## Facts

- Jay Preston, a male dentist with an M.B.A., served for many years as director of a dental clinic operated by the Wisconsin Health Fund.
- The Fund faced serious financial problems; the dental clinic reported large losses during Preston’s tenure as director.
- Preston gave the Fund’s CEO, Bruce Trojak, a business plan proposing ways to reduce the clinic’s losses.
- Trojak terminated Preston and appointed Linda Hamilton, a younger female dentist, as dental director.
- Preston asserted Trojak favored Hamilton due to a close personal relationship (including rumors of a romantic relationship) and that this favoritism motivated the replacement decision.
- Trojak stated the change was performance-driven, citing Preston’s proposals as insufficient and praising Hamilton’s attitude.
- Preston sued alleging (1) Title VII sex discrimination and (2) Wisconsin tortious interference with his contractual relationship with the Fund by Trojak and Hamilton.
- The district court granted summary judgment to all defendants.

## Issues

1. Whether replacing an employee due to decisionmaker favoritism toward a romantic partner (or alleged romantic partner) constitutes discrimination “because of sex” under Title VII.
2. Whether an employee can maintain a Wisconsin tortious-interference-with-contract claim against an employer’s officer and a co-employee based on their roles in the employer’s decision to terminate the employee.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for defendants on the Title VII claim.
- The court held that “paramour preference” or favoritism rooted in a personal relationship is not, without more, discrimination because of sex under Title VII.
- The court affirmed summary judgment for Trojak and Hamilton on the tortious interference claim.
- The court concluded the alleged conduct amounted to an internal employment decision by the contracting party (the Fund) carried out through its agent, not the kind of outsider interference targeted by the tort.

## Legal Principles

- Title VII prohibits adverse action taken because of an employee’s sex; favoritism based on a personal relationship is not actionable absent evidence of a broader preference for one sex as a class.
- Romantic favoritism does not become sex discrimination merely because the favored individual is of a different sex than the disfavored individual; the disadvantage can fall on employees of either sex.
- In evaluating claims that men discriminated against men in favor of women, a factfinder typically needs evidence supporting a sex-based motive (e.g., pressure to increase female representation or occupational stereotyping), not only evidence of personal favoritism.
- Wisconsin tortious interference generally targets a third party who induces breach of another’s contract; actions by an employer’s officer within the scope of the employer’s decisionmaking, and a co-employee’s pursuit of promotion, ordinarily do not constitute third-party interference with the employer-employee contract.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit held that alleged favoritism toward a romantically connected employee is not sex discrimination under Title VII absent proof of sex-based decisionmaking, and it rejected tortious-interference claims that attempted to recast an employer’s internal termination decision as interference by the employer’s agent and a co-employee.


Preston v. Wisconsin Health Fund, 397 F.3d 539 (7th Cir. 2005)