By: Loyd Willaford and Clive Pontusson
In Christie v. Crawford City Memorial Hospital, the Court of Appeals of Iowa ruled that a lower court had improperly dismissed an EMT-paramedic’s suit for wrongful termination based on retaliation and sexual-orientation discrimination.
Richard Christie was an EMT-Paramedic working for Crawford City Memorial Hospital. In 2014, he was fired after making rude remarks to one of his supervisors. A month later he was re-hired, on the written condition that he make no more rude remarks. Later that year, he filed a complaint against his employer with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, claiming that his termination was based on his sexual orientation—Christie is gay. Christie’s supervisor had been known to make homophobic remarks, sometimes about Christie specifically. In January 2015, Christie learned that the hospital had hired another paramedic who was not properly licensed. Christie reported this to the Department of Public Health. In May 2015, Christie made rude remarks to a patient. An investigation followed. Christie was terminated.
A few “bad facts” were admitted by both parties to this suit—Christie didn’t really challenge the fact that he had made rude comments, and the Hospital didn’t really challenge the face that Christie’s supervisor had been known to make homophobic comments. Christie argued that that the reason given for his final termination, making derogatory remarks, was merely a pretext. He argued that the real reasons he had been fired were his reporting of the Hospital’s failure to follow licensing policy, and because he was gay.
The hospital argued instead that while Christie reported the Hospital to the Department of Public Health and his supervisor may have made some homophobic comments, neither of these things really motivated the decision to fire him.
More specifically, the Hospital argued that Christie would have been fired whether these things happened or not. The lower court agreed with the hospital on both these counts. It granted summary judgment to the hospital. This meant Christie could not proceed to trial.
The Appellate Court, however, found that the lower court had incorrectly applied the standard for summary judgment. Summary judgment allows one party to prove that there are no disputed facts in a lawsuit, and based on the undisputed facts, the other party has no legal claim (or no valid defense) and therefore the lawsuit must end. When a court considers one party’s motion for summary judgment, it must look at the facts in the light most favorable to the other party.
For Christie’s claim of discrimination, the Court of Appeals found that the lower court had failed to examine the facts the light most favorable to Christie. The lower court concluded that the Supervisor’s homophobic comments were stray remarks that did not effect the decision to terminate him. The Appellate court acknowledged that while this “may be true,” it was not true if the facts presented were viewed in Christie’s favor. In particular, the supervisor had made the comment he “does not like [Christie’s] kind.” That comment alone suggested a potential discriminatory motive which a reasonable jury could find.
For Christie’s claim of retaliation, the Court of Appeals held that the lower court had failed to see that there was a dispute about the facts, and therefore summary judgment was inappropriate. The legal question was whether Christie’s filing of a complaint was a “significant factor” in the decision to terminate him. Answering a question like that requires looking into the facts. Christie and the Hospital pointed to different and contradictory facts about what caused the decision to fire him. The hospital suggested the fact that termination happened four months after the complaint was evidence that the complaint and termination were unrelated. Christie pointed to deposition testimony where that hospital managers were so upset about Christie’s complaint that they wanted to fire Christie and other complainants immediately. The union dissuaded the managers from taking immediate action. These same managers were the ones who ultimately fired Christie. Since there was a dispute about the facts, the Court of Appeals concluded,
Although the causation standard is high, it generally presents a question of fact. Thus, if there is a dispute, as here, over the conduct or the reasonable inferences to be drawn from the conduct, the jury must resolve the dispute.
This case illustrates both some court’s dislike of employment cases and the importance of presenting some evidence of actual bias against an employee’s protected characteristic or evidence of different treatment to get to trial in a discrimination case. It also illustrates the limitations of the “stray remarks” doctrine. This a doctrine which states that a few “stray” discriminatory remarks by an employee does not establish a hostile work environment based on a characteristic. This is because the remarks are not “pervasive enough” to alter the work environment. What the trial court failed to understand here is that the stray remarks doctrine does not apply in a discriminatory treatment case where the decision maker is making the remarks. In that situation, the remarks are evidence of potential or actual bias
In this case, the appellate court correctly held that the trial court usurped the role of the jury in deciding this case. The trial court erred when it ruled that the no reasonable juror could find that anti-gay bias or retaliation for complaints had been a “significant factor” in motivating the hospital to fire Christie. Importantly, the “significant factor”, or “substantial factor” in Washington, does not need to be the only factor in making a decision. If there had been only a few anti-gay slurs by someone other than the supervisor, rather than comment about “not liking your kind” it is possible the appellate court might have agreed with trial court and dismissed Christie’s discrimination case. Had there not been testimony about management’s immediate reaction to Christie’s complaint, it is also possible that the appellate court would have affirmed the dismissal of Christie’s retaliation claim.
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