EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff-Appellant Cross-Appellee,
v.
EXEL, INC., Defendant-Appellee Cross-Appellant. CONTRICE TRAVIS, Intervenor-Appellant Cross-Appellee,
Appeals
from the United States District Court for the Northern
District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 1:10-cv-03132-SCJ
Before
TJOFLAT and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges, and MOODY, [*] District Judge.
JILL
PRYOR, Circuit Judge
A jury
awarded the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the
"EEOC") and Contrice Travis back pay, compensatory
damages, and punitive damages after finding that Travis's
employer, Exel, Inc., discriminated against her because of
her sex. The discrimination occurred when Dave Harris,
Travis's supervisor, denied her a promotion in favor of
Michael Pooler, a male employee. After the verdict, Exel
filed a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law. The
district court denied Exel's motion as to liability, but
granted it as to the jury's punitive damages award.
Travis and the EEOC now appeal the vacatur of the jury's
punitive damages award, and Exel cross-appeals the denial of
its motion as to liability. After careful review, we affirm.
I.
BACKGROUND
Travis
sought a promotion to a position vacated by her direct
supervisor, Kenny Teal, when Harris promoted Teal to
Operations Manager. When she learned of Teal's promotion,
Travis told Harris that she wished to be considered for
Teal's vacated position. But instead of promoting Travis,
Harris selected Pooler to fill the vacated position,
purportedly through the application of Exel's priority
transfer practice ("PTP"), which Exel implemented
as a means of transferring employees to vacant positions
instead of laying them off.
By his
own admission, Harris could have promoted Travis even though
he was presented with a PTP candidate. Harris testified at
trial that the PTP imposed no mandatory hiring and that he
retained discretion in deciding whether to hire Pooler.
Harris also acknowledged that he could have exercised his
discretion by promoting Travis and moving Pooler into
Travis's vacated position. The evidence at trial showed
the feasibility of this option: several witnesses testified
that Travis was well qualified for the promotion. Teal and
another supervisor testified that Travis was an exceptional
employee who could have easily met the job's demands.
Pooler himself testified that Travis was more qualified for
the job than he was. But despite Travis's expressed
interest and qualifications-and Harris's discretion to
promote her-Harris told her that he "was never going
to" promote her to a supervisor position. Doc. 165 at
130.[1]
Harris
also had a history of bias against women. Multiple witnesses
testified at trial that Harris treated female employees
differently than male employees. He spoke to female employees
less often, acted standoffish toward them, and asked other
supervisors to manage them so that he did not have to do so.
But most importantly, trial testimony connected evidence of
Harris's general bias against women with his specific
decision not to promote Travis. Teal testified that after he
was promoted he recommended Travis for his vacated position,
and Harris's response was that he "would not put a
woman in a management position." Doc. 166 at 16.
II.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
We
review a district court's ruling on a renewed motion for
judgment as a matter of law de novo and apply the
same standards as the district court. Abel v.
Dubberly, 210 F.3d 1334, 1337 (11th Cir. 2000). Judgment
as a matter of law is appropriate "only if the facts and
inferences point overwhelmingly in favor of one party, such
that reasonable people could not arrive at a contrary
verdict." Goldsmith v. Bagby Elevator Co.,
Inc., 513 F.3d 1261, 1275 (11th Cir. 2008) (internal
quotation marks omitted). "We consider all the evidence,
and the inferences drawn therefrom, in the light most
favorable to the nonmoving party." Id.
(internal quotation marks omitted). "We will not
second-guess the jury or substitute our judgment for its
judgment if its verdict is supported by sufficient
evidence." Lambert v. Fulton Cty., 253 F.3d
588, 594 (11th Cir. 2001).
III.
DISCUSSION
A.
Travis's Evidence Was Sufficient for a Reasonable Jury to
Find that She Suffered Discrimination Because of Her
Sex.
Title
VII prohibits employers from discriminating "against any
individual with respect to [her] compensation, terms,
conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such
individual's . . . sex." 42 U.S.C. §
2000e-2(a)(1). A plaintiff can prove sex discrimination under
Title VII by showing that her sex "was a motivating
factor for any employment practice, even though other factors
also motivated the practice." Id. §
2000e-2(m). At trial, Exel countered Travis's claim that
she was denied the promotion based on her sex by offering a
legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for Harris's hiring
decision: a routine application of the PTP resulted in
Pooler's selection over Travis. To prove her Title VII
claim, then, Travis had to show that Exel's proffered
reason was pretextual "either directly by [showing] that
a discriminatory reason more likely motivated the employer or
indirectly by showing that the employer's proffered
explanation is unworthy of credence." Texas
Dep't of Cmty. Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 256
(1981).
