Shafer v. Army Air Force Exchg ( 2004 )

United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
F I L E D
REVISED JULY 30, 2004
June 28, 2004
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Charles R. Fulbruge III
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT Clerk
_____________________
Nos. 03-10074
and 03-10220
_____________________
NEOMA SHAFER; ET AL.,
Plaintiffs.
JUDITH ANN PARKS,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
ARMY & AIR FORCE EXCHANGE SERVICE;
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE,
Defendants - Appellants.
__________________________________________________________________
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Texas
_________________________________________________________________
Before JOLLY, HIGGINBOTHAM, and DeMOSS, Circuit Judges.
E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge:
The Plaintiff-Appellee, Judith Ann Parks, was awarded over
$1,000,000 in compensatory damages and attorneys’ fees by the
district court. This award followed the district court’s wholesale
adoption of the factual findings and legal recommendations of a
report prepared by a special master. A central dispute in this
confusing case concerns whether the special master exceeded his
authority by considering claims made by Parks in a separate
lawsuit, which was never formally referred to the special master or
otherwise consolidated with the contempt proceeding arising from a
related lawsuit, which was properly before the special master. We
conclude that the special master did exceed the scope of his
appointment by hearing, and addressing in his report, claims that
were not properly before him. It follows that the district court’s
adoption of the findings and recommendations relating to the
unreferred case constitutes reversible error. We therefore REVERSE
the judgment in favor of the plaintiff on those claims. As to the
district court’s findings with respect to the claims that were
properly before the special master, we also REVERSE but on other
grounds.
I
A
The genesis of this appeal is a very old Title VII sex
discrimination suit filed in 1976 against The Army and Air Force
Exchange Service (“AAFES”) -- a federal instrumentality that
operates Post Exchanges and Base Exchanges for military personnel.
That case, Shafer v. AAFES, 667 F.Supp. 414 (N.D.Tex. 1985), was
eventually settled in an agreement approved by the district court
in 1987. The settlement agreement did not conclude the entire
case, however; the claims of four AAFES employees, including
Plaintiff-Appellee Parks, proceeded as individual discrimination
suits. Parks’s individual case was eventually referred by the
district court to a special master, who recommended that Parks be
2
awarded back pay, retroactive promotions, and other relief. The
district court adopted the master’s report and entered final
judgment on Parks’s claim in January 1988. In pertinent part, the
judgment ordered AAFES to promote Parks to pay grade UA14
retroactive to April 1981, to amend Parks’s personnel files to
reflect her promotion, and to give Parks “priority placement” into
a supervisory position; further, the judgment enjoined AAFES “from
any form of retaliation against Judith Ann Parks.” The judgment
was not appealed.
In accordance with that judgment, AAFES promoted Parks to
grade UA14 and made her chief of one branch of the Information
Systems Directorate, Systems Development Division (“IS-D”). That
final judgment was anything but final, however, as far as the
dispute between Parks and AAFES is concerned. Beginning in 1993,
Parks began once again to experience workplace incidents that she
contended were discrimination and retaliation. First, in early
1993, AAFES established a new directorate for Change Management and
needed to fill eight positions for Project Managers. Tom Saga,
Park’s immediate supervisor, asked several people, including Parks,
whether they were interested in the position. Saga told Parks that
it would be a lateral UA14 position, and Parks therefore declined
it. Robert McFarland was then selected for the position, which was
soon after reclassified as a UA15 position. Parks contends that
the government knew the new position would be UA15 but
3
intentionally waited until after she had declined the job and
McFarland had accepted before it reclassified it.
Parks also contended that the discrimination and retaliation
continued in 1994. On her Performance Evaluation Report (“PER”)
for that year, which was completed by Saga and his superior, James
McKinney, Parks received a poor mark in a section (called the
“diamond”) that rated an employee’s relative promotion potential.
According to Parks, she was given a low score in the diamond so
that men could be promoted ahead of her. Three men in the
Information Systems Directorate were promoted to UA15 in 1994, but
Parks was not.
Finally, in May 1995, the curtain appeared to fall on the
long-running battle between Parks and AAFES when Parks accepted a
voluntary offer of early retirement made generally available to
AAFES’s employees in response to budget cuts. Not so. Despite the
voluntary nature of her retirement, however, Parks nevertheless
soon maintained that she was constructively discharge. She alleged
that her decision to quit was directly brought on by years of
discrimination, escalating retaliation, and the realization that
(had she remained at AAFES) her poor ratings would make any
promotion in the next several years highly unlikely.
