Sixth Circuit Announces Summary Judgment Standard For Title VII Mixed-Motive Cases

Posted on July 22, 2008 by Christy Pate

In a case of first-impression, the Sixth Circuit held that the burden-shifting framework (commonly referred to as the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine test) used in cases brought under Title VII does not apply to Title VII mixed-motive cases.  The Court held that in order to survive a defendant’s summary judgment motion, a Title VII plaintiff asserting a mixed-motive claim must only produce evidence that: (1) the defendant took an adverse employment action against the plaintiff; and (2) race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating factor.  A plaintiff can succeed by showing that a protected characteristic was a motivating factor even if other factors also motivated the adverse action.  White v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 2008 FED App. 0242P, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS  14188 (6th Cir. 2008).

Before the U.S. Supreme Court decided Desert Palace v. Costa in 2003, mixed-motive plaintiffs could only prove their case through direct evidence.  In Desert Palace, however, the Supreme Court made it clear that plaintiffs could prove Title VII mixed-motive cases through either direct or circumstantial evidence.  Since that case was decided, the federal courts have been inconsistent in how to analyze summary judgment challenges.

Applying the newly-announced standard to the case before them, the Sixth Circuit held that the plaintiff presented sufficient evidence that race was a motivating factor in his downgraded performance evaluation.  Accordingly, the Court held that the company was not entitled to summary judgment on the plaintiff’s mixed-motive claim.
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Secretary May Pursue Sexual Harassment Suit for Hostile Work Environment Based on Boss's Video Habit

Posted on December 19, 2007 by Jamie LaPlante

The importance of leaving your personal life at home–particularly if it involves a penchant for pornography–is amply highlighted by the Second Circuit’s decision in Patane v. Clark, No. 06-3446 (2nd Cir. Nov. 28, 2007).  In Patane, the court upheld a female college secretary’s right to pursue a hostile work environment claim under Title VII and state discrimination laws based on her male supervisor’s pornographic video and website viewing habits.  Apparently oblivious to the development of sexual harassment law over the last 40 years or so, the supervisor–who happened to be the chair of the college’s Classics Department–allegedly viewed sexually-explicit videotapes for one to two hours every day on his office television, which was visible to his secretary through a glass partition.  He also left pornographic videos scattered across his office floor, viewed pornographic websites on his secretary’s work computer, and required her, as a part of her secretarial duties, to open his mail, which–you guessed it–included pornographic videotapes that the supervisor had delivered to his office.

Despite these lurid allegations, the trial court initially ruled that the secretary’s claim could not survive a motion to dismiss because the harassment was not aimed specifically at her, was not based on her sex, and did not create a sufficiently hostile work environment.  The Second Circuit, however, disagreed on all counts on appeal. In particular, the appellate court held that the conduct was aimed at the secretary since the supervisor viewed the sexually-explicit websites on her work computer and required her to open pornographic video tapes delivered in his mail as part of her secretarial duties.  The court also held that, based on the facts alleged, a jury could legitimately decide that the conduct was offensive to women and intended to provoke the secretary’s reaction as a woman.  Taken together, these findings allowed the Second Circuit to rule that the conduct could be found by a jury to be severe enough to interfere with the secretary’s ability to perform her job functions.  As a result, the Second Circuit reinstated the secretary’s claim.

As for preventive steps, Internet monitoring or filtering that screens out pornographic material likely would have helped to uncover some of the supervisor’s alleged conduct before it became a major problem.  Even without these tools, though, it is hard to believe that this kind of behavior could have gone unnoticed (and uncorrected), particularly since the secretary claims to have complained about the conduct to the college’s EEO director and an associate vice president over a three-year period.  Indeed, she even showed them a collection of 36 tapes that the supervisor kept in his office.  Obviously, discovery may show that the facts regarding the supervisor’s conduct and the university’s knowledge are not as clear cut as alleged in the complaint.  Nevertheless, if even a small portion of the supervisor’s alleged conduct actually happened, it merited strong preventive measures at the earliest possible moment.  The lesson here is simple: keeping the pornography out of the office will help keep you out of court.
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