United States District Court, N.D. Iowa, Western Division
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
LEONARD T. STRAND, CHIEF JUDGE
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
I.
INTRODUCTION
...................................................................................
2
II.
PROCEDURAL HISTORY
........................................................................
2
III.
RELEVANT FACTS
................................................................................
3
IV.
ANALYSIS
............................................................................................
9
A.
Summary Judgment Standards
..............................................................
9
B.
Plaintiff's Sex Discrimination Claims
.................................................... 10
1.
Legal Standards
......................................................................
10
2.
Prima Facie Case
....................................................................
12
a.
Employer's Legitimate Job Expectations
............................... 12
b.
Facts Giving Rise to an Inference of Sex Discrimination
.......... 12
3.
Legitimate, Non-Discriminatory Reason
........................................ 15
4.
Pretext
..................................................................................
16
C.
Plaintiff's Retaliation Claims
...............................................................
18
1.
Legal Standards
......................................................................
18
2.
Prima Facie Case
....................................................................
19
3.
Legitimate, Non-Retaliatory Reason
............................................. 22
4.
Pretext
..................................................................................
22
D.
Individual Liability As To Defendants Wood and Ehlenbach
........................ 26
V.
CONCLUSION
......................................................................................
28
I.
INTRODUCTION
This
case is before me on a motion (Doc. No. 47) for summary
judgment by defendants Performance Contractors, Inc. (PCI),
Kendel Wood (Wood), Andrew Morel (Morel) and James Ehlenbach
(Ehlenbach). Plaintiff Elvira Quinonez-Castellanos (Quinonez)
has filed a resistance (Doc. No. 50) and defendants have
filed a reply (Doc. No. 63). The parties have also completed
supplemental briefing (Doc. Nos. 71 through 76). I find oral
argument is unnecessary. See N.D. Ia. L. R. 7(c).
II.
PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Quinonez
commenced this action on June 2, 2016, by filing a petition
(Doc. No. 3) in the Iowa District Court for Woodbury County.
Defendants removed the case to this court on July 5, 2016.
See Doc. No. 2. Quinonez filed an amended complaint
(Doc. No. 12) on August 9, 2016, that asserts the following
counts:
I. Retaliation in violation of the Iowa Civil Rights Act
(ICRA), Iowa Code Chapter 216, against all defendants
II. Sex discrimination in violation of the ICRA, against all
defendants
III. Retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.,
against PCI IV. Sex discrimination in violation of Title VII,
against PCI
Doc. No. 12.[1] Defendants filed their motion (Doc. No.
47) for summary judgment on July 24, 2017. Briefing and
supplemental briefing concluded on October 11, 2017. A jury
trial is scheduled to begin April 9, 2018. See Doc.
No. 78.
III.
RELEVANT FACTS
The
following facts are undisputed except where noted otherwise:
PCI was hired by CF Industries (CF) as the general contractor
to build and expand CF's fertilizer plant in Sioux City,
Iowa. The project started in approximately December 2013.
Quinonez was hired by PCI on May 12, 2015. She had no prior
construction experience and was assigned to work as a helper
on the pipefitting crew. Prior to starting her employment,
Quinonez acknowledged and signed PCI's discrimination,
harassment and retaliation policy. She then attended
orientation training, during which time she was instructed on
how to make complaints about discrimination or harassment.
Pursuant to PCI's policy, an employee who has a complaint
must report it to his or her supervisor or to the Human
Resources (HR) department. Morel was the local field HR
manager assigned to the Sioux City location. Upon receipt of
a complaint of harassment or discrimination, the HR manager
is required to investigate the complaint.
Quinonez
was the only woman in her work group as of July 2015. She was
a good worker and model employee, picking up tasks quickly
and learning the various requirements of her job. In
approximately August 2015, Quinonez began dating Julio
Rivera, a welder who also worked for PCI on the CF project.
She became pregnant with Rivera's child shortly
thereafter. Rumors were circulating about her at work
including: (1) she was sleeping with the majority of Jimbo
Wilson's crew; (2) she was a bitch; (3) she was pregnant;
(4) she did not know who the father of her unborn baby was;
and (5) she was a whore.[2]
Prior
to October 23, 2015, Quinonez did not go to HR to report any
of the alleged rumors or harassment. She contends she did
report it to John Boles (Boles), her supervisor and foreman
for PCI, but that he did not do anything about them. Quinonez
alleges that before joining Boles' crew, she was told by
another foreman not to pay attention to what other people
were saying and to continue doing a great job.
