Calloway v. Aerojet General Corp.

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
April 5, 2011
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
PATRICIA CALLOWAY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
No. 10-4133
v. (D.C. No. 1:08-CV-00162-DAK)
(D. Utah)
AEROJET GENERAL
CORPORATION,
Defendant-Appellee.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before LUCERO, ANDERSON, and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges.
Patricia Calloway appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment in
favor of her former employer, Aerojet General Corporation, in her Title VII
action alleging sexual harassment. We affirm.
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously to grant the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral
argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding
precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and
collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent
with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
I.
Because “[s]ummary judgment was granted for the employer, . . . we must
take the facts alleged by the employee to be true.” Burlington Indus., Inc. v.
Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742, 747 (1998). In late 2003, shortly after Ms. Calloway began
working as a receptionist at Aerojet’s small facility in Utah, she began a
consensual sexual affair with David Dibell, the highest-ranking Aerojet employee
in Utah. During their extramarital relationship, which lasted approximately two
years, Ms. Calloway was promoted to a position as Mr. Dibell’s secretary.
Ms. Calloway did not complain about the situation, but other people did.
In August 2004 an employee telephoned Aerojet’s human-resource department at
its corporate headquarters in Gainesville, Virginia, to report that the couple’s
workplace behavior was attracting unfavorable notice, particularly from an
employee of Aerojet’s prime contractor. And another individual called the
contractor’s compliance hotline to complain that Ms. Calloway received
preferential treatment due to her relationship with Mr. Dibell.
In response to these reports, Aerojet began an investigation and
scheduled a special training session on sexual harassment in the Utah office. A
human-resources representative traveled to Utah and taught the sexual-harassment
session, which Ms. Calloway attended. The representative also met with several
employees, who related their perception that Mr. Dibell and Ms. Calloway were
engaged in a consensual sexual relationship. As a result, the employees believed,
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Mr. Dibell displayed favoritism toward Ms. Calloway. When Mr. Dibell was
questioned, however, he denied any personal relationship with Ms. Calloway.
The next week, the director of human resources and division counsel came
to Utah to conduct further interviews. Mr. Dibell again denied any relationship
with Ms. Calloway beyond that of supervisor and friend. Ms. Calloway, too,
denied any improper conduct on the part of Mr. Dibell. At the end of the
interview with Ms. Calloway, the company officials reviewed Aerojet’s
anti-sexual harassment policies and reporting procedures. They gave her their
business cards, asking her to call if she were subjected to any harassing behavior.
Mr. Dibell’s and Ms. Calloway’s repeated disclaimers meant an
inconclusive end to the investigation. Mr. Dibell, however, was reprimanded for
creating the perception of an improper relationship with Ms. Calloway and
warned against any further unprofessional conduct. Mr. Dibell told Ms. Calloway
about the letter and stated that they should not be seen together.
But the affair continued for at least another year. In the summer or fall of
2005, Ms. Calloway informed Mr. Dibell that she would not be intimate with him
until he started proceedings to divorce his wife. Mr. Dibell did not comply with
her demand. Notwithstanding her ultimatum, they engaged in perhaps five more
consensual sexual encounters before Ms. Calloway took disability leave for
mental-health problems in mid-2007. She alleges that Mr. Dibell sexually
harassed her during this on-again-off-again period, in that he pressured her to
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renew their affair and became critical and caustic when she resisted his advances.
Within this same time-frame, she received pay increases and a promotion.
Ms. Calloway confided her relationship problems with Mr. Dibell to her
friend Kathy Ova, an Aerojet contract specialist, who may have been referred to
as a manager in some contexts. 1 Ms. Calloway was seeking personal advice, and
did not believe it was Ms. Ova’s “responsibility to report [the] harassment.”
Aplt. App., Vol. 1 at 68. For her part, Ms. Ova felt that “Ms. Calloway was just
generally complaining that she did not like to get up in the morning and come to
work.” Id., Vol. II at 298. Ms. Ova did not consider herself an Aerojet manager
and, in any event, did not relay the conversations to a human-resource
representative.
1
Ms. Calloway has provided unauthenticated evidence of a business card and
reports to an outside organization referring to Ms. Ova as a subcontracts manager.
