Rosioreanu v. City of New York

SUMMARY ORDER Defendant-appellant City of New York (the “City”) appeals from an order denying its renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial, filed pursuant to Rules 50(b) and 59 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, following a jury trial in which plaintiff-appellee Cleopatra Rosior-eanu prevailed on her retaliation claim. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal. DISCUSSION A. This Court reviews de novo the denial of a Rule 50(b) motion, reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. See Brady v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 531 F.3d 127, 133 (2d Cir.2008). When considering the evidence associated with a Rule 50(b) motion, the trial court may not “weigh evidence, assess credibility, or substitute its opinion of the facts for that of the jury,” Vt. Plastics, Inc. v. Brine, Inc., 79 F.3d 272, 277 (2d Cir.1996), and may grant the motion only when there is “either an utter lack of evidence supporting the verdict, so that the jury’s findings could only have resulted from pure guess-work, or the evidence [is] *120 so overwhelming that reasonable and fair-minded persons could only have reached the opposite result,” Doctor’s Assocs., Inc. v. Weible, 92 F.3d 108, 112 (2d Cir.1996) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). B. To establish a prima facie case of retaliation under Title VII, a plaintiff must show (1) that she was engaged in protected activity by opposing a practice made unlawful by Title VII; (2) that the employer was aware of that activity; (3) that she suffered adverse employment action; and (4) that there was a causal connection between the protected activity and the adverse action. See Kessler v. Westchester Cnty. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 461 F.3d 199, 205-06 (2d Cir.2006). In Galdieri-Ambrosini v. National Realty & Development Corporation, 136 F.3d 276 (2d Cir.1998), we ruled that “implicit in the requirement that the employer [was] aware of the protected activity is the requirement that the [employer] understood, or could have reasonably understood,” that the plaintiffs complaints, constituting the protected activity, were based on conduct prohibited by Title VII. See id. at 292. In particular, we upheld a district court’s grant of a Rule 50(b) motion because the female plaintiffs complaints 1 “did not state that [she] viewed [a male supervisor’s] actions as based on her gender, and there was nothing in her protests that could reasonably have led [the company] to understand that that was the nature of her objections.” Id. Here, as in Galdieri-Ambrosini, no evidence presented at trial permitted a jury reasonably to infer that the City had notice (or should have had notice) that Ro-sioreanu believed that the conduct of which she complained was based on her sex. As the District Court noted, Rosioreanu had not “explicitly refer[red] to gender” or sex discrimination in those complaints, nor was any “quintessentially gender-based conduct” involved. Special App’x 18. Put another way, Rosioreanu’s complaints could easily have described a conflict between co-workers of any sex — regardless of the presence or absence of discriminatory animus — and, in these circumstances, we cannot agree with the District Court that the jury could infer that Rosioreanu’s complaints related to sex discrimination as a matter of “credibility.” Although this case arguably presents a closer set of circumstances than Galdieri-Ambrosini, the evidence was not sufficient for a jury to conclude that the City had notice (or should have had notice) that Rosioreanu believed that the conduct of which she complained was based on her sex. CONCLUSION Accordingly, the District Court’s judgment is VACATED and the cause is REMANDED for entry of judgment as a matter of law in favor of the City of New York. Because the City of New York seeks a new trial solely as alternative relief regarding damages, we do not order a new trial. Footnotes [1] Specifically, the plaintiff in Galdieri-Ambro-sini complained to her supervisors that (Í) two other female employees were "slackers,” and (2) she "ha[d] to do work on [a male supervisor's] personal matters.” Galdieri-Ambrosini, 136 F.3d at 292.