Garner v. G.D. Searle Pharmaceuticals Co. ( 2014 )

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 13-11218
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 2:90-cv-00688-MHT-CSC
KATHY GARNER,
LOULEE W. KARN,
Plaintiffs – Appellees/Cross-Appellant,
versus
G. D. SEARLE PHARMACEUTICALS CO.,
Defendant – Appellant/Cross-Appellee.
________________________
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Alabama
________________________
(September 15, 2014)
Before JORDAN, Circuit Judge, and RYSKAMP, * and BERMAN, ** District
Judges.
*
Honorable Kenneth L. Ryskamp, United States District Judge for the Southern District of
Florida, sitting by designation.
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PER CURIAM:
In June of 1990, Kathy Garner and Loulee Karn filed this employment
discrimination suit against G.D. Searle Pharmaceuticals Co. (“Searle”) alleging
gender discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
the Equal Pay Act. Although the district court held a bench trial in 1993, it did not
issue its opinion holding Searle liable until January of 2002. It then took more
than a decade to resolve the damages issues, with a final judgment entered on
February 15, 2013. This two-plaintiff employment discrimination suit thus took
almost 23 years to reach a damages resolution.
In the interest of brevity, we will not repeat the district court’s detailed
factual findings here and will instead summarize its rulings. The district court
ruled that (1) Joe Flanders, a District Manager at Searle, subjected Ms. Garner and
Ms. Karn to sexual harassment “that was so severe and so pervasive that it created
a hostile and abusive working environment in violation of Title VII”; (2) Searle
constructively discharged Ms. Karn when she was forced to resign her position as a
medical sales representative for Searle due to the sexual harassment; (3) Searle
intentionally discriminated against Ms. Garner on the basis of her sex with regard
to promotion, discipline, and discharge; (4) Searle retaliated against Ms. Garner for
**
Honorable Richard M. Berman, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New
York, sitting by designation.
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filing an EEOC charge by discharging her; and (5) Searle violated the Equal Pay
Act by paying both Ms. Garner and Ms. Karn less than men for the same work.
See D.E. 177 at 9, 57, 68-73. Based on after-acquired evidence, the district court
limited Ms. Garner’s backpay award, finding that Ms. Garner would have been
discharged even in the absence of Searle’s discrimination and retaliation based on
her falsification of physician call reports. Id. at 75. Taking a kitchen sink
approach to this appeal, the parties contest each of the rulings adverse to them.
Following review of the voluminous record, and with the benefit of oral
argument, we affirm without further discussion the district court’s rulings that
Searle was liable for (1) Mr. Flanders’ sexual harassment of Ms. Garner and
Ms. Karn, (2) the constructive discharge of Ms. Karn, (3) the retaliation against
Ms. Garner for filing an EEOC charge, and (4) the violation of the Equal Pay Act.
The findings on which those rulings were based, in our view, were not clearly
erroneous. See Lincoln v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. Sys. of Georgia, 697 F.2d 928,
940 (11th Cir. 1983) (“[T]his Court may reverse a finding of intentional
discrimination only if the finding is clearly erroneous.”). Because we conclude
that Searle waived its exhaustion defense, we also affirm the district court’s ruling
that Searle intentionally discriminated against Ms. Garner on the basis of her sex
with regard to promotion, discipline, and discharge. But we reverse the district
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court’s decision allowing Searle to raise its after-acquired evidence after trial, and
remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I
Searle may have had a strong argument that Ms. Garner failed to exhaust
administrative remedies with respect to her promotion and discipline claims
because she failed to file a timely EEOC charge alleging such discrimination. See
Griffin v. Dugger, 823 F.2d 1476, 1492–93 (11th Cir. 1987) (charge for
discriminatory objective testing would not support claim for subjective
discriminatory discipline or promotion). See also Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire &
Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618, 628 (2007) (“The EEOC charging period is triggered
when a discrete unlawful practice takes place.”), superseded on other grounds by
statute, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, Pub. L. No. 111-2, § 3, 123 Stat. 5.
