Sanchez v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago et al
Filing
121
MEMORANDUM Opinion and Order : Defendants' Renewed Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law, or in the Alternative for Remittitur [84, 102] is granted in part and denied in part. There was a sufficient evidentiary basis to support the jury' ;s conclusion that Defendants retaliated against Plaintiff because of her protected conduct, so the court denies Defendants' motion for judgment as a matter of law. But the court grants Defendants' alternative motion and remits Plaintiff 039;s punitive damages. Plaintiff is directed to advise the court within 14 days whether she will accept an award of punitive damages in the amount of $50,000 or will request a new trial. Plaintiff's motion in limine 75 is stricken as moot. Signed by the Honorable Rebecca R. Pallmeyer on 9/26/2018. Mailed notice. (etv, )
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
LYNN SANCHEZ, an Individual,
Plaintiff,
v.
CATHOLIC BISHOP OF CHICAGO, and
ARCHDIOCESE OF CHICAGO,
Defendants.
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No. 16 C 6983
Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
In 2014, Plaintiff Lynn Sanchez worked as a parish assistant for Defendants Catholic
Bishop of Chicago and Archdiocese of Chicago. Defendants terminated her employment in
November of that year, ostensibly because she engaged in unprofessional conduct by yelling,
swearing, and spitting at her supervisor.
Plaintiff claims she was terminated because she
complained about another worker’s viewing pornography on an office computer, meaning that her
termination violated the anti-retaliation provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e,
et seq. The court denied Defendants’ motions to dismiss and for summary judgment, and the
case proceeded to trial in November 2017. The jury found for Plaintiff and awarded her $700,000
in compensatory and punitive damages. Defendants now move for judgment as a matter of law,
or, in the alternative for remittitur. For the reasons explained below, Defendants’ motion is granted
in part and denied in part.
BACKGROUND
In ruling on a Rule 50 motion for judgment as a matter of law, “the court construes the
evidence strictly in favor of the party who prevailed before the jury and examines the evidence
only to determine whether the jury's verdict could reasonably be based on that evidence.”
Passananti v. Cook County, 689 F.3d 655, 659 (7th Cir. 2012). Credibility determinations and the
weighing of evidence are reserved for the jury. Id. (citing, among other cases, Reeves v.
Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 150-51 (2000)). The following account is
drawn from the parties’ admissions and the evidence presented at trial, construed in that light.
Defendant Catholic Bishop of Chicago is a corporation sole affiliated with Defendant
Archdiocese of Chicago, an archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church. (Defs.’ Answer to Pl.’s
First Am. Compl. (hereafter “Answer”) [28], at ¶¶ 5-6.) The entities own and operate Immaculate
Conception and St. Joseph parishes in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood.
Plaintiff Lynn Sanchez began doing volunteer work for Defendant Archdiocese of Chicago
in approximately 1998. (Answer ¶¶ 7-8.) Through this volunteer work, Sanchez met Mark
Besztery, the business manager of Immaculate Conception and St. Joseph parishes. (Id. at ¶¶
9-10.) In or around January 2014, Besztery hired Sanchez to work as a full-time Parish Assistant
at the Immaculate Conception and St. Joseph parishes. (Id. at ¶ 7; Trial Transcript (hereafter
“Tr.”) 238:8-13.)
At all times relevant to this case, Defendants contracted with a company called MayDay
Solutions to provide information technology (IT) services at Immaculate Conception and St.
Joseph parishes. (Tr. 41:17-23; 183:12-17.) MayDay Solutions is owned by a parishioner named
Cherie May. (Id. at 184:5-9.) One of MayDay’s employees, a man named Harry Castaldo,
frequently worked onsite at Immaculate Conception. (Id. at 185:8-186:7.) According to Sanchez,
Castaldo “spent a lot of time on the third floor in the parish offices in the computer room.” (Id. at
186:12-14.)
I.
The Pornography
In late March or early April 2014, only a few months after Sanchez began working at the
parishes, she walked into the computer room and found Castaldo sitting at a desk, with his back
to the door, facing a desktop computer. (Id. at 187:8-12.) The computer’s monitor was visible
from the doorway, and when Sanchez entered the room that day, the “entire screen” was filled
with “nude women in motion.” (Id. at 187:12-17.) She stopped in the doorway, “shocked,” and
stood there silently for approximately five seconds. (Id. at 189:15-20.) At that point, Castaldo
2
turned around and made eye contact with Sanchez. Neither he nor Sanchez said anything, and
Sanchez immediately left the room and walked back to her desk. (Id. at 189:22-23.) She says
she did not report the incident to anyone that day because “I didn’t believe what I saw . . . . It was
just so shocking.” (Id. at 190:3-4; 242:15-25.)
Approximately two weeks later, on Friday, April 11, 2014, Sanchez walked into the
computer room to use the paper cutter. (Id. at 190:8-19.) She again found Castaldo sitting at the
desk with his back to the door, and she again observed “what appeared to be a video of nude
women on the screen.” (Id. at 190:19-22; 243:8-13.) She stood in the doorway silently for five to
ten seconds before Castaldo "changed the screen” and turned around. (Id. at 191:21-24; 243:1419.) Neither she nor Castaldo said anything, and Sanchez “did what [she] had gone in there to
do” (that is, she used the paper cutter) and then left the room. (Id. at 191-25-192:1.) She
remembers thinking “okay, you’re not crazy. That’s what you saw. That confirmed the sighting
of two weeks prior.” (Id. at 192:3-5.)
II.
The Initial Complaint
This time, Sanchez decided to report the incident. The Archdiocese’s personnel manual
includes a policy on reporting, and responding to, allegations of sexual harassment. This section
states, in relevant part, that “[i]f any employee believes that he or she has been subjected to
conduct which may constitute sexual harassment, that employee shall immediately report the
offensive conduct to his or her immediate supervisor.” The supervisor then must “report the
allegation to the Pastor, Principal or Director, who shall then report the allegation to the Office of
Employee Services and/or the Office of Legal Services.” (Pl.’s Tr. Ex. 3, Ex. 13 to Pl.’s Resp. Br.)
When Sanchez got back to her desk, she “immediately” sent a text message to Mark
Besztery stating “Harry is in his office—I didn’t know and I just walked back there. Don’t look now.
but I think he’s on a porn site.” (Id. at 69:3-71:24; Sanchez-Besztery Text Messages, Ex. 9 to
Pl.’s Resp. Br.) “Come on,” Besztery responded. (Id.) “He’s a strange guy,” Sanchez continued.
