Winbush v. State of Iowa By Glenwood State Hosp., 94-3731
| Decision Date | 13 November 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 94-3731,94-3731 |
| Citation | 66 F.3d 1471 |
| Parties | 69 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1348, 33 Fed.R.Serv.3d 604 Annette WINBUSH; Marie Clark; Plaintiffs-Appellees, Harley Cooper; Rita Williams; Beverly Davis; Lisa Sue Voyd; Helen Floyd; Terrance Jordan; Nora Duncan; Intervenor-Plaintiffs-Appellees, Frances Carson; Intervenor-Plaintiff, Elzie Pittman; Intervenor-Plaintiff-Appellee, Carolyn McBride; Charles Duncan; Billie J. Harmon; Edwin Lee Rollins; Roberta J. Hubbard; Rose Perry; Ricardo Hunt; Charles Floyd; Estate of Patricia Perry; Wendell Winbush; Maricarol Martin; Intervenor-Plaintiffs, Donita Duncan, Intervenor-Plaintiff-Appellee, v. STATE OF IOWA, by GLENWOOD STATE HOSPITAL; William Campbell; Rich Bowman; Max Moore; Richard Crawford; Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Gordon Eugene Allen, Des Moines, Iowa, argued (Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General of Iowa, on the brief), for the appellants.
Christopher J. Tinley, Council Bluffs, Iowa, argued (Alfonza Whitaker, on the brief) for the appellees.
Before LOKEN and LAY, Circuit Judges, and VAN SICKLE, * District Judge.
Glenwood State Hospital School (Glenwood) and certain officials of the school, 1 appeal the district court's 2 judgment awarding monetary damages to eleven African-Americans under 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981, 1983, and 2000e (Title VII) due to racial discrimination in their employment at Glenwood. Defendants challenge the court's jurisdiction to award relief under Sec. 1981 and Title VII, the intervention by a number of plaintiffs, the sufficiency of the plaintiffs' evidence to sustain a prima facie case of discrimination, and the award of prejudgment interest. We affirm in part and remand in part with instructions.
On April 23, 1982, Annette Winbush and Marie Clark filed a class action suit in the federal district court of Nebraska alleging racial discrimination in employment by Glenwood. Attached to their complaint were copies of right-to-sue letters they had received from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). They sought relief under 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981, 1983, 1985, and 2000e (Title VII), and the Thirteenth Amendment. In August 1982, Donita Duncan moved to intervene, attaching to her motion her complaint to the Iowa Civil Rights Commission. Junior Floyd moved to intervene in January 1983.
The case was transferred to the Southern District of Iowa. The district court granted Donita Duncan's motion to intervene but denied Junior Floyd's on the basis that he failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. The complaint was amended to add named defendants from Glenwood. In 1986, the district court conditionally certified the class of African-American plaintiffs.
The bench trial began in 1987, continued intermittently, and concluded in 1988. In February 1990, the district court issued its Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Order. Winbush v. State of Iowa, No. 82-58-W (S.D.Iowa Feb. 26, 1990) ("The 1990 Order "). The court decertified the class, 3 and rejected liability as to twelve individuals because they had voluntarily resigned or were terminated for cause. The court found, however, that Glenwood had discriminated against a number of African-American plaintiffs through wrongful termination, wrongful failure to promote, and a hostile racial work environment. The court found the defendants liable to Annette Winbush, Marie Clark, Donita Duncan, and fifteen other individuals (now plaintiffs) under Title VII, Sec. 1981, 4 and Sec. 1983 under both disparate treatment and disparate impact analysis. The court also granted twelve other individuals who had not testified at trial the opportunity to present additional evidence in support of their claims of liability and damages. The court denied injunctive relief. 5 Damages were to be determined at a later hearing.
The plaintiffs then filed a motion to reconsider the class decertification. In January 1992, while the motion to reconsider was pending, twenty-six individuals named in The 1990 Order moved to intervene in the litigation. In August 1992, the court issued an order affirming decertification of the class but granting twenty-one individuals leave to intervene, including six who had not testified at trial. The court rejected intervention by five individuals who had not testified at trial and who did not appear to have meritorious claims. See Winbush v. State of Iowa, No. 82-58-W, at 4 (S.D.Iowa Aug. 25, 1992) ("The 1992 Order ").
