GERALD P. LAMPLEY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ONYX ACCEPTANCE CORP., Defendant-Appellant.
No. 02-3201
United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
ARGUED MAY 27, 2003—DECIDED AUGUST 18, 2003
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 00 C 3901—William J. Hibbler, Judge.
WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge. Gerald Lampley believed that he had been denied a promotion by Onyx Acceptance Corp. as a result of race discrimination. He complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and shortly thereafter was fired. Lampley then filed a Title VII suit against Onyx and a jury concluded that he was a victim of race discrimination, awarding him $1,000 in compensatory damages. The jury also awarded compensatory and punitive damages totaling $345,000 for retaliatory discharge, although this amount was later reduced by
I. BACKGROUND
Gerald Lampley, an African-American, was employed as an account manager with Level 1 buying authority1 by Onyx Acceptance Corp., a California-based company engaged in “indirect automobile finance.” Lampley worked out of Onyx‘s Rosemont, Illinois branch office under Mike Strater, the “dealer center manager” for that office. (Strater was an assistant manager when Lampley was first hired in February 1998; he was promoted to manager in October 1998.) Beginning in the fall of 1999, Lampley repeatedly asked Strater to give him Level 2 buying authority,2 but his requests were denied. Lampley ultimately determined that race discrimination was the reason for Strater‘s failure to promote him.
For resolution of discrimination issues, Onyx‘s policy was to have employees call the Human Resources Department at corporate headquarters in California. There was a notice in Lampley‘s office stating that employees should report suspected discrimination to the EEOC. Upon determining that he was a victim of race discrimination, Lampley did not call headquarters, but instead talked to Michelle Bland about a comment Lampley found to be racially offensive
Strater scheduled a meeting with Lampley for November 29, 1999. According to Lampley, at the meeting (which was also attended by Joseph Long, one of Strater‘s assistant managers) Strater told Lampley that “[w]e can‘t have anybody working here who complains and files complaints to the EEOC. I want your resignation.” Lampley refused, and Strater fired him. Lampley then returned to the EEOC and filed a retaliatory discharge claim. During the EEOC investigations of both the race discrimination and retaliatory discharge claims, Onyx told the EEOC that Strater‘s failure to promote Lampley and Lampley‘s ultimate termination were due to Lampley‘s inadequate performance, and provided supporting documentation. The EEOC dismissed Lampley‘s charges and issued him right-to-sue letters.
In April 2002, after settling his claims against Strater, Lampley pursued a two-count complaint against Onyx, claiming race discrimination and retaliatory discharge under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
Strater and Long both asserted that at Lampley‘s termination meeting, there was no discussion of or reference to the EEOC, and that a meeting had in fact been scheduled for the previous Friday for the purpose of terminating Lampley. Strater further stated that he, Long, and Kurt Wheeler, an assistant manager, had decided to fire Lampley on November 22, 1999, and had called Rosie Hokanson, a vice-president and human resources director, on that date to inform her of their decision.
Bland and Hokanson said that Onyx had an anti-discrimination policy, but no physical evidence of this policy was provided to the jury.5 Hokanson was responsible for providing documentation to the EEOC during the EEOC investigations, including the documents suggesting that Lampley was not performing satisfactorily. When cross-examined about a statement she had sent to the EEOC stating that Lampley “was given a formal written warning via telephone on November 24, 1999 by his immediate supervisor, Kurt Wheeler, regarding his performance issues,” Hokanson said
The jury ultimately awarded Lampley $1,000 in compensatory damages and no punitive damages on his race discrimination claim. With respect to the retaliatory discharge claim, the jury awarded $75,000 in compensatory damages and $270,000 in punitive damages. The district court denied Onyx‘s motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, a new trial, and remittitur below the statutory maximum. However, at the request of both parties, the district court reduced the judgment from $345,000 to $300,000 in order to satisfy the $300,000 statutory cap for a company of Onyx‘s size. See
II. ANALYSIS
A. Sufficiency of the Evidence Regarding Punitive Damages
Onyx asserts that there was insufficient evidence to warrant the imposition of punitive damages. The question of whether Onyx is entitled to judgment as a matter of law on this issue is subject to de novo review, with the evidence and all reasonable inferences taken in the light most favorable to Lampley. Mathur v. Bd. of Trs. of S. Ill. Univ., 207 F.3d 938, 941 (7th Cir. 2000). More specifically, we
A plaintiff may recover punitive damages under Title VII if three requirements are satisfied.6 Specifically, the plaintiff must establish that the employer “acted with knowledge that its actions may have violated federal law” and that “the employees who discriminated against him are managerial agents acting withing the scope of their employment.” Bruso v. United Airlines, 239 F.3d 848, 857-58 (7th Cir. 2001) (citing Kolstad v. Am. Dental Ass‘n, 527 U.S. 526, 535, 543 (1999)). However, even if these two prongs are met (and Onyx concedes that a jury could find that they are in this case), “the employer may avoid liability for punitive damages if it can show that it engaged in good faith efforts to implement an antidiscrimination policy.” Id. (citing Kolstad, 527 U.S. at 545). Onyx claims that it has engaged in good faith efforts, and thus the district court‘s decision to let the jury assess punitive damages was in error.
