United States District Court, D. Arizona
ORDER
HONORABLE JOHN J. TUCHI UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
At
issue is Defendant Megan J. Brennan's Motion for Summary
Judgment on Plaintiff Sonja Schroeder's Claims for
Disparate Treatment and Retaliation (Doc. 72,
“MSJ”), to which Plaintiff Sonja Schroeder filed
a Response (Doc. 81, “Resp.”), and Defendant
filed a Reply (Doc. 86, “Reply”). The Court finds
these matters appropriate for decision without oral argument.
See LRCiv 7.2(f). For the reasons that follow, the
Court finds that Plaintiff has shown that genuine issues of
material fact exist, and Defendant is not entitled to summary
judgment.
I.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff
was hired by the United States Postal Service
(“USPS”) as a Rural Carrier Associate
(“carrier”) at the Peoria Main Post Office (the
“Peoria post office”) in 2013. During the
relevant time period, Plaintiff's direct supervisor was
Lynn McLuty. Isaac Rudd served as the Acting Postmaster for
the Peoria post office from January 2015 until November 2015,
Albert Zavala served as the Acting Postmaster in December
2015 and January 2016, and Mr. Rudd returned as the Acting
Postmaster until July 2016.
A.
Supervisor Lynn McLuty's Treatment of Female
Employees
Female
carriers who worked under the supervision of Mr. McLuty at
the Peoria post office testified that Mr. McLuty frequently
used offensive and intimidating words and behavior towards
them. Linda Miano testified that Mr. McLuty was abusive
towards female carriers. (Doc. 82, Ex. 7, Deposition of Linda
Miano (Miano Dep.) at 37:25-38:2.) She said that Mr. McLuty
singled out female carriers for criticism-at times reducing
them to tears-and “routinely called women
‘bitches.'” (Miano Dep. at 38:12-38:20;
61:19- 61:24.) On the other hand, Ms. Miano said that Mr.
McLuty “wouldn't harass the guys” and
“wrote up very little discipline for male
carriers.” (Miano Dep. at 63:11; 112:12- 112:13.)
Alegria Arment testified that Mr. McLuty called female
carriers “crybabies[, ]” “pussy[, ]”
and “spoiled bitches.” (Doc. 82, Ex. 9,
Deposition of Amber Alegria (Alegria Dep.) at 15:15-15:20.)
She said that she never witnessed Mr. McLuty “invade
[male carriers'] personal space[] as he would the women
[or] call a male carrier by any other name than what their
name was[.]” (Alegria Dep. at 16:7-16:12.)
Barbara
Feno, a rural carrier who had worked for USPS for 18 years,
testified that Mr. McLuty “tormented [her] life for so
long[.]” (Doc. 82, Ex. 10, Deposition of Barbara Jean
Feno (Feno Dep.) at 16:9-16:10.) Ms. Feno said that Mr.
McLuty used words that were gender specific and offensive,
including “bitch” and “the F word.”
(Feno Dep. at 24:15-25:3.) She testified that Mr. McLuty
previously had to leave a different post office
“because of the way he treated women.” (Feno Dep.
at 33:7-33:8.) She described Mr. McLuty as a
“bully” who would “get right in [the]
face” of women. (Feno Dep. at 38:16-38:25.) Ms. Feno
said that if “you were a man, [Mr. McLuty] wasn't
going to mess with you[, ] but he targeted “[w]eak
women mostly[.]” (Feno Dep. at 43:13-43:17.) In
addition, Ms. Feno said that Mr. Zavala and Mr. McLuty were
“like two peas in a pod, ” except that Mr. Zavala
knew “how to control himself better” than Mr.
McLuty did. (Feno Dep. at 39:15-39:16.)
B.
Plaintiff's Informal Hostile Work Environment Complaint
to the USPS Human Resources Department (December
2015)
On
December 17, 2015, Plaintiff made an informal complaint to
USPS of a hostile work environment-though the complaint was
not about Mr. McLuty's conduct described above. Acting
Postmaster Mr. Zavala interviewed Plaintiff, Mr. McLuty, and
two witnesses and completed a USPS hostile work environment
packet. (Doc. 73-2, Ex. 2-A, Hostile Work Environment Packet
at 47-62.) Plaintiff provided a statement alleging that she
and Mr. McLuty had a verbal altercation that day and that Mr.
