Judge rules personality conflicts not actionable under Title VII
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/nba.30616 |
JUNE 2019 NONPROFIT BUSINESS ADVISOR
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© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company • All rights reserved
DOI: 10.1002/nba
It rst argued that the plaintiff hadn’t experienced
a hostile environment.
The district court judge said the plaintiff was re-
quired to show discriminatory intimidation, ridicule
and insult sufciently severe or pervasive to alter the
conditions of her employment.
He acknowledged that the plaintiff’s situation was
unpleasant but ruled that she hadn’t shown a hostile
work environment. He granted a summary judgment
in favor of the defendant, citing previous cases where
constant yelling and screaming didn’t amount to a
hostile environment.
The defendant next argued that the retaliation
claim failed because the plaintiff hadn’t identied an
adverse employment action.
EMPLOYEE WINS ➔ But the judge ruled that
whether the removal of some job responsibilities was
an adverse action was for the jury to decide.
The defendant next argued that the plaintiff hadn’t
shown that her complaints had anything to do with
the removal of job responsibilities.
The judge said the plaintiff had engaged in pro-
tected activity when she reported racial and gender
discrimination in October and December 2015. He
then ruled that the short time between that protected
activity and her loss of job duties was sufcient to
show causation. He explained that temporal prox-
imity could support an inference of causation when
events occurred very close in time. Since less than a
month elapsed between the complaints and the loss
of some duties, the judge ruled that the plaintiff’s
allegations established causation.
Finally, the defendant argued that the plaintiff
was improperly relying on some of the same facts she
had asserted in her hostile work environment claim.
But the judge rejected that argument, stating: (1)
there were only a couple of instances cited by the
plaintiff in both claims and (2) no law prevented a
plaintiff from supporting alternative theories of li-
ability with overlapping facts.
He refused to dismiss the retaliation claim.
[Mitchell v. Powell, U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia, No. 17-cv-00182, 12/24/2018].
Title VII
Judge rules personality conflicts not
actionable under Title VII
In 2009, the plaintiff became a deputy director
of a bureau in the Wisconsin Department of Health
Services, which had ofces in different cities. The
plaintiff’s ofce was located in Milwaukee. In that
role, she directly supervised a staff of 10–20 people
and indirectly supervised about 350 others.
The bureau’s director resigned in April 2014 after
the plaintiff reported that he had made inappropriate
remarks to a female employee.
The plaintiff then assumed the responsibility for
running the bureau’s day-to-day operations. She
worked in conjunction with a deputy administrator
whose ofce was at DHS headquarters in Madison.
Everything allegedly ran smoothly during that time.
A new bureau director was hired in November.
According to the plaintiff, that new director em-
barked on a campaign designed to antagonize, insult
and undermine her. As time went on, the hostility
allegedly continued.
The plaintiff led a suit that claimed a hostile work
environment in violation of Title VII.
She alleged that the director (1) said things in staff
meetings like “That was how [the plaintiff] used to
do things, but I am going to do them the right way”;
(2) sometimes told her to “be quiet” in meetings; (3)
sometimes demonstrated with body language that
she didn’t value the plaintiff’s input; (4) frequently
rolled her eyes and huffed when the plaintiff spoke;
(5) criticized and contradicted her in an insulting
manner; (6) accused her of rigging the vacation and
hiring policies; (7) demanded to be present at many
of the plaintiff ’s meetings with subordinates; and (8)
took away the plaintiff’s job of resource allocation.
The plaintiff alleged that the director’s motivation
for the hostile environment was probably instructions
from headquarters to retaliate against her for report-
ing the former director.
The DHS led a motion for summary judgment.
EMPLOYER WINS ➔ The district court judge
said the alleged conduct was certainly not polite or
congenial. However, he ruled that it was not action-
able. The judge said that “personality conicts at
work that generate antipathy” and “snubbing by
supervisors and co-workers” weren’t actionable. He
explained that Title VII protected against discrimina-
tion but not personal animosity or juvenile behavior.
The judge said the test of actionable misconduct
was whether it would dissuade a reasonable worker
from complaining about discrimination. He then
ruled that an uncomfortable, impolite and insulting
workplace atmosphere wasn’t sufcient to do that.
The judge also ruled that the removal of one of the
plaintiff’s job duties was immaterial because there was
no evidence that it caused a signicant or substantial
change in her responsibilities. He explained that a
change in job duties wasn’t materially adverse unless
it represented a signicant alteration of an employee’s
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