(Id.) “I agree,” said Besztery. (Id.) The text exchange ended there, but a few minutes later,
3
Sanchez went to Besztery’s office to discuss the matter further. (Tr. 193:16-17.) She told
Besztery that she “saw nude women in motion” on Castaldo’s computer screen, that a similar
incident had occurred two weeks earlier, and that she was “disgusted.” (Id. at 194:3-9; 246:16.)
After “several minutes,” Besztery told Sanchez he would report the incidents to “Father Larry
[Lisowski],” who was “in charge of the whole parish.” (Id. at 41:9-13; 73:14194:1, 24-25.)
Sanchez then returned to her office, expecting that Besztery “was going to do what he
should do, which is to report it up the chain of command and tell Father Larry about it.” (Id. at
195:4-6.) Approximately one hour later, Besztery and Father Larry spoke with Sanchez about the
incident in a common area of the building. (Id. at 195:8-13; 73:1-3.) At Besztery’s request,
Sanchez told Father Larry about her encounters with Castaldo. (Id. at 196:4-8.) Father Larry
responded with “very specific questions, like, did these women have anything on at all? What
were they doing?” (Id. at 196:10-11.) Three times, Sanchez “repeated” to Father Larry that she
saw “exposed female bodies in motion.” (Id. at 196:12-14.) After four or five minutes, Father
Larry said “I don’t want to hear any more . . . Mark will handle this,” and walked away. (Id. at
197:2-3.) At trial, Father Larry admitted that he “told [Besztery] to investigate what happened”
instead of reporting Sanchez’s allegation to “HR” or to “Legal.” (Id. at 370:17-371:3.)
III.
The Investigation
At some point, either later that afternoon (Friday) or the following Monday, Besztery and
Sanchez had another conversation. (Id. at 198:7-8.) Besztery told Sanchez that, on Tuesday or
Wednesday of that week, he “was going to meet with Cherie [May] and Harry”—that is, with
Costaldo and his supervisor from MayDay Solutions—“and go over the network computer with
them to see what was there.” (Id. at 198:17-19.) Around 5:00 p.m. on Monday, however, Sanchez
saw Harry and Cherie enter the computer room, without Besztery, and close the door. (Id. at
201:1-7.) The door was still closed forty minutes later when Sanchez left for the night, and she
assumed that Harry and Cherie were still in the room. (Id. at 201:8-13.) Sanchez was “very
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curious and suspicious,” so she texted Besztery 1 and told him that “Cherie and Harry are here.
They just came in, and they are behind closed doors in the computer room.” (Id. at 201:16-25.)
“That’s strange,” Besztery responded. “They were supposed to meet me there in the morning.”
(Id. at 202:1-3.)
Later that week, on either Tuesday or Wednesday, Sanchez went to Besztery’s office to
discuss the results of his meeting with Cherie and Harry. (Id. at 202:12-14.) Besztery told her
that the meeting never happened, but that Cherie had provided him with a “log” showing that
“there were no porn sites viewed” on the computer Harry had been using. (Id. at 203:2-13.)
Besztery also reported that Cherie told him “there was a firewall” and “no one could have gotten
through the firewall to pornographic websites.”
(Id. at 203:23-15.)
“Come on,” Sanchez
responded. “You’re talking about the very people who built this network, who know this network
inside and out . . . . [H]ow could you say they couldn’t do anything they wanted with this
computer—with our network?” (Id. at 204:3-7.) The computer room “should have been cordoned
off,” she told him. “The computer should have been shut down, and you should have had
someone, a third party, come in and conduct an investigation and review of our systems.” (Id. at
204:18-21.) Sanchez told Besztery that she was “very concerned . . . because there were young
children—this was a campus—and female teachers and principals and that this wasn’t right.”
(204:24-205:2.)
Besztery’s response simply repeated what he had already told her: “We
investigated it. There is a firewall, and there is nothing in the log.” (Id. at 205:5-8.) He also told
Sanchez that she and Harry “would no longer be allowed to be alone together.” (Id. at 205:1112.)
1
At trial, Sanchez testified that she no longer has a copy of this text message
because “I didn’t save any text messages. I pretty well delete them after I read them.” (Tr. 202:59.) As far as the court can tell, Sanchez never explained why or how she was able to obtain
copies of her text messages with Besztery from Friday, April 11, 2014, but not this exchange that
purportedly occurred three days later. (Compare Ex. 9 to Pl.’s Resp. Br. (April 11 text messages
with Besztery), with Tr. 247:11-15 (“Q. And those text messages that you testified you exchanged
with Mark Besztery, they’re nowhere to be found, correct? A. I didn’t save any text messages,
and apparently his were deleted.”).)
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IV.
The Termination
Over the next several months, Sanchez complained to Besztery “every couple of weeks”
about what she characterized as retaliation for her report on Harry’s behavior. (Id. at 207:7208:3.) Her IT support was “diminishing,” she told Besztery, because she now had to contact
Cherie for help and Cherie had become “very aloof.” (Id. at 206:12-23.) On multiple occasions,
Sanchez suggested to Besztery that the parish “look for another IT company, because this isn’t
right.
We don’t know what happened.
They shouldn’t have gone in and done their own
investigation of the computer.” (Id. at 208:4-7.) Besztery repeatedly urged Sanchez to “let it go,
let it go.” (Id. at 209:1-2.)
On Friday, November 7, 2014, Sanchez went to Besztery’s office and told him that she
“just couldn’t work like this any longer, that it wasn’t right . . . that he never did a proper
investigation, that--and that things had been swept under the carpet[.]” (Id. at 217:24-218:3.)
Besztery responded that Sanchez was “on a witch hunt,” that she “needed to let it go,” and that
“there was an investigation, there’s nothing there, there’s a firewall.” (Id. at 218:6-15.) He then
told Sanchez that he “had to go meet his wife and kids,” and asked her to call him over the
weekend to discuss the matter further. (Id. at 219:20; 221:1-11). As they discussed a date and
time for the call, she followed him down the hall, into the elevator, and to the building’s exit. (Id.
at 289:1-6.)
At trial, Besztery testified that Sanchez was “in a rage” during this conversation. (Id. at
158:1-2.) She was “yelling and screaming . . . saying the F word at least 20 times,” and “spit was
flying out of her mouth.” (Id. at 157:11-25.) He “felt threatened by her demeanor”; when he tried
to leave she “grabbed” his shoulder. (Id. at 157:19-158:1.)
