Weiland v. El Kram, Inc.

• Decision Date: 10 December 2002
• Docket Number: No. C01-3072-MWB.,C01-3072-MWB.
• Citation: 233 F.Supp.2d 1142
• Parties: Mary I. WEILAND, Plaintiff, v. EL KRAM, INC., d/b/a Pizza Hut of America, Inc., a/k/a Pizza Hut, Inc., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Iowa

233 F.Supp.2d 1142

Mary I. WEILAND, Plaintiff, v. EL KRAM, INC., d/b/a Pizza Hut of America, Inc., a/k/a Pizza Hut, Inc., Defendant.

No. C01-3072-MWB.

United States District Court, N.D. Iowa, Central Division.

December 10, 2002.

Michael J. Carroll, Coppola, Sandre, McConville & Carroll, PC, West Des Moines, IA, for Plaintiff.

James H. Gilliam, Brown Winick Graves Gross Baskerville Schoenebaum, Des Moines, IA, Eric J. Pelton, Thomas B. Langlas, Kienbaum, Opperwall, Hardy & Pelton, PLC, Birmingham, MI, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

BENNETT, Chief Judge.

                TABLE OF CONTENTS
                I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................ 1143
                     A. Procedural Background ............................................ 1143
                     B. Undisputed And Disputed Facts .................................... 1144
                 II. THE MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT ..................................... 1148
                     A. Standards For Summary Judgment ................................... 1148
                     B. The Parties' Burdens ............................................. 1148
                     C. Summary Judgment In Employment Discrimination Cases .............. 1149
                III. LEGAL ANALYSIS ...................................................... 1150
                     A. Weiland's Retaliation Claim ...................................... 1150
                        1. Weiland's conduct ............................................. 1152
                        2. Weiland's evidence of causal connection ....................... 1154
                     B. Disparate Treatment Claim ........................................ 1158
                 IV. CONCLUSION .......................................................... 1159
                

This matter is before the court on the Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment filed on September 17, 2001. Plaintiff complains she was discriminated against in the terms, conditions, and compensation of her employment with the defendants. Specifically, the plaintiff alleges the defendant discriminated against her and subsequently terminated her because of her sex and in retaliation for her reporting an incident of sexual harassment. The defendant disputes these allegations and contends that judgment should be entered in its favor as a matter of law and against the plaintiff because the plaintiff does not establish her prima facie case that sex was a factor in her termination because she does not establish that she was treated differently than a similarly situated male. In the alternative, the defendant contends that even if the plaintiff is able to establish a prima facie case of sex discrimination, she cannot demonstrate that the defendant's reasons for her termination were merely pretextual. In addition, the defendant asserts that the plaintiff is unable to set forth a claim of retaliation for the following reasons: (1) she did not oppose a practice made unlawful by Title VII because the person who perpetrated the harassment was not an employee of defendant, and (2) there was no causal connection between plaintiff's complaint of sexual harassment and her termination.

I. INTRODUCTION

A. Procedural Background

On August 24, 2001, Mary I. Weiland ("Weiland") filed a complaint against her former employer defendant El Kram, Inc., d/b/a Pizza Hut of America Inc., ("Pizza Hut") alleging claims of sexual discrimination and retaliation. Weiland contends that both led to her termination in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. and the Iowa Civil Rights Act ("ICRA"), IOWA CODE § 216. Weiland's state law claim is properly before the court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367 (supplemental jurisdiction). Prior to bringing this action in federal court, Weiland exhausted her administrative remedies by filing a charge with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission ("ICRC"), which was cross-filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), and received right-to-sue letters from the ICRC on May 31, 2001, and the EEOC on June 15, 2001. Pl.'s Compl., at Ex. A & B.

On October 24, 2002, Weiland resisted Pizza Hut's motion for summary judgment, and on November 11, 2002, Pizza Hut filed a reply in further support of its motion. Weiland timely requested oral argument on the motion for summary judgment. The court granted that request and held oral arguments on Pizza Hut's motion on December 4, 2002.

At the hearing, defendant Pizza Hut was represented by Eric Pelton & Thomas Langlas of Kienbaum Opperwall Hardy & Pelton, P.L.C., Birmingham, Michigan. Plaintiff Weiland was represented by Michael Carroll of Coppola, Sandre, McConville & Carroll P.C., West Des Moines, Iowa. This matter is now fully submitted.