On company records, Ms. Ova is listed as a “Senior Subcontract Administrator”
or “Procurement Subcontracts Specialist.” She supervised no employees and had
no human-resources responsibilities. The district court determined that, as a
matter of law, Ms. Ova was not a manager for purposes of Aerojet’s
sexual-harassment policy. See Parkins v. Civil Constructors of Ill., Inc., 163 F.3d
1027, 1033 (7th Cir. 1998) (distinguishing between employees “who are
supervisors merely as a function of nomenclature from those who are entrusted
with actual supervisory powers” in determining Title VII liability). Because we
rely on other grounds to decide that Ms. Calloway’s conversations with Ms. Ova
had no effect on Aerojet’s entitlement to the Ellerth/Faragher affirmative
defense, we do not analyze this aspect of the district court’s ruling. We may
affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment on any ground supported by
the record. See Bolden v. PRC Inc., 43 F.3d 545, 548 (10th Cir. 1994).
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Ms. Calloway herself never reported harassment through Aerojet’s
complaint process or by direct contact with the officials who had interviewed her.
In fact, Aerojet officials were not notified of the harassment allegations until
Ms. Calloway was on short-term disability leave and her husband telephoned their
corporate office to complain that Mr. Dibell had sexually harassed his wife.
Aerojet promptly launched another investigation, which led to Mr. Dibell’s
retirement in lieu of termination. Ms. Calloway did not return to the workforce.
Her short-term disability was converted to long-term leave, then she began
receiving Social Security insurance disability benefits.
Ms. Calloway sued Aerojet, alleging that she had been sexually harassed by
Mr. Dibell. Aerojet moved for summary judgment based on the Ellerth/Faragher
affirmative defense, which may be available to employers in instances in which
the employee allegedly “refuses the unwelcome and threatening sexual advances
of a supervisor, yet suffers no adverse, tangible job consequences.” Ellerth,
524 U.S. at 747; see also Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 807
(1998). The district court concluded that Aerojet had established its entitlement
to the defense and therefore entered summary judgment on Ms. Calloway’s
claims. Ms. Calloway now appeals.
II.
We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo.
Thomas v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 631 F.3d 1153, 1160 (10th Cir. 2011).
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Summary judgment is appropriate if “there is no genuine dispute as to any
material fact” and “the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”
Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). Although courts may not make credibility determinations
or weigh evidence at the summary judgment stage, “[w]here the record taken as a
whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party,
there is no genuine issue for trial.” Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio
Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986) (quotations omitted).
The purpose of the Ellerth/Faragher defense is “to recognize the
employer’s affirmative obligation to prevent violations and give credit . . . to
employers who make reasonable efforts to discharge their duty.” Faragher,
524 U.S. at 806. It also acknowledges that the employee has “a coordinate duty
to avoid or mitigate harm” by “avail[ing] herself of the employer’s preventive or
remedial apparatus.” Id. at 806-07. Under Ellerth/Faragher, the employer must
prove by a preponderance of the evidence both that “(1) it exercised reasonable
care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior, and (2) the
plaintiff unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective
opportunities provided by the employer or to avoid harm otherwise.” Pinkerton v.
Colo. Dep’t of Transp., 563 F.3d 1052, 1058-59 (10th Cir. 2009) (citing Ellerth,
524 U.S. at 765; Faragher, 524 U.S. at 807) (quotations omitted).
Ms. Calloway does not contest Aerojet’s reasonable care to prevent sexual
harassment. It “had in place an adequate sexual harassment policy” that
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“prohibits sexual harassment, identifies the complaint procedure, and informs
employees that disciplinary action might be taken against those who violate the
policy.” Pinkerton, 563 F.3d at 1062. Aerojet’s policy committed “to promptly
and thoroughly investigate all reports of” harassing conduct. Aplt. App., Vol. 2
at 258. An employee was to “immediately notify . . . [a] Human Resources
Representative, your designated facility ethics officer, or a Company attorney” or
use the “Compliance Hotline.” Id. “These are the individuals who are authorized
to receive and act upon complaints of harassment or discrimination.” Id.“However, the existence of a sexual harassment policy and training
alone does not satisfy the employer’s burden under the first prong of the
Ellerth/Faragher defense because the employer not only must take reasonable
care to prevent sexually harassing behavior but also to correct promptly any such
behavior.” Pinkerton, 563 F.3d at 1062. Ms. Calloway claims a disputed issue of
fact about the promptness of Aerojet’s actions by calling attention to a policy
provision that requires “[a]ny manager or supervisor” who becomes aware of
possible sexual harassment “to report immediately to . . . [a] Human Resources
Representative.” Aplt. App., Vol. 2 at 258. Under this provision, she argues, once
“any Aerojet manager or supervisor” learns of problematic conduct, the company
is immediately on notice of harassment. And the timing of its first notice “is of
paramount importance [in applying the Ellerth/Faragher defense because] if [it]
had notice of the harassment . . . then it is liable unless it took prompt corrective
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action.” Madray v. Publix Supermarkets, Inc., 208 F.3d 1290, 1299 (11th Cir.