Sanchez testified that she never touched Besztery and did not swear or spit at him. (Id.
at 218:16-219:11.) She acknowledged raising her voice during the conversation, but she said
that Besztery raised his voice as well. (218:25-219:5.) She also testified, and Besztery admitted,
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that both he and Father Larry themselves “occasionally” used profanity around the office. (Id. at
114:21-116:3.)
On Sunday, November 9, Sanchez called Besztery on his cell phone. She told him that
she “felt like [she] was being retaliated against” and “couldn’t do her job.” (Id. at 222:12-13.) She
also said that “this has all been swept under the carpet” and “something’s got to give.” (222:24225:1.) Besztery responded that “if you can’t let this go, you can turn in your keys on Monday.”
(Id. at 223:5-6.) Sanchez told him that she had contacted a lawyer, and Besztery said “I knew it.”
(Id. at 223:9-11.)
At trial, she acknowledged that she again raised her voice during this
conversation, but she denied using profanity. (Id. at 223:12-16.)
At some point the next day, November 10, Besztery spoke by telephone with Kim
O’Donoghue, a human resources field representative with Defendant Archdiocese. (Id. at 298:13;
303:22-304:1.) Besztery told O’Donoghue that Sanchez had “followed him around, she had
cursed at him, she dropped f-bombs, she made physical contact with him.” (Id. at 304:2-6.)
O’Donoghue and Besztery then participated in a conference call with Fred Van Den Hende, the
Archdiocese’s Director of Human Relations. (Id. at 304:13-15.) During this phone call, Besztery
again described his interactions with Sanchez on November 7 and 9. (Id. at 304:16-18.) He also
mentioned that Sanchez had complained about an IT contractor viewing pornography on a parish
computer, but that the network’s firewall would have prevented this.
(Id. at 305:4-10.)
O’Donoghue’s handwritten notes from the calls with Besztery and Van Den Hende included the
following text: “she is threatening ‘going public’ w\ Harry.” (O’Donoghue Notes, Ex. 22 to Pl.’s
Resp. Br.; Tr. 308:10-309:16.)
That same day, November 10, Sanchez came to work as usual and performed her “regular
duties” all morning. (Tr. 223:24-224:4.) In the early afternoon, Besztery asked Sanchez to speak
with him and Father Larry in a conference room. (Id. at 224:4-11.) At that meeting, Besztery told
Sanchez that her employment was being terminated for two reasons: (1) because of her
unprofessional conduct during her conversations with Besztery on November 7 and 9, and (2)
7
because she lacked the “skill-set to handle what needs to be done.” (Audio Transcript 2-3, Ex.
16 to Pl.’s Resp. Br.) Sanchez responded that this was the first time she had heard anything
about her purported lack of skills or poor work performance. (Id.)
On November 11, Besztery wrote an e-mail to O’Donoghue describing the previous day’s
“exit interview” with Sanchez and Father Larry. This e-mail stated that Sanchez had been
terminated “based on her unprofessional and inappropriate behavior on Friday, November 7th
and Sunday, November 9th plus her lack of skills, knowledge, and ability to complete her job
responsibilities.”
(Besztery E-mail, Nov. 11, 2014, Ex. 17to Pl.’s Resp. Br.)
O’Donoghue
responded later that day with the following message: “Mark – per your conversation yesterday,
Lynn [Sanchez] was terminated for her insubordinate behavior, use of profanity when speaking
to her supervisor, and physically grabbing your arms.” (O’Donoghue E-mail, Nov. 11, 2014, Ex.
17 to Pl.’s Resp. Br.) At trial, Plaintiff’s counsel asked O’Donoghue to explain why she did not
mention anything about Sanchez “lacking the skill set to do her job” in this e-mail. O’Donoghue
replied, “That was not her reason for termination.” (Tr. 322:21-323:3.)
Father Larry Lisowski also wrote a memorandum describing the November 10 meeting
with Sanchez. That memo stated that she had been terminated “due to her recent inappropriate
behavior and poor performance.” (Lisowski Memo., Nov. 11, 2014, Ex. 19 to Pl.’s Resp. Br.) At
trial, Lisowski explained that he mentioned “poor performance” in the memorandum because “it
was mentioned at [the November 10 meeting with Sanchez],” but that “[t]he decision for why she
was terminated was her insubordinate behavior to her supervisor, Mark [Besztry]” on November 7
and 9. (Tr. 379:2-24.)
V.
The Aftermath
In the wake of Plaintiff’s termination, she felt “untethered” from and “let down” by the
church of which she had been a member for nearly twenty years. (Id. at 233:14-24.) She “didn’t
feel as secure” and became “untrusting of the church,” which caused her “anxiety and pain.” (Id.
at 234:4-19.) She also became estranged from the community in which she had long been an
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active participant. “[I]t’s a small parish and people talk and there’s gossip,” Plaintiff testified at
trial. She “presume[d] people knew what happened—found out or heard what happened,” and
she “felt embarrassed” and “kind of withdrew from some friendships [she] had there.” (Id. at
235:1-8.)
Florence Denby, another parishioner at Immaculate Conception who had known Sanchez
for approximately 14 years, testified that, prior to Plaintiff’s termination, Sanchez had been an
active participant in mass—“she didn’t just sit there and gaze into outer space”—and that
volunteering for the church had been “a big part of [Plaintiff’s] life.” (Id. at 456:3-14; 457:8-25.)
Sanchez seemed “very excited when she first got hired” by the church, Denby recalled. (Id. at
458:20-23.) After Plaintiff told Denby about her termination, at some point in 2014, Denby
observed that Sanchez seemed to feel “very bad” and became “less trustful of people in a superior
position.” (Id. at 460:14-25; 462:14-20.) Denby also testified, however, that she did not think that
Plaintiff’s “faith has been compromised.” (Id. at 462:20.)
Plaintiff’s husband of fifty years, David Sanchez, testified that Plaintiff’s “mood changed
considerably” after her termination. (Id. at 467:12-16; 471:22.) “She started eating more; she
gained weight,” he recalled. (Id. 371:22-23.) She “had a lot of fitful nights of sleep” and “slept
more in the daytime” than she had in the past. (Id. at 471:24-472:2.) Plaintiff had previously been
“very active, high energy,” but it became difficult to “motivate her” after her termination. (Id. at
473:9-15.)
