Williamson v. City of Houston, Tex.

• Decision Date: 22 July 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-21110,96-21110
• Citation: 148 F.3d 462
• Parties: 77 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 613, 73 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,451 Linda WILLIAMSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. The CITY OF HOUSTON, TEXAS; et al., Defendants, v. The City of Houston, Texas, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 462

148 F.3d 462

77 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 613,

73 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,451

Linda WILLIAMSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. The CITY OF HOUSTON, TEXAS; et al., Defendants, v. The City of Houston, Texas, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 96-21110.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

July 22, 1998.

Katherine Louise Butler, Margaret A. Harris, Butler & Harris, Houston, TX, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

John E. Fisher, Senior Asst. City Atty., Houston, TX, for Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before WIENER, EMILIO M. GARZA and BENAVIDES, Circuit Judges.

BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge:

Linda Williamson sued the City of Houston under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., for hostile work environment sexual harassment and for retaliation against her for reporting the harassment. A jury found the City liable for both sexual harassment and retaliation and awarded Williamson back pay and compensatory damages. In addition, the district court awarded her costs and attorney's fees. On appeal the City challenges the judgment on the ground that it did not have notice of the harassment until April 1992, when it took prompt remedial action. In particular, the City claims that any notice to Williamson's supervisor should not be imputed to the City. The City also contends that the evidence was not legally sufficient to support the jury's findings. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the district court's judgment.

BACKGROUND

Linda Williamson began working as a police officer in the Houston Police Department ("HPD") in 1983. In November 1990, Williamson was assigned to the Organized Crime Squad where she worked in the same squad room as Officer Doug McLeod, with whom she was sometimes partnered. Williamson alleges that for the following eighteen months McLeod harassed her on a daily basis. She presented evidence at trial that McLeod regularly engaged in behavior that created a hostile work environment, including: conducting obvious and demeaning inspections of her appearance, making comments on how her body looked in different clothes, on the appearance of her buttocks, and on the size of her breasts; wedging himself into the cubicle beside her and touching her body, pulling her hair, leaning over her, breathing heavily into her ear, and sticking his tongue in her ear; bumping, tapping, and slapping her; whistling and purring at her; and trying to look up her skirts and down her necklines.

Williamson testified that she repeatedly, but to no avail, told McLeod that his conduct was offensive and demanded that he stop bothering her. She also offered evidence that she repeatedly complained about the behavior to her and McLeod's supervisor, Sergeant James Michael Bozeman. Although these complaints were frequently made in the form of informal comments in the squad room, Williamson testified that she had approximately ten or twelve meetings with Bozeman in his office, during which she specifically requested that she not have to At the end of April 1992, Williamson went to Bozeman and requested a transfer out of the Criminal Division because of her problems with McLeod. It was at this time that Williamson first used the term "sexual harassment" to describe McLeod's behavior. Bozeman directed Williamson to write down her complaint and take it to the Internal Affairs Division ("IAD"), which she did. McLeod was transferred out of the Criminal Division immediately following Williamson's complaint to IAD.

work with McLeod, that she not have to share a vehicle with him, and that she be allowed to switch where she sat in the squad room so as to avoid being near him. With one exception, she found Bozeman wholly unresponsive to her complaints. At one point, apparently in response to her complaints, Bozeman assigned Williamson to work temporarily with another officer. According to Williamson, McLeod continued to harass her in the squad room during that period, but the arrangement was an improvement in that she was able to spend time out of the office without him. After two months, over Williamson's objections, Bozeman reassigned her to work with McLeod.

During the course of the IAD investigation, Williamson filed a statement with IAD alleging that Bozeman had retaliated against her for filing her harassment complaint. Williamson was then reassigned from the Organized Crime Squad to the Research and Analysis Squad.

Williamson presented evidence at trial that, in retaliation for having filed her harassment complaint: Bozeman criticized and taunted her; she was shunned by co-workers; she was transferred to a less desirable position in which she lost opportunities to make overtime pay; and that, as a result of a complaint filed by McLeod's wife, she was given a written reprimand which prevented her from transferring back to the Organized Crime Squad.

