Waite v. Board of Trust., Ill. Comm. Dist. No. 508, 04-2403.

• Decision Date: 12 May 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-2403.,No. 04-2278.,04-2403.,04-2278.
• Citation: 408 F.3d 339
• Parties: Paulette WAITE, Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF ILLINOIS COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT NO. 508, also known as City Colleges of Chicago, Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

408 F.3d 339

Paulette WAITE, Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF ILLINOIS COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT NO. 508, also known as City Colleges of Chicago, Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.

No. 04-2403.

No. 04-2278.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued January 10, 2005.

Decided May 12, 2005.

Cynthia H. Hyndman (argued), Robinson, Curley & Clayton, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant.

Alan S. King (argued), Gardner, Carton & Douglas, Joseph T. Moriarty, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.

Before CUDAHY, KANNE, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

KANNE, Circuit Judge.

Paulette Waite, a 54-year-old Jamaican woman, was suspended from her job. Among other contentions, Waite claimed that she was suspended because of her national origin, and a jury agreed. Her employer now argues that there was not sufficient evidence of discrimination and that Waite was actually suspended because of her failure to complete an important project before leaving on a vacation. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we find that the jury's verdict was supported by the evidence.

I. History

Paulette Waite filed a complaint in the Northern District of Illinois alleging that she was suspended for 30 days by her employer, the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Community College District No. 508 ("City Colleges"), because of her national origin in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, and because of her age in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 623. She later amended her complaint and claimed that she was terminated because of her age and national origin, or in retaliation for filing a discrimination claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). The district court granted summary judgment in favor of City Colleges on all claims arising from the discharge. The claims arising from the suspension, however, went to trial. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Waite on her national origin claim and awarded her $15,000 in damages. The jury found in favor of City Colleges on the age discrimination claim. Judgment was entered on the jury's verdict. City Colleges filed a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial after the verdict. The district court denied the motion.

Waite appealed the district court's determination that City Colleges was entitled to summary judgment on the claims relating to her termination. City Colleges filed a cross-appeal, arguing that the district court should have granted the motion for judgment as a matter of law and that there was not sufficient evidence for the jury verdict in Waite's favor.

A. Employment Record

Waite began working part-time for City Colleges in 1995. She was the coordinator of six Child Development Centers ("Centers") run by City Colleges. One of her responsibilities in this position was to secure funding for the Centers; for example, she worked with the Illinois Department of Human Services ("IDHS") and obtained grants that provided funding so that the Centers could assist low-income students and children. Waite became a full-time employee in 1997, but the responsibilities of her job remained essentially the same.

In May 2001, Waite received a contract renewal package from the IDHS relating to a Site Administered Child Care Contract for fiscal year 2002. The renewal package was due by June 18, 2001. When Waite realized that she could not meet this deadline because she could not get approval from the Board of Trustees in time, she asked the IDHS for an extension. She was told to send the information as soon as possible. Waite then told her supervisor, Cynthia Armster, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, about the extension.

When Waite began the process of preparing the application, she had trouble getting the various Centers to respond to her requests for information. Her grant proposal prospectus was not submitted to the Board of Trustees until the August meeting, where it was approved. There is some dispute between the parties as to how often Waite informed Armster of the progress she was making on the renewal package during these months.

Waite had scheduled a vacation to Jamaica that was to take place between August 13 and August 30. She left for this vacation without finishing the grant application. After she arrived in Jamaica, she finished the documents that were required for the application. She then faxed the documents and instructions on how to complete them to her husband and asked him to deliver the documents to the office. The documents needed to be typed and proofread. On August 17, Antoinette Leavy, an administrative assistant, typed the forms and submitted the documents to Len Etlinger, District Director of Grants and Contracts.