The
parties dispute whether Quinonez began experiencing
disciplinary issues around the time she found out she was
pregnant in October 2015. She admits that she received a
verbal warning for attendance on October 6, 2015, but had no
prior warnings. She also contends that she had approval from
her foreman to miss work that day. There is also a disputed
issue involving a rain delay on October 14, 2015. Defendants
contend Quinonez received a verbal warning after disobeying a
superintendent's order to return to work after a rain
delay. Quinonez asserts there was miscommunication regarding
when employees should have taken their break that day and
that she was not disciplined in any way over this incident.
The parties also dispute whether Quinonez received a verbal
warning a week later for starting an altercation with an
employee over money he allegedly owed her. Quinonez admits
having a conversation with this co-worker over money, but
denies that she was disciplined in any way over it. The
superintendent told her that if there was an issue between
her and the employee they needed to deal with it away from
work or Quinonez could be disciplined. She states she had no
further conversation with this employee at work.
PCI had
a written policy requiring employees to wear color-coded hard
hats in order to identify the position each employee held.
The policy regarding hard hats was reviewed with all
employees during orientation. The parties dispute the extent
that this policy was enforced and whether it was critical to
safety. Quinonez claims that workers regularly affixed
stickers and decals of different sizes to various parts of
their hard hats, including flags, symbols of wrenches,
skulls, books, babies, animals, suns and earths, and that
they were not disciplined or asked to remove them. Defendants
contend the color-coding policy was an important aspect of
PCI's safety protocol. Quinonez disagrees based on the
alleged lack of enforcement.
In any
event, pipefitters wore green hard hats and their assigned
color strip was white. Quinonez disputes that these hard hats
were pre-striped with white tape. She also contends no one
told her to put a stripe on her hard hat and other workers
did not have stripes on their hard hats. She knew that
different crafts were assigned different colors of hard hats
with different strips of colored tape on the side. However,
she did not understand PCI's policy as it applied to
other markings on hard hats.
On
October 22, 2015, Quinonez came to work with a strip of red
tape and a strip of white tape around the rim of her green
hard hat. Boles told Quinonez that she could not have tape on
her hard hat. The parties dispute what Boles said. Defendants
contend he told her she could not wear any red tape on her
hard hat because it indicated that she was a skilled-craft
worker, such as a rigger, rather than a pipefitter helper.
Quinonez contends Boles told her that she could not have tape
around the rim of the hard hat. She also disputes that
riggers had red tape around their hard hats. Instead, she
contends that they had a rectangular strip of red tape about
halfway up on each side. The parties agree that Quinonez told
Boles that she was wearing the tape to represent her Mexican
heritage and that Boles told her she could instead use a
small sticker of the Mexican flag. Quinonez adds that Boles
told her she could not have tape surrounding her hard hat,
but he did not say that she could not have tape anywhere on
her hard hat. Quinonez removed the tape from her hard hat.
The
next day, Quinonez returned to work with tape on her hard
hat, albeit in a different location. Quinonez states she had
a small decoration of red and white tape on the top back of
her hard hat in a “V” shape. Defendants contend
Quinonez came to work with even more tape on her hard
hat.[3]
They agree that Quinonez spoke with Boles, and his
supervisor, Wood, shortly after clocking in.
The
parties dispute what was said during that meeting. They agree
that Boles told Wood about the tape on Quinonez's hard
hat the day before, but disagree as to whether Boles issued
her a warning for the incident. Defendants contend that
Quinonez refused to remove the new tape decoration from her
hard hat as requested by Wood. Quinonez states that she did
not refuse, but asked for further explanation regarding the
expectations for tape on hard hats, as she did not know red
tape was not allowed anywhere on her hard hat.
The
parties agree that at that time, Wood suspended Quinonez for
three days for putting unapproved colored tape on her hard
hat and told her that she needed to leave the jobsite to
comply with the suspension. They dispute whether Quinonez
refused to leave the jobsite and comply with the suspension.
It is undisputed that Quinonez refused to sign the
disciplinary form issued to her. Quinonez contends she asked
to speak to the superintendent or someone in HR. Defendants
acknowledge there was nothing inappropriate about
...