, a white male employee, in advance of his layoff. In addition, the day before his scheduled layoff, either Nolan or Perkins telephoned him at home to advise him that when he reported to work the next day McNamara and DeFlorimonte would be at the office to give him his notice. He requested, for personal reasons, that DeFlorimonte not be involved, and his request was honored. When Navin reported to work on July 21, 1994, Nolan handed him his notice. He was not monitored as he cleaned out his desk, and he was permitted to walk freely through the building to say goodbye to coworkers.

The Trustees offered two reasons for treating Navin differently from the complainants: a general concern about vandalism, sabotage, and personal safety of HBHC employees; and a specific desire to ensure the integrity of confidential client records. Nolan contended that Navin was treated differently because he did not handle confidential client records. The hearing commissioner disbelieved the proffered reasons and concluded they were a pretext for discrimination. Specifically, he found that Coney, Smith, and Higginbottom, like Navin, did not handle confidential client records. In addition, he found incredible McNamara's testimony about the need to safeguard client files because in her deposition three years earlier she never stated this to be a concern except in reference to an earlier incident where some records had been mishandled by an unknown person. The hearing commissioner also found that at no time during the layoff procedure did the Trustees take steps to ensure the integrity of confidential files, such as inquiring of the complainants if they had any such files, examining the records room log books in advance of the layoffs to determine which of the complainants had taken possession of any such files, or telling the complainants they were being monitored to ensure the integrity of the client files.

The hearing commissioner also found that the Trustees had no nondiscriminatory reason to suspect that the five complainants posed a threat to the safety of any HBHC employee. Although McNamara testified that Perkins had expressed such concerns, including for her own safety, Perkins never expressed such concerns in a prior affidavit and she expressly denied in her testimony that she had any such safety concerns. The hearing commissioner discredited McNamara's testimony on the point.

Finally, the hearing commissioner concluded that Navin was situated similarly to the complainants in all relevant...