Yarnall v. Phila. Sch. Dist.

180 F.Supp.3d 366

Colleen Yarnall, et al.

v.The Philadelphia School District, et al.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 11-3130

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

Signed April 18, 2016

Carole Lynn Hendrick, Collegville, PA, Patricia A. Heenan, Blue Bell, PA, Frederick M. Stanczak, Law Offices of Frederick M. Stanczak, Doylestown, PA, for Colleen Yarnall, et al.

Charles Ray, III, Peekskill, NY, pro se.

MEMORANDUM

Bartle, District Judge

This is an action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiffs Colleen Yarnall (“Yarnall”), Debra McKibben Marenbach (“Marenbach”), Nicole Boyd (“Boyd”), and Marta Ciccimaro (“Ciccimaro”), teachers in the Philadelphia public schools, obtained a jury verdict and an award of damages on June 15, 2015 against defendant The School District of Philadelphia (“SDP”) for a hostile work environment under Title VII and against defendant Charles Ray, II (“Ray”) for equal protection violations, invasion of privacy, and retaliation under § 1983.

Now before the court are two motions. Plaintiffs have moved “for Injunctive Relief to Require Amendment of the Defendant's Harassment Policy and to Amend the Final Order Entered on June 16, 2015 to Include Post Judgment Interest on Monetary Awards.” Plaintiffs seek a permanent injunction ordering SDP to develop and adopt a new written antiharassment policy,¹ barring SDP and its employees from creating or facilitating a hostile work environment, requiring SDP to take certain steps to respond to harassing conduct, and mandating antiharassment training for SDP supervisors and managers. They also seek postjudgment interest. Plaintiffs thereafer filed a supplemental motion for injunctive relief with an affidavit setting forth facts that were not in the record at the trial.

I.

In May 2011, each plaintiff filed an action in this District. Their cases were eventually consolidated in June 2012. On August 21, 2014, plaintiffs filed a “Third Consolidated Amended Complaint,” which is their most recent pleading. In it they alleged: a race discrimination claim against SDP under Title VII, based on events that occurred during the 2008-2009 school year; an equal protection claim against Ray, Shirl Ishmael (“Ishmael”), and Shirl Gilbert (“Gilbert”) under § 1983 ; an invasion of privacy and retaliation claim against Ray, also under § 1983 ; a discrimination claim against SDP, Ray, Ishmael, and Gilbert under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (“PHRA”); and a claim against SDP styled “2012-2013 Title VII claims.”

The claims in plaintiffs' Third Consolidated Amended Complaint were based primarily on events that took place at Mifflin Elementary School (“Mifflin”), where plaintiffs worked at all relevant times, during the 2008-2009 school year. Plaintiffs, all of whom are Caucasian, alleged that Ray, who is African American, had been hired as Mifflin's principal prior to the start of the school year. They claimed that Ray began discriminating against them by subjecting them to schedule and classroom changes, reductions in access to supplies, and other inconveniences that were not experienced by other teachers. Plaintiffs alleged that Ishmael encouraged this conduct and that Gilbert condoned it.² Plaintiffs also asserted that Ray gave out plaintiffs' personal information to his friend Rodney Bradley, whom he persuaded to spy on them.

Following an investigation into this surveillance scheme, Ray resigned from Mifflin in June 2009. Ishmael took a leave of absence in late 2009 or early 2010 but returned to Mifflin in 2012. Plaintiffs maintained that upon her return they were once again subjected to a hostile work environment during the 2012-2013 school year due to the actions of Ishmael.

SDP, Ray, Ishmael, and Gilbert all moved for summary judgment.³ On September 30, 2014, the Honorable L. Felipe Restrepo,⁴ then a Judge of this Court, entered judgment in favor of SDP on plaintiffs' Title VII claim insofar as it alleged discrimination but denied summary judgment insofar as the claim alleged a hostile work environment. Judge Restrepo granted judgment in favor of Gilbert and Ishmael on the § 1983 equal protection claim and in favor of all four defendants on the PHRA claim.⁵ Finally, he granted judgment in favor of SDP on the “2012-2013 Title VII claims.” Consequently, only three claims proceeded to trial: the Title VII hostile work environment claim against SDP, the § 1983 equal protection claim against Ray, and the § 1983 invasion of privacy and retaliation claim against Ray. All three of these claims were based on the events of the 2008-2009 school year.

On June 15, 2016 the jury returned its verdict. On the Title VII hostile work environment claim the jury found in favor of plaintiffs Yarnall, Boyd, and Ciccimaro against SDP. However, in answer to a special interrogatory, the jury found that none of them had suffered any actual injury. Accordingly, it awarded nominal damages of $1 to each of them on that claim. The jury found in favor of SDP and against Marenbach on the Title VII claim because Marenbach had not exhausted her administrative remedies.

