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Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital
Jameka K. Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital was a case argued before a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The case centered on whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (hereafter, Act) prohibited discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation. On March 10, 2017, the court held that the Eleventh Circuit's 1979 precedential ruling in Blum v. Gulf Oil Corporation bound the panel to hold that Title VII does not prohibit discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation. The opinion was written by Judge Jose Martinez of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, who sat on the three-judge appellate panel by designation.
On July 6, 2017, the full Eleventh Circuit denied a request for an en banc rehearing before all active judges on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision to deny en banc review left the panel's ruling in place and created a split among federal circuit courts over whether Title VII prohibited workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. On April 4, 2017, the full Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Hively v. Ivy Tech that Title VII applied to similar claims of discrimination. Lambda Legal, which represented Evans before the Eleventh Circuit, announced they would appeal the appeals court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Under Supreme Court Rule 10, the U.S. Supreme Court may choose to address the circuit split by granting certiorari in the Evans case to resolve the split between the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits.[1][2][3]
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Case background
Southern District of Georgia, Magistrate judge opinion
In 2015, Jameka Evans, appearing as a pro se plaintiff, filed a four-count complaint against Georgia Regional Hospital (hereafter, Hospital) and its agents in federal court. Appearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge G.R. Smith, Evans "alleged that she was discriminated against because of her sexual orientation and gender non-conformity, and retaliated against after she lodged a complaint with her employer's human resources department." In her complaint, Evans further alleged various forms of discriminatory and retaliatory behavior by agents of the hospital during her employment period, which lasted from August 1, 2012, to October 11, 2013, after which Evans voluntarily left her position at the hospital. Evans appeared in forma pauperis and requested counsel be appointed to her to try her case.[4]
Judge Smith issued a report and recommendation (R&R) on September 9, 2015, in which the judge dismissed Evans' complaint for failure to state a claim. Noting at the time that "although the Eleventh Circuit has not addressed this issue, every court that has done so has found that Title VII ... was not intended to cover discrimination against homosexuals," Judge Smith held that any substantive discrimination claim made on the basis that Title VII covered homosexuality as a protected class of individuals failed as a matter of law. The judge concluded that "while same-sex harassment (e.g., a homosexual supervisors advances upon a same-sex employee), can be actionable under Title VII, Title VII discrimination claims based upon the plaintiffs sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation are not." The judge reported and recommended that Evans' claims be dismissed and that she not be afforded an opportunity to amend her petition. While the judge did permit Evans to proceed in forma pauperis, the judge denied her request for appointed counsel as Evans had not demonstrated "exceptional circumstances to warrant the appointment of counsel."[5]
On September 23, 2015, Judge Smith granted Evans' petition to file an objection to the R&R until October 23, 2015. Judge Smith also granted a motion filed by the Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund to participate on Evans' behalf.[6]
Southern District of Georgia, district court
On October 29, 2015, in an order by U.S. District Judge Randal Hall of the Southern District of Georgia, the court concurred with Judge Smith's R&R after reviewing the judge's report and conducting a de novo review of the record. The court opted not to modify Judge Smith's R&R, adopted the report accordingly, and dismissed Evans' case. The court appointed Gregory Nevins to serve as counsel for Evans on appeal before the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.[4][7]
Eleventh Circuit - panel
Evans appealed her case to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Her appeal was presented before a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit. The judges were William Pryor, Robin Rosenbaum, and U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, who sat on the three-judge appellate panel by designation. The designation of a district judge to sit on a circuit court appellate panel is permitted under 28 U.S.C. §292.
Gender non-conformity claim
In his opinion for the panel, Judge Martinez affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded the district court's order dismissing Evans' action. Judge Martinez argued that the district court erred in dismissing Evans' gender non-conformity discrimination claim because the law permitted Evans to bring a separate discrimination claim for gender non-conformity. The court noted,[4]
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Even though we hold ... that discrimination based on gender nonconformity is actionable, Evans’s 'pro se' complaint nevertheless failed to plead facts sufficient to create a plausible inference that she suffered discrimination. ... In other words, Evans did not provide enough factual matter to plausibly suggest that her decision to present herself in a masculine manner led to the alleged adverse employment actions. Therefore, while a dismissal of Evan's gender non-conformity claim would have been appropriate on this basis, these circumstances entitle Evans an opportunity to amend her complaint one time unless doing so would be futile ... and it cannot be said that any attempt to amend would be futile with respect to her gender non-conformity claim and possibly others. ... Discrimination based on failure to conform to a gender stereotype is sex-based discrimination. ... We hold that the lower court erred because a gender non-conformity claim is not 'just another way to claim discrimination based on sexual orientation,' but instead, constitutes a separate, distinct avenue for relief under Title VII.[8] |
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Based on this understanding of the law, the court vacated the district court order dismissing this portion of Evans' claim and remanded to the district court to allow Evans to modify her petition alleging discrimination for gender non-conformity.
Sexual orientation discrimination
The panel next addressed Evans' claim that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (Act) prohibited discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation. In his opinion, Judge Martinez noted that the Eleventh Circuit's 1979 precedent in Blum v. Gulf Oil Corporation, in which the court held that Title VII did not prevent discharge from a job on the basis of an employee's sexual orientation, prohibited the court from ruling in Evans' favor and that "under our prior precedent rule, we are bound to follow a binding precedent in this Circuit unless and until it is overruled by this court en banc or by the Supreme Court.”[4]
Based on this understanding of the law, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of Evans' claim that Title VII Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation.