We are unpersuaded by Onyx‘s argument. Onyx allegedly had a formal anti-discrimination policy, although it is difficult to ascertain the contours of this policy without physical evidence of its existence. But even assuming that the policy included appropriate procedures, we explained in Bruso that “although the implementation of a written or formal antidiscrimination policy is relevant to evaluating an employer‘s good faith efforts at Title VII compliance, it
Specifically, Lampley provided statistics prepared by Wheeler that showed that Lampley was meeting (and at times greatly exceeding) company expectations. This data flatly contradicts the statistics that Strater and Hokanson presented to the EEOC to establish that Lampley was a poor performer and that this was the cause of his termination. The jury could have reasonably believed that the numbers Onyx provided (which Hokanson claimed were verified before she sent them to the EEOC) were doctored solely to discredit Lampley. Additionally, when Hokanson failed to produce evidence of the written reprimand that she insisted she had seen in Lampley‘s personnel file, the jury could have reasonably believed that no such reprimand existed. It could have instead determined that the reprimand was merely a trumped-up charge designed to mislead the EEOC into believing that Onyx had planned to terminate Lampley long before he complained to the agency. Indeed, the jury specifically found that Onyx had no plans to terminate Lampley prior to the filing of his initial EEOC complaint.7 In Bruso, we found that evidence of a sham investigation designed to discredit the plaintiff was sufficient to defeat the defendant‘s motion for judgment as a matter of law with respect to a punitive damages claim. Id. at 861. Here, we have a similar situation. Because a jury could have found that Onyx engaged in a cover-up rather than a good faith investigation of Lampley‘s retaliatory discharge claim, we
B. The Damages Award
Onyx further contends that both the compensatory and punitive damages that the jury awarded for retaliatory discharge are excessive, and the district court therefore erred in refusing to grant Onyx a new trial on damages or to set damages below the $300,000 statutory maximum. This court reviews a district court‘s denial of a motion for remittitur or a new trial on damages for an abuse of discretion. See Fine v. Ryan Int‘l Airlines, 305 F.3d 746, 755 (7th Cir. 2002) (citing Cooper Indus., Inc. v. Leatherman Tool Group, Inc., 532 U.S. 424, 433 (2001)) (explaining that punitive damages awards are reviewed for an abuse of discretion if no constitutional violation is alleged); EEOC v. AIC Sec. Investigations, Ltd., 55 F.3d 1276, 1285, 1287 (7th Cir. 1995).
1. Compensatory Damages
When assessing the propriety of a compensatory damages award, relevant inquiries may include “whether the award is monstrously excessive,” “whether there is no rational connection between the award and the evidence,” and “whether the award is roughly comparable to awards made in similar cases.” AIC Sec. Investigations, 55 F.3d at 1285 (internal
Onyx points to cases in which the plaintiff received less than $75,000 in compensatory damages to show that Lampley‘s award is out of line. However, these cases are easily distinguishable. For instance, in Avitia v. Metropolitan Club of Chicago, Inc., 49 F.3d 1219, 1227-29 (7th Cir. 1995), we diminished an award from $21,000 to $10,500 because the degree of emotional distress was not proven; only 14 lines of testimony addressed emotional distress. By contrast, in the instant case, there were numerous pages of testimony regarding emotional distress. In Merriweather v. Family Dollar Stores of Indiana, Inc., 103 F.3d 576 (7th Cir. 1996), the plaintiff‘s $25,000 award was remitted by approximately $6,000. However, the plaintiff‘s retaliatory discharge in Merriweather was only one of several factors, such as her father‘s death, affecting the plaintiff‘s emotional state. Id. at 581. Here, Onyx has not shown that
While it is true that plaintiffs in Peeler v. Village of Kingston Mines, 862 F.2d 135 (7th Cir. 1988) and AIC Security Investigations received only $50,000 in 1988 and 1995 respectively despite suffering severe emotional and financial hardship, these numbers do not account for inflation,10 and more recent cases reveal that the compensatory damage award in the instant case is not an outlier. For example, in Tullis v. Townley Engineering & Manufacturing Co., 243 F.3d 1058 (7th Cir. 2001), this court upheld an $80,000 compensatory damages award to a victim of retaliatory discharge. The jury awarded that amount based solely on the plaintiff‘s testimony that he felt “low,” “degraded,” and “back-stabbed,” and experienced financial difficulties with respect to his utility bills, child support, and clothing and entertainment purchases for his children. Id. at 1067-68. Moreover, in light of its rational connection to the evidence, we would consider Lampley‘s award to be within the bounds of reasonableness even without relying on the comparison to Tullis. A court should not substitute a jury‘s damages verdict with its own figure merely because
2. Punitive Damages
Onyx also contends that the punitive damages award, whether analyzed as $270,000 or $225,000 (the latter figure assumes that the district court‘s $45,000 reduction applies solely to the punitive damages award), “exceeds what is necessary to serve the objectives of deterrence and punishment,” and should therefore be set aside. AIC Sec. Investigations, 55 F.3d at 1287. Specifically, Onyx complains that it did not promote the belief that it was appropriate to violate federal law, and was not even aware of Lampley‘s contact with the EEOC until after he had been fired; thus, the punitive damages award is not an appropriate assessment of Onyx‘s blameworthiness. See EEOC v. Indiana Bell Telephone Co., 256 F.3d 516, 527 (7th Cir. 2001) (en banc).
Onyx‘s argument ignores the fact that based on the record, a jury could well have believed that after upper-level management officials such as Hokanson learned of Lampley‘s retaliatory discharge claim through the EEOC, they determined that Lampley had in fact been illegally terminated but chose to discredit him rather than admit to the facts surrounding his termination. Furthermore, the jury could reasonably have found that an award smaller than $270,000 would not have curbed such behavior. In AIC
Onyx cites Hennessy v. Penril Datacomm Networks, Inc., 69 F.3d 1344, 1355 (7th Cir. 1995) for the proposition that the statutory maximum, or something close to it, can only be awarded in the most egregious cases. But as we just explained, the evidence clearly supported a finding that Onyx engaged in a cover-up in flagrant violation of Title VII, thus warranting a large punitive damages award. Additionally,
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the decision of the district court is AFFIRMED.
A true Copy:
Teste:
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Clerk of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
USCA-02-C-0072—8-18-03