Masud v. Rohr-Grove Motors, Inc.

ZOBAIDA MASUD, Plaintiff, v. ROHR-GROVE MOTORS, INC., d/b/a ARLINGTON NISSAN, Defendant.

No. 13 C 6419

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS EASTERN DIVISION

October 13, 2015

Judge Jorge L. Alonso

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Plaintiff, Zobaida Masud, sues defendant, Rohr-Grove Motors, Inc., her former employer, for discrimination, hostile work environment harassment, and retaliation under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq., and common-law retaliatory discharge. This case is before the Court on defendant's motion for partial summary judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. For the following reasons, the Court grants the motion in part and denies it in part.

BACKGROUND

The Court will briefly summarize the facts to provide the relevant background for the present motion. Defendant, a car dealer, hired plaintiff as a finance manager in June 2009. (Masud Dep., ECF No. 77-5, at 25-26, 78.) Plaintiff's job duties were to assist customers who had purchased an automobile with the legal and financial paperwork required to complete the transaction and help them secure financing, if necessary. (Pl.'s LR 56.1(b)(3)(B) Resp. ¶ 16.) Plaintiff is a Muslim woman of Palestinian Arab descent. (Am. Compl. ¶ 4; Masud Dep., ECF No. 77-5, at 12-13.)

Plaintiff claims that, virtually from the beginning of her time at Arlington Nissan, she was harassed by Sharif Qadri and Matt Tubai,¹ two members of the sales team at Arlington Nissan. (Pl.'s LR 56.1(b)(3)(B) Resp. ¶ 5.) Almost every day, either together or individually, Tubai and Sharif—whose brother was Latif Qadri, the general manager of Arlington Nissan and the man who had hired plaintiff—would approach plaintiff in her office and make lewd or threatening comments to her. (Id.)

In her response to defendant's Local Rule 56.1(a)(3) statement of material facts,² plaintiff describes the harassment as follows:

[Sharif and Tubai] verbally expressed to Plaintiff their sexual fantasies of beating and raping of Plaintiff to make her pregnant; referred to Plaintiff as a "whore" because she wore "western dress" which Matt Tubai and Sharif Quadri told Plaintiff was improper for an Arab and Muslim woman; Matt Tubai and Sharif Quadri on company computers displayed to Plaintiff photos of nude men and pornographic videos of men and women engaged in sex acts; Matt Tubai more so than Sharif Quadri and A.C. Hengler blared loud rap music from his office, sometimes within earshot of customers, that referred to women as "bitches" and "whores", to "fucking" women, "blowjobs", "cunt", and "pussy," (Maxwell Dep. PX-7 pp. 21:8-24, 22:1-4), (Connor Dep. PX-6 pp. 146:16-24, 147-149:1-12), (Connor Aff. PX-5, 145:14-24, 155:13-22), (Maxwell Dep. PX-7 p. 24:6-24), (Ans.Interrog. PX-3, Nos. 1, 7); verbally expressed to Plaintiff that they would like to "fuck her like she had never been fucked before", (Ans. Interrog. PX-3 No.1); Sharif Quadri asked Plaintiff if she had ever been "fucked in the ass" and said to Plaintiff he would like to "fuck her in the ass," (Masud Dep. DX-77-5 pp. 102:22-24, 103:1-5); Sharif Quadri said to Plaintiff multiple times in her office that he wanted to "fuck" Plaintiff "like she had never been fucked before", (Masud Dep. DX-77-5 p.126:15-23), and then asked Plaintiff why she was dating a white man and then said to Plaintiff, if Plaintiff were in "our" country, meaning his and Matt Tabai's Pakistan, men would beat, rape, stone and then divorce Plaintiff for being with somebody other than a Muslim man, (Masud Dep. DX-77-5 p.117:12-20, 140:8- 14, 150-151); Matt Tabai asked Plaintiff if she had kids,telling Plaintiff he did not have kids but that he could "fuck" Plaintiff for the purpose of giving him a kid, (Masud Dep. DX-77-5 p. 296:10-22); Matt Tabai repeatedly asked Plaintiff why her family did not kill her for dating a white man, (Masud dep. DX-77-5 pp.356:11-24, 357); Sharif Quadri removed Plaintiff's cellphone from her desk, made her beg him to return the phone to her and told Plaintiff he was going to undo his pants and show Plaintiff how proud he was of his genitals, (Masud Dep. DX- 77-5 pp. 97:12-24, 98:1-6). Sharif Quadri on two occasions pulled Plaintiff's hair, on one occasion removed her hair clip and on multiple occasions rubbed Plaintiff's shoulders—once with Matt Tabai present—while standing behind Plaintiff as she sat at her desk in her office, attempting to perform a massage on Plaintiff. (Masud Dep. DX-77-5 pp. 101-104:1, 105:4-24, 106-108:5, 164:1-13). When Plaintiff responded to the sexual harassment by trying to get Sharif Quadri and Matt Tabai out of her office, Sharif Quadri and Matt Tabai humiliated Plaintiff by laughing at her. (Connor [D]ep. PX-6 p. 157:1-15).