On the § 1983 equal protection claim, the jury returned a verdict in favor of all four plaintiffs against Ray and awarded each plaintiff $1 in nominal damages and $2,000 in punitive damages. Finally, the plaintiffs also prevailed against Ray on the § 1983 invasion of privacy and retaliation claims. The jurors determined that each plaintiff had suffered an actual injury due to Ray's violation of her right to privacy, with each plaintiff awarded $1,000 in compensatory damages and $2,000 in punitive damages. As to Ray's retaliatory conduct, however, the jurors found that no plaintiff suffered an actual injury. Accordingly, each plaintiff received $1 in nominal damages and $3,500 in punitive damages for that claim.

On July 7, 2015, within a month of the entry of judgment, plaintiffs filed their motion for a permanent injunction and postjudgment interest. They filed their supplemental motion on November 12, 2015.

II.

Title VII permits the court to order injunctive relief in order to prevent unlawful employment practices from continuing. It provides in relevant part that:

[i]f the court finds that the [employer] has intentionally engaged in or is intentionally engaging in an unlawful employment practice charged in the complaint, the court may enjoin the [employer] from engaging in such unlawful employment practice, and order such affirmative action as may be appropriate, which may include, but is not limited to, reinstatement or hiring of employees, with or without back pay..., or any other equitable relief as the court deems appropriate.

42 U.S.C. § 2000e–5(g)(1) (emphasis added).

As this statutory language suggests, § 2000e–5(g)(1) gives courts broad equitable discretion to fashion injunctive remedies for violations of Title VII. Franks v. Bowman Transp. Co., Inc., 424 U.S. 747, 763, 96 S.Ct. 1251, 47 L.Ed.2d 444 (1976) ; Spencer v. Wal – Mart Stores, Inc., 469 F.3d 311, 315 (3d Cir.2006). The bounds of this discretion “are set by the purposes of Title VII, which are to prevent discrimination and achieve equal employment opportunity in the future....” E.E.O.C. v. KarenKim, Inc., 698 F.3d 92, 100 (2d Cir.2012) (quoting Berkman v. City of N.Y., 705 F.2d 584, 594 (2d Cir.1983) ). Under Title VII, “federal courts are empowered to fashion such relief as the particular circumstances of a case may require.” Franks, 424 U.S. at 763, 96 S.Ct. 1251.

In order to obtain an injunction, “the moving party must satisfy the court that relief is needed. The necessary determination is that there exists some cognizable danger of recurrent violation....” KarenKim, Inc., 698 F.3d at 100 (quoting United States v. W.T. Grant Co., 345 U.S. 629, 633, 73 S.Ct. 894, 97 L.Ed. 1303 (1953) ). To make such a showing in a Title VII case, a plaintiff must demonstrate

(1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury; (2) that the remedies available at law, such as monetary damages, are inadequate to compensate for that injury; (3) that, considering the balance of hardships between the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is warranted; and (4) that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction.

eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L . L . C ., 547 U.S. 388, 391, 126 S.Ct. 1837, 164 L.Ed.2d 641 (2006).⁶

III.

Plaintiffs have not pointed to any facts in the record that entitle them to prospective injunctive relief. Significantly, plaintiffs base their initial motion for an injunction primarily on events which took place during the 2008-2009 school year, when Ray was the principal of Mifflin. The claims on which plaintiffs ultimately prevailed at trial were intertwined with Ray's presence at Mifflin, which ended on June 30, 2009. The hostile work environment for which SDP was found to have been liable existed during the 2008-2009 school year.⁷ The jury did not consider plaintiffs' claims that SDP violated Title VII by engaging in disparate treatment during the 2008-2009 school year or that SDP violated Title VII during the 2012-2013 school year because the court had already held that SDP was entitled to summary judgment on those claims.

Ray's actions were the basis for the hostile work environment that the jury found to have existed during the 2008-2009 school year. Ray's employment with SDP ended on June 30, 2009. Consequently, there is no “cognizable danger of recurrent violation” of Title VII. See KarenKim, Inc., 698 F.3d at 100 (quoting W.T. Grant Co., 345 U.S. at 633, 73 S.Ct. 894 ). Although some of plaintiffs' claims involved conduct occurring in subsequent school years, Judge Restrepo had entered summary judgment for defendants on those claims before the case proceeded to trial. Plaintiffs do not call our attention to anything in the pretrial or trial record which demonstrates that plaintiffs suffered an irreparable injury, that monetary damages are inadequate to compensate them, that ...