Nava v. City of Santa Fe

2004 NMSC 039, 103 P.3d 571, 136 N.M. 647
CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 13, 2004
Docket28,220
StatusPublished
Cited by43 cases

This text of 2004 NMSC 039 (Nava v. City of Santa Fe) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Nava v. City of Santa Fe, 2004 NMSC 039, 103 P.3d 571, 136 N.M. 647 (N.M. 2004).

Opinion

OPINION

MINZNER, Justice.

{1} Defendant City of Santa Fe appeals directly to this Court from an adverse judgment in favor of Plaintiff Deanna Nava on her New Mexico Human Rights Act (NMHRA) claim. At trial, Plaintiff alleged her immediate supervisor discriminated against her because of her sex, and Defendant, as her employer, knew of this discrimination and failed to take remedial action. On appeal, Defendant claims that the district court erred in its instructions to the jury and that there was not substantial evidence to support the jury’s verdict. Plaintiff cross-appeals claiming that the district court erred by granting Defendant’s motion for remittitur, refusing to award statutory interest against Defendant, and reducing her attorney’s requested fees. We have jurisdiction in this ease pursuant to NMSA 1978, § 28-1-13(C) (1987), which provides for direct appeal to the Supreme Court for claims made under the NMHRA. We affirm the district court on each of the issues raised in this appeal.

I

{2} Plaintiff has been employed by Defendant as a police officer since 1993. In January 1999, one of her first-line supervisors became Sgt. Clarence Gallegos. In July 2000, the Santa Fe police department was reorganized and Plaintiff was reassigned to a different squad. Therefore, she remained under the supervision of Sgt. Gallegos for approximately nineteen months. Plaintiff claims that during this nineteen-month period she was harassed by Sgt. Gallegos on an almost daily basis because of her sex, and this harassment resulted in a hostile work environment. At trial, Plaintiff testified that Sgt. Gallegos checked on her location more than other officers, raised his voice to her, denied her many of the same privileges male officers were afforded, followed her to her house to monitor how long she took on bathroom breaks, assigned rape calls to her even when other officers were closer to the scene of the crime, and threw a file folder at her on one occasion. The jury found for Plaintiff and awarded her $285,000 in damages.

{3} Following the verdict, the district court ruled on several post-trial motions. The district court denied Defendant’s motion for a new trial, but granted a remittitur of the jury’s verdict to $90,250. The district court also refused to award Plaintiff post-judgment interest because Defendant, as a political subdivision of the State, was exempt from paying such interest. Finally, although Plaintiffs attorney sought statutory attorney’s fees at a rate of $230 per hour, the district court determined that $200 per hour was the more appropriate rate. Both parties have appealed to this Court.

II

{4} Plaintiff bases her NMHRA sexual harassment claim on a hostile work environment theory. The NMHRA, NMSA 1978, § 28-l-7(A) (2004), provides that “[i]t is an unlawful discriminatory practice for an employer ... to discriminate in matters of compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment against any person otherwise qualified because of ... sex.” This language from the NMHRA tracks Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1) (2000). For this reason, “[wjhen considering claims under the NMHRA, we may look at federal civil rights adjudication for guidance in interpreting the NMHRA.” Ocana v. Am. Furniture Co., 2004-NMSC-018, ¶ 23, 135 N.M. 539, 91 P.3d 58; see also Smith v. FDC Corp., 109 N.M. 514, 517, 787 P.2d 433, 436 (1990).

{5} The United States Supreme Court has interpreted the phrase “compensation, terms, conditions or privileges” in Title VII as prohibiting inter alia discriminatory conduct by employers that “has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.” Meritor Savs. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 64-65, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986) (quoting 29 CFR § 1604.11(a)(3) (1985)). Recently, in Ocana, we gave the same interpretation to the NMHRA: “sexual harassment is actionable under a hostile work environment theory when the offensive conduct becomes so severe and pervasive that it alters the conditions of employment in such a manner that the workplace is transformed into a hostile and abusive environment for the employee.” 2004-NMSC-018, ¶ 24,135 N.M. 539, 91 P.3d 58.

{6} The elements of a hostile work environment claim against an employer have generally been stated as:

the employee was subjected to unwelcome sexual harassment;
the harassment occurred because of the employee’s sex;
the harassment was sufficiently severe or pervasive to create an abusive work environment affecting a term, condition, or privilege of employment, and;
the employer knew, or should have known, of the harassment and failed to take remedial action.

Lawrence Solotoff & Henry S. Kramer, Sex Discrimination and Sexual Harassment in the Work Place § 3.04[2], at 3-31 (2004). The discriminatory conduct does not have to be overtly sexual in order to constitute harassment; rather, a hostile work environment claim may arise from disparate treatment on the basis of sex. See Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Sens., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 80-81, 118 S.Ct. 998, 140 L.Ed.2d 201 (1998) (noting that a hostile work environment claim could be established by “direct comparative evidence about how the alleged harasser treated members of both sexes in a mixed-sex workplace”); Penry v. Federal Home Loan Bank of Topeka, 155 F.3d 1257, 1261 (10th Cir.1998) (“[Ajctionable conduct is not limited to behavior motivated by sexual desire.”). With these general principles in mind, we turn to the specific issues raised by this appeal.

A

{7} The first issue we address involves the instructions given by the trial court to the jury. The jury was instructed on each element of Plaintiffs hostile work environment claim; however, Defendant argues that the jury was improperly instructed that it need only find that “plaintiffs sex was a motivating factor in the treatment of the plaintiff’ and that Plaintiff was “not required to prove that her sex was the Defendant City of Santa Fe’s sole motivation or even the primary motivation.” Defendant argues that instead, the jury should have been instructed that any harassment was “because of her sex” and the harassment would not have occurred “but for” the complainant’s sex. While not quite stated in these terms, Defendant appears to be arguing that Plaintiffs sex must have been either the sole or primary motivation for any harassment. Thus, we must consider whether the mixed-motives instruction given to the jury in this case was appropriate.

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Bluebook (online)
2004 NMSC 039, 103 P.3d 571, 136 N.M. 647, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/nava-v-city-of-santa-fe-nm-2004.