Date: 05-16-2002

Case Style: Joyce K. Dennis v. Columbia Colleton Medical Center, Inc., et al.

Case Number: 01-1338

Judge: Hall

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

Plaintiff's Attorney: Margaret D. Fabri, Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellee.

Defendant's Attorney: M. Dawes Cooke, BARNWELL, WHALEY, PATTERSON & HELMS, L.L.C., Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellant.

Description: Appellant/Cross-Appellee Columbia Colleton Medical Center ("Colleton") employed Appellee/Cross-Appellant Joyce Dennis as an emergency room registration clerk. In June 1997, Dennis was passed over for promotion to the position of registration supervisor in favor of an outside candidate, Johnny Bridge. Dennis brought suit pursuant to Title VII, 42 U.S.C. S 2000(e), alleging discrimination based on gender. After a trial in which the jury found in favor of Dennis, Colleton filed motions for judgment as a matter of law and a new trial, which were denied. Colleton appeals the denial of its post-trial motions, as well as the district court's award of back pay and assessment of attorney's fees. Dennis cross-appeals the district court's post- trial reduction of a $25,000 jury award for emotional distress. We affirm.

I.

In May 1996, Dennis was employed by Colleton as a part-time emergency room registration clerk. At the time she was hired, Dennis was a 19-year-old high school graduate who had worked a number of service jobs and was enrolled in an Emergency Medical Services ("EMS") training course. On January 20, 1997, Dennis transferred to a full-time position as a technician in the Labor and Delivery Department. On March 30, 1997, Dennis returned to the emergency room as a full-time registration clerk. For the roughly 15 months that she worked at the hospital, Dennis was a diligent and hardworking employee who generally earned positive assessments for her work.

At the time of Dennis' transfer back to the emergency room, man- agement of the Registration Department was in a state of some disarray. Either during or soon after her return, a new registration supervisor was hired. The supervisor had difficulty coping with the position and abruptly resigned on June 15, 1997, leaving the department without a supervisor. During an approximately eight week period when the department was without a formal supervisor, Dennis would periodically carry out some supervisory duties, including training new employees and fielding operational questions.

Dennis applied for the position of registration supervisor once it was formally opened. On June 20, 1997 she interviewed with Jennifer Wray, the decision-maker normally responsible for filling this position. During the interview, Wray made an inappropriate comment suggesting that although she would personally like to promote her, Dennis would not get the promotion due to an affair she was rumored to be having with a doctor. Dennis denied the affair and complained to Jimmy Hiott, Colleton's chief financial officer and Wray's direct superior. After consulting with colleagues in senior management, Hiott chose to reprimand Wray and take over the selection process himself.

The process that Hiott applied was peculiarly informal. Hiott reviewed Dennis' initial application to the hospital, but did not personally interview her. Nor did he inquire into her experience since joining the hospital or check her references or evaluations. Hiott did however interview Bridge, a 32-year-old who was at that time working full-time as a transportation and computer manager at Clean Management Environmental Group. Bridge's wife had worked at Colleton in data processing and was acquainted with Hiott. Bridge himself also had some extremely limited experience at Colleton working as a parttime "PRN PBX operator," which entailed operating the PBX switchboard system nights and weekends on an "as needed" basis. Because the PBX was physically near Registration, he also received some registration training and worked a few shifts in Registration on an informal basis. The record is unclear as to whether Bridge formally applied for the supervisor's position and as to how Hiott became aware that he would be interested in it.

In addition to Dennis and Bridge, the record also offers disputed evidence of a third candidate, Tonya Williams, who was then working at Colleton's business office. Williams, an African-American woman, had roughly seven years experience working in Registration, a degree in computer technology and, unlike either Dennis or Bridge, met the formal requirements for the supervisory position. Hiott claimed that he was never made aware of Williams' application, and Colleton offered supporting evidence that it may have been submitted or at least discovered by the head of human resources after the position was already filled. However, the date on William's transfer request form was timely, and the director of human resources testified at deposition that she had forwarded the application to Wray. Although she later claimed that this was after the position was already filled, Wray did know about Williams' interest in the position before Hiott took over the hiring process because she conducted an interview with her on the same day that she interviewed Dennis.

In any event, Hiott awarded the position to Bridge. His proffered explanation was that he selected Bridge for his management and computer skills. Hiott claimed at trial that at the time of the decision he was aware that Registration needed someone with such skills in order to reform a badly disorganized department and oversee a planned change in computer systems. He asserted that he had posed various hypothetical problems to Bridge during his interview and had been highly impressed by his answers. Based on this favorable impression and his prior knowledge of Bridge's affinity for computers, he offered him the job.

Dennis was not as impressed. After learning of the promotion deci- sion, she quit her position at Colleton and filed an EEOC charge and subsequent suit alleging discriminatory failure to promote as well as defamation. Colleton moved for summary judgment on all causes of action, and the motion was granted on April 6, 2000. However, Dennis filed a motion for reconsideration on June 23, 2000, based on the Supreme Court holding in Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530 U.S. 133 (2000). On August 14, 2000, the district court reversed its previous order except as to the defamation charge.

The case was then tried to a jury except the issues of compensatory front pay and back pay, which the parties agreed to have tried sepa- rately before the district court judge. After Colleton's motion for judgment as a matter of law was denied, the jury found in favor of Dennis on the discrimination claim and awarded $25,000 in compensatory damages for emotional distress. After a separate hearing, the district court awarded $31,302 in back pay. It also granted $104,765.80 in attorney's fees and costs.

Following the trial, Colleton filed a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law and a motion for a new trial. The district court denied both motions, but granted a request to nullify the jury's $25,000 award for emotional distress.

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Colleton first argues that Dennis failed to offer sufficient evidence to make out a prima facie case of gender discrimination. We begin by noting that while this argument is couched in terms of the burden shifting framework of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), that approach is inapposite when a trial has proceeded to completion. Gibson v. Old Town Trolley Tours of Washington D.C., 160 F.3d 177, 180 (4th Cir. 1998). At trial, Dennis shed the intermediate burdens of McDonnell Douglas, and faced the ultimate burden of proving her case. Thus, we treat Colleton's claim on appeal as alleging that no reasonable jury could have found discrimination in failing to promote Dennis for the reason that she was plainly unqualified for the job.

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Colleton's primary argument is that the case presented by Dennis was based solely on prima facie evidence of the candidates' qualifications and evidence tending to disprove Hiott's claimed reasons for hiring Bridge. Colleton claims that this was insufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find discrimination. Again, we disagree.

Under the McDonnell Douglas framework, once an employer has met its burden of producing a legitimate nondiscriminatory explanation for its decision, the plaintiff is afforded the "opportunity to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the legitimate reasons offered by the defendant were not its true reasons, but were pretext for discrimination." Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253 (1981). That is, Dennis could attempt to establish that she was the victim of intentional discrimination by "showing that the employer's proffered explanation is unworthy of credence." Id. at 256. The first thrust of Colleton's argument is that Dennis failed to make a sufficient showing that Colleton's proffered reason for hiring Bridge was false.

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Click the case caption above for the full text of the Court's opinion.

Outcome: For the foregoing reasons, the district court's denial of Colleton's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law and motion for a new trial, as well as its grant of Colleton's motion to amend or alter the Judgment as to compensatory damages for emotional distress are affirmed. The district court's grant of Dennis' motion for back pay and her counsel's motion for attorney's fees are also affirmed.

Plaintiff's Experts: Unavailable

Defendant's Experts: Unavailable

Comments: None