FLOYD R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge.
Rhonda Callanan appeals the district court's
I. BACKGROUND
On December 17, 1988, Callanan began working as a file clerk at the Service's Mankato, Minnesota branch. Callanan found this job to be easy and, by all accounts, performed well in her vocation. Approximately ten months after her initial employment, Callanan accepted a position as a part-time flexible ("PTF") letter carrier. PTF letter carriers sort, deliver, and collect mail on various routes around Mankato and fill in for fulltime regular carriers when those employees are on sick leave, vacation, or are otherwise absent. When a regular carrier vacates his position for five or more days, the PTF carriers have an opportunity to "bid" on the temporarily available route. The bidder with the most seniority as a PTF carrier then receives the assignment. All other decisions concerning the allocation of responsibilities to PTF carriers are not based upon seniority, but rather are made "for the good of the Service" and at the discretion of management at the Mankato facility.
After accepting the position as a PTF carrier, Callanan began to feel that her supervisors were treating her differently from similarly situated male employees. Primarily, Callanan believed that she received less desirable job assignments than her male counterparts. For example, she claims that she and the other female PTF carrier were assigned "collection one," described by her as the most difficult collection route, a disproportionate number of times. Callanan also maintains that the female PTF carriers received fewer opportunities to "case," or follow, full-time carriers, a desirable task because it gave the PTF employees a chance to learn more routes. Although the Service does not directly dispute these allegations, it claims that Callanan's supervisors properly exercised their discretion in making job assignments. Because management at the Mankato facility viewed Callanan as a no better than average carrier, she received less favorable work.
Callanan also had periodic negative personal encounters with her supervisors and peers. On one occasion, she was referred to as a "bitch" by a fellow employee who was later reprimanded over the incident. She additionally contends that she was disciplined more often and more severely than the male PTF carriers. Particularly, she points to a formal warning letter that she received following her second violation of a certain Service rule. In October of 1991, after she was diagnosed as having post-traumatic stress disorder, Callanan left the employ of the Service and began collecting workers' compensation benefits. She filed this suit on December 3, 1992, alleging hostile environment sexual harassment, disparate treatment sexual harassment, retaliatory discipline, and pendent state law claims.
During discovery the Service claimed that only one other person in the previous ten years had complained of sexual harassment at the Mankato branch. The district court, relying in part on this information, granted the Service's summary judgment motion as to all of Callanan's causes of action except the disparate treatment claim. Later, as trial neared, Callanan's attorney fortuitously learned of files containing charges of sexual harassment made by several other female employees at the Mankato facility.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Hostile Environment
1. Summary Judgment
Callanan argues that the district court improperly granted the Service's motion for summary judgment on her hostile environment claim. Summary judgment is only appropriate when no genuine issue of material fact exists, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); Cram v. Lamson & Sessions Co., 49 F.3d 466, 471 (8th Cir.1995). On review, we apply the same standard as the district court, resolving all disputed facts and drawing all inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. Cram, 49 F.3d at 471.
To prevail on a hostile environment cause of action, a plaintiff must establish that:
Kopp v. Samaritan Health Sys., Inc., 13 F.3d 264, 269 (8th Cir.1993). Assuming that Callanan has otherwise carried her burden,
2. The Rule 60(b)(2) Motion
Callanan further argues that the district court wrongfully refused to grant her Rule 60(b)(2) motion to vacate the order granting summary judgment to the Service on her hostile environment claim. Rule 60(b)(2) "provides for extraordinary relief which may be granted only upon an adequate
Rule 60(b)(2), which applies to claims of newly discovered evidence, is a proper ground for relief where the movant shows:
Id. Here, Callanan has failed to meet the fourth criterion. We are unpersuaded that the district court, even if it had known of the discrimination claims made by other employees at the Mankato branch, would have declined to grant the summary judgment motion. In other words, even in light of this newly discovered evidence, Callanan failed to substantiate that the Mankato postal facility was the situs of conduct "sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim's employment and create an abusive working environment." Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., ___ U.S. ___, ___, 114 S.Ct. 367, 370, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993) (quotation omitted). Accordingly, the district court did not clearly abuse its discretion when it refused to grant Callanan's motion.
B. Disparate Treatment
1. Dismissal of the disparate treatment claim
Callanan asserts that the district court committed error when, following a six day bench trial, it dismissed her disparate treatment claim. The district court concluded that Callanan had proven her prima facie case, but it also found that the Service had offered legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for Callanan's treatment. Because Callanan failed to carry her ultimate burden of showing that she was the victim of intentional discrimination, the district court ruled in favor of the Service.
We apply a clearly erroneous standard when reviewing a district court's finding of discrimination vel non. St. Mary's Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, ___, 113 S.Ct. 2742, 2756, 125 L.Ed.2d 407 (1993). Callanan's primary complaint of disparate treatment concerns her more frequent assignment to unfavorable duties. According to the Service, though, many factors contribute to the daily apportionment of responsibilities, including a carrier's ability, efficiency, and knowledge of a particular route. Callanan has not shown that these reasons are merely a pretext for intentional discrimination. Also, we agree with the district court that Callanan was not disciplined more often or severely than her male coworkers. We need not elaborate further regarding Callanan's additional charges on which she bases her claim of disparate treatment. Suffice it to say that she has utterly failed to prove that the Service "intentionally discriminated against [her] because of [her gender]." Id. at ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2749 (quotations omitted). The district court's finding of no discrimination was not clearly erroneous.
2. Evidentiary Exclusions
Finally, Callanan challenges the district court's decision to exclude the testimony of various individuals who attested to acts of discrimination that they reportedly experienced or witnessed at the Mankato Post Office. Although none of these persons worked as a letter carrier or claimed that Callanan's supervisors had engaged in discriminatory conduct, Callanan attempted to introduce their testimony in order to buttress her assertion that the disparate treatment she received was motivated by her gender.
A district court's exclusion of evidence under Rules 402 and 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence is entitled to substantial deference on review. Hawkins v. Hennepin Technical Ctr., 900 F.2d 153, 155 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 854, 111 S.Ct. 150, 112 L.Ed.2d 116 (1990). We have previously cautioned,
Giving full regard to our admonitions in previous opinions, we do not feel that the district court abused its discretion when it excluded Callanan's proffered evidence of other alleged acts of discrimination. To begin with, the excluded testimony in this case, unlike the statistical evidence and specific factual allegations involved in our earlier decisions, see, e.g., Estes, 856 F.2d at 1102-04, consisted largely of generalized, subjective assertions of a perceived bias in operations at the Mankato facility. Moreover, to the extent that the testimony did identify discrete acts of discrimination, the witnesses did not complain that Callanan's own supervisors had engaged in any behavior that we could correctly characterize as improper.
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court's order granting summary judgment to the Service on Callanan's hostile environment sexual harassment claim. We also affirm the district court's dismissal of Callanan's disparate treatment cause of action.
Affirmed.
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