We may
overturn the jury's verdict only if we conclude that no
reasonable jury could have found that Harris's hiring
decision was motivated by discrimination based on
Travis's sex rather than by application of the PTP. We
cannot so conclude for two reasons. First, the jury heard
evidence that Harris could have promoted Travis despite being
presented with a PTP candidate. Franklin Hudson, who worked
in Exel's Human Resources Department, testified that
General Managers like Harris controlled their own hiring and
could veto PTP candidates if they wished. Likewise, Harris
admitted that he made the ultimate decision whether to hire
Pooler. He also admitted that he could have exercised his
hiring discretion by promoting Travis and moving Pooler into
Travis's vacated position. Our dissenting colleague
argues that this would have been a demotion for Pooler, but
that is beside the point: the PTP did not require Harris to
hire Pooler to fill Teal's vacated position. If the PTP
did not require Harris to hire Pooler, then it is for the
jury to decide what motivated Harris's decision. Because
two different witnesses-including the decisionmaker
himself-testified that the PTP imposed no mandatory hiring,
the jury reasonably could have concluded that Harris had the
discretion to promote Travis even though he was presented
with a PTP candidate.
Indeed,
the jury also heard evidence supporting the inference that
Harris could have promoted Travis to Teal's vacated
position without going through the PTP process at all. Both
Travis and Harris testified that when Teal was promoted,
Travis approached Harris seeking promotion to Teal's
vacated position. Even though the evidence failed to show
exactly when this conversation took place relative to when
Exel's Human Resources Department first presented Pooler
to Harris as a PTP candidate, the jury reasonably could have
inferred that it took place beforehand. Harris testified that
when Travis expressed interest in the promotion, he told her
that he "was going to" post the open position, but
had not done so yet. The Human Resources Department could not
have referred Pooler as a PTP candidate until after the
opening was posted, or at least submitted to Human Resources
for posting, according to trial testimony. This evidence
supports the reasonable inference that Harris knew about
Travis's interest before he ever received Pooler as a PTP
candidate or even learned that he would receive a PTP
candidate at all. And the evidence that promotions often
happened informally at Exel-for example, Harris received his
own position through an informal promotion process-supported
a finding that Harris could have promoted Travis when she
approached him about Teal's vacated position, without
going through the PTP process at all.
Second,
the evidence showed that Harris harbored a bias against
women. Travis testified that Harris "limited his contact
with pretty much all the females in [the] office" and
asked her to "manage the ladies in the office."
Doc. 165 at 161. Another Exel employee, Tommy Chambers,
testified that Harris was "standoffish" with female
employees and treated them differently than male employees.
Doc. 166 at 95. According to Chambers, Harris would come into
work in the morning and "go straight to his office. He
wouldn't speak to any of [the female employees]."
Id. at 99. Chambers also testified, similarly to
Travis, that Harris instructed him to address any issues that
arose with the female employees, even if those employees
normally would report to Harris directly.
The
evidence the jury heard also connected Harris's bias
against women with his refusal to promote Travis. Again, the
evidence showed that, when she found out Harris had promoted
Teal, Travis went to Harris's office and told him that
she wanted Teal's vacated position.[2] Travis testified
that Harris's response was dismissive: he looked her in
the eye and told her that he "was never going to"
promote her to a supervisor position. Doc. 165 at 130. Even
though this response was not overtly discriminatory, the jury
reasonably could have inferred from the other evidence of
bias we have just discussed that Harris's refusal was
motivated by Travis's sex. What is more, Teal testified
that when he recommended Travis for his vacated position,
Harris's response-which Harris repeated more than
once-was that he would never put a woman in a management
position.[3] Viewed in the light most favorable to
Travis, Teal's testimony was evidence not only of
Harris's bias against women, but also that Harris's
bias motivated his refusal to promote Travis despite his
discretion to do so. This evidence is sufficient to tie
"generalized discriminatory behavior to the
specific employment decision at issue." Dissent
at 16.
In
sum, the jury heard evidence that Harris could have promoted
Travis to Teal's vacated position without going through
the PTP process at all, and Harris had the discretion-even
after he was presented with a PTP candidate-to choose Travis
instead of that candidate. Perhaps most importantly, the jury
also heard evidence that Harris was biased against women and
acted as a result of his bias when he selected Pooler over
Travis. The evidence at trial therefore was sufficient for
the jury reasonably to conclude that Travis suffered
discrimination because of her sex.
B.
Under Our Prior Precedent, the District Court Properly
Vacated the Jury's Punitive Damages Award.