B
In this connection, Parks had earlier filed a series of
complaints with the AAFES’s internal EEO office, beginning in April
1994 and continuing through May 1995. Additionally, in June 1994,
4
Parks began this present action -- she filed a motion to have AAFES
held in contempt of the 1988 Shafer judgment. In this motion, she
asserted that AAFES had violated the 1988 judgment by: (1) failing
to correct personnel records to reflect Parks’s retroactive
promotion, (2) failing to give her priority placement in a suitable
UA14 supervisory position within a reasonable time after the
judgment, and (3) retaliating against her by passing over her for
promotions to UA15 positions and giving her poor performance
evaluations. The motion further stated that AAFES had “continued
to discriminate against Judith Ann Parks with regard to promotions
and had retaliated against her because of her participation in this
lawsuit, the Court’s retroactive promotion of her, and her
subsequent claims of discrimination and retaliation.” The motion
asked the court to hold AAFES in contempt and to order the agency,
inter alia, retroactively to promote Parks to UA15, to provide her
with back pay to match the UA15 salary, and to pay her other
compensatory and punitive damages.
On April 3, 1995, the district court appointed John Albach,
who had served as special master in the earlier Shafer proceedings,
to serve as the special master for the purpose of holding hearings
and making a report and recommendation to the court on Parks’s
contempt motion. Invoking Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure, the district court issued a referral order, setting out
the specific claims and issues before the special master.
5
Specifically, the order directed the special master to consider
Park’s “Motion to Hold the Defendants in Contempt.” The order
further delineated the precise claims at issue in that motion as
set out by that motion: to wit, (1) AAFES’ failure to correct
Park’s personnel records, (2) its failure to grant her priority
placement, and (3) its alleged retaliation and discrimination
against her.
In August 1995, Parks filed a separate and independent Title
VII complaint styled Parks v. Perry. This occurred fourteen months
after filing the contempt motion and four months after that
contempt motion had been referred to the special master. The
complaint referred specifically to three incidents that allegedly
constituted discrimination and retaliation: (1) the selection of
McFarland instead of Parks for the UA15 Change Management position,
(2) the manipulation of Parks’s 1994 PER, and (3) the failure to
promote Parks to UA15 in May 1994. The complaint stated that its
claims were “closely related” to Park’s contempt motion in Shafer,
and the complaint requested that it be joined with the contempt
proceeding pending before Judge Buchmeyer. The complaint also
stated, however, that Parks “in no way represents or concedes that
her claims of contempt are affected or replaced by this lawsuit.”
Parks’s lawyer would later explain that the separate action was
filed to make sure that “all bases were covered.”
C
6
What happened next to Parks v. Perry is a matter of great
confusion and dispute in this case. Accordingly to Parks, Judge
Buchmeyer consolidated Parks v. Perry with the contempt motion and
referred it to the special master. Yet, there is no formal
indication in the record that this ever occurred. The district
court docket sheet does show that Parks v. Perry was reassigned to
Judge Buchmeyer on September 26, 1995. Two days later, however,
Parks v. Perry was closed without any indication as to why, except
for a cryptic final docket entry stating: “Case closed per
chambers.” Strangely, this ambiguous docket entry is the only
official indication in the record concerning the fate of Parks v.
Perry. Most significantly, no formal Rule 42(a) order
consolidating Parks v. Perry with the contempt motion was ever
entered; nor was the Rule 53 order referring the contempt motion to
the master ever amended to include such expanded authority.
The only other indication in the record concerning the status
of Parks v. Perry creates even more procedural incoherence.
Apparently, its confused status was the subject of discussion
between the parties and the special master in January 1996.
Following a telephone call among them, Parks’s lawyer wrote to the
master that the parties had asked one of Judge Buchmeyer’s clerks
in October 1995 about the status of Parks v. Perry and were told
that “Parks v. Perry had been administratively closed because all
claims raised in Parks v. Perry were before the Court in Shafer.”
