Washington v. Sioux Chief Mfg. Co.
| Decision Date | 20 December 2022 |
| Docket Number | WD84714,WD84749 |
| Parties | MARILYN WASHINGTON, Respondent, v. SIOUX CHIEF MFG. CO., INC., Appellant. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Missouri (US) |
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri The Honorable Justine E. Del Muro, Judge
Before: Janet Sutton, Presiding Judge, and Alok Ahuja and Karen King Mitchell, Judges
Sioux Chief Manufacturing Co., Inc., appeals from a default judgment entered in favor of its former employee, Marilyn Washington, on her claims of employment discrimination and retaliation brought under the Missouri Human Rights Act (MHRA). As a sanction for repeated discovery violations, the trial court struck Sioux Chief's pleadings and entered a default judgment against Sioux Chief; the court also barred Sioux Chief from presenting evidence at the damages hearing. Sioux Chief raises four points on appeal: (1) the court erred in granting Washington's motion for sanctions because there was insufficient evidence of deliberate disregard by Sioux Chief, Washington suffered no prejudice from the alleged discovery violations, and the sanctions ordered were excessive; (2) the court erred in precluding Sioux Chief from participating in the damages hearing because the court wrongly believed that its entry of a default judgment required the preclusion and the preclusion was excessive; (3) the court erred in denying Sioux Chief a jury trial on damages because Sioux Chief did not waive its right to a jury trial; and (4) the court erred in exceeding the statutory damages cap of $500,000 under the MHRA. Because the trial court plainly erred in awarding damages in excess of the statutory cap, we reverse that part of the judgment and remand for entry of a new damage amount within the statutory cap. The judgment is affirmed in all other respects.
On April 16, 2018, Sioux Chief hired Washington as a temporary worker at Sioux Chief's manufacturing and distribution facility in Kansas City, Missouri. On Washington's second day on the job, a coworker began inviting her to meals and to his home, saying he wanted to "hit that" and to lick her, among other sexual comments and gestures. The coworker would stare at Washington and rub up against her making her very uncomfortable. The behavior occurred on a daily basis, and Washington reported the coworker to his supervisor, who did nothing. Washington then reported the coworker to the warehouse supervisor and asked if she could be moved to a different area away from the coworker. That supervisor was able to get Washington moved to a different area, but it did not deter her coworker, and the harassment continued. Washington reported her coworker again to the warehouse supervisor who told her to report to someone else. Washington then reported the coworker's behavior to her direct supervisor in the trucking department where she had been transferred. The trucking supervisor indicated he would try to keep the coworker away from Washington, but nothing changed, so she complained again to the trucking supervisor. Despite Washington's repeated complaints, nothing improved; instead, it became worse, as the trucking supervisor also began harassing her, making sexually explicit comments about her breasts and male erections. Washington attempted to contact yet a different supervisor but was unable to do so, and she was then terminated.
Washington filed a Charge of Discrimination with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights (MCHR) on October 18, 2018, alleging discrimination on the basis of sex and retaliation by Sioux Chief. Washington received a right-to-sue letter from the MCHR on July 30, 2019, and filed a petition in circuit court against Sioux Chief on October 8, 2019.
Sioux Chief filed an answer to Washington's petition and simultaneously filed a cross-claim petition against PayDayz Staffing Solutions, Inc., the temporary staffing agency through whom Washington acquired her job at Sioux Chief. During the discovery process, Washington sent interrogatories and requests for production to Sioux Chief on November 4 2019. The underlying dispute revolves around the following interrogatory and request for production and Sioux Chief's respective responses sent on February 6, 2020:
Sioux Chief claimed to have interpreted these discovery requests as limited to "seek[ing] information relating to any charges or lawsuits against Sioux Chief"; it failed to acknowledge that the requests also sought information about complaints and allegations of sexual harassment, sex discrimination, or retaliation that may not have resulted in legal action.
Washington sent more than six golden rule letters to Sioux Chief over its objections and refusal to produce documents. Washington then filed two motions to enforce discovery, with the second motion being based on the requested "me too" evidence sought in Interrogatory No. 11 and Request for Production No. 11. Sioux Chief responded that, "[u]pon entry of a protective order which [Sioux Chief] will forward to [Washington] forthwith, [Sioux Chief] will provide supplemental interrogatory answers and documents which should moot the parties' dispute as to these Interrogatories." On May 21, 2020, the court granted Washington's first motion to enforce and ordered Sioux Chief to "provide complete responses and documents to [Washington's] First Request for Production of Documents and First Interrogatories within ten (10) days from the date of this order." The court further ordered that the "discovery responses and documents to be produced shall be subject to a Protective Order prepared by [Sioux Chief] and submitted to the Court on the same day the discovery is provided to [Washington]." The court denied the second motion as moot.
Despite the court order, Sioux Chief refused to provide supplemental written discovery responses, failed to provide a complete document production, and refused to file the Protective Order as ordered by the court on May 21, 2020. Sioux Chief also repeatedly made false representations regarding intended compliance in response to Washington's golden rule letters.
Accordingly, on July 8, 2020, Washington filed a motion for sanctions, seeking to strike Sioux Chief's pleadings. The court denied the motion.
On August 28, 2020, Washington filed another motion to enforce discovery, noting again that Sioux Chief continued to limit its responses to Interrogatory No. 11 and Request for Production No. 11 to matters involving lawsuits and litigation and failed to respond as to whether any other internal complaints or investigations existed. The court granted Washington's motion, in part, noting specifically with respect to Sioux Chief's responses to Interrogatory No. 11 and Request for Production No. 11 that "Unsworn statements are insufficient." The court noted that failure to comply with the order could result in monetary sanctions.
On March 23, 2021, Washington deposed Sioux Chief's corporate representative and director of human resources William Barry. During that deposition, Barry indicated that, as part of his job duties, he had investigated complaints of sexual harassment in the past six years, but he could not identify how many. When asked if he had "made any effort prior to th[e] deposition . . . to look for records or talk to people or review any other information to determine any of the specifics about those complaints that [he had] investigated and whether any documentation exists related to those complaints," Barry indicated that, despite the ability to do so, he had not. When asked about the responses to Interrogatory No. 11 and Request for Production No. 11, Barry stood by the original response of "none" on the ground that "There were no lawsuits."
On April 16, 2021, six weeks before trial and two weeks before the scheduled close of discovery, Washington filed a second motion for sanctions, noting that sworn testimony from Sioux Chief's corporate representative established that Sioux Chief "engaged in a pattern of continually and willfully failing to provide information in discovery and ignoring and violating the Court's prior discovery orders." Washington requested that the court strike Sioux Chief's pleadings and enter a default judgment. Sioux Chief filed a response on May 3, 2021, identifying three employees against whom complaints had been filed, but it again failed to identify who or how many people had filed complaints, as...
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