(Pl.'s LR 56.1(b)(3)(B) Resp. ¶ 5.)³ As the internal record citations in the above passage show, other former Arlington Nissan employees have corroborated some of these allegations, although defendant denies them. (Defs.' LR 56.1(a) Reply ¶ 5.)

Plaintiff claims that she complained about Sharif and Tubai's conduct, although Latif denies ever hearing anything about it from her (id. ¶ 7), but the harassment continued unabated. (Pl.'s LR 56.1(b)(3)(B) Resp. ¶ 22.)⁴ Plaintiff also feared that defendant was not properly calculating her compensation, which was based on commission, and she complained to Pam Bockwinkle,⁵ defendant's chief financial officer and comptroller. (Id. ¶ 28.)

On August 27, 2009, plaintiff had an altercation with Bockwinkle. (Id. ¶ 36.) The details and causes of the altercation are disputed, but Bockwinkle testified at her deposition that, afterthe altercation, she told Latif either to fire plaintiff or get her under control. (Id. ¶ 41.) Later that day, Latif fired plaintiff, giving the altercation with Bockwinkle as the primary reason for her termination. (Id. ¶ 46.)

Plaintiff filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and she received a right-to-sue letter mailed on June 11, 2013. (Am. Compl. Ex. 4.) She subsequently brought this lawsuit. Her amended complaint consists of five counts. Counts I-IV are claims for various violations of Title VII based on plaintiff's sex, race, "ancestry/ethnicity" (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 44, 54, 63), and religion. These counts are captioned as discrimination (Count I), hostile work environment (Count II), disparate treatment (Count III), and retaliation (Count IV). Count V is for retaliatory discharge under Illinois law.

DISCUSSION

To prevail on a summary judgment motion, "the movant [must] show[] that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). At this stage, the court may not weigh evidence or determine the truth of the matters asserted. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249 (1986). We view all evidence and draw all inferences in favor of the non-moving party. Michas v. Health Cost Controls of Ill., Inc., 209 F.3d 687, 692 (7th Cir. 2000).

In the present motion for partial summary judgment, defendant seeks judgment in its favor "as to all issues except Plaintiff's Title VII sexual harassment claim." (Mem. Supp. Summ. J. at 1.) Plaintiff does not respond to a number of defendant's arguments in its opening brief, and plaintiff's silence operates as a waiver. See Merry Gentleman, LLC v. George & Leona Prods., Inc., 76 F. Supp. 3d 756, 761 (N.D. Ill. 2014).

The Court discerns from plaintiff's response brief that she intends to pursue essentially four claims: hostile work environment harassment, retaliation, and discrimination,⁶ all under Title VII; and retaliatory discharge under Illinois common law. Defendant concedes that there is a genuine issue of material fact as to whether plaintiff was sexually harassed, but it seeks summary judgment on any claim of harassment or hostile work environment based on race, religion or national origin, and on all other claims.

I. HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT

Defendant contends that the evidence cannot reasonably support any finding of harassment on the basis of race, religion, or national origin.

Title VII makes it unlawful for an employer "to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). An employer may be liable for discrimination, within the meaning of Title VII, if an employee is subject to a hostile work environment based on any of the characteristics enumerated by the statute. Mason v. S. Ill. Univ. at Carbondale, 233 F.3d 1036, 1043 (7th Cir. 2000). To prevail on a hostile work environment claim, the employee must show that (1) she was subject to unwelcome harassment, (2) the harassment was based on a protected characteristic, (3) the harassment was so severe and pervasive as to alter the conditions of the employee's environment and create a hostile or abusive working environment, and (4) there is a basis for employer liability, such as knowledge or participation by supervisors. Id.

First, defendant argues that plaintiff admitted that "she did not subjectively perceive her environment to be hostile on the basis of her race, national origin, ancestry, religion, or sex, apart from sexual harassment." (Reply at 9 (citing Pl.'s LR 56.1(b)(3)(B) Resp. ¶¶ 49-50, 52, 58, 63-64, 76)). Plaintiff makes no such admissions in any of the cited paragraphs.⁷ At one point in her Local Rule 56.1(b)(3) response, in answer to a proffered fact concerning hostility based on race or national origin, she specifically states that she believes "her race and national origin were joined with her sex and gender as a basis for the sexual harassment" (id. ¶ 56), and it is equally clear that she views her religion to be "joined with" the other bases for the harassment (id. ¶¶ 5, 74-76).

Defendant also argues that plaintiff's contention that her sexual...