Stone v. West

Page 972

133 F.Supp.2d 972

Le'Netta W. STONE, Plaintiff, v. Togo D. WEST, Jr., Secretary, Department of Veteran Affairs, Defendant.

No. 99-72153.

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division.

March 21, 2001.

Le'Netta Stone Pro Per, River Rouge, MI, for plaintiff.

Karen Gibbs, AUSA, Detroit, MI, for defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER REGARDING CROSS-MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

ROSEN, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

On April 29, 1999, Plaintiff Le'Netta W. Stone commenced this Title VII discrimination suit against her employer, the Department of Veterans Affairs, alleging that Defendant imposed unlawful terms and conditions upon her employment and subjected her to harassment following her request that her work schedule at the Veterans Administration ("VA") Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan be changed to accommodate her religious beliefs. Although Plaintiff cites a variety of examples of allegedly discriminatory conduct by her employer, her principal claim is that Defendant unlawfully failed to provide her with a work schedule that would have allowed her to observe her Sabbath as a Seventh Day Adventist, spanning from Friday at sundown until Saturday at sundown. In her pro se complaint, Plaintiff asserts a claim of religious discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.

By motion filed on April 17, 2000, Defendant now moves for dismissal of Plaintiff's claim on the ground that she failed to timely exhaust her administrative remedies. Alternatively, Defendant seeks an award of summary judgment in his favor, arguing that Plaintiff has failed to adduce evidence in support of the various elements of her discrimination claim. For her part, Plaintiff submitted papers on March 30, 2000 styled as a "motion to continue case." While neither party has directly responded to the other's motion, Plaintiff has sent two letters to the Court addressing various aspects of the "failure to exhaust" issue.¹

On June 8, 2000, the Court heard oral argument on the parties' motions. Having considered the arguments presented at this hearing, and having reviewed the briefs and supporting materials submitted by the parties, the Court is now prepared to rule on these motions. This Opinion and Order sets forth the Court's rulings.

II. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. Plaintiff's Initial Employment with Defendant

Plaintiff began her employment with Defendant on August 6, 1995. She was hired as a part-time medical ward clerk at the Ann Arbor VA Hospital, reporting to supervisor Sharon Burke-Johnson in the hospital's Medical Administration Service ("MAS"). Plaintiff's duties as a ward clerk included typing, answering phones, maintaining patient charts and records, filing, communicating with nurses, and ensuring the proper level of supplies within the ward. Initially, Plaintiff worked in the Medical Intensive Care Unit ("MICU") and the Thoracic Intensive Care Unit ("TICU"). However, she was not designated for employment in a particular ward or unit, and she potentially could be assigned to work anywhere in the hospital.

Plaintiff initially was hired for the afternoon or second shift, which ran from 3:30 p.m. to midnight. During her job interview, Plaintiff was told that she would primarily be assigned to work Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays, though she occasionally worked Tuesdays and Wednesdays as well. Her Saturday shift conflicted with her Sabbath as a Seventh Day Adventist, as she was required to report for work before sundown on Saturday. However, when she interviewed for the position of part-time ward clerk, she did not advise Defendant of her religious beliefs, nor did she request that these beliefs be accommodated by giving her a work schedule that would not conflict with her Sabbath.

B. Plaintiff's Requests for Scheduling Accommodations

At her deposition, Plaintiff identified October of 1995 as the first time that she advised her supervisor, Ms. Johnson, of her religious beliefs and sought a scheduling accommodation. At that time, she asked for a particular Saturday off so that she could attend a youth conference. Plaintiff testified that she informed Johnson that her request for time off was motivated by her religious beliefs. The record does not reveal whether this request was granted.²

In early 1996, Defendant granted Plaintiff's request that she be placed into a full-time ward clerk position. At about the same time, on January 10, 1996, Plaintiff sent an electronic mail message and attached memo to Johnson, requesting that her work schedule be changed to Sundays through Thursdays so that she could attend church, and offering to produce a letter from her pastor if necessary. (Administrative Record ("AR") at 1-32.) Johnson promptly responded by e-mail that she had read Plaintiff's memo, and that she would "try to accommodate your request." (Id.)³

However, Defendant did not grant Plaintiff's request for a scheduling change. Instead, until Defendant was able to fill Plaintiff's former part-time position, she continued to work on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays, with Tuesdays and Wednesdays added to achieve a temporary full-time schedule. During this interim period, Plaintiff submitted computerized leave requests for three Saturdays off during the month of March, and was told that she would have to pick only one of these Saturdays. Plaintiff failed to choose a date, however, and so these leave requests were not granted. More generally, Plaintiff was advised that she would have to continue working on weekends unless she could find another clerk who was willing to work a particular Saturday in exchange for Plaintiff taking that clerk's shift on another weekday.