The IAD investigation of Williamson's sexual harassment claim found her charges "not sustained," but issued McLeod a written reprimand for having waved a rubber snake at Williamson. No disciplinary action was taken against Bozeman.

During the IAD investigation, Williamson filed a claim with the EEOC, which led to this suit. Williamson's case was heard by a jury in July 1996. At the end of a seven-day trial, the jury found the City liable under Title VII for hostile work environment sexual harassment and for retaliation against Williamson, awarding her $28,000 in back pay and $100,000 in compensatory damages; the district court also awarded her $182,794 in attorney's fees and $17,823 in costs and expenses. The City moved for a directed verdict at the close of plaintiff's testimony and at the close of all evidence; those motions were denied. After the district court entered judgment on the jury's verdict, the City moved for judgment as a matter of law; that motion was also denied. The City then timely filed a notice of appeal.

DISCUSSION

I.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it "an unlawful employment practice for an employer ... to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). It is well known that a plaintiff can establish a violation of Title VII by proving that sexual harassment created a hostile or abusive work environment. See Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986).

The City first challenges the judgment against it on the ground that the requisite notice element of Williamson's harassment claim was not met. A claim of hostile work environment sexual harassment under Title VII must be supported by proof "that the employer knew or should have known of the harassment in question and failed to take prompt remedial action." Jones v. Flagship Int'l, 793 F.2d 714, 720 (5th Cir.1986) (citation omitted); see also Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 2275, 2289, 141 L.Ed.2d 662 (1998) (noting that the circuits have uniformly applied a negligence standard to Title VII cases involving harassment by co-workers). Either actual or constructive notice is sufficient for liability, and constructive notice can result from "showing the pervasiveness of the harassment." Waltman v. International Paper, 875 F.2d 468, 478 (5th Cir.1989) (quotation marks and citations omitted).

The City argues that as a matter of law it did not have notice that Williamson was being harassed until April 1992 when she filed her formal IAD complaint, and that it took prompt remedial action at that time. Williamson does not dispute that the City took prompt remedial action after she filed her complaint with IAD, but asserts that both the complaints she made to Bozeman, and his direct observation of McLeod's behavior over the eighteen months that Williamson and McLeod worked together under Bozeman's supervision, provided notice of the harassment to the City well before she went to IAD. In support of its position that it did not have notice that Williamson was being harassed prior to April 1992, the City asserts both that Bozeman was not aware of any harassment and, in the alternative, that, because Bozeman was not higher management, his knowledge should not be imputed to the City.

The first of the City's contentions is easily dismissed. The jury found that Bozeman had notice of the harassment, and it is well established that we must accept a jury's factual finding if it is supported by substantial evidence. See Boeing Co. v. Shipman, 411 F.2d 365, 374 (5th Cir.1969) (en banc). Here, we have no doubt that there was substantial evidence to support a finding that Bozeman had notice. Williamson testified that she discussed McLeod's harassing behavior with Bozeman on numerous occasions and that Bozeman had observed it himself. Although the City claims that that testimony was contradicted by Bozeman's denial that he had notice, the jury was free to believe her account over his. Moreover, Williamson presented testimony from her co-workers that supports her claim that Bozeman was aware, or should have been aware, of the harassment.

The City's second claim--that as a matter of law Bozeman's knowledge should not have been imputed to the City--poses a more significant question concerning the limits of potential liability under Title VII. This court has noted that "the type and extent of notice necessary to impose liability on an employer under Title VII are the subject of some uncertainty." Farpella-Crosby v. Horizon Health Care, 97 F.3d 803, 807 (5th Cir.1996) (citing Waltman, 875 F.2d at 478).

The City relies heavily on cases in which employers were not held liable when supervisors engaged in harassing behavior to argue that notice to Bozeman, a first-line supervisor, is insufficient to constitute notice to the HPD. The City reasons that a harasser necessarily has...