7
A few days later, the master wrote to the parties, stating that he
had spoken to Judge Buchmeyer “regarding the question raised
concerning the status of Parks v. Perry” and that the judge had
stated that “all claims will be handled by the Special Master and
that Parks v. Perry is administratively closed.” He further stated
that this meant AAFES was “not required to file an answer to Parks
v. Perry and [Parks] must bring all of her claims before the master
in Shafer v. AAFES.”
This statement by the special master, however, did little to
resolve the parties’ differing interpretations regarding the
ongoing status of Parks v. Perry. Parks apparently assumed that
the district court had, in fact, consolidated the two cases and
referred them both to the special master. AAFES, on the other
hand, interpreted this statement to mean that, given the numerous
similar claims and issues presented by the contempt motion and
Parks v. Perry, Judge Buchmeyer had decided to suspend the latter
pending the resolution of the former, and that the special master
would be confined to an examination of Parks’s contempt claims
alone.
D
Significantly, it seems neither party was aware of the other
party’s differing conclusions regarding the status of Parks v.
Perry until later in the case. In retrospect, these divergent
conclusions were understandable, given the fact that either of
8
these interpretations can be drawn from the special master’s
statement, especially when no formal document existed (like a Rule
42(b) consolidation order or Rule 52 referral order) that would
indicate to either party that their respective understanding was
correct or incorrect. Accordingly, both parties proceeded with the
contempt suit before the special master, both apparently thinking
that they understood the nature of what that suit entailed.1
Parks supplemented her original contempt motion by including
later retaliatory incidents, including her constructive discharge
claim. The master eventually held evidentiary hearings in April
and May 1996 with testimony from over thirty witnesses. Over two-
and-a-half years later, in December 1998, the master finally issued
his eighty-page report and recommendations. The master, who
apparently assumed that Parks v. Perry had been consolidated with
the contempt motion and referred to him, made the following
recommendations, among others: (1) AAFES was in contempt of court
for failing to update all of its personnel records, entitling Parks
to $10,000; (2) AAFES had discriminated against Parks in the
selection of McFarland for the UA15 Change Management position,
entitling Parks to back pay and increased retirement benefits; (3)
AAFES retaliated against Parks for filing EEO complaints and the
At some point in time, AAFES did become aware of the fact that
1
the special master believed that both cases were before him. Once
it recognized this, it consistently reminded the master that this
was a contempt proceeding and that he should confine the scope of
his inquiry accordingly. See n. 4 infra.
9
Shafer contempt motion, entitling Parks to $52,000 ($100 per day
for the period of the retaliation); (4) Parks was constructively
discharged, entitling Parks to front pay from the date of her early
retirement until the date of her previously scheduled retirement a
few years later, offset by retirement benefits; and (5) AAFES
should have its personnel policies reviewed by an outside agency,
a form of relief Parks had not requested. In 2000, the district
judge adopted all of the master’s recommendations, awarding Parks
$315,098 in front-pay, back pay and other compensatory relief,
increased retirement benefits to reflect what they would have been
but for AAFES’ discrimination and her constructive discharge (an
amount estimated by AAFES to be worth over $600,000 in present
value terms), and over $400,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs.
AAFES appealed, and this court vacated and remanded on the
grounds that Judge Buchmeyer did not review the hearing record
before adopting the master’s recommendations. Shafer v. AAFES, 277
F.3d 788 (5th Cir. 2002). On remand, the district court again
adopted the master’s recommendations “in their entirety” in a terse
order.
AAFES now appeals again. In this appeal, it contends that
because Parks v. Perry was not properly before the special master,
the district court erred in adopting the special master’s findings
and recommendations with respect to any claims arising from that
10
separate Title VII suit.2 As to the remaining claims related to
the contempt proceedings, AAFES asserts that we either should
dismiss them on jurisdictional grounds or reverse and render
because these claims are unsupported by sufficient evidence.
II
As an initial matter, we must determine whether Parks v. Perry
was properly before the special master and, by extension, the
district court. Performing this task, however, is unusually
complicated. The master apparently believed, as did the district
court, that Parks v. Perry had been consolidated with the contempt
action and referred to him. Curiously, however, there is
absolutely no formal or informal record evidence to indicate that
consolidation and referral ever occurred. In particular, as we
have noted, there is no Rule 42(a) order officially consolidating
the cases, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 42(a), nor, despite clear language
in the Federal Rules requiring such, is there a Rule 53 order
referring the Parks v. Perry claims to the special master.3
2
AAFES made the same contention in its first appeal to this
court. However, because this court was forced to remand the case
on other grounds, it never addressed this question in its decision.
