2d Circuit sustains sex discrimination verdict -- Krause v. Kehahan, Part I

The Court of Appeals has upheld a sex discrimination verdict against the Superintendent of Schools in Central New York who orchestrated the termination of a high school principal for pretextual reasons after making disparaging remarks about women generally treating them with hostility in the workplace.

The case is Krause v. Kelahan, issued on December 3, more than 20 months after oral argument. I briefed the appeal on plaintiff's behalf, which was argued by the plaintiff's trial counsel, A.J. Bosman. This case raises multiple issues, as evidenced by the lengthy period of time for the Second Circuit (Carney, Lee and Sullivan [dissenting]) to resolve the case. This blog entry covers the issue of whether there was enough evidence of defendant's intent to discriminate on the basis of sex, which yielded a damages award in excess of $400,000.

The majority notes "Kelahan's disrespectful and demeaning behavior towards the women with whom he worked," as follows: (1) plaintiff saw him scream at a female BOCES employee during a phone call with a "level of viciousness and [a] level of hostility" as he looked squarely at plaintiff during this tirade; (2) he threatened to fire plaintiff at the end of her first year on the job, once using a vulgarity in making this clear ("if you fuck this up, I will fire you, but good luck and have fun"); (3) disparaging plaintiff's office decorations as "very girly" and frequently making sarcastic and condescending comments about her parenting skills; (4) attacking plaintiff's need to leave work early to care for her injured daughter by stating, "That's why I hate working with women so much. They are always so emotional"; (5) frequently commenting on the clothing choices of his female staff;  and (6) developing better and friendlier relationships with his male employees than with plaintiff. Other witnesses corroborated some of this evidence, i.e., plaintiff's work mentor testified that plaintiff mentioned Kelahan's objection about working with "emotional" women. Other witnesses recalled that Keagan treated plaintiff worse than male faculty and staff, and a member of the Board of Education warned the Board about Kelahan's bullying behavior. Not only did this evidence support the wrongful discharge claim but the hostile work environment verdict, which defendants did not appeal.

This evidence supports the finding that gender animus motivated Kelahan to treat plaintiff badly and ultimately push for plaintiffs termination.  Note that the record contains limited evidence of Kelahan's expressly sexist behavior toward plaintiff but additional evidence of the harsh way that he treated women in general in the workplace. The jury was allowed to find that all this evidence demonstrated hostility toward women.

The appeal included numerous evidentiary and trial issues, including the trial judge's comment during trial about a legal principle that arguably did not apply to this case and which favored plaintiff's position. The Court of Appeals finds these issues either fell within the trial court's discretion or were harmless error that did not warrant a new trial. The Second Circuit also held the jury was able to reject the defendants' claim that plaintiff was fired for sex-neutral reasons relating to job performance. Future blog posts will cover these issues.