Concurring opinion
Judge William Pryor wrote a concurring opinion in the case. Judge Pryor wrote separately "to explain the error of the argument of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the dissent that a person who experiences discrimination because of sexual orientation necessarily experiences discrimination for deviating from gender stereotypes."[4] Judge Pryor elucidated his view of the difference between the two claims in his opinion. He wrote,[4]
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Although a person who experiences the former will sometimes also experience the latter, the two concepts are legally distinct. And the insistence otherwise by the Commission and the dissent relies on false stereotypes of gay individuals. ... The majority opinion correctly holds that a claim of discrimination for failure to conform to a gender stereotype is not 'just another way to claim discrimination based on sexual orientation.' ... Like any other woman, Evans can state a claim that she experienced, for example, discrimination for wearing a 'male haircut' if she includes enough factual allegations. ... But just as a woman cannot recover under Title VII when she is fired because of her heterosexuality, neither can a gay woman sue for discrimination based on her sexual orientation. Deviation from a particular gender stereotype may correlate disproportionately with a particular sexual orientation, and plaintiffs who allege discrimination on the basis of gender nonconformity will often also have experienced discrimination because of sexual orientation. ... But under Title VII, we ask only whether the individual experienced discrimination for deviating from a gender stereotype. ... The doctrine of gender nonconformity is not an independent vehicle for relief; it is instead a proxy a plaintiff uses to help support her argument that an employer discriminated on the basis of the enumerated sex category by holding males and females to different standards of behavior. Because a claim of gender nonconformity is a behavior-based claim, not a status-based claim, a plaintiff still 'must show that the employer actually relied on her gender in making its decision.' ... the doctrine of gender nonconformity is not and cannot be an independent vehicle for relief because the only status-based classes that provide relief are those enumerated within Title VII.[8] |
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Dissenting opinion
Judge Robin Rosenbaum authored an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. While the judge agreed with the panel that Evans should be permitted to modify her petition to present a gender non-conformity claim in district court, she disagreed with the panel's judgment on the Title VII question. In her view, the U.S. Supreme Court's 1989 opinion in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins was controlling precedent and the court was not bound by the Eleventh Circuit's precedent in Blum. In responding to the concurring opinion of Judge Pryor, Rosenbaum wrote,[4]
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Plain and simple, when a woman alleges, as Evans has, that she has been discriminated against because she is a lesbian, she necessarily alleges that she has been discriminated against because she failed to conform to the employer’s image
of what women should be—specifically, that women should be sexually attracted to men only. And it is utter fiction to suggest that she was not discriminated against for failing to comport with her employer’s stereotyped view of women.
That is discrimination 'because of ... sex,' ... and it clearly violates Title VII under Price Waterhouse. ... But in the concurrence’s world, only the person who acts on her feelings enjoys the protection of Title VII. This makes no sense from a practical, textual, or doctrinal point of view. As a practical matter, this construction protects women who act or dress in ways that the employer perceives as gay, because that behavior fails to conform to the employer’s view of how a woman should act. But it allows employers to freely fire women that the employer perceives to be lesbians—as long as the employer is smart enough to say only that it fired the employee because it thought that the employee was a lesbian, without identifying the basis for the employer’s conclusion that she was a lesbian. It cannot possibly be the case that a lesbian who is private about her sexuality—or even a heterosexual woman who is mistakenly perceived by her employer to be a lesbian—can be discriminated against by the employer because she does not comport with the employer’s view of what a woman should be, while the outwardly lesbian plaintiff enjoys Title VII protection. ... Nothing in Price Waterhouse’s reasoning or construction of Title VII justifies limiting Price Waterhouse’s holding to cases involving discrimination against women for their behavior, as opposed to discrimination against women for being women or for their interests and attractions. Nor, for the reasons I have discussed, does it make sense to do so.[8] |
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Eleventh Circuit - en banc
Evans petitioned for an en banc review of the panel's decision. On July 6, 2017, the court issued a per curiam opinion declining to grant an en banc review. The order noted that no judge in active service requested the court to be polled on whether to rehear the case before the full court.[9]
Impact
The Eleventh Circuit's denial of en banc review created a split among federal circuit courts over whether Title VII prohibited workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. On April 4, 2017, an intervening period between the panel opinion and en banc denial in this case, the full Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Hively v. Ivy Tech that Title VII prohibited workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Lambda Legal, which represented Evans before the Eleventh Circuit, announced they would appeal the appeals court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Under Supreme Court Rule 10, the U.S. Supreme Court may choose to address the circuit split by granting certiorari in the Evans case to resolve the split between the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits.
Rule 10 of the U.S. Supreme Court's rules of procedure states that while Supreme Court review on a writ of certiorari is discretionary, the court considers when "a United States court of appeals has entered a decision in conflict with the decision of another United States court of appeals on the same important matter" as indicative of the character of reasons the court considers for granting certiorari to review a case.
See also
- United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia
- United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit
- Hively v. Ivy Tech
External links
- United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia website
- United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit website
Footnotes
- ↑ Ivy Tech opted not to appeal the Seventh Circuit's ruling.
- ↑ Lambda Legal, "Onward to the Supreme Court for Lambda Legal and client fired for being a lesbian," July 6, 2017
- ↑ National Constitution Center, "Major sex equality dispute on way to Supreme Court," July 11, 2017
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Jameka K. Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital, Charles Moss, et al., March 10, 2017
- ↑ U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, Jameka K. Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital et al - Report and Recommendation, September 9, 2015
- ↑ U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, Jameka K. Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital et al - Order, September 23, 2015
- ↑ U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, Jameka K. Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital et al - Order, October 29, 2015
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ PrideSource.com, "Supreme Court Next Stop for Argument Gays Protected Under Title VII," accessed July 12, 2017