Shafer, 277 F.3d at 790 n.1.
3
Rule 53(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure mandates
that a district court referring a case to a special master must
comply with several procedural requirements. Chief among them is
the requirement that the court produce a written order referring
the case to a special master that states and defines the scope of
the master’s duties and limits, if any, on his authority. See Fed.
R. Civ. P. 53(b)(2). There is such a referral order in this case
– the original order entered approximately four months before Parks
v. Perry was filed, referring the pending contempt motion to the
11
This case is unusual in another important way as well.
Although as a general matter, the failure to comply with formal
procedural requirements is not always grounds for reversing a
judgment, in this case the failure substantially prejudiced one of
the parties. This prejudice against AAFES manifested itself in
three ways:
First, the district court’s failure to provide adequate notice
misled AAFES as to which claims were actually before the special
master and as to the perimeters of his authority. It was
reasonable for AAFES to conclude that Parks v. Perry had been
suspended pending the resolution of similar claims and issues in
the present contempt action.4 As a result of this confusion, AAFES
special master. That order, however, specifically and explicitly
confines the authority of the special master to consider the
“Motion to Hold Defendants in Contempt.” Indeed, nothing in that
order, which was never amended, grants the special master the
additional authority to hear the claims from Parks v. Perry.
4
Parks takes issue with AAFES’ assertion that it reasonably
misunderstood the district court’s consolidation and referral here.
She claims that AAFES is simply trying to get another bite at the
apple when it lost the first time around. However, we see nothing
in the record to indicate that AAFES ever wavered in its belief
regarding the nature of this contempt proceeding. Indeed, AAFES
repeatedly reminded the special master that this was a contempt
proceeding, not a Title VII action; that the special master lacked
jurisdiction over Parks discrimination claims in this contempt
proceeding because the judgment alleged to have been violated only
enjoined retaliation and not discrimination; and that the proper
standard of proof in this contempt proceeding was clear and
convincing evidence. Moreover, the only evidence to which Parks
can point as suggesting that AAFES understood that Parks v. Perry
had been consolidated is unpersuasive. She notes that in June
1995, AAFES refused to pursue administratively the EEO complaints
because the issues raised in those complaints were before the court
in the pending contempt action. However, at the time AAFES took
12
did not pursue rights it would have had with respect to the Parks
v. Perry Title VII action.5 The most obvious of these was its
right to request a jury trial on the Parks v. Perry claims -- a
right whose exercise it was denied by the district court’s failure
to adequately inform it that Parks v. Perry had been consolidated.6
Second, the effect of the district court’s failure to
delineate the claims before the special master carried over into
the special master’s report as well; indeed, at times, he seemed to
have been confused regarding the scope of the task before him.
This confusion resulted in the failure of the special master to
that position, Parks v. Perry had yet to be filed. (It was filed
two months later, in August 1995). Thus, this position is not
indicative of AAFES’ awareness that Parks v. Perry had been
consolidated with the contempt action.
5
For this reason, we also reject Parks’s argument that AAFES
cannot complain on appeal about the district court’s consolidation
and referral of Parks v. Perry when it did not object “at the time
of consolidation and referral.” AAFES did not object precisely
because it was unaware that the case had been consolidated and
referred; indeed, there was no consolidation and referral. As we
noted earlier, from the beginning of this case until its closing
arguments to the special master, AAFES continued to treat this case
as a contempt proceeding and consistently reminded the special
master of that fact. And although it is true that this precise
objection was not raised to the district court after the master had
presented his report, it was raised immediately after in the first
appeal to this court and, therefore, was before the district judge
when he made his ruling that is the subject of this appeal.
In a Title VII action, if a complaining party seeks
6
compensatory or punitive damages -- as Parks clearly sought in her
Parks v. Perry complaint here -- “any party may demand a trial by
jury.” 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(c). Because the district court did not
adequately notify AAFES that Parks v. Perry had been consolidated
with the present contempt action, AAFES understandably saw no
reason to invoke this right and thus did not.