She stopped going to mass, stopped volunteering at the church, and stopped
babysitting for the children of other parishioners. (Id. at 472:24-473:2; 474:2-4.) Although she
worked elsewhere for at least some period of time after her termination (id. at 479:13-19), she still
“hasn’t really snapped out of it” and was “not working” as of November 2017. (Id. at 475:23476:2.) Even three years later, David explained, she has “good days and bad days . . . . It’s kind
of like having a rock in your shoe and you can’t get it out, you can’t—you just can’t get
comfortable.” (Id. at 476:3-6.)
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VI.
The Lawsuit
Plaintiff filed a timely charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission and initiated this action on July 5, 2016, within 90 days of receiving a right-to-sue
letter from the EEOC. (Answer ¶ 36.) In Count I of her First Amended Complaint, filed on
February 23, 2017, Plaintiff alleged that Defendants retaliated against her for complaining about
unlawful sex discrimination and retaliation, in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C.
§ 2000e, et seq. Count II asserted the same claim under the Illinois Human Rights Act, 775 ILCS
5/2-101, et seq.
The court denied Defendants’ motions for dismissal and for leave to file a motion for
summary judgment, both of which argued that, as a matter of law, internal complaints about a
coworker viewing pornography at work do not qualify as protected conduct for purposes of a
retaliation claim. (See Minute Order Oct. 5, 2016 [19] (denying motion to dismiss); Transcript of
Proceedings, Oct. 5, 2016 [37], at 4-5 (explaining rationale for denial of motion to dismiss);
Transcript of Proceedings, June 1, 2017 [47], at 5-7 (warning Defendants that rehashing the same
arguments in a motion for summary judgment would likely be futile); Transcript of Proceedings,
July 25, 2017 [44], at 9-10 (same); Minute Order Aug. 17, 2017 [56] (denying, after full briefing,
Defendants’ motion for leave to file motion for summary judgment)). The case then proceeded to
trial. Before the jury began deliberating, Defendants moved for judgment as a matter of law [84]
on two grounds: (1) Plaintiff did not engage in protected activity, and (2) there was no causal
connection between Plaintiff’s alleged protected activity and any adverse employment action.
After the jury returned a verdict for Plaintiff, awarding her $200,000 in compensatory damages
and $500,000 in punitive damages (See Jury Verdict [90]), Defendants filed a Renewed Motion
for Judgment as a Matter of Law, or in the Alternative for Remittitur [102]. That motion is now
before the court.
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DISCUSSION
I.
Judgment as a Matter Of Law
The court may enter judgment as a matter of law where “a party has been fully heard on
an issue during a jury trial and the court finds that a reasonable jury would not have a legally
sufficient evidentiary basis to find for the party on that issue.” FED. R. CIV. P. 50(a)(1), (b)(3). In
this case, the court charged the jury with deciding, inter alia, whether Plaintiff had proven (1) that
“she engaged in protected activity,” (2) that “Defendant terminated her employment,” and (3) that
“there was a causal link between her protected activity and the termination of her employment.”
(Jury Instr. [89], at 21.) 2 Defendants argue that no reasonable jury could have found that Plaintiff
engaged in protected activity. In the alternative, they argue that no reasonable jury could have
found a causal link between her protected activity and her termination. The court considers these
arguments in turn. In doing so, it “construes the evidence strictly in favor of the party who
prevailed before the jury.” Passananti v. Cook Cty., 689 F.3d 655, 659 (7th Cir. 2012).
a.
Protected Activity
Title VII “prohibits retaliation against employees who engage in statutorily protected
activity by opposing an unlawful employment practice or participating in the investigation of one.”
Lord v. High Voltage Software, Inc., 839 F.3d 556, 563 (7th Cir. 2016), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct.
1115 (2017). Complaining about the actions of a coworker in the workplace can reasonably be
described as “opposing” an employment practice, but not all such complaints qualify as opposition
to an unlawful employment practice. “Complaining about a co-worker’s actions is not statutorily
2
The court further instructed the jury that “[e]ngaging in ‘protected activity’ means
that an individual has opposed an unlawful employment practice,” and that a plaintiff claiming
retaliation not only must “have a subjective (sincere, good faith) belief that she opposed an
unlawful practice,” she also must have had a basis for this belief that was “objectively reasonable,
which means that the complaint must involve a violation of the law.” (Jury Instr. 22.) Plaintiff’s
complaints need not “have included any ‘magic words’ such as ‘sex discrimination’ or ‘sexual
harassment’” to qualify as protected activity, “so long as the complaint indicate[d] that the
discrimination occurred because of the plaintiff’s sex, race, national origin, or some other
protected class.” (Id.)
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protected expression when the complained-of conduct does not relate to” prohibited
discrimination. Tank v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 758 F.3d 800, 809 (7th Cir. 2014). Although the
complaining party “need not show that the practice he opposed was in fact a violation of the
statute,” O’Leary v. Accretive Health, Inc., 657 F.3d 625, 631 (7th Cir. 2011), in order to qualify
as protected conduct, the employee’s complaint must be “based on a good-faith (that is, honest)
and reasonable belief that it is opposition to a statutory violation.” Hatmaker v. Memorial Medical
Center, 619 F.3d 741, 747 (7th Cir. 2010). “The objective reasonableness of the [plaintiff’s] belief
is not assessed by whether the conduct was persistent or severe enough to be unlawful, but
merely whether it falls into the category of conduct prohibited by the statute.” Lord, 839 F.3d at
563 (quoting Magyar v. St. Joseph Regional Medical Center, 544 F.3d 766, 771 (7th Cir. 2008)).
In this case, Plaintiff’s brief exposure to what she believes was pornography likely does
not amount to actionable sex discrimination. See Yuknis v. First Student, Inc., 481 F.3d 552, 555
(7th Cir. 2007) (strongly suggesting that a single co-worker “watching pornography on his office
computer” would not, without more, support a claim for a sexually hostile work environment). But
Plaintiff never claimed that it did. She instead argues that her complaints qualify as protected
conduct for purposes of a retaliation claim, because pornography “is sex-based and demeaning
to women” and therefore could create a work environment that is sexually hostile “if displayed
often enough.” (Pl.’s Resp. Br. 2.)
Defendants argue that, as a matter of law, a woman’s complaint about coworkers exposing
her to pornography cannot qualify as protected conduct unless she reasonably believed that her
coworkers (a) “directed” the pornography at her, and (b) did so because of her sex. (See Defs.’
