Opinion
Civil No. 00-1026-KI
June 5, 2001
Attorney for Plaintiff:
Kevin Keaney Portland, Oregon Attorneys for Defendant:
Jeffrey C. Druckman Janine C. Blatt Druckman Associates, P. C. Portland, Oregon
OPINION
Before the court is the motion for summary judgment (#29) by defendant M Financial Holdings, Inc. For the reasons set forth below, I grant the motion.
BACKGROUND
In her First Amended Complaint, plaintiff Ronda Chaloupka alleges a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the basis that her employer unlawfully retaliated against her. The material allegations of the First Amended Complaint state:
While employed by defendant, plaintiff reasonably and in good faith believed that defendant engaged in practices made unlawful employment practices by Title VII, i.e., sexual harassment or a sexually hostile work environment arising from the sexual relationship and interaction in the workplace between defendant's Vice-President, Dan Byrne, and one of Byrne's female subordinates, JoNell Hermanson.
While employed by defendant, plaintiff, within the meaning of Section 704(a) of Title VII, opposed the practices set forth in the preceding paragraph.
Because of plaintiff's opposition as set forth in the preceding paragraph, defendant retaliated against plaintiff and imposed upon her adverse employment actions.
First Amended Complaint, ¶¶ 6-8.
To state a retaliation claim under Title VII, plaintiff must allege that (1) she opposed an employment practice actionable under Title VII; (2) she subsequently suffered an adverse employment action by her employer; and (3) there is a causal link between the adverse employment action and the protected activity. EEOC v. Hacienda Hotel, 881 F.2d 1504, 1513-14 (9th Cir. 1989).
In a motion to dismiss (#6), filed on August 15, 2000, defendant argued that plaintiff had failed to state a claim because she has not alleged any facts to show that she opposed an unlawful employment practice. This argument was premised on the assumption that the presence of a consensual personal relationship in the workplace between a supervisor and coworker does not rise to sex discrimination for other employees in the workplace.
Plaintiff countered that the issue is not whether, in fact, she suffered from actionable sex discrimination due to the alleged relationship between Byrne and Hermanson. Plaintiff argued that the only issue is whether she had a reasonable, good faith belief that she suffered sexual discrimination due to the alleged relationship.
In an Opinion and Order, dated October 18, 2000, I noted that plaintiff was correct that a retaliation claim under Title VII does not require that an employee correctly determine that a violation of Title VII has occurred. The Ninth Circuit allows a plaintiff to bring a retaliation claim under Title VII if she reasonably believes that the underlying discrimination is actionable, even if actually it is not. Trent v. Valley Elec. Ass'n, Inc., 41 F.3d 524, 526 (9th Cir. 1994). "The reasonableness of [a plaintiff's] belief that an unlawful employment practice occurred must be assessed according to an objective standard-one that makes due allowance, moreover, for the limited knowledge possessed by most Title VII plaintiffs about the factual and legal bases for their claims." Moyo v. Gomez, 40 F.3d 982, 985 (9th Cir. 1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1081 (1995).
I note that the Supreme Court reversed in April 2001 a decision in which the Ninth Circuit had applied its rule, in the retaliation context, that a plaintiff need only have reasonably believed that actionable conduct had occurred, even if it actually had not. Clark County School District v. Breeden, ___ U.S. ___, 121 S.Ct. 1508 (2001). The Court stated: "We have no occasion to rule on the propriety of this interpretation, because even assuming it is correct, no one could reasonably believe that the incident recounted above violated Title VII." Id. at 1509.
Based on these standards, I found in the Opinion and Order that plaintiff had stated the three elements of a claim for retaliation and I denied the motion to dismiss. Nevertheless, I noted that the motion had served a useful purpose. Specifically, the motion helped the parties and the court to focus on the key issue in this case, i.e., whether it was objectively reasonable for plaintiff to believe that she had been subjected to sex discrimination by the existence of a personal relationship in her workplace between her supervisor and another manager. I directed the parties to develop the record solely on the issue of plaintiff's belief that a violation of Title VII had occurred and encouraged defendant to file a motion for summary judgment on that issue if it believed that plaintiff could not satisfy the first element of her retaliation claim. I also noted some of the factors that I would consider relevant to whether plaintiff had the requisite objective belief that she had been subjected to sex discrimination, such as the wording of an anti-discrimination policy that plaintiff had been provided by defendant (as her employer) and whether she had received advice by an attorney before making her complaint to management.