But Searle waived its exhaustion defense by failing to include it in the pretrial
order. See Miles v. Tennessee River Pulp & Paper Co., 862 F.2d 1525, 1529 (11th
Cir. 1989) (holding that the defendant waived a defense by not raising it in a
pretrial order). See also Rockwell Int’l Corp. v. United States, 549 U.S. 457, 474
(2007) (“[A] final pretrial order . . . supersede[s] all prior pleadings and control[s]
the subsequent course of the action.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Searle does not dispute that it failed to raise an exhaustion defense in the
pretrial order and admits that “[c]laims not raised in the pretrial order will usually
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not be allowed.” Appellant’s Br. at 45. Searle nonetheless argues that it could still
avail itself of this affirmative defense because the issue was “actually tried.”
Appellant’s Response and Reply Br. at 24-25. See also Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(b)(2)
(“When an issue not raised by the pleadings is tried by the parties’ express or
implied consent, it must be treated in all respects as if raised in the pleadings.”).
Ironically, however, Searle has also waived its argument against waiver. Because
Searle failed to provide us with record citations indicating when and how it raised
and tried this defense below, its arguments on appeal are deemed waived. See
Carmichael v. Kellogg, Brown & Root Servs., Inc., 572 F.3d 1271, 1283 (11th Cir.
2009) (“Because she has failed to develop the argument or to offer any citation to
the record in support of it, we deem the argument waived.”).
It is not our duty to parse through the lengthy trial record—which spans a
dozen volumes in this case—to determine whether a party properly preserved an
affirmative defense. See Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A) (requiring the appellant’s
brief to include “citations to the authorities and parts of the record on which the
appellant relies”). Because Searle provides no support for its argument that this
defense was “actually tried” below, we need not reach its argument that
Ms. Garner suffered no prejudice due to the lack of notice.1
1
Our review of the record indicates that, to the extent Searle raised an exhaustion defense at all,
it did so only with respect to Ms. Garner’s discriminatory pay, discipline, and discharge claims.
See Trial Memorandum, D.E. 166 at 8 (“Garner did not allege unequal or discriminatory
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Because we hold that Searle waived its exhaustion defense, we affirm the
district court’s ruling that Searle intentionally discriminated against Ms. Garner on
the basis of her sex with regard to promotion, discipline, and discharge. The
district court did not clearly err on the ultimate factual issue of whether Searle
intentionally discriminated against Ms. Garner. See Richardson v. Leeds Police
Dept., 71 F.3d 801, 806 (11th Cir. 1995) (“When the trier of fact has before it all
the evidence needed to decide the ultimate issue of whether the defendant
intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff, the question of whether the
plaintiff properly made out a prima facie case is no longer relevant.”) (internal
quotation marks omitted). Searle argues that “the record does not contain
subsidiary findings that males who were similarly situated to Garner were treated
better (i.e., promoted, not placed on a PIP, or not terminated after failing to meet
PIP goals),” Appellant’s Response and Reply Br. at 12, but we believe that the
compensation practices or discriminatory practices in evaluation or discipline in either the
original or amended charge.”), and 22 (“Both plaintiffs allege discrimination under Title VII
with respect to pay, discharge, work assignments, and discipline. All of these claims are barred
by the administrative exhaustion requirement of Title VII because they are not within the scope
of the claims raised in the respective EEOC charges filed by plaintiffs.”); Defendant’s Post-Trial
Reply Memorandum, D.E. 171 at 85 (“Disparate pay was neither related to nor within the scope
of Plaintiffs’ EEOC charges.”). But even if we were to find that Ms. Garner failed to exhaust her
administrative remedies with respect to the independent discipline claim, her August 1989
Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) would still be part and parcel of her promotion, retaliation,
and discharge claims. Searle itself argued in the pre-trial order that Ms. Garner’s lack of
promotion and discharge resulted from her deficient sales performance as documented by the
PIP. See D.E. 124 at 5. Because Searle did not raise an exhaustion defense regarding the
promotion claim, the district court properly considered the discriminatory nature of the PIP in
deciding these claims. Searle does not argue on appeal that Ms. Garner failed to exhaust
administrative remedies with respect to her discharge claim.