In the spring of 1996, Plaintiff assumed a full-time schedule of Mondays through Fridays, 3:30 p.m. until midnight. Again, this schedule failed to fully accommodate Plaintiff's desire not to work on her Sabbath. Thus, Plaintiff continued to send emails to Johnson and to Barbara Shepherd, the head ward clerk and Johnson's supervisor, asking for a Sunday-Thursday schedule and requesting a meeting with Johnson and Shepherd to discuss the matter. This meeting apparently never occurred.

Throughout this time, Plaintiff's supervisor, Sharon Burke-Johnson, apparently sent daily devotional or inspirational e-mail messages to Plaintiff and various other ward clerks. On May 13, 1996, shortly after another e-mail from Plaintiff requesting a meeting to discuss her scheduling concerns, Johnson's daily devotional message included a quote from the biblical book of Exodus stating, "Remember to observe the Sabbath as a holy day." (AR at 1-120.) Her e-mail message went on to discuss the importance of celebrating the Sabbath. (Id.) Johnson's e-mail concluded, "Rearrange this week's schedule to leave next Sunday free for rest and worship." (Id.)⁴

Although Plaintiff's schedule was not modified to give her both Fridays and Saturdays off, Defendant did accommodate other requests by Plaintiff over the next several months that her schedule be adjusted so that she could attend classes. For example, at some point in mid-1996, Plaintiff enrolled in classes held on Monday and Wednesday evenings, and she changed from her previous Monday-through-Friday schedule to working a 12-hour day shift on Sunday, a 12-hour evening shift on Tuesday, and 8-hour evening shifts on Thursday and Friday. (AR at 140.) In December of 1996, her class schedule changed, and her work schedule correspondingly changed to 12-hour shifts on Sunday and Monday and 8-hour evening shifts on Wednesday and Friday. Plaintiff apparently agreed to these scheduling changes.

In October of 1996, the hospital underwent a reorganization, and the management of ward clerks was transferred from MAS to Patient Care Services ("PCS"), supervised by the hospital's nursing staff. Upon this transfer, Plaintiff renewed her request for a "full accommodation" of her desire not to work on her Sabbath, from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday. (AR at 1-47.) In an October 1, 1996 letter setting forth her request, Plaintiff suggested several alternative solutions, such as transfer to a shift or department that did not operate on Friday or Saturday nights, or allowing her to leave the job on Friday afternoons shortly before sundown. (Id.)

Plaintiff's initial supervisor within PCS, Jane Vanderkolk, viewed Plaintiff's request for a full accommodation with some hesitation. As Vanderkolk noted in her testimony before the investigator assigned to handle Plaintiff's Equal Employment Opportunity ("EEO") complaint, Plaintiff was hired to work the afternoon shift, yet she had requested Friday and Saturday evenings off to observe her Sabbath, plus two other evenings off to attend classes, leaving only three days per week that Plaintiff could work the second shift. (AR at 1-256-58.) Vanderkolk testified that she discussed this matter with Plaintiff, and that Plaintiff expressed her willingness to continue working on Friday evenings, so long as she could still have Saturdays off. (Id. at 1-257-58.)

In late December of 1996, Joan Wheeler replaced Joan Vanderkolk as Plaintiff's supervisor. Shortly thereafter, Plaintiff sent Wheeler an e-mail advising her of Plaintiff's prior request for accommodation of her religious beliefs. Wheeler did not immediately grant the scheduling accommodation sought by Plaintiff, but allowed Plaintiff to take three consecutive Fridays off in February of 1997 as leave time.⁵

As discussed below, Plaintiff met with an EEO counselor in February of 1997 in an effort to attain a schedule that fully accommodated her observance of her Sabbath. Plaintiff then filed a formal complaint of religious discrimination on March 6, 1997. Soon thereafter, in May of 1997, Defendant fully accommodated Plaintiff's desire not to work on her Sabbath.

C. Plaintiff's Allegations of Harassment

Apart from Plaintiff's claim that Defendant failed to accommodate her religious beliefs by...