Renewed Mot. 4-12.) In support of their position, Defendants point to Orton-Bell v. Indiana, where
the Seventh Circuit concluded that a woman who complained about “night-shift employees”
having sex on her desk did not engage in protected conduct. 759 F.3d 768, 776 (7th Cir. 2014).
The plaintiff offered no evidence that the night-shift employees were using her desk for sex
because she was a woman, the court explained. Id. Nor did she present any evidence that she
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had “rooted her complaint in the fact that she was a woman.” Id. Her complaint about employees
having sex on her desk was “undoubtedly valid,” but it did not “indicat[e] a connection to a
protected class or provid[e] facts sufficient to create that inference.” Id. (quoting Tomanovich v.
City of Indianapolis, 457 F.3d 656, 663 (7th Cir. 2006)). The court therefore affirmed summary
judgment for the defendant.
The Seventh Circuit followed similar logic in Lord v. High Voltage Software, Inc., 839 F.3d
556 (7th Cir. 2014). In that case, a male plaintiff complained to his employer that his male
coworkers were teasing him about the plaintiff’s supposed romantic interest in a female coworker.
Id. at 559. He also complained that, on four occasions, his male office-mate had “poked” or
“slapped” the plaintiff’s buttocks as he walked past. Id. at 559. Both the plaintiff and his officemate were subsequently terminated, and the plaintiff filed suit for sexual harassment and
retaliation. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendant on plaintiff’s retaliation
claim, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed.
“[A]lthough [the plaintiff’s] complaints concerned
workplace banter and conduct that had sexual overtones,” the court explained, “no evidence
suggests that he was harassed because of his sex.” Id. at 563. The plaintiff’s “belief that he was
complaining about sexual harassment, though perhaps sincere, was objectively unreasonable.”
Id.
Finally, Defendants note this court’s recent decision in Isbell v. Baxter Healthcare Corp.,
273 F. Supp. 3d 965 (N.D. Ill. 2017). In that case, a female plaintiff claimed that her employer
fired her because she complained about two occasions when male coworkers made jokes about
erectile dysfunction in her presence.
Id. at 970.
She also complained that one of those
coworkers—a “senior director of new product development” who had previously developed a
marketing campaign for the erectile-dysfunction drug Cialis—made her feel “very uncomfortable”
by decorating his office with various items of “Cialis paraphernalia” (none of which displayed
genitalia) and regularly talking about Cialis during meetings. Id. The plaintiff argued that these
complaints were protected conduct, but the court disagreed. “References to the marketing of an
13
erectile dysfunction drug, even if repeated and irrelevant, are not inherently sexual harassment,”
the court explained. Id. at 980. And Isbell had made “no showing” that the senior director’s Cialis
paraphernalia, or his comments about Cialis during meetings, were “directed at Isbell herself, or
at females in general.” Id. Nor had she offered any evidence that her coworkers made jokes
about erectile dysfunction in her presence because of her sex, or that she “even believed that
was the case.” Id. The plaintiff’s belief that she was subjected to a sexually hostile work
environment was therefore objectively unreasonable and her complaints were not protected
conduct. In granting summary judgment for the defendant, however, the court noted that even if
plaintiff engaged in protected activity, it was not clear that the person who made the discharge
decision was aware of that activity, and the discharge decision was “amply supported by
complaints from co-workers” about plaintiff’s job performance. Id. at 982, 986.
In Defendants’ view, these cases stand for the principle that a plaintiff’s complaint about
her coworkers’ actions can never be objectively reasonable for purposes of a retaliation claim
under Title VII unless the persons engaging in the complained-of conduct (1) intentionally targeted
the plaintiff or another individual, and (2) did so because of that person’s membership in a
protected class. Under this interpretation, Defendants would be correct that Lynn Sanchez’s
complaints were not protected. She presented no evidence that her coworker watched
pornography in the parish supply room with the intent of showing it to her or to anyone else. Nor
did she present any evidence that Ms. Sanchez’s coworker exposed her to pornography because
she is a woman.
But Defendants misread the law. True, where harassment is directed at an individual, a
hostile work environment is more likely to result; thus, a complaint about such conduct is more
likely to be deemed objectively reasonable because the complained-of conduct is more likely to
have made the workplace intolerable for the individual who was targeted. Cf. Carr v. Allison Gas
Turbine Div., 32 F.3d 1007, 1010 (7th Cir. 1994) (“[I]t is a lot more uncomfortable to be the target
of offensive words and conduct than to be merely an observer of them.”). But this does not mean
14
that there can be no hostile work environment without a showing that the plaintiff was targeted,
see Yuknis, 481 F.3d at 554 (“[O]ne could be in the target area because a group of which one
was a member was being vilified, although one was not singled out.”) Nor must a plaintiff show
her complaints were about conduct targeted at her. A person could honestly and reasonably
believe that the actions of her coworkers, even if not directed at her or any specific individual,
created a hostile work environment.
The case law cited by Defendants does suggest that the work environment about which a
plaintiff complains must be objectionable because of its depiction of, or effect on, a protected
class in order for the complaint to qualify as protected conduct. See Tank, 758 F.3d at 809
(complained-of conduct must “relate to” prohibited form of discrimination); 29 C.F.R.
§ 1604.11(a)(3) (“[V]erbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute[s] sexual harassment
when . . . (3) such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an
individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working
environment.”) (emphasis added).
They also stand for the principle that the complaints
themselves must “indicat[e]” this “connection to a protected class or provid[e] facts sufficient to
create that inference.” Orton-Bell, 759 F.3d at 776 (quoting Tomanovich, 457 F.3d at 663).
Defendants argue that Ms. Sanchez’s complaint about her coworker watching
pornography in the workplace was not sufficiently connected to her sex to qualify as protected
conduct. They characterize it instead as a complaint about actions that Plaintiff found personally
objectionable. Like the plaintiffs in Orton-Bell, Lord, and Isbell, Defendants suggest, Sanchez
complained about “disgusting” conduct, but not conduct that was objectionable because of its
effect on women. (See Defs.’ Mot. 7 (quoting Orton-Bell, 759 F.3d. at 776).)
This court does not find the analogy to Orton-Bell or any of Defendants’ other cases
compelling. Plaintiff Sanchez did not complain about the presence of sexual banter or activity in
the workplace, as the plaintiffs did in Orton-Bell, Lord, and Isbell. She complained about the
presence of pornography in the workplace.