McLuty pulled her “cage, ” causing an injury-a
scratch-on her left side. Plaintiff also alleged that Mr.
McLuty called her a “pussy.” (Doc. 73, Ex. 5,
Deposition of Sonja Schroeder (Schroeder Dep.) at 53:10-
26:11.) Mr. Zavala immediately sent the Hostile Work
Environment packet and interview notes to the Phoenix
District Office's Human Resources (“HR”)
department. Mr. Zavala never received a response from HR.
When Mr. Rudd returned as Acting Postmaster, no one informed
him about the incident or Plaintiff's informal complaint.
Later, HR had no record of the informal complaint.
C.
Plaintiff's Backpack Incident and 14-Day Suspension
(March 2016)
Mr.
McLuty stated that in March 2016, his managers told him that
he needed to start enforcing a USPS rule which prohibited
employees from having large personal items on the workroom
floor. (Doc. 73, Ex. 1, Declaration of Lynn McLuty (McLuty
Decl.) ¶ 18.) Mr. McLuty said he had previously told the
carriers that they could not keep personal items larger than
a shoe box on the workroom floor but could keep larger items
in their vehicles or their lockers in the employee locker
room. (McLuty Decl. ¶ 16.) On March 22, 2016, Mr. McLuty
told Plaintiff to remove her backpack from the workroom
floor. (McLuty Decl. ¶ 19.) Plaintiff went to Acting
Postmaster Mr. Zavala, who confirmed that the instruction was
coming from him. (McLuty Decl. ¶ 19; Ex. 1-E; Ex. 1-F.)
Plaintiff took her backpack to her car and returned with a
smaller bag. (McLuty Decl. ¶ 19; Ex. 1-E; Ex. 1-F.)
On
March 25, 2016, Plaintiff again had her backpack in the
workroom and was reprimanded by Mr. McLuty. The parties
disagree about exactly what occurred. According to Plaintiff,
she was outside on a break when her coworker came to tell her
that Mr. McLuty had kicked Plaintiff's backpack, causing
its contents to fall out. (Schroeder Dep. at 26:3- 26:7.)
Plaintiff said that she immediately went inside and found her
personal belongings laying on the workroom floor. (Schroeder
Dep. at 26:18-26:21.) She picked up her belongings and put
them away. (Schroeder Dep. at 26:23-26:24, 27:1.) Then, she
relayed the incident to Acting Postmaster Mr. Zavala, who
allegedly told her that if she “didn't want to be
bothered by Lynn McLuty, [she] needed to carry a clear
plastic purse or see-through bag.” (Schroeder Dep. at
28:11-28:18.) Plaintiff alleges that Mr. McLuty was present
for the conversation and that he agreed with the clear bag
instruction. (Schroeder Dep. at 30:5-30:15.)
According
to Defendant, Mr. McLuty told Plaintiff to remove her
backpack from the workroom floor, but Plaintiff claimed that
her backpack was not a personal item because it contained
work materials. (McLuty Decl. ¶ 19, 22; Ex. 1-F.)
Defendant alleges that Plaintiff then went to Mr. Zavala and
told him she needed to keep her medicine at her work station.
(Doc. 73, Ex. 2, Declaration of Albert Zavala (Zavala Decl.)
¶ 12.) Mr. Zavala told Plaintiff that she could keep her
medicine at her work station in a clear bag. (Zavala Decl.
¶ 12.) Later that day, Plaintiff took photographs of
purses she said she found in her coworkers' work
stations. (Doc. 73, Ex. 6, Schroeder Letter.)
Mr.
McLuty prepared a proposed personnel action for Plaintiff
recommending a 14-day suspension for her failure to follow
the instruction not to keep her backpack at her work station
and for taking photographs in the workroom.[1] (Doc. 73, Ex.