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district court’s ruling was amply supported by the record below. See, e.g., D.E.
177 at 68-70 (discussing men who received promotions despite having similar
performance to Ms. Garner); id. at 70-72 (same with respect to discipline); id. at
72-73 (same with respect to discharge).
II
We reverse, however, the district court’s decision allowing Searle to raise its
after-acquired evidence after trial in order to limit Ms. Garner’s backpay relief.
The after-acquired evidence doctrine allows an employer to cut off its backpay
liability for employment discrimination if it later discovers that the employee
engaged in wrongdoing “of such severity that the employee in fact would have
been terminated on those grounds alone if the employer had known of it at the time
of the discharge.” McKennon v. Nashville Banner Publishing Co., 513 U.S. 352,
362-63 (1995). Under such circumstances, the backpay award should be limited to
the period of time “from the date of the unlawful discharge to the date the new
information was discovered.” Id. at 362.
As we have previously explained, the after-acquired evidence doctrine “is an
affirmative defense that an employer must plead in its answer or otherwise ensure
that it is a subject of the pretrial order.” Holland v. Gee, 677 F.3d 1047, 1065
(11th Cir. 2012). Despite discovering Ms. Garner’s alleged misconduct in July of
1991, Searle failed to amend its answer or otherwise raise the after-acquired
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evidence defense in the pretrial order (which was issued in March of the following
year). It nonetheless argues against waiver because the “trial court took . . . after-
acquired evidence testimony,” and Searle raised the issue in its post-trial briefs.
Appellant’s Response and Reply Br. at 30.
Without appropriate record citations, we cannot credit Searle’s argument
that the after-acquired evidence defense was tried by implied consent. Our
independent review of the record reveals that Searle failed to raise the after-
acquired evidence defense at trial even after Ms. Garner’s attorney objected to the
introduction of the falsified call report on relevance grounds. See D.E. 328-4 at
771-72. If anything, the record reveals that Searle affirmatively mislead
Ms. Garner into believing that the falsified call report was relevant only to the
extent it buttressed Searle’s arguments that its decision to terminate her was based
on her sales numbers alone. Id. D.E. 328-4 at 772 (explaining that the falsified call
report was relevant because “call average is something that was raised with
Mrs. Garner’s evaluations a number of times. . . . But more importantly, calls that
she actually made on physicians or did not make on physicians, would directly
impact [her sales] numbers . . . .”). We will not countenance such sandbagging.
We are not persuaded, moreover, that Ms. Garner was not prejudiced by Searle’s
failure to raise this defense before or during trial. Accordingly, we find that Searle
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waived its after-acquired evidence defense by failing to raise it until after trial and
reverse the district court’s limitation on Ms. Garner’s backpay relief. 2
III
Because we conclude that Searle waived its after-acquired evidence defense,
we reverse the district court’s order limiting Ms. Garner’s backpay award after the
date Searle discovered her misrepresentation. We affirm the district court’s order
in all other respects and remand so that the district court can recalculate
Ms. Garner’s backpay award.
AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND REMANDED.
2
Even if not waived, we are skeptical that the evidence adduced at trial—Ms. Garner’s falsified
report and testimony that one unidentified individual had been terminated for similar
misconduct—was sufficient to support an after-acquired evidence defense. See McKennon, 513
U.S. at 362-63 (holding that the employer must establish that the alleged “wrongdoing was of
such severity that the employee in fact would have been terminated on those grounds alone”).
Searle did not present any testimony that Ms. Garner would have been terminated based on this
misconduct. In addition, Searle’s failure to timely raise the defense denied Ms. Garner the
opportunity to cross-examine its witness regarding the circumstances of the other individual’s
termination.
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