Sexual intercourse and references to sexual
15
intercourse in the workplace are not necessarily more objectionable to women than they are to
men. But pornography might be. See, e.g., Patane v. Clark, 508 F.3d 106, 114 (2d Cir. 2007)
(“[T]he mere presence of pornography in a workplace can alter that ‘status’ of women therein and
is relevant to assessing the objective hostility of the environment.”); Baskerville v. Culligan Int’l
Co., 50 F.3d 428, 430-31 (7th Cir. 1995) (distinguishing a “merely unpleasant working
environment” saturated with, e.g., “vulgar banter, tinged with sexual innuendo,” from a “hostile or
deeply repugnant” work environment saturated with, e.g., “pornographic pictures”); Yuknis, 481
F.3d at 555 (suggesting, in dicta, that a workplace where “pornographic pictures were exhibited
on the walls” might be sufficiently hostile to women to support a claim under Title VII); Rodrick v.
St. Joseph Coll., No. 2:05-cv-274, 2008 WL 1925072, at *6-7 (N.D. Ind. Apr. 30, 2008) (complaint
about coworker viewing pornography at work was protected conduct for purposes of retaliation
claim); Moore v. INX, Inc., No. 11-cv-1108 CAB (MDD), 2013 WL 12095164, at *10 (S.D. Cal.
June 10, 2013) (same).
Ms. Sanchez’s two brief observations of a coworker watching what she believed was
pornography may not be enough to establish a hostile work environment claim. See id. But being
exposed to pornography in the workplace is “the type of occurrence that, if it happened often
enough, could constitute sexual harassment.” Magyar, 544 F.3d at 772 (emphasis added). The
presence of pornography in the workplace therefore falls within “the category of conduct
prohibited by the statute,” id. at 771, and a reasonable jury could find that Plaintiff’s initial, goodfaith complaint was protected conduct for purposes of her retaliation claim.
So too with Plaintiff’s subsequent complaints about what she believed to be Defendants’
inadequate investigation of her original report. An employer’s negligent failure to take reasonable
steps to discover or remedy harassment can be actionable under Title VII. See Smith v. Sheahan,
189 F.3d 529, 533 (7th Cir. 1999). A person who complains about what she honestly and
reasonably believes to be her employer’s negligent investigation into sexual harassment engages
in protected conduct because she is opposing “the category of conduct prohibited by the statute,”
16
Magyar, 544 F.3d at 771. To find that Sanchez’s complaints about the investigation were
protected, therefore, the jury needed evidence that Plaintiff honestly and reasonably believed that
her employer failed to take reasonable steps to discover or remedy the behavior she identified in
her original complaint.
At trial, Plaintiff presented evidence of several circumstances that led her to believe
Defendants’ response to her initial complaint was inadequate. Father Larry Lisowski admitted
that he did not report her allegation to the Archdiocese’s Office of Employee Services or Office of
Legal Services, which the Archdiocese’s personnel manual arguably required him to do. Instead,
he told Mark Besztery to investigate her complaint. According to Plaintiff, Besztery then told her
that he, Cherie May, and Harry Costaldo would have a meeting, during which they would check
whether the relevant computer had been used to access inappropriate content. Before this
meeting was scheduled to occur, however, she observed May and Costaldo enter the computer
room without Besztery. When she told Besztery about this, he acknowledged their conduct was
“strange.” Based on these events, Plaintiff concluded that Cherie May’s assurances about
Costaldo not having viewed pornography were unreliable, and that Defendants’ willingness to
accept those assurances at face value made it more likely that she and other women at the
parishes would be exposed to sexually offensive content in the future.
Defendants do not suggest that Plaintiff complained about the investigation in bad faith.
Instead, they argue that “[u]nder controlling case law, [their] response to Plaintiff’s report of
purported pornography was both reasonable and effective,” and that Plaintiff’s belief to the
contrary was therefore objectively unreasonable. (Defs.’ Reply Br. [115], at 15.) The first part of
Defendants’ argument is likely true. Even if Father Larry Lisowski did not adhere to the letter of
Defendants’ sexual harassment policy, an employer’s “failure to follow internal policy does not
matter so long as the employer’s response is otherwise reasonable under Title VII.” Milligan v.
Bd. of Trustees of Southern Illinois Univ., 686 F.3d 378, 387 (7th Cir. 2012). And the remainder
of Defendants’ response appears to have been reasonable under the circumstances. Defendants
17
reported Plaintiff’s complaint about Costaldo to his supervisor, Cherie May. Besztery received
assurances from May—supported by documentation—that Costaldo had not, in fact, viewed
pornographic content on the parish computer. Even with these assurances, Besztery took further
steps to prevent Costaldo from being alone with Plaintiff. It is unlikely that the law required
Defendants to take the additional steps Plaintiff believed were required—hiring a third party to
investigate Costaldo’s web-browsing habits and/or terminating the parish’s contract with MayDay
Solutions entirely—particularly as Defendants had no reason to believe that Costaldo or anyone
else continued to view inappropriate content at work. See Muhammad v. Caterpillar, Inc., 767
F.3d 694, 698 (7th Cir. 2014) (“Title VII requires only that employers take action reasonably
calculated to stop unlawful harassment; that requirement does not necessarily include disciplining
the employees responsible for past conduct.”).
Yet the fact that Defendants’ investigation was not actually unlawful does not make
Plaintiff’s belief that she was opposing unlawful conduct unreasonable per se. See Pickett v.
Sheridan Health Care Center, 610 F.3d 434, 441 (7th Cir. 2010) (rejecting employer’s argument
that “a plaintiff demonstrate actual employer liability for conduct that may motivate her complaint
before the plaintiff could recover for a retaliatory firing based on such a complaint”). Nor was her
belief unreasonable merely because she was not actually exposed to additional pornography after
she complained. That fact is relevant to the reasonableness of her belief about the adequacy of
Defendants’ response, but it is not determinative. ustice John Paul Stevens Award Luncheon See
McKenzie v. Illinois Dep’t of Transp., 92 F.3d 473, 480 (7th Cir. 1996) (reasonableness of
employer’s response cannot be determined “solely” based on “whether the remedial activity
ultimately succeeded”) (citation omitted). 3
3
Defendants also cite Clemmer v. Office of Chief Judge of Circuit Court of Cook
County, No. 06 C 3361, 2009 WL 765303 (N.D. Ill. March 23, 2009) (Aspen, J.), for their
suggestion that the actual effectiveness of Defendants’ response makes Plaintiff’s belief
objectively unreasonable. But Clemmer is inapposite. The court in that case considered whether
the defendant’s alleged failure to investigate the plaintiff’s complaint about sexual harassment
was itself a materially adverse employment action for purposes of the plaintiff’s retaliation claim.
