Michael Richardson v. Bay District Schools , 560 F. App'x 928 ( 2014 )

Case: 13-12601 Date Filed: 03/26/2014 Page: 1 of 6
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 13-12601
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 5:12-cv-00201-RS-CJK
MICHAEL RICHARDSON,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
BAY DISTRICT SCHOOLS,
Defendant-Appellee,
__________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Florida
________________________
(March 26, 2014)
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Before HULL, Circuit Judge, and WALTER, * District Judge, and GOLDBERG, **
Judge.
PER CURIAM:
Plaintiff-Appellant Michael Richardson works in the maintenance
department of Defendant-Appellee Bay District Schools (“Bay District”).
Richardson brought suit against Bay District, alleging a hostile work-environment
gender-discrimination claim under Title VII. The district court granted summary
judgment in favor of Bay District and subsequently awarded attorney’s fees and
costs to Bay District and against Plaintiff Richardson. After careful review of the
briefs and the record, and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm the district
court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendant Bay District but reverse
the award of attorney’s fees and costs against Plaintiff Richardson.
Plaintiff Richardson’s Title VII claim was based on the behavior of his
supervisor Jimmy Thompson, who was also Richardson’s friend. Viewed in the
light most favorable to Plaintiff Richardson, the record shows that Supervisor
Thompson (1) offered money to Richardson’s wife in return for sex; (2) offered
money and possibly even a promotion to Plaintiff Richardson if Richardson could
convince his wife to have sex with Thompson; and (3) proposed the idea of
Thompson and Richardson having sex with Richardson’s wife and other women at
*Honorable Donald E. Walter, United States District Judge for the Western District of
Louisiana, sitting by designation.
**Honorable Richard W. Goldberg, United States Court of International Trade Judge,
sitting by designation.
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the same time. What is more, Supervisor Thompson asked Plaintiff Richardson to
persuade the waitresses at a lunch restaurant to have sex with Thompson in
exchange for money. Thompson used lewd language in his many conversations
with Richardson—not only in discussing Richardson’s wife but also when
referring to other women. 1
To prevail on a hostile work-environment gender-discrimination claim under
Title VII, a plaintiff “must always prove that the conduct at issue was not merely
tinged with offensive sexual connotations, but actually constituted discrimination
because of sex.” Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., 523 U.S. 75, 81, 118 S.
Ct. 998, 1002 (1998) (quotation marks omitted and alterations adopted). While
Supervisor Thompson’s conduct was highly offensive and inappropriate, the
district court did not err in determining that no reasonable juror could conclude that
Thompson discriminated against Richardson because of Richardson’s gender.
The record here contains no evidence that Richardson’s gender was the basis
for Thompson’s conduct; for example, there is no evidence that Thompson treated
men differently than women in the work place. Instead, the record indicates that
Thompson directed this conduct towards Richardson because the two were friends
and because Thompson was attracted to Richardson’s wife. In addition, there was
no tangible adverse employment action that had a causal link directly or indirectly
1
At oral argument, counsel for Plaintiff Richardson acknowledged that Supervisor
Thompson never expressed a sexual interest in Richardson himself.
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with Supervisor Thompson’s conduct. See Farragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524
U.S. 775, 807, 118 S. Ct. 2275, 2292-93 (1998). The district court therefore
correctly entered summary judgment on Plaintiff Richardson’s hostile work-
environment gender-discrimination claim under Title VII.
A different conclusion, however, is warranted with respect to the district
court’s award of attorney’s fees and costs to Defendant Bay District. A district
court may award attorney’s fees to a prevailing defendant in a Title VII case only
when the “plaintiff’s action was frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation.”
Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U.S. 412, 421, 98 S. Ct. 694, 700
(1978).
This “standard is so stringent that the plaintiff’s action must be meritless in
the sense that it is groundless or without foundation in order for an award of fees to
be justified.” Busby v. City of Orlando, 931 F.2d 764, 787 (11th Cir. 1991)
(reversing fee award to prevailing defendant) (quotation marks omitted and
alterations adopted). It is not enough for the prevailing defendant to show that the
plaintiff’s claim was “markedly weak,” see Bonner v. Mobile Energy Servs., 246
F.3d 1303, 1305 (11th Cir. 2001), or even “exceedingly weak,” see Cordoba v.
Dillard’s, Inc., 419 F.3d 1169, 1181 (11th Cir. 2005) (reversing fee award to
prevailing defendant). Instead, the plaintiff’s case must be “so patently devoid of
merit as to be frivolous.” Sullivan v. Sch. Bd. of Pinellas Cnty., 773 F.2d 1182,
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1189 (11th Cir. 1985) (reversing fee award to prevailing defendant); see also Jones
v. Texas Tech Univ., 656 F.2d 1137, 1146 (5th Cir. Sept. 1981) (indicating that a
claim is frivolous when it is “devoid of arguable legal merit or factual support”). 2
Plaintiff Richardson’s claim was weak, but not so patently devoid of
arguable legal merit to justify an attorney’s fee award. This Court has never
addressed a factually similar hostile work-environment gender-discrimination
claim. In other words, there was no precedent from this Circuit squarely
foreclosing Richardson’s legal argument. It is difficult to say, then, that
Richardson’s attempt to persuade a court of his legal theory was frivolous. See
Cordoba, 419 F.3d at 1185-86 & n.11 (concluding that the district court abused its
discretion in finding the plaintiff’s legal theory frivolous where the plaintiff’s
theory lacked support and relied on dicta but had never been squarely rejected).
Further, Richardson presented evidence in support of his claim. Just because
this evidence was ultimately not enough to create a jury question with respect to
discrimination on the basis of gender does not make Richardson’s claim frivolous.
See Christiansburg, 434 U.S. at 421-22, 98 S. Ct. at 700-01 (cautioning that courts
should not “assess[] attorney’s fees against plaintiffs simply because they do not
finally prevail”). The district court’s analysis improperly conflated the result of the
2
In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc), this
Court adopted as binding precedent all decisions of the former Fifth Circuit handed down prior
to October 1, 1981.
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case with the determination of whether a fee award was justified. See Jones, 656
F.2d at 1145-47 (reversing award of attorney’s fees to a prevailing defendant
because the district court’s “findings appear[ed] to be no more than reiteration of
its ultimate conclusions on the merits of [the plaintiff’s] claim”).
In sum, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of
Defendant Bay District and reverse the district court’s award of Defendant Bay
District’s attorney’s fees and costs against Plaintiff Richardson.3
AFFIRMED IN PART AND REVERSED IN PART.
3
Given our decision, we also reverse the district court’s award of attorney’s fees and costs
to Defendant Bay District for responding to Plaintiff Richardson’s motion for reconsideration.
Similarly, Defendant Bay District’s motion for damages and double costs is denied.
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