1-F, Proposed Personnel Action.) On April 6, 2016, Mr. McLuty
issued a notice of 14-day paper suspension for
Plaintiff's “failure to follow [her]
supervisor's instructions.” (Doc. 73, Ex. 1-G,
Notice of 14-Day Suspension.) The notice explained that
although a paper suspension does not require an employee to
serve time-off, “it has the equivalent degree of
seriousness as if [the employee] had served time-off without
pay.” (Notice of 14-Day Suspension.) The notice also
stated that a 14-day suspension “is more serious than a
Letter of Warning and seven (7) day paper suspension”
and that “[f]uture deficiencies will normally result in
[the employee's] removal from the Postal Service.”
(Notice of 14-Day Suspension.)
D.
Plaintiff's Formal Complaint to the USPS's Equal
Employment Opportunity Office (July
2016)
Plaintiff
filed a formal complaint with USPS's Equal Employment
Opportunity office (USPS EEO office) on July 8,
2016.[2] In her formal EEO complaint, Plaintiff
alleged that her manager, Mr. Zavala, and her supervisor, Mr.
McLuty, took discriminatory actions against her based on
“sex” and “retaliation.” (Doc. 9 Ex.
1-A at 1.) Plaintiff discussed two specific incidents. She
alleged that on December 17, 2015, she “was physically
injured by supervisor McLuty at work” and that her
“Hostile Work Environment complaint” about the
incident “was never acted upon or investigated by
USPS[.]” (Doc. 9 Ex. 1-A at 1.) And she alleged that on
March 25, 2016, she “was singled out for scrutiny which
included being prohibited from use of [her] backpack,
required to use clear plastic bag for person[al] possessions
and treated as [an] untrustworthy employee without
cause.” (Doc. 9 Ex. 1-A at 1.)
On
August 3, 2016, the USPS EEO office sent Plaintiff a letter
entitled “Partial Acceptance/Partial Dismissal of
Formal EEO Complaint.” (Doc. 9 Ex. 1-B at 1-6.) The
USPS EEO office recognized three alleged instances of
discrimination: (1) the March 25, 2016 incident where
management “singled out” Plaintiff by requiring
her to use a clear bag for personal possessions; (2)
management's failure to advise Plaintiff of the results
of her December 17, 2015 informal complaint; and (3)
Plaintiff's April 6, 2016 Notice of 14-Day Suspension for
Failure to Follow Supervisor's Instructions. (Doc. 9 Ex.
1-B at 2.) The USPS EEO office accepted the second and third
alleged instances of discrimination but dismissed the March
25, 2016 incident where Plaintiff was required to use a clear
bag for personal possessions. (Doc. 9 Ex. 1-B at 2-3.) The
letter stated that Plaintiff had seven days to notify them if
she disagreed with their definition of the accepted issues.
(Doc. 9 Ex. 1-B at 3.) Plaintiff did not provide a response.
On
February 2, 2017, the USPS EEO office issued its “Final
Agency Decision” in which it determined that the
evidence did not support a finding of discrimination for
Plaintiff's second and third alleged instances of
discrimination. (Doc. 9 Ex. 1-C (Final Agency Decision) at
18-35.) Regarding the second instance, where Defendant
allegedly failed to advise Plaintiff of the results of her
informal hostile work environment complaint, the USPS EEO
office found that: Plaintiff met her burden of proving a
prima facie case of discrimination on the basis of
sex; Defendant articulated a legitimate non-discriminatory
reason for its conduct; but Plaintiff failed to show that
Defendant's legitimate reason was pretext for
discrimination. (Final Agency Decision at 29, 32-33.)
Regarding the third instance, Plaintiff's 14-day paper
suspension, the USPS found that Plaintiff failed to show that
she was treated less favorably than similarly situated
individuals who were not female. (Final Agency Decision at
27.)
The
formal EEO complaint is the prerequisite for bringing a later
action under Title VII in the District Court. A complainant
may file a civil action in United States District Court
within 90 calendar days of the USPS EEO ...