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Born v. Haverhill Golf & Country Club6/13/2003
ed members were allowed to play in prime time. Primary women members could not use the course during primary men's tournaments, but men could play during women's tournaments. Beginning in August, 1993, primary members could book tee time forty-eight hours in advance; limited members could book tee time only twenty-four hours in advance and, as a practical matter, were, therefore, often frozen out.
d. Unequal application of rules. In the summer of 1995, Karen Richardson organized a couples tournament. The tournament went forward with a field of sixty-eight couples. A full field was seventy-two couples, although tournaments for men had been played with fewer pairings. Robert Hanagan, the golf chairman of the Club, had, prior to the tournament, told Richardson to fill out the field with "Calloways" -- golfers who did not have an established handicap. For failure to comply with Hanagan's edict, Richardson was summoned to appear before the Club rules committee. When the committee met in judgment of Richardson, Scott Gleason, a member of the committee, referred to Hanagan as "God when it came to golf at the Haverhill Country Club and we don't defy God." Punishment meted out to Richardson, an avid golfer preparing for a tournament, was biblically stern: she was suspended from play for twenty-one days.
On the other hand, when two male members, one of whom was a member of the board of governors, cavorted in the buff with two waitresses in the Club swimming pool -- an infraction of the rules -- the response was indulgent. Volker Wrampe, the general manager was, upon inquiry, told by the Club president, "Not to worry about it. We do it all the time."
e. The 19th Hole and the Card Room. There was a grill room at the Club named The 19th Hole. Informally, it was called the men's grill. When he noticed the 19th Hole was being used by women members for a posttournament dinner, the Club president advised the Club's general manager that it would be preferable if women's dinner parties were booked for the main dining room. As for the Card Room, the Club president informed the general manager that it was a "sanctum sanitorium" for the older gentlemen; he "must try to keep the women out of ."
2. Continuing offense. General Laws c. 151B, § 5, requires persons who claim that they have suffered unlawful discrimination to file a complaint, first, with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD). That step must be taken within six months of the act or acts of discrimination that the complainant alleges. G. L. c. 151B, § 5. Cuddyer v. Stop & Shop Supermarket Co., 434 Mass. 521, 531 (2001). As the plaintiffs filed with the MCAD on August 10, 1995, the acts of discrimination for which they could receive redress must ordinarily have occurred no earlier than February 10, 1995.
The trial judge, however, allowed (over objection) evidence of discriminatory acts by the Club against its women members going back to 1990, this on the ground that the gender discrimination described had the character of a continuing violation. In the Cuddyer case, the court explicated the "continuing violation doctrine" and differentiated its application in Massachusetts compared to the Federal courts. Id. at 530-540. Frequently, a person who suffers discriminatory conduct may hope that the situation will improve. For example, the women who felt themselves to be second-hand citizens at the Club might reasonably have thought that once they had raised the consciousness of men at the Club to their grievances, the board of governors would take measures so that women at the Club were treated equally. With that in mind, and so as not to encourage premature discrimination complaints, persons may, sta
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