Plaintiffs Greta J. Hurt and Julie D. Lynn sued the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma raising claims of sex discrimination, retaliation, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Before the court is Defendant City of Tulsa’s motion for summary judgment.
Statement of Undisputed Facts
Plaintiffs Greta Hurt and Julie Lynn began employment with the City of Tulsa’s Fire Department in 1998. Over their careers spanning more than twenty years, both women served in multiple capacities including Driver, Captain, Fire Investigator, District Chief, Director of the Tulsa Fire Safety Training Center, Administrative Chief, and Chief of Training.
In 2021, two vacancies arose within the Department for Assistant Fire Chief positions – one for the A Platoon and one for the C Platoon. Hurt, Lynn, and two male co-workers Bryan Hickerson and Leon Wilson applied for these positions. All four candidates were qualified for the open positions.
The Department’s Administrative Operating Procedures established a specific procedure for filling the vacant Assistant Chief positions. According to the AOP, the Department would administer an oral board examination to qualify applicants for eligibility. The four applicants with the highest scores would be placed on an eligibility list ranked from highest to lowest score, and the Fire Chief would then select the new Assistant Chiefs from the ranked list.
However, the Department did not always follow the AOP procedures. Fire Chief Michael Baker spoke with the mayor’s office, union president, and the four candidates about deviating from the AOP when filling the two vacant positions. Union president Matt Lay informed Chief Baker that the proposed plan would not be fair to Hurt or Lynn based on their superior qualifications, including their executive fire officer training and other educational and professional qualifications, as well as their administrative experience in the Department. Lay reiterated his concerns at a July 22, 2021 meeting of the Department’s personnel committee, but the Department elected to move forward with a modified procedure.
The following day, Lay met with Chief Baker and Deputy Chief Goins, who indicated they wanted Lay to sign a memorandum of understanding deviating from the AOP because they needed the ability to pick who they wanted to pick. Chief Baker had previously expressed that he might not feel free to choose his preferred candidate if presented with a ranked list. Lay declined to sign the MOU because he knew what they were trying to do was not fair. Ultimately, the union’s executive board required Lay to sign the MOU, which he did on August 18, 2021.
Chief Baker assembled an interview panel composed of himself, Deputy Chief Goins, and a retired fire chief from Georgia, Donnell Campbell, who taught fire courses at a local community college and was familiar with the Department. The panel interviewed the four candidates and met to discuss their impressions. Each member of the panel recommended Hickerson and Wilson for promotion and provided objective reasons to support their recommendations. Chief Baker ultimately selected Hickerson and Wilson for the vacant Assistant Chief positions. He maintains that his decision had nothing to do with the fact that Hurt and Lynn are females.
Soon afterward, Hurt and Lynn submitted complaints alleging that they were discriminated against during the selection process. The Department investigated the complaints but found no evidence of discrimination. After filing the complaints, Lynn noticed that people were avoiding her rather than going through the chain-of-command, and she received an uncharacteristically poor performance review. Hurt was shunned by others in the Department, was left out of meetings, and felt that she was being undermined. As a result of this alleged mistreatment, Hurt resigned from the Department on August 1, 2022. Lynn remains employed by the Department, where she now holds the position of Deputy Chief.
Hurt and Lynn filed complaints with the EEOC on February 28, 2022, and March 1, 2022, respectively. They received right-to-sue notices on June 30, 2022. On July 28, 2022, they sued the Department for violations of Title VII.
Legal Analysis
Sex Discrimination Claims
The court analyzed the plaintiffs’ sex discrimination claims under the three-step burden-shifting framework established in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green. There was no dispute that Hurt and Lynn could establish a prima facie case of retaliation, nor that the Department had proffered a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its decision. The only question was whether plaintiffs had satisfied the third step by presenting evidence that would permit a jury to find that the Department’s stated reasons for promoting the two male employees over Hurt and Lynn were pretextual.
The court found that plaintiffs had presented sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact regarding pretext. The Department claimed that Hickerson and Wilson simply outperformed Hurt and Lynn in their respective interviews before a three-person panel. However, plaintiffs presented evidence that called the interview process into question. In 2020, Chief Baker allegedly stated that he would feel pressure to pick the top-ranked candidate if he followed the promotion process in the AOP. In July 2021, Chief Baker and Deputy Chief Goins asked Lay to sign an MOU deviating from the established procedures because they needed the ability to pick who they wanted to pick, not the top-ranked candidates. Lay refused to sign the MOU and told Chief Baker that the two female candidates were likely to benefit from an outside assessment due to their superior qualifications, and the alternative procedure would be unfair to them. There was no evidence that Chief Baker investigated Lay’s concerns or tried to address them.
The court determined that these facts were sufficient to call into question the Department’s assertion that it elected to promote Hickerson and Wilson because they outperformed plaintiffs. The evidence could support the conclusion that at least two of the three panelists simply preferred Hickerson and Wilson and would have selected them for the vacant positions regardless of how well they performed in whatever selection process was ultimately used. Accordingly, plaintiffs satisfied their burden of pointing to facts that could demonstrate the Department’s stated reasons for its decision were pretextual and untruthful. The court denied the Department’s motion for summary judgment on the discrimination claim.
Retaliation Claims
To establish a claim for retaliation, Hurt and Lynn had to provide evidence that would permit a jury to conclude that they had engaged in opposition to discrimination in violation of Title VII, the Department subjected them to an adverse employment action, and the adverse employment action was causally connected to the protected activity.
The court found that the first element was satisfied, as Hurt and Lynn engaged in protected activity by filing complaints within the Department and with the EEOC opposing the Department’s alleged discrimination. However, plaintiffs failed to present evidence sufficient to establish the second and third elements. The evidence of retaliation in the record consisted of generalized allegations of shunning, failure to follow the chain of command, failure to include plaintiffs in and provide them information concerning meetings, and a poor performance review. The court determined these allegations did not create a jury question on the second and third elements of plaintiffs’ retaliation claim. The Department was entitled to summary judgment on the retaliation claims.
Hostile Work Environment and Constructive Discharge Claims
The Department argued that it was entitled to summary judgment on both the hostile work environment and constructive discharge claims. Plaintiffs did not argue otherwise, and these phrases did not appear in plaintiffs’ brief. The court reviewed the record and concluded that the evidence was insufficient to permit either of these claims to proceed. There was no evidence that would allow a jury to conclude that the Department was so permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that plaintiffs’ working conditions were altered and their working environment was rendered abusive, as necessary to give rise to a hostile work environment claim. Nor was there any evidence to support a finding that the Department constructively discharged Hurt by making the conditions of her employment so intolerable that she had no choice but to leave. The court granted summary judgment to the Department on the hostile work environment and constructive discharge claims.
The court denied the Department’s motion for summary judgment on plaintiffs’ failure-to-promote claim but granted the Department’s motion in all other respects.
Schrag on Law 