Saboya v. Segerdahl Group Graphics

169 F. Supp. 3d 794, 2015 WL 12516263
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedApril 6, 2015
DocketCase 12 CV 9094
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 169 F. Supp. 3d 794 (Saboya v. Segerdahl Group Graphics) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Saboya v. Segerdahl Group Graphics, 169 F. Supp. 3d 794, 2015 WL 12516263 (N.D. Ill. 2015).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Elaine E. Bucklo, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Delia Saboya lost her job in the sales department of defendant Segerdahl in October of 2009, after her yearly sales— which had been among the company’s highest from 2004 to 2006 — fell precipitously in 2007 and continued to dwindle thereafter. Defendant says it terminated plaintiff for poor performance, but plaintiff claims she was fired for complaining to human resources about sexual harassment by her male supervisors and colleagues. In this action, plaintiff asserts claims of harassment, retaliation, and termination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Before me is defendant’s motion for summary judgment on each of plaintiffs claims. For the following reasons, I grant the motion in part and deny the remainder without prejudice.

I.

Plaintiff is a sales professional with nearly thirty years’ experience in the commercial printing business, and particular expertise in point of purchase (“POP”) sales.1 Defendant hired her in 2003 to manage and develop defendant’s nascent POP [796]*796business and also to work as a sales person. At the time she was hired, plaintiff had a book of business exceeding two million dollars in annual gross revenue, which she brought with her to defendant. Because one of plaintiffs clients, IMS, had an office that worked closely with one of defendant’s clients, McDonald’s, plaintiff was told shortly after her hire that she was not to solicit business from that IMS office (“IMS Oak Brook”). Plaintiff continued, however, to solicit business on defendant’s behalf from another IMS office. The relevance of these facts will become clear shortly.

Plaintiffs first few years in defendant’s employ were apparently successful. In February of 2004, plaintiff received an employee evaluation in which she was given a total score of “outstanding.” Pl.’s L.R. 56.1 Stmt., Exh. 16. Two other, undated evaluations similarly rate her as outstanding overall, and all three evaluations include hand written notations praising certain specific aspects of her work. Id. From 2004-2006, plaintiff exceeded $2 million in sales, which was among the highest of any salesperson. Pl.’s L.R. 56.1 Stmt. ¶ 93.

Plaintiffs sales dropped abruptly in 2007, however, and they continued to decline until her termination in 2009. Plaintiff attributes the sudden drop in her sales to the loss of one of her accounts, IDL. According to plaintiff, she lost the IDL account “because Segerdahl Graphics printed a job incorrectly and did not take action in trying to save this account.” Saboya Dep., Def.’s L.R. 56.1 Stmt., Exh. 2 at 38:1-3. In plaintiffs view, defendant “did not handle it professionally.” Id. at 39:21. Plaintiff offers a similar explanation for the decline in her 2008 sales, stating that in that year, she lost another client, Media on the Run, because defendant did not perform a job correctly. Id. 57:13-58:2.

From 2003 through 2007, plaintiff was paid a salary of $300,000 annually, plus commissions. Beginning on January 1, 2008, however, her compensation structure was changed so that she was paid an annual “draw” of $120,000 against commissions. Pl.’s L.R. 56.1 Stmt., Exh. 27. Plaintiff was told that the change in her compensation was due to “loss of sales,” which she understood to mean her loss of the IDL account. Saboya Dep. at 37:11-22. Plaintiff objected to the change because, as noted above, in her view it was defendant’s fault that she lost the account. Id. at 39:16-22. Plaintiffs draw was further decreased, in February of 2009, to $100,000 annually as a result of her loss of the Media on the Run account, which plaintiff likewise attributes to defendant’s failure to “perform correctly.” Id. at 56:21-58:2; Pl.’s L.R. 56.1 Stmt., Exh. 36.

The parties are in substantial, if not perfect, agreement about plaintiffs annual sales figures for the years 2004 to 2006, when they agree that she generated over $2 million in sales in each of these years, and they further agree that her sales fell to roughly $1.4 million in 2007. They further agree that her 2008 sales were lower still, but they disagree about the extent of the decline. Defendant claims that her sales dropped to $730,622 that year, while plaintiff points to a document she claims suggests that her sales were still in the neighborhood of $1.4 million.2 The parties [797]*797again agree that as of her termination in October of 2009, plaintiff had generated approximately $550,000 in sales for that year. Pl.’s L.R. 56.1 Stmt., Exh. 15.

Over the years of her employment, plaintiff complained about a host of “unprofessional” conduct she perceived among her colleagues and supervisors. Usually she complained to Laurie Velez, defendant’s human resources manager, and sometimes to her direct supervisor, Terry McLaughlin, or to Jeff Reimers, another executive she considered her boss. According to plaintiff, these complaints were ignored or laughed off. For example, in approximately 2004 or 2005, plaintiff told Velez, Reimers, and McLaughlin that she no longer wanted to supervise a male colleague because he had been stalking her. Reimers and McLaughlin responded by telling plaintiff that if she hadn’t slept with the colleague (a fact plaintiff denies), then he would not be stalking her, and treated the issue “like if it was a joke.” Saboya Dep., Def.’s L.R. 56.1 Stmt., Exh. 2 at 220:8-221: 21.

Plaintiff also complained to Velez and Reimers, sometime before 2007, that another coworker, Paul Langos, walked into her office while she was on a conference call with a client and screamed at her and called her a bitch. Plaintiff testified that Reimers’s response was to call Langos to his office, and then, addressing plaintiff and Langos jointly, told them, in front of Velez, that they should “go to a cabin and fuck all day and get [their] problems solved.”3 Plaintiff states that Velez, Reim-ers, and Langos all laughed, and that no further action was taken. Id. at 49:10-50:16. Plaintiff complained about Langos on a separate occasion as well, after he inadvertently sent the entire company an email asking whether a new female employee had “big boobs.”4 Saboya Dep. at 229:8-18.

Then, sometime between 2004 and 2007, a colleague named Ed Anderson was “rude” to plaintiff about a job and “got very close” to her and pushed her with his chest so that she had to put her hands up to stop him. Id. at 112:18-22; 140:23-24. Plaintiff immediately called Reimers on his cell phone to report the incident. Reimers advised plaintiff to pass the job on to someone else, which she did. Id. at 143:2-11. Reimers later told plaintiff that “no action [was] going to be taken because [plaintiff and Anderson] were both good employees.” Id. at 144:15-17. Plaintiff had no further conflicts with Anderson over jobs thereafter. Id. at 144:7010.

Plaintiff also complained about work disputes involving Reimers or Paul White, another senior executive who screamed at plaintiff and used profanity on multiple occasions. See, e.g., Saboya Dep., Def.’s L.R. 56.1 Stmt., Exh. 2 at 42:3-7; 159:3-160:4. For example, sometime between 2005 and 2007, after one of plaintiffs clients complained about a print job, White yelled at plaintiff and called her client a “fucking losing client.” Id. at 41:4-15. According to plaintiff, White “always raised his voice and always spoke unprofessionally” in the course of work disputes.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
169 F. Supp. 3d 794, 2015 WL 12516263, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/saboya-v-segerdahl-group-graphics-ilnd-2015.