A few days later, on August 20, Sharon Killebrew called from the IDHS to ask Armster whether City Colleges planned to submit its contract renewal package. Armster claims that Killebrew told her that the package deadline had been extended only to mid-July, and that City Colleges risked losing funding if they did not submit the package soon. Waite argues that there was no firm deadline, and that there would have been no ramifications if the package had not been submitted immediately. Regardless, Armster asked Etlinger to send the package to the IDHS right away. Etlinger found, however, that Leavy had made some mistakes, and so the two of them had to make corrections before the documents could be sent. The IDHS received the package on August 22, and City Colleges did not lose any funding.

B. Disciplinary Action

When Waite returned to work after her vacation on August 31, Armster presented her with a letter explaining that a pre-disciplinary hearing had been scheduled for September 7. The meeting's stated purpose was to determine whether Waite should be disciplined "up to and including termination." The letter explained that "[t]he Pre-Disciplinary meeting concerns charges that [she] failed to perform [her] duties with the renewal of the annual IDHS contract by missing the contract renewal deadline of June 18, 2001. As a result of [her] actions, the City Colleges of Chicago was [sic] positioned to lose over $500,000 in grant funding." (Trial Tr. at 50-52) (emphasis in original).

The hearing took place as scheduled, and Ramona Shaw, Associate Vice Chancellor of Human Resources and Staff Development, served as the hearing officer. Shaw heard testimony from both Waite and Armster regarding the circumstances surrounding the IDHS contract. Waite claims that Armster lied when she said that she believed City Colleges would lose the grant because of Waite's failure to submit it on time. At the conclusion of testimony, Shaw stated that she would write a report and submit it to the Chancellor. The report that she submitted in September recommended that Waite be suspended without pay for 30 days because Shaw found that the charges against Waite had been sustained. The Chancellor agreed, and Waite served her suspension October 5 through November 3.

After she returned to work, Waite filed a union grievance regarding her suspension, and on November 29, she filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. The basis for Waite's national origin discrimination claim arose at a meeting about a month before Armster began the suspension proceedings. This meeting was attended by two other department employees who voiced complaints about Waite. Armster, an African-American, then commented that she thought Waite displayed a "plantation mentality." Waite testified that this remark was a reference to her national origin "because usually it was said that Jamaicans in particular and Caribbean folks in general thought they were white and treated African-Americans like slaves." (Trial Tr. at 62).

Various other disagreements between Armster and Waite occurred during the next few months. On January 25, 2002, Armster recommended that Waite be fired. The reasons stated in the pre-disciplinary hearing letter were that Waite had been insubordinate and had failed to complete several specific tasks. Waite argued that these tasks were not her responsibility, and that she did actually complete some of the tasks. Nevertheless, she was terminated.

The next year, Tanya Woods was responsible for submitting the IDHS contract renewal forms. Woods is African-American and was 35 years old at the time of the trial. For most of the time that Woods worked on the grant application, she was a part-time employee. The fiscal year 2003 application materials did not contain a specific due date. Woods was unfamiliar with the application process and asked for assistance from the IDHS on several occasions. She was not able to submit the application until October 9, 2002. However, Woods was not disciplined for this arguably late submission.

II. Analysis

A. Claims Relating to the Suspension

City Colleges argues that the district court erred in denying its motion for judgment as a matter of law on the suspension claims. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 50. We review the district court's decision de novo and examine all of the evidence in the record to determine whether the evidence presented was sufficient to support the jury's verdict of national origin discrimination. See Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 150, 120 S.Ct. 2097, 147 L.Ed.2d 105 (2000); Millbrook v. IBP, Inc., 280 F.3d 1169, 1173 (7th Cir. 2002). "In so doing, however, the court must draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, and it may not make credibility determinations or weigh the evidence." Reeves, 530 U.S. at 150, 120 S.Ct. 2097. In sum, we "will overturn a jury verdict for the plaintiff only if we conclude that no rational jury could have found for the plaintiff...." Millbrook, 280 F.3d at 1173 (quotation omitted). This is obviously a difficult standard to meet.

In a sufficiency of the evidence challenge to a Title VII...