Breda v. Wolf Camera, Inc.

148 F. Supp. 2d 1371, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9328, 2001 WL 789291
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Georgia
DecidedJune 25, 2001
Docket4:97CV366
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 148 F. Supp. 2d 1371 (Breda v. Wolf Camera, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Breda v. Wolf Camera, Inc., 148 F. Supp. 2d 1371, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9328, 2001 WL 789291 (S.D. Ga. 2001).

Opinion

ORDER

EDENFIELD, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Gabrielle Breda brought this action against Wolf Camera, Inc. (WCI), her former employer, after resigning from her position as a sales associate at its Savannah, Georgia, store. She alleged she was subjected to a hostile work environment based on sex and disability, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, and Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990(ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12101.

This Court granted WCI’s motion for summary judgment on all of her claims. Doc. ## 120-21. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of her “disability harassment” claim, Breda v. Wolf Camera & Video, 222 F.3d 886, 888 n. 1 (11th Cir.2000), but reversed and remanded on her sex-based, hostile work environment claim. Id. at 890-91.

On remand, WCI renews, over Breda’s opposition, its summary judgment motion. Doc. # 132. The parties have extensively briefed their respective positions. See doc. # 137 (Breda’s 55-page response brie©; # 141 (WCI’s Reply Brief); # 143 (Breda’s Reply brief); # 144 (WCI’s Supplemental Reply brief); # 146 (Breda’s response to same); # 148 (Breda’s Supplemental Brief); ##149-150.

II. BACKGROUND

As the Eleventh Circuit summarized,

[WCI] is an Atlanta-based corporation that sells cameras, film, and camera accessories, and provides photo-finishing and imaging services. [It hired Breda on 10/10/95] as a sales associate at [its Savannah, Georgia store]. The ... store is open every day during the same hours as the shopping mall. [Sharpley, the] store manager directly supervises all employees, and [Audie Baez, the] district manager visits the store once every five or six weeks to oversee the store manager.
The [store] employees ... work in either sales or the photo-processing lab. After she was hired, [Breda] became one *1373 of three full-time sales associates at the store, and, like the other sales associates, she worked approximately 40 hours per week with 2 days off each week.
[Breda] alleges she was subjected to sexual harassment throughout her employment with [WCI]. On [12/20/96, Bre-da] resigned from her employment with [WCI] because of this alleged harassment. She subsequently instituted this action, claiming she was subjected to a hostile work environment in violation of Title VII. [This] [C]ourt granted summary judgment to [WCI] on [Breda’s] claim after concluding Breda had not established a prima facie case of hostile work environment sexual harassment because she had not demonstrated a basis for holding [WCI] liable for the harassment.

Breda, 222 F.3d at 888; doc. ## 120-21.

Breda alleges that, from her first day on the job onward, co-workers Robert Morris and Darryl Reynolds subjected her to a continuous pattern of sexual harassment. Id. She says she repeatedly complained of Morris’ conduct to Sharpley, but Sharpley disputes the number and timing of her complaints. Sharpley also contends that Breda’s “complaints reflected not sexual harassment, but only general animosity between co-workers.” Id.

This Court noted WCI’s policy against sexual harassment, that Breda had read it, and that it required her to contact WCI’s Personnel Department if Sharpley failed to “immediately resolve” harassment complaints. Doc. # 120 at 2-3. Because Bre-da failed to do so, or even complain to an otherwise accessible district manager (Baez), id. at 4-5, she failed to provide WCI with adequate notice and thus give it a reasonable opportunity to resolve the problem. Id. at 5-8.

The Court thus granted WCI summary judgment. Id. at 11. But under WCI’s policy, the Eleventh Circuit concluded, it was sufficient for Breda to complain to her store manager, Sharpley. 222 F.3d at 889. It wasn’t enough that WCI had constructed a backup mechanism for correcting harassment to compensate for any weak links, and that Breda failed to exploit it. See doc. # 120 at 6 (this Court’s application of Seventh Circuit precedent to the undisputed fact that Breda had failed to complain to Baez despite repeated opportunities to do so).

Rather, the Eleventh Circuit reasoned, once a company establishes a clear complaint policy and its employees comply, they “need not be concerned whether they pursued their complaints far enough up the company ladder.” Breda, 222 F.3d at 890. It therefore reversed this Court, id., but found

the record insufficient to determine whether Sharpley was adequately informed that [Breda] believed she was the victim of sexual harassment. There are factual disputes as to the number and timing of complaints [she] made to Sharpley. In addition, there is disagreement over whether [Breda’s] complaints specifically indicated she was complaining of sexual harassment rather than general workplace animosity between co-workers. Accordingly, we remand the hostile work environment sexual harassment claim.

222 F.3d at 890.

Subsumed within the above-excerpted discussion, of course, is whether what Bre-da complained of constituted a hostile sexual environment in the first place. In other words, she may establish that she sufficiently complained to Sharpley of misbehavior, but whether that misbehavior amounts to a hostile sexual environment is a matter for this Court to decide under Rule 56. See Hipp v. Liberty Nat. Life Ins. Co., 252 F.3d 1208, 1246 (11th Cir.2001) (“We recognize that claims of em *1374 ployment discrimination ... present fact-intensive issues. However ... motions for summary judgment or judgment as a matter of law are appropriate to police the baseline for hostile environment claims”) (quotes' and cite omitted).

III. ANALYSIS 1

A. Sexual Harassment

One must first understand what sexual harassment is in order to determine whether Breda communicated the existence of a “sexually hostile environment” to Sharpley. Sexual harassment is actionable under Title VII only if it is “so severe or pervasive as to alter the conditions of [the victim’s] employment and create an abusive working environment.” Clark County School Dist. v. Breeden, 532 U.S. 268, 121 S.Ct. 1508, 1509, 149 L.Ed.2d 509 (2001) (quotes and cite omitted); Mendoza v. Borden, Inc., 195 F.3d 1238, 1245 (11th Cir.1999) (en banc), cert. denied, 529 U.S. 1068, 120 S.Ct. 1674, 146 L.Ed.2d 483 (2000).

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Bluebook (online)
148 F. Supp. 2d 1371, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9328, 2001 WL 789291, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/breda-v-wolf-camera-inc-gasd-2001.