Sex discrimination verdict upheld in the Northern District of New York

This case went to trial in the Northern District of New York in 2021. The jury found an upstate school district discriminated against a principal because of her gender, awarding her more than $480,000 in damages. As always, the defendants post-trial asked the judge to throw out the verdict and/or reduce the damages award. The trial court rejects that effort, and the verdict stands.

The case is Krause v. Kelahan, 2022 WL 5876678 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 13, 2021). The plaintiff put on evidence that the Schools Superintendent, Kelahan, said plaintiff's office was too feminine and that women in general are too emotional. He also questioned plaintiff's fitness as a mother in taking the job in the first place. Based on Kelahan's recommendation, plaintiff was fired as principal. While defendants put on evidence that plaintiff had job deficiencies, Judge Hurd recognizes that you need compelling evidence to overturn a verdict and the jury can believe whatever witnesses it wants in rendering a verdict. Kelahan argued that plaintiff had mishandled a Section 504 disability accommodation for a student, but the jury was able to reject that defense the student's family had no objections to the altered 504 plan, and that situation was unique, caused by the family's difficulties in obtaining a proper accommodation for their daughter. This kind of nuanced reasoning by the trial court demonstrates how difficult it is to overturn a jury verdict. There is always an argument that the plaintiff offered at trial that the jury could have accepted in ruling for the plaintiff.

Plaintiff also prevailed on her hostile work environment claim. The district court said this was a closer call than the termination claim, but since plaintiff testified that Kelahan made "repeated criticism[s] and cutting remarks . . . for the entire duration of her employment," comments that included the motherhood insult, that's enough for a gender harassment claim.

Defendants raise one argument that gives Judge Hurd serious pause: the cat's paw argument. Under the cat's paw, an employer can be liable for discrimination if the recommender was motivated by gender bias. There is no cat's paw if the final decisionmaker acted in good faith. The court gets around this complicated area of the law by finding that the school board had delegated the decision making authority to the superintendent. The law for that proposition is Vance v. Ball State Univ., 570 U.S. 421 (2013). Without this rule, Judge Hurd states, employers could delegate decision making to biased supervisors and then claim ignorance and avoid liability unless there were "obvious red flags to warrant closer scrutiny into a subordinate's recommendation. Through a simple act of corporate restructuring, anti-discrimination statutes would find themselves suddenly toothless."

What about damages? The jury awarded plaintiff $150,000 for pain and suffering (I assume the remaining damages covered lost wages). But that amount of money for 1.5 years of discrimination is within the reasonable range of damages awards. Besides, the court notes, defendants' post-trial brief did not cite any cases to support their argument that this amounted to too much money. The court writes that it will not do defendants' research for them.

A word or two about proper briefing. The judge starts out the opinion by noting that defendants' lawyer submitted an attorneys' affirmation rather than a brief. That violates the NDNY's rules, and probably those in other judicial districts. We want briefs, not attorney affirmations. Making matters worse, "apparently sensing the metaphorical ice cracking under their feet, defendants nevertheless tried to scamper these arguments back to more solid footing by resubmitting them verbatim in their reply brief." That tactic won't work, either. Also, defendants' post-trial submissions barely cited to any legal authority. Nor did they cite to the trial transcript to support their evidentiary arguments. Folks, if you want to win your motion, you'll have to do better than that.