13
distinguish between the two types of claims before him and caused
him to apply an incorrect legal standard. Specifically, while his
report states that Parks v. Perry was “transferred to this court,”
it proceeds generally to analyze the claims as though they were
part of the same suit, seldom acknowledging which claims were part
of which action and why. The Supreme Court and this court,
however, have stressed frequently the importance of not
intermingling consolidated claims in this fashion. See, e.g.,
Johnson v. Manhattan Ry. Co., 289 U.S. 479, 496-97 (1933)
(“[C]onsolidation is permitted as a matter of convenience and
economy in administration, but does not merge the suits into a
single cause, or change the rights of the parties.”); Frazier v.
Garrison I.S.D., 980 F.2d 1514, 1532 (5th Cir. 1993) (“[A]ctions
maintain their separate identity even if consolidated.”); McKenzie
v. U.S., 678 F.2d 571, 574 (5th Cir. 1982) (“[C]onsolidation does
not cause one civil action to emerge from two.”) Instead, courts
have emphasized that following consolidation, it is vital that “the
two suits retain their separate identities” even to the point that
each requires “the entry of a separate judgment.” Miller v. U.S.
Postal Service, 729 F.2d 1033, 1036 (5th Cir. 1984). This strict
segregation of merged cases is necessary to prevent consolidation
from “depriv[ing] a party of any substantial rights that he may
have had if the actions had proceeded separately.” Id.The failure properly to segregate the two actions in this case
had precisely this effect. By failing to maintain the cases’
14
separate identities, the special master often blurred, or blended,
the distinctive legal differences between a contempt proceeding and
a Title VII action. The most notable example of this error
concerns the standard of proof the special master applied to claims
of retaliation raised by Parks in her original contempt motion.7
Because these were contempt action claims, Parks should have been
required to prove them by clear and convincing evidence. See,
e.g., U.S. v. City of Jackson, Miss., 359 F.3d 727, 731 (5th Cir.
2004). Instead, however, the special master seems to have applied
Title VII’s preponderance of the evidence standard8 to these
contempt action claims that were not part of the Parks v. Perry
suit.9 AAFES was thereby deprived of “substantial rights that [it
7
Both the contempt motion and Parks v. Perry contained
allegations of retaliation. However, the special master based his
finding of retaliation on his conclusion that AAFES had retaliated
against Parks for her filing of the contempt motion and the EEO
complaints, neither of which were among the claims listed in the
Parks v. Perry complaint. Accordingly, they necessarily would have
to have been part of the contempt action, which sought to hold
AAFES in contempt for violating the more general anti-retaliation
portion of the 1988 Shafer judgment. (That judgment had enjoined
AAFES from “any form of retaliation” against Parks.)
8
Under Title VII, a plaintiff prevails by demonstrating a
defendant violated the statute by a preponderance of the evidence.
See, e.g., Desert Palace, Inc. v. Costa, 539 U.S. 90, 99 (2003)
9
The special master concluded that the evidence “suggested”
that AAFES was guilty of retaliating against Parks for filing the
contempt motion and the EEO complaints. This lenient standard of
proof is inconsistent with the clear and convincing standard, which
requires evidence “so clear, direct and weighty and convincing as
to enable the fact finder to come to a clear conviction, without
hesitancy.” Travelhost, Inc. v. Blandford, 68 F.3d 958, 961 (5th
Cir. 1995) (internal quotation marks omitted).
15
would] have had if the actions had proceeded separately.” Miller,
729 F.2d at 1036.
Finally, the district court’s failure adequately to notify
AAFES that it had consolidated Parks v. Perry and referred it to
the special master deprived AAFES of its right under the federal
rules to receive notice of and object to the referral of matters to
a special master. Rule 53 permits the district court to expand the
initial mandate of the special master, but only by amending the
referral order and “giving notice to the parties and an opportunity
to be heard.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 53(b)(4). None of these procedures
were followed here, however; not only was the original referral not
amended but the district court never notified the parties of its
purported referral of Parks v. Perry to the special master, and
obviously there was never an opportunity to respond.10
Thus, for the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the district
court’s failure to comply with the formal requirements of the
federal rules directly produced a series of material errors in this
case. AAFES was never put on notice that Parks v. Perry had been
consolidated and referred and it adopted the reasonable belief that
All of these factors are quite aside from compelling
10
questions raised by the government at oral argument regarding
whether an Article III judge has the authority or power to
nonconsensually refer an individual Title VII claim to a non-
Article III special master for a full report and recommendation --
effectively, a trial on the merits from beginning to end. Because
we reverse on other grounds, it is unnecessary for us to address
this issue. We note, however, that we see no reason that Parks v.