18
The evidence presented at trial would allow a reasonable jury to conclude that Plaintiff
complained about deficiencies in their response to her report of pornography in the workplace.
Even if such deficiencies were not severe enough to hold Defendants vicariously liable, the jury
could reasonably infer that these deficiencies made it significantly more likely that Plaintiff and
other women at the parishes would be exposed to sexually offensive content in the future. Such
deficiencies fall within “the category of conduct prohibited by the statute,” Magyar, 544 F.3d at
771, and Plaintiff’s good-faith complaints about those deficiencies therefore qualify as protected
conduct.
b.
Causation
To prevail on her retaliation claim, Plaintiff had to show that her protected conduct was
“the but-for cause” of her termination. Robinson v. Perales, 894 F.3d 818, 830 (7th Cir. 2018)
(quoting Univ. of Texas Southwestern Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 570 U.S. 338, 352 (2013)). “This
requires proof that the unlawful retaliation would not have occurred in the absence of the alleged
wrongful action or actions of the employer.” Id.
In the court’s view, Plaintiff’s evidence of causation is sufficient.
Defendants note that
Plaintiff was fired nearly seven months after she first complained about Costaldo’s viewing
pornography, and they suggest that such a lengthy gap between the two events precludes a
finding of the requisite causal link between them. This might well be true if temporal proximity
were the only evidence linking Plaintiff’s original complaint to her termination. See, e.g., YoungGibson v. Bd. of Education of City of Chicago, 558 Fed. App’x 694, 699 (7th Cir. 2014) (sevenmonth delay between protected conduct and adverse action precluded inference of causation
“based on ‘temporal proximity’ alone”). But temporal proximity was not the only evidence of
See id. at *3. There is no question that Sanchez suffered a materially adverse action in this
case—she was fired. The relevant question is whether her belief that Defendants’ investigation
was unlawfully deficient was itself unreasonable. The answer to that question does not turn on
whether the purported deficiencies in the investigation materially altered the conditions of
Plaintiff’s employment, thereby satisfying the adverse-action element of a retaliation claim.
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causation Plaintiff presented at trial. Plaintiff testified that, during her phone call with Mark
Besztery on November 9, Besztery told her that “if you can’t let this go, you can turn in your keys
on Monday.”
Even if the court assumes that Besztery was referring to Plaintiff’s repeated
complaints about the investigation, rather than her initial complaint about pornography, the
comment still suggests that Plaintiff’s original complaint was the “but-for” cause of her termination.
But for Plaintiff’s original complaint, Defendants would not have conducted the allegedly deficient
investigation that Plaintiff refused to “let go.”
In any event, Plaintiff’s subsequent complaints about the investigation were also protected
conduct, and the evidence linking those complaints to Plaintiff’s termination is far stronger. Both
Plaintiff and Mark Besztery testified that they were talking about the investigation on both
November 7 and November 9, the day before Plaintiff was terminated. Defendants suggest that
the jury could not reasonably infer a retaliatory motive from this temporal proximity, because
Plaintiff had been complaining about the investigation for months by that point and has offered no
“valid reason why her final complaint ‘would suddenly trigger retaliation.’” (Def.’s Reply Br. 18
(quoting Leitgen v. Franciscan Skemp Healthcare, Inc., 630 F.3d 668, 675 (7th Cir. 2011)). The
court does not think such an explanation is necessary, in light of Besztery’s clear warning to
Plaintiff on November 9 that “if you can’t let this go, you can turn in your keys on Monday.” But
even if an explanation of what “suddenly trigger[ed] retaliation” were necessary, the jury could
have reasonably inferred one from the notes Kim O’Donoghue took during her November 10
phone calls with Besztery, which indicated that Sanchez was now “threatening to go public.”
Defendants also argue that they terminated Plaintiff because she verbally and/or
physically abused Besztery on November 7 and 9, not because she complained about the
investigation. To prevail on her retaliation claim, Plaintiff needed to provide evidence that this
legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for her termination was pretextual. Coleman v. Donahoe,
667 F.3d 835, at 852 (7th Cir. 2012).
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Plaintiff did offer such evidence: she testified that she never touched, swore at, or spit on
Besztery during her conversations with Mark Besztery on November 7 and 9. Defendants suggest
that Plaintiff was “merely disagreeing” with her employer about whether her conduct warranted
termination, which would not “meet the standard for proving pretrext.” (Defs.’ Mot. 19 (citing Tibbs
v. Admin. Office of the Illinois Courts, 860 F.3d 502, 506 (7th Cir. 2017).).
But this
mischaracterizes what Plaintiff said at trial. She denied that the conduct Defendants cited as the
basis for her termination occurred at all. A reasonable jury could have found her testimony more
credible than Besztery’s, and inferred that Besztery concocted a story about “verbal abuse” as a
pretext for retaliation. See Baines v. Walgreen Co., 863 F.3d 656, 665 (7th Cir. 2017) (“Evidence
that an employer lied about the reasons for an adverse employment action permits a trier of fact
to infer that the decision was actually motivated by discriminatory animus.”) The jury also could
have drawn such an inference from Besztery’s shifting explanation for the termination in his phone
conversations with Kim O’Donoghue on November 10 and his e-mail to her the next day. See
Coleman 667 F.3d at 52-53 (finding of pretext can be based on “weaknesses, implausibilities,
inconsistencies, or contradictions” in employer’s proffered non-discriminatory rationale).
Because the jury had a legally sufficient evidentiary basis to find (1) that Plaintiff engaged
in protected activity, and (2) that her protected activity caused Defendants to terminate Plaintiff’s
employment, Defendants’ renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law is denied.
II.
Remittitur
Defendants also move for remittitur pursuant to Rule 59(e). The jury awarded Plaintiff
$200,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages; Defendants argue that
both these awards were “excessive” and/or “inappropriate.” The court considers the awards in
turn.
a.
