Employment & Labor Law
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Redding v. Fla.
19 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. D57
Plaintiff employee, a supervisor at a juvenile detention facility, sued defendant employer, the Department of Juvenile Justice, for gender discrimination, retaliatory hostile work environment, and retaliatory termination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. After the jury found for the employer on all but the retaliatory hostile work environment claim, the employer renewed its motion for judgment as a matter of law on that claim. The district court denied the renewed motion. Title VII prohibits both discrimination based on prohibited characteristics, and retaliation for having opposed or participated in an investigation of such discrimination. The plaintiff must meet a threshold level of substantiality in order to prevail on such claims. After receiving an unfavorable reassignment from the day shift to the night shift, the employee made a good faith claim of gender discrimination. She was promptly subjected to a long and pervasive campaign of retaliation. Over time, she went from being a model employee to being bitter and insubordinate, and she was fired 14 months later. The retaliation included keeping her on the evening shift even though other supervisors were willing to trade shifts with her, and there was no reasonable basis for not approving the trade. She was given a verbal reprimand and four counseling memoranda, which the jury could have found to be unfounded. She was provided insufficient staff and assigned unfavorable duties. She was not allowed to return to work after a medical absence until she provided an extraordinary verification of fitness for duty. She was treated disrespectfully and subjected to an abusive work environment daily. The jury found these actions, in combination, sufficiently severe or pervasive to create an abusive work environment. The amount of evidence was sufficient to support that finding and was enough to meet the threshold of substantiality required for an actionable Title VII claim.
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