Perry, if litigated, should not be tried by a district court
without assistance from a special master.
16
it had not. As we have indicated, following this reasonable belief
deprived AAFES of substantial rights it would have had if the
district court had adhered to the proper procedures. We therefore
REVERSE the district court’s judgment on those claims raised in the
Parks v. Perry action. Specifically, we reverse the district
court’s judgment that AAFES had discriminated against Parks by
selecting McFarland for the open UA15 position.11
III
Having concluded that the district court erroneously adopted
the special master’s finding that AAFES had discriminated against
Parks, we have reversed that aspect of the district court judgment.
However, four other separate elements of that judgment still
remain. These elements include the district court’s adoption of
the following findings and recommendations of the special master:
(1) that AAFES had retaliated against Parks for filing the contempt
motion and EEO complaints, entitling her to compensatory damages;
(2) that this retaliation led to her constructive discharge,
entitling Parks to compensatory damages, back pay, front pay, and
related benefits; (3) that AAFES be fined $10,000 for failing to
update Parks’ personnel records pursuant to the Shafer judgment;
Of the five basic findings and recommendations made by the
11
special master in his report and then adopted by the district
court, only this one arises out of the Parks v. Perry suit.
Accordingly, this is the only specific element of the district
court’s judgment affected by our conclusion that Parks v. Perry was
not properly before the special master.
17
and (4) that AAFES submit to an outside audit of its personnel
policies.
We will examine each of these elements in turn. However,
before doing so, we must note that a necessary correlate to our
conclusion that Parks v. Perry was not before the special master is
that the case before us is fundamentally a contempt action. It is
in this context -- the context of a contempt action -- that our
examination of these remaining elements will proceed.
A
First, the special master found that AAFES was in contempt of
the court’s order in Shafer, because it had retaliated against
Parks by manipulating her performance evaluations, thereby
effectively ensuring she would never be promoted. He concluded
that Parks was thus entitled to $52,000 in compensatory damages.
This recommendation was adopted with little comment by the district
court.
To establish civil contempt, the moving party bears the burden
of proving by “clear and convincing” evidence that the alleged
contemnor was aware of and violated a “definite and specific order
requiring him to perform or refrain from performing a particular
act or acts.” Travelhost, 68 F.3d at 961. Clear and convincing
evidence is “that weight of proof which ‘produces in the mind of
the trier of fact a firm belief or conviction as to the truth of
the allegations sought to be established, evidence so clear, direct
and weighty and convincing as to enable the fact finder to come to
18
a clear conviction, without hesitancy, of the truth of the precise
facts’ of the case.” In re Medrano, 956 F.2d 101, 102 (5th
Cir.1992) (quoting Cruzan by Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Dept. of
Health, 497 U.S. 261, 285 n.11 (1990)).
Ordinarily, we would review the district court’s factual
findings for clear error. Travelhost, 68 F.3d at 961. However,
because, as indicated above, the special master -- and by
extension, the district court -- applied the wrong standard of
review to Parks’s retaliation claims, we review the district
court’s factual findings de novo. See Medrano, 956 F.2d at 102
(holding that when a district court bases its findings of fact upon
an erroneous legal standard the appellate court reviews the record
de novo).
The special master and the parties have assumed that the law
of retaliation under Title VII provides guidance in determining
whether AAFES retaliated against Parks within the meaning of the
1988 judgment. Under Title VII law, a retaliation claim requires
proof that (1) the employee engaged in protected EEO activity, (2)
the employee suffered an adverse employment action, and (3) a
causal connection exists between the protected activity and the
adverse employment action. See, e.g., Mattern v. Eastman Kodak
Co., 104 F.3d 702, 705 (5th Cir. 1997). The special master
concluded that the evidence before him was sufficient to establish
each of these elements. Having reviewed the record ourselves de
19
novo, however, we conclude Parks failed to establish this third
element by clear and convincing evidence.