Compensatory Damages
In reviewing an award of compensatory damages, courts “typically ask: (1) whether the
award is ‘monstrously excessive’; (2) whether there is no rational connection between the award
21
and the evidence; and (3) whether the award is comparable to those in similar cases.” Marion
County Coroner’s Office v. EEOC, 612 F.3d 924, 930-31 (7th Cir. 2010).
An award of $200,000 is neither “monstrously excessive” nor without any rational
connection to the evidence presented at trial. Multiple witnesses testified to the centrality of the
church to Plaintiff’s social and spiritual life prior to her termination. Those witnesses also identified
specific ways in which Plaintiff’s behavior and mood changed after she was fired. She stopped
participating in activities she had previously enjoyed, had difficulty sleeping, gained weight, and
lost touch with friends. Although it does not appear that plaintiff sought professional help for any
mental health problems stemming from her termination, “[m]edical support is not necessary to
prove emotional injury in a Title VII case.” Farfaras v. Citizens Bank and Trust of Chicago, 433
F.3d 558, 566 (7th Cir. 2006). It is inherently difficult to place a monetary value on emotional
distress, and “[e]valuating issues as subjective and elusive as emotional damages is a task
[courts] leave in the first instance to the common sense and collective judgment of juries.”
Schandelmeier-Bartels v. Chicago Park Dist., 634 F.3d 372, 388 (7th Cir. 2011). There is no
evidence in this case that the compensatory damages award was “a product of the jury’s fevered
imaginings or personal vendettas.” Farfaras, 433 F.3d at 566.
To be sure, the award is higher than the Seventh Circuit has deemed appropriate in some
Title VII cases. In Schandelmeier-Bartels, for example, the court reduced a (white) Title VII
plaintiff’s compensatory damages from $200,000 to $30,000, because she “did not testify to any
lasting physical or emotional effects” resulting from either her termination or her (black)
supervisor’s “racist tirade.” 634 F.3d at 389. She also testified that she found a new job a mere
ten days after being terminated by the defendant. Id. Similarly, in Marion County Coroner’s
Office, the court reduced the plaintiff’s compensatory damages from $200,000 to $20,000,
because the jury heard “extremely brief” testimony about emotional injury, which indicated only
that the plaintiff—who was fired from a “political post” because of his race and in retaliation for
22
filing an internal complaint—underwent “‘[w]eekly therapy sessions for ‘[s]everal months’ for
‘[s]ituational depression.’” 612 F.3d at 21.
Plaintiff Sanchez presented more evidence of emotional distress than the plaintiff in either
of these cases. She also identified a plausible reason why her distress might be more severe
than that experienced by others who are terminated from their jobs: Plaintiff not only lost an
income stream, she suffered significant damage to her religious and social life, both of which
revolved around the church.
Where the circumstances warrant it, the Seventh Circuit has upheld compensatory
damage awards similar to the one in this case. See, e.g., Farfaras, 433 F.3d at 566-67 (where
witnesses testified that plaintiff “lost self-esteem, gained weight, had problems sleeping, changed
demeanor, and became nervous,” district court acted within its discretion by upholding jury award
of $200,000 for emotional injury, despite lack of medical evidence, because the award “was
roughly comparable to previous awards”); Deloughery v. City of Chicago, 422 F.3d 611, 619-21
(7th Cir. 2005) (district court acted within its discretion by remitting jury’s award of $250,000 for
emotional distress to $175,000 for plaintiff who testified she was “devastated” when she was
denied a promotion). Because “[i]t is within the jury’s province to evaluate the credibility of
witnesses who testify to emotional distress,” Tullis v. Townley Engineering & Mfg. Co., Inc., 243
F.3d 1058, 1068 (7th Cir. 2001), and because this court does not see a compelling reason to
second-guess the jury here, Defendants’ motion is denied with regard to compensatory damages.
b.
Punitive Damages
The punitive damages award presents different concerns. Under 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b),
a plaintiff seeking damages for a violation of Title VII may recover punitive damages only where
the defendant acted “with malice or with reckless indifference to the federally protected rights of
an aggrieved individual.” “The very structure of § 1981a suggests a congressional intent to
authorize punitive awards in only a subset of cases involving intentional discrimination.”
Kolstad v. American Dental Ass’n, 527 U.S. 526, 534 (1999). Where, as here, the defendant has
23
more than 500 employees, the sum of the plaintiff’s compensatory and punitive damages may not
exceed $300,000. 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b)(3)(D).
Because the jury awarded Plaintiff $200,000 in compensatory damages, § 1981a permits
at most an additional $100,000 in punitive damages. The court concludes that even this amount
would be inappropriate under the circumstances in this case. Although Defendants ultimately
terminated Plaintiff unlawfully, there is little evidence that they did so maliciously. In Gracia v.
SigmaTron International, Inc., for example, the Seventh Circuit determined that a $250,000
punitive damages award was appropriate because the defendant attempted to “hide the true
nature of the [plaintiff’s] discharge” by “creating a false paper trail that included manufactured
details of reports and meetings[.]” 842 F.3d 1010, 1025 (7th Cir. 2015). Nothing like that occurred
in this case. Mark Besztery’s clumsy attempt to establish multiple non-discriminatory reasons for
Plaintiff’s termination is enough for the jury to infer pretext, and to support a small punitive
damages award. But it does not rise to the level of a coordinated effort to manufacture false
evidence. Notably, Defendants’ human resources personnel rejected Besztery’s attempts to
create a paper trail that suggested additional rationales for terminating Plaintiff.
The court concludes that remittitur is appropriate here and reduces the Plaintiff’s punitive
damages award to $50,000. Plaintiff will be free to accept the remittitur or proceed to a new trial
on damages.
See McKinnon v. City of Berwyn, 750 F.2d 1383, 1391-92 (7th Cir. 1984).
CONCLUSION
Defendants’ Renewed Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law, or in the Alternative for
Remittitur [84, 102] is granted in part and denied in part. There was a sufficient evidentiary basis
to support the jury’s conclusion that Defendants retaliated against Plaintiff because of her
protected conduct, so the court denies Defendants’ motion for judgment as a matter of law. But
the court grants Defendants’ alternative motion and remits Plaintiff’s punitive damages. Plaintiff
is directed to advise the court within 14 days whether she will accept an award of punitive
24
damages in the amount of $50,000 or will request a new trial. Plaintiff’s motion in limine [75] is
stricken as moot.
ENTER:
Dated: September 26, 2018
_________________________________________
REBECCA R. PALLMEYER
United States District Judge
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