The
district court vacated the jury's punitive damages award
after concluding that Travis had failed to present evidence
sufficient to meet our standard in this circuit for imputing
punitive damages to Exel. A plaintiff may recover punitive
damages in a Title VII action only if the employer
"engaged in a discriminatory practice . . . with malice
or with reckless indifference to the federally protected
rights of an aggrieved individual." 42 U.S.C. §
1981a(b)(1). The Supreme Court has held that this standard
"focus[es] on the actor's state of mind" and
"does not require a showing of egregious or outrageous
discrimination independent of" that state of mind.
Kolstad v. Am. Dental Ass'n, 527 U.S. 526, 535
(1999). But "[t]he inquiry does not end with a showing
of the requisite 'malice or . . . reckless
indifference'" of the decisionmaker. Id. at
539. The plaintiff must also "impute liability for
punitive damages" to the employer. Id. Here,
the district court vacated the jury's punitive damages
award based on this imputation requirement.
Before
the Supreme Court decided Kolstad, we had held that
a plaintiff may impute liability for punitive damages to her
employer by showing "either that the discriminating
employee was high[] up the corporate hierarchy, or that
higher management countenanced or approved [his]
behavior." Dudley v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 166
F.3d 1317, 1323 (11th Cir. 1999) (alterations in original)
(internal citation and quotation marks omitted). In
Dudley, we applied this "higher
management" standard and held that punitive damages were
unavailable because the two discriminating employees were
store managers at one of Wal-Mart's more than 2, 000
stores. Id. We based our holding on the fact that
"Wal-Mart is a giant business" and "[n]either
of [the discriminating employees were] high enough up
Wal-Mart's corporate hierarchy." Id.
Shortly
after we articulated the higher management standard in
Dudley, the Supreme Court took up the same issue in
Kolstad, 527 U.S. at 539-40. The Supreme Court held
that punitive damages are imputable when the wrongdoing
employee discriminated while "acting in the scope of
employment" and serving in a "managerial
capacity." Id. at 543. The Court noted that
"determining whether an employee [served in a managerial
capacity] requires a fact-intensive inquiry, " and it
instructed courts to evaluate the employee's "type
of authority" and "amount of discretion" in
making that determination. Id. (internal quotation
marks omitted). The Court's instruction, which focuses
the inquiry on the discriminating employee's authority
and responsibilities, appears to conflict with our higher
management standard, which looks to the size of the employer
and the discriminating employee's rank in the corporate
hierarchy. Indeed, the Supreme Court said that "an
employee must be important, but perhaps need not be the
employer's top management, officers, or directors."
Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
We have
never squarely addressed the apparent conflict between
Kolstad and Dudley, but Travis asks us to
do so in this case. As a panel, however, we remain bound by
our prior panel precedent. Even though the Supreme Court
decided Kolstad after Dudley, this court
has continued to apply the higher management standard while
acknowledging Kolstad. See Miller v. Kenworth of
Dothan, Inc., 277 F.3d 1269, 1280 (11th Cir. 2002)
(citing Kolstad, but nonetheless reiterating
Dudley's higher management standard); see
also Ash v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 664 F.3d 883, 902 n.12
("Our later decision in Miller recognizes that
Kolstad did not affect [the higher management
standard articulated in] Dudley; Miller
reiterates and applies Dudley's
high-in-the-hierarchy rule."). We are bound, therefore,
to apply the higher management standard in this case. See
United States v. Archer, 531 F.3d 1347, 1352 (11th Cir.
2008) ("Under [the prior panel precedent] rule, a prior
panel's holding is binding on all subsequent panels
unless and until it is overruled or undermined to the point
of abrogation by the Supreme Court or by this court sitting
en banc.").
Applying
that standard, we affirm the district court's conclusion
that Travis failed to present evidence sufficient to impute
punitive damages to Exel. First, Travis failed to show that
Harris was "high[] up the corporate hierarchy."
Dudley, 166 F.3d at 1323 (alteration in original).
In 2008, Harris was but one of 329 General Managers, and he
oversaw only 25 employees, which amounted to 0.1% of
Exel's employees in North America. Based on the high
number of other employees with his same title and the low
number of employees under his supervision, Harris was not
sufficiently high up Exel's corporate hierarchy to
impute, under Dudley, punitive damages to Exel.
See Ash, 664 F.3d at 903 (punitive damages
unavailable even when the discriminating manager oversaw 1,
400 employees, which amounted to 1.5% of the employer's
total employees). Second, Travis also failed to show that
"higher management countenanced or approved
[Harris's] behavior." Dudley, 166 F.3d at
1323 (internal quotation marks omitted). Even if other Exel
employees were involved in Pooler's PTP transfer, there
was simply no evidence that any employee above Harris's
rank was aware even that Travis had requested the promotion.