The employer conduct providing the basis for the special
master’s conclusion that AAFES unlawfully had retaliated against
Parks was a series of formal reprimands issued to Parks by her
immediate supervisor, Tom Saga. These reprimands began in April
1994 and were issued on multiple occasions and for a variety of
reasons, including taking excessively long lunches without
permission, applying her makeup at her desk during working hours,
and sleeping at her desk during working hours. Ultimately, these
reprimands and the underlying behavior culminated in Saga assigning
Parks a mediocre performance rating in her yearly 1995 review,
which had a negative impact on her prospects for promotion.
At trial, Parks apparently did not take specific issue with
AAFES’ contention that she engaged in these various types of
behavior; instead she contended that Saga used her behavior as a
pretext for his retaliatory intentions. Accordingly, she presented
evidence that she had been singled out and was reprimanded for
conduct that other similarly-situated employees were not.
The weak link in Parks’s case, however, is that she offered
little evidence of a causal link between these reprimands and any
protected activity. Not only did she fail to provide evidence of
animus on the part of Saga, she failed to produce any evidence
that, at the time Saga was alleged to have begun his “systematic
20
harassment and retaliation campaign,” he was aware that Parks had
filed any EEO claims or her Shafer contempt motion; indeed, the
only evidence directly on this point shows that Saga did not become
aware of these facts until September 1994.12 After September 1994,
the evidence does not show any significant change in either the
attitude or the disciplinary conduct of Saga towards Parks. To be
sure, there was only one more -- in November, when Parks had again
taken an extended lunch without first receiving permission.
Moreover, despite the fact that Saga’s ultimate decision several
months later to assign Parks a mediocre performance rating in her
annual review occurred after he had been made aware of her EEO
filings, that decision appears to be based in large part on the
disciplinary record Parks had compiled prior to the time that Saga
became aware of her protected activities. While such slight
evidence of a causal connection might arguably have some weight
under a preponderance of the evidence standard, we have no
hesitancy in concluding that such evidence is not so “clear, direct
and weighty and convincing as to enable the fact finder to come to
a clear conviction, without hesitancy” that a causal connection
exists between Saga’s reprimands and Parks’s protected activities.
Medrano, 956 F.2d at 102. In this contempt proceeding, we
therefore conclude that the special master’s finding that AAFES
12
Although Saga knew about Parks’s participation in the Shafer
case years earlier, the special master recognized that this alleged
campaign of retaliation, which began in 1994, could not be
connected to activities that concluded some six years earlier.
21
retaliated against Parks is unsupported by sufficient evidence and
REVERSE and RENDER. We similarly REVERSE and RENDER with respect
to the special master’s corresponding conclusion that Parks was
constructively discharged.13
B
Next, the special master found that AAFES was in contempt of
court for failing to update its personnel records, and recommended
that Parks be awarded $10,000 as “costs.” This recommendation was
adopted without comment by the district court. AAFES contends that
this award is an improper criminal contempt sanction and must be
voided. We agree.
As AAFES notes, a civil contempt fine must be either
compensatory or coercive. International Union, United Mine Workers
of America v. Bagwell, 512 U.S. 821, 829 (1994); see also American
Airlines, Inc. v. Allied Pilots Ass'n, 228 F.3d 574, 585 (5th Cir.
2000). This fine is neither. It is not coercive because it does
not provide AAFES with the “opportunity to purge,” i.e., a
“subsequent opportunity to reduce or avoid the fine through
To prove constructive discharge, “a plaintiff must establish
13
that working conditions were so intolerable that a reasonable
employee would feel compelled to resign.” Faruki v. Parsons
S.I.P., Inc., 123 F.3d 315, 319 (5th Cir. 1997). The master’s
finding that AAFES had subjected Parks to a campaign of retaliation
formed the basis for his conclusion that Parks’s working conditions
were intolerable, and thus, that she had been constructively
discharged. As we have concluded that there is not clear and
convincing evidence to support a finding of retaliation, there is
no longer a basis for concluding that Parks had been constructively
discharged.