In January 1993, the court held hearings to determine the defendants' liability to five intervenors who had not testified at trial and heard evidence on damages for seventeen plaintiffs. In December 1993, the court awarded damages to eleven individuals, plus prejudgment interest, totaling over $860,000, but rejected damages for ten plaintiffs whose claims the court determined were time barred. Winbush v. State of Iowa, No. 1-82-CV-50058 (S.D.Iowa Dec. 17, 1993) (memorandum opinion and order) ("The 1993 Order "). The court also rejected plaintiffs' claim for punitive damages. In September 1994, the court awarded over $200,000 in attorney's fees.
PROCEDURAL ISSUES
The plaintiffs' complaint alleged a claim under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1981 and the district court granted relief under that act as well as under Title VII. The defendants, however, argue that claims of harassment and unfair treatment are not actionable under Sec. 1981. Section 1981 forbids Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 176, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 2372, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989) (alterations in original) (quoting Sec. 1981). 7 In Taggart v. Jefferson County Child Support Enforcement Unit, 935 F.2d 947, 948 (8th Cir.1991) (en banc), this Circuit held that "Patterson bars discriminatory discharge claims under section 1981." As to denials of promotion,
the question whether a promotion claim is actionable under Sec. 1981 depends upon whether the nature of the change in position was such that it involved the opportunity to enter into a new contract with the employer.... Only where the promotion rises to the level of an opportunity for a new and distinct relation between the employee and the employer is such a claim actionable under Sec. 1981.
Patterson, 491 U.S. at 185, 109 S.Ct. at 2377. Under Patterson, we find the district court erred in granting relief on wrongful termination and hostile working environment claims under Sec. 1981. We also find that, although the wrongful failure-to-promote claims present a closer question under Sec. 1981, we do not need to decide whether these claims generally fall within the purview of Sec. 1981 because the plaintiffs (with one exception) may recover just as fully under Title VII. 8 We address below the Sec. 1981 claim of the one plaintiff (Harley Cooper) whose Title VII failure-to-promote claim is procedurally limited.
Relying on Hinton v. CPC Int'l, Inc., 520 F.2d 1312 (8th Cir.1975), the defendants urge that none of the plaintiffs have fulfilled the jurisdictional prerequisites contained in Title VII. Hinton held that a plaintiff must file a discrimination charge with the EEOC, obtain a right-to-sue letter from the EEOC, and institute litigation within the ninety-day right-to-sue period in order to give federal courts jurisdiction over the lawsuit. Id. at 1314-15. The defendants point out that Annette Winbush's and Marie Clark's EEOC right-to-sue letters were attached to the complaint, but were never offered at trial, that Harley Cooper's EEOC filing was the only one offered at trial but he failed to subsequently file a lawsuit on his own and is now an intervenor, and that no other intervenor made an EEOC filing.
We note first that Hinton has since been overruled sub silentio to the extent that it held the ninety-day filing requirement was jurisdictional. In Hill v. John Chezik Imports, 869 F.2d 1122 (8th Cir.1989), a panel of this Circuit held that the ninety-day period was not jurisdictional and thus is "subject to equitable tolling in appropriate circumstances." Id. at 1124 ( Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 455 U.S. 385, 102 S.Ct. 1127, 71 L.Ed.2d 234 (1982)). Equitable tolling is available when the plaintiff fails to file a timely lawsuit due to the plaintiff's "excusable neglect." Anderson v. Unisys Corp., 47 F.3d 302, 306 (8th Cir.1995), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 299, --- L.Ed.2d ---- (1995). The plaintiffs, however, do not rely on equitable tolling to maintain their action under Title VII, and thus we do not discuss this issue here.
Instead, plaintiffs rely on the filings made by Annette Winbush and Marie Clark and the "single filing" rule as the basis for intervention by the other plaintiffs. We agree that the court properly heard the Title VII claims of Annette Winbush and Marie Clark despite their failure to introduce the right-to-sue letters at trial. In Hinton, we indicated that substantial compliance with the filing requirements of 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5(f)(1), such as making "some effort to initiate [an] action in the district court within the filing period, such as filing the right-to-sue letter as a pleading," could excuse strict compliance with Title VII's procedural requirements. 520 F.2d at 1315. Here, Annette Winbush and Marie Clark did more than simply file their right-to-sue letters with the court--they actually sued Glenwood within ninety days in full compliance with 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5(f)(1). 9 We thus find the district court had jurisdiction over the Title VII claims of Annette Winbush and...
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