In
sum, we are bound by our prior panel precedent to apply the
higher management standard and therefore affirm the district
court's vacatur of the jury's punitive damages award.
IV.
CONCLUSION
For the
foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court's order
denying Exel's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of
law as to liability and granting the motion as to the
jury's punitive damages award.
AFFIRMED.
MOODY,
District Judge, concurring:
The
issue in this appeal is whether a reasonable jury could find
Contrice Travis showed Exel's legitimate,
nondiscriminatory business reason for not promoting her was
pretextual. The majority opinion correctly describes the
burden at trial. First, Travis had to prove a prima facie
case of discrimination by showing that sex was a motivating
factor in Harris's decision not to hire her for the
supervisor position. Texas Dep't of Cmty. Affairs v.
Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 252- 53, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1093, 67
L.Ed.2d 207 (1981) (applying the McDonnell-Douglas
burden-shifting framework). Exel then had the burden to offer
a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for Harris' hiring
decision. Id. The burden then shifted back to Travis
to show that "the legitimate reasons offered by the
defendant were not its true reasons, but were a pretext for
discrimination." Id.
Travis
easily satisfied her burden of presenting a prima facie case
of discrimination. And Exel met its burden of providing a
legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for Harris's hiring
decision. Namely, Exel showed that Harris hired Pooler as the
Inventory Control supervisor the same way he filled every
supervisor opening up to that time-by submitting a job
requisition to Corporate HR and, upon receiving a PTP request
from On-site HR, giving that PTP candidate priority above all
others. In fact, Exel's other hiring managers had always
followed the same company protocol.
So we
are left with the issue of whether Travis presented enough
evidence to show that Exel's nondiscriminatory reason for
not promoting her was pretextual. Had it been my decision, I
would have answered that question in the negative. Although
Travis presented evidence that Harris was biased again women,
Travis failed to show that his hiring decision was in any way
related to her sex. Rather, my view of the evidence is that
Harris's decision was motivated by Exel's PTP policy.
But the
issue is whether my view of the evidence is the only
reasonable view available. Lambert v. Fulton Cty.,
Ga., 253 F.3d 588, 594 (11th Cir. 2001). That is not the
case here. There is evidence that Harris was biased against
women, and that Travis, the most qualified candidate for the
position, applied and was rejected before Harris received the
PTP request. So there was enough evidence for a reasonable
jury to conclude that Harris did not hire Travis because she
was a woman. For that reason, I affirm.
TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge, dissenting
I agree
that the District Court's vacatur of the jury's
punitive-damages award was correct under controlling
precedent, but I see no need to reach that issue: on the
record presented, no reasonable juror could find that sex
discrimination motivated, in whole or in part, Exel's
decision to deny Travis the promotion she sought.
In its
analysis, the Majority relies heavily on the evidence of Dave
Harris's generalized bias toward women in the workplace.
This reliance is misplaced. Well-established precedent says
there must be sufficient evidence tying generalized
discriminatory behavior to the specific employment
decision at issue. Here, the evidence presented by Travis and
the EEOC failed to do that, at least in the mind of any
reasonable juror. Therefore, I would grant Exel's motion
for judgment as a matter of law.
I.
A.
1.
The Company
Exel
was an Ohio corporation headquartered in Westerville, Ohio.
It provided supply chain management-such as shipping,
receiving, and warehousing-to corporate customers across a
variety of industries. Exel was a subsidiary within the
Supply Chain Division of Deutsche Post DHL, a multi- national
corporation headquartered in Bonn, Germany.[1] In 2008, Exel
employed 25, 000 individuals, including 329 general managers
who oversaw individual work sites in 450 locations in the
United States and Canada.
In
Fairburn, Georgia, Exel owned a sprawling "campus,
" wherein it operated ten distribution sites, each
approximately one mile apart. Each site serviced one Exel
customer. All told, the Fairburn campus employed around 1,
300 individuals in 2008. One of the ten sites on the Fairburn
campus served Pittsburgh Paint & Glass ("PPG").
Employees at the PPG facility received, stored, and shipped
PPG's paint and painting-related products.[2]
Exel
maintained and widely disseminated written
anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies at all of
its sites. Exel included those policies in its Employee
Handbook and posted and maintained them on its internal
company intranet. At the PPG site, a bulletin board adjacent
to the breakroom entrance displayed the policies as well.
Exel trained all employees, including hourly employees and
managerial staff, on its anti-discrimination and
anti-harassment policies and reporting procedures. Exel also
maintained the "NEAR" line, a confidential hotline
through which employees could anonymously raise grievances or
report instances of discrimination, harassment, or other
employment issues.
2.
The ...