22
compliance.” Bagwell, 512 U.S. at 829. It is not compensatory
because it is not based on any evidence of loss. The special
master explicitly found that Parks failed to prove she was damaged
by her unamended personnel records. Moreover, despite the special
master’s characterization of the fine as costs, it cannot refer to
Parks’s attorneys’ fees, which had been allowed separately. Thus,
because the fine is not compensatory or coercive, it amounts to a
punitive, criminal sanction. Id. Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 2000h,
however, criminal contempt fines arising from Title VII proceedings
may not exceed $1,000. Furthermore, such criminal fines must be
accompanied by the procedural protections available in ordinary
criminal contempt proceedings, including a finding of criminal
intent, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and the right to a trial
by jury. 42 U.S.C. § 2000h; see also Young v. United States ex
rel. Vuitton, 481 U.S. 787, 798-99 (1987). The lack of such
procedural protections, coupled with the fact that the fine here
exceeded the statutory limit of $1000, requires that we REVERSE the
district court’s award of $10,000 to Parks.
C
Finally, “[i]n the light of [his] findings and recommendations
. . . regarding the employment practices of AAFES,” the special
master recommended that an outside agency be appointed to conduct
a study of AAFES’ personnel policies. This recommendation was
adopted without comment by the district court. AAFES contends that
because Parks, who has departed AAFES in retirement, lacked
23
standing to seek this remedy, the district court lacked
jurisdiction to enter an injunction requiring such an audit. We
agree.
In Armstrong v. Turner Industries, Inc., 141 F.3d 554, 563-64
(5th Cir. 1998), we held that a plaintiff who has merely alleged a
past statutory violation and does not assert any likelihood that
she will be subjected to a similar violation in the future or
purport to represent a specific class of individuals that is in
danger of discrimination from the defendant lacks the standing to
seek injunctive relief. Parks has acknowledged that her retirement
from AAFES means that injunctive relief in this case would not
benefit her in any way. In addition, we find nothing in her
pleadings suggesting she is seeking such injunctive relief on
behalf of a specific class of individuals in danger of continued
discrimination by AAFES. Indeed, such class-wide injunctive relief
was never even requested by Parks in this case but was recommended
sua sponte by the special master. Accordingly, we find that Parks
lacks standing to seek any injunctive relief and therefore REVERSE
the district court’s order that AAFES be audited by an outside
agency.
IV
One final portion of the district court’s judgment in this
case needs to be addressed. The district court concluded that
Parks was the prevailing party in this case, awarding her over
24
$400,000 in attorneys’ fees. However, given our complete reversal
of the district court’s judgment in this case, it is clear that
Parks is no longer a prevailing party. Accordingly, the district
court’s award of attorneys’ fees is also REVERSED. 42 U.S.C. §
2000e-5(k).
CONCLUSION
The judgment entered by the district court in this case
adopted the following findings and recommendations of the special
master in their entirety: (1) that AAFES had discriminated against
Parks in the selection of McFarland for the UA15 Change Management
position, entitling Parks to compensatory relief, back pay and
increased retirement benefits; (2) that AAFES retaliated against
Parks for filing EEO complaints and the Shafer contempt motion,
entitling Parks to $52,000 in compensatory damages; (3) that Parks
was constructively discharged, entitling Parks front pay, back pay
and related increased benefits; (4) that AAFES was in contempt of
court for failing to update all of its personnel records, entitling
Parks to $10,000; and (5) that AAFES should have its personnel
policies reviewed by an outside agency. The district court also
awarded Parks attorneys’ fees.
Today, we reverse the district court’s judgment in its
entirety. We have concluded that the district court’s adoption of
the special master’s findings regarding the discrimination claims
made in Parks v. Perry was erroneous as this case was not properly
25
before the master.14 We have concluded that the special master’s
finding that AAFES retaliated against Parks and constructively
discharged her, thereby placing it in contempt of an earlier order
of this court, is unsupported by sufficiently clear and convincing
evidence. We have rejected the district court’s award of $10,000
and its injunction that AAFES submit to an independent audit on
statutory and jurisdictional grounds. Finally, as Parks is no
longer the prevailing party, we have concluded she is no longer
entitled to attorneys’ fees. Accordingly, the judgment of the
district court is REVERSED, and judgment is RENDERED for AAFES.
REVERSED and RENDERED.
We note that we dismiss these Parks v. Perry claims without
14
prejudice. While Parks v. Perry has been administratively closed,
Parks is free to petition the district court to reopen the case and
litigate the claims raised therein. The remaining part of the
judgment is dismissed with prejudice.
26