2000) (quotation omitted).
Ms. Calloway asserts that, by submitting evidence showing references to
Ms. Ova as a manager, she has raised a disputed issue of fact on the promptness
of Aerojet’s actions. In her view, her confidences to Ms. Ova put Aerojet on
notice of sexual harassment and obligated it to launch an immediate inquiry into
her change of heart about Mr. Dibell. And Aerojet did not investigate the
situation until it received the telephone call from her husband.
The First Circuit has considered analogous circumstances and decided the
question of “whether the company’s voluntary adoption of a policy requiring all
supervisors . . . to report sexual harassment increases the scope of the company’s
legal liability as a matter of law under Title VII.” Chaloult v. Interstate Brands
Corp., 540 F.3d 64, 76 (1st Cir. 2008). Its emphatic answer: “[w]e think not.”
Id. In reaching this conclusion, the court recognized the existence of a contrary
case, which held that a corporation’s policy requiring “all supervisors and
managers to report incidents of sexual harassment” meant that a supervisor’s
awareness constituted notice to the employer. Clark v. United Parcel Serv., Inc.,
400 F.3d 341, 350 (6th Cir. 2005) (alteration and quotation omitted). The First
Circuit, however, determined that “[a]doption of [the Clark] view would set a
legal standard different from the Supreme Court’s reasonableness approach” in
Ellerth/Faragher and “also discourage and penalize voluntary efforts which go
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beyond what the law requires.” Chaloult, 540 F.3d at 76. It would lead to
“undercut[ting] the policy judgment the Supreme Court made” in
Ellerth/Faragher. Id.“Given the combination of factors from the events in this case,” id. at 75,
we determine that Chaloult provides the better approach to our analysis of
Ms. Calloway’s argument. The relevant question is not whether Ms. Ova was a
manager but whether Aerojet acted reasonably in correcting any harassing
behavior. Thus, a dispute over Ms. Ova’s title does not raise an issue of material
fact precluding summary judgment based on the Ellerth/Faragher defense. See
Frank v. U.S. West, Inc., 3 F.3d 1357, 1361 (10th Cir. 1993) (“Factual disputes
about immaterial matters are irrelevant to a summary judgment determination.”).
The uncontested material facts demonstrate that Aerojet exercised
reasonable care in addressing Mr. Dibell’s conduct. Its swift reaction to earlier
allegations about his inappropriate relationship with Ms. Calloway included a
training session and a series of personal interviews. This initial investigation was
thwarted by Ms. Calloway’s own false statements. But as soon as her husband
complained through the company process, Aerojet began another investigation
and eventually disciplined Mr. Dibell. Further, “the context surrounding
[Ms. Calloway’s] comments to [Ms. Ova] compels the conclusion that [she] could
not reasonably have been expected to act to address [Ms. Calloway’s]
complaints.” Madray, 208 F.3d at 1300.
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In sum, Aerojet met its burden of proof on the first element of the
Ellerth/Faragher defense. And because Ms. Calloway admits that she
unreasonably failed to take advantage of the company’s preventive and corrective
opportunities, Aerojet satisfied the second element as well. Accordingly, we
affirm the district court’s entry of summary judgment.
III.
Aerojet’s appellate brief includes a request for an award of attorneys’ fees
on appeal. Rule 38 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedures provides for an
award of fees “[i]f a court of appeals determines that an appeal is frivolous” and
the appellee submits “a separately filed motion” or this court issues a notice. “An
appeal is frivolous when the result is obvious, or the appellant’s arguments of
error are wholly without merit.” Braley v. Campbell, 832 F.2d 1504, 1510
(10th Cir. 1987) (en banc) (quotation omitted). Aerojet’s request satisfies neither
the procedural or substantive requirements of Rule 38.
AFFIRMED.
Entered for the Court
Stephen H. Anderson
Circuit Judge
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