B. Undisputed And Disputed Facts

Whether or not a party is entitled to summary judgment ordinarily turns on whether or not there are genuine issues for trial, Quick v. Donaldson Co., 90 F.3d 1372, 1376-77 (8th Cir.1996); Johnson v. Enron Corp., 906 F.2d 1234, 1237 (8th Cir.1990), and the court must view all the facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and give that party the benefit of all reasonable inferences that can be drawn from the facts. See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., 475 U.S. at 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348; Quick, 90 F.3d at 1377 (same). Nevertheless, the court will not attempt here a comprehensive review of the undisputed and disputed facts in the record, although some factual background is necessary to put in context the parties' arguments for and against summary judgment on the claims that remain at issue. Therefore, what is presented here is only a sketch of the essential factual background and factual disputes on the present record.

Weiland was originally hired by Pizza Hut on June 15, 1998 as a shift manager in its Humboldt, Iowa, restaurant. Pizza Hut promoted Weiland to general manager of its Algona, Iowa, restaurant that fall where she worked until her employment was terminated on August 9, 2000. As general manager, Weiland was a salaried employee whose hours varied anywhere from forty to eighty hours each week. Weiland generally worked from nine o'clock in the morning through the dinner hour, and then oftentimes until close. At a sales meeting sometime in February 2000, Weiland informed her direct supervisor, Area Coach Raymond Fish ("Fish"), that she would be changing her work schedule. Pl.'s App., at 000013. During the sales meeting, and in front of a group of general managers, Weiland stated that she would be working Monday through Friday from eight o'clock in the morning until four-thirty in the afternoon. Pl.'s App., at 000013. According to Weiland, another restaurant manager by the name of Dean Black spoke up and asked Fish when he too could start working those hours. Fish told him that "he could work those hours when his restaurant ran as well as mine did." Pl.'s App., at 000013. It is at this point that the parties' understandings differ materially, at times, concerning the events leading up to Weiland's termination.

Pizza Hut claims that Weiland's changed schedule was about as light as the company could allow because it generally requires more than fifty hours each week of its general managers, including eight to nine peak periods — lunch and dinner. Under Weiland's changed schedule, she would only be working five peak periods — lunches Monday through Friday. With regard to Weiland's new schedule, Fish simply told her at the sales meeting to "make sure that my time card matched my schedule." Pl.'s App., at 000013.

Weiland contends that Fish taught her how to ensure that her time card matched her schedule by demonstrating the use of the special code "L" which stood for "other." Pl.'s Resistance, at 7-8. "I asked him how I should do it [change my clock times] and he told me to use code L for other." Pl.'s App., at 000089. Pizza Hut asserts that Fish taught Weiland how to use the code "L" in response to Weiland's question about how to clock in sick time or vacation time for employees in her restaurant. Pl.'s App., at 000089. That is, the code "L" can be used to change any employee's time card and it is Pizza Hut's contention that Weiland, as general manager, was taught by Fish how to enter the code "L" as a matter of course in order to run the restaurant, and not merely to change her own time cards. Pl.'s App., at 000098. Pizza Hut argues that Weiland manipulated her time so as not to reflect the actual schedule she was authorized to maintain, but to conceal the fact that she was not working her scheduled hours from eight o'clock in the morning until four-thirty in the afternoon, and instead was running personal errands. Def.'s Brief in Support of Mot. for Summary Judgment, at 8-9; Def.'s Reply Brief, at 2. The foundation for Pizza Hut's allegations and termination of Weiland are alleged complaints made to Fish by female shift managers who worked for Weiland, Fish's investigation and Weiland's actual time reports. Def.'s Brief in Support of Mot. for Summary Judgment, at 15; Def.'s App., at 109-113.

Weiland does not dispute that one of the functions of the code L is to clock in sick time or vacation time, and acknowledges that as general manager she was required to know this in order to keep accurate time records for her employees. Weiland disputes Pizza Hut's claims that she would remain on the clock while away from the restaurant on personal business. Weiland argues that when she was away from the restaurant and still on the clock, she was tending to restaurant business which included meeting with organizations desiring to do fund raisers, having repair work done, making purchases for the restaurant, or speaking with contractors. Pl.'s App., at 000014. For instance, Weiland recalls spending time away from the restaurant in order to meet with a gentleman she hired to build a cabinet for a "kids' corner" in the restaurant — one goal Fish had established for her — and to make the necessary purchases for the kids' corner. Pl.'s App., at 000014. Weiland's female shift managers' accusations concerning...