After taking plaintiff's deposition, defendant filed its motion for summary judgment on March 16, 2001. Defendant established the following facts, among others discussed in later portions of this opinion.
Defendant employed plaintiff from April 1995 through December 1998. Plaintiff was the executive assistant to Dan Byrne, Senior Vice President of Product Development and Sales Support. Defendant asserts that plaintiff performed essentially secretarial duties, although plaintiff disagrees (without elaboration).
Several directors reported to Byrne, one of whom was JoNell Hermanson, Director of Sales Support. Plaintiff and Hermanson were not in comparable positions. Defendant asserts that plaintiff and Hermanson did not compete for employment opportunities. Plaintiff disagrees with this last assertion but provides no explanation regarding why it is inaccurate.
Within two months of her hire date, plaintiff believed that Byrne and Hermanson had a personal relationship. For purposes of this opinion, I will assume that Byrne and Hermanson did have a personal relationship that rose to the level of a sexual affair.
LEGAL STANDARD
Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). The initial burden is on the moving party to point out the absence of any genuine issue of material fact. Once the initial burden is satisfied, the burden shifts to the opponent to demonstrate through the production of probative evidence that there remains an issue of fact to be tried. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986). On a motion for summary judgment, the evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Robi v. Reed, 173 F.3d 736, 739 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 120 S.Ct. 375 (1999).
DISCUSSION
At the outset, I find that plaintiff could not have reasonably believed that she was subject to a hostile work environment as that concept is typically applied in Title VII cases. For instance, there is no testimony regarding sexually-charged remarks or actions by Byrne toward plaintiff or unwelcome sexual conduct by Byrne toward other female employees. Rather, plaintiff testified at her deposition that the relationship between Byrne and Hermanson affected her because Hermanson monopolized Byrne's time, which limited plaintiff's access to Byrne and made it difficult for her to get her work done. Likewise, plaintiff testified that she observed arguments and hostility between Byrne and Hermanson that was disturbing to the work environment. However, plaintiff testified that other co-workers in her department, regardless of their sex, experienced the same work conditions and that it did not matter that plaintiff was female. Plaintiff's Dep., pp. 17-18, 24-25, 36, 41, 60-61, 63-64.
As noted above, I suggested two other ways that plaintiff could have shown that she had a reasonable belief that she was subject to a hostile work environment. Specifically, I suggested that the wording of a company anti-discrimination policy or advice by an attorney could be relevant to whether plaintiff had a reasonable belief that the work conditions she experienced constituted sex discrimination through a hostile work environment or otherwise. Unfortunately for plaintiff, she relied on neither before making her complaints to management.
I recognize that, in plaintiff's view, the above discussion could be considered off point. At oral argument, her counsel reiterated that her theory of sex discrimination is based on the "paramour theory" rather than premised on the typical sexually hostile work environment. That is, plaintiff argues that regardless of whether she was discriminated against because of her gender, she suffered because Byrne favored Hermanson over plaintiff, thus negatively affecting plaintiff's work and her ability to obtain employment benefits.
Even if I were to subscribe to the paramour theory, plaintiff's argument suffers from the fact that she has not identified any concrete way in which she was denied employment opportunities or benefits or that she suffered consequences for poor work performance caused by the existence of the alleged affair between Byrne and Hermanson. At most, the record shows that plaintiff (and the rest of the department) was irritated and inconvenienced by the relationship between Byrne and Hermanson. These facts, combined with plaintiff's exclusive reliance on a relatively obscure and unclear case from outside this circuit (King v. Palmer, 778 F.2d 878 (D.C. Cir. 1985)), cause me to conclude that plaintiff did not have a reasonable belief that she had been subjected to sex discrimination by the existence of a personal relationship in her workplace between Byrne and Hermanson. Better guidance is found in the Ninth Circuit's decision in Candelore v. Clark County Sanitation District, 975 F.2d 588, 590 (9th Cir. 1992), in which the court rejected a claim for sex discrimination arising out of the fact that the plaintiff's supervisor was having a romantic affair with one of the plaintiff's co-workers. As the court stated, "[a] co-worker's romantic involvement with a supervisor does not by itself create a hostile work environment." Id.
CONCLUSION
The motion for summary judgment (#29) by defendant M Financial Holdings, Inc. is GRANTED.