Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-01211/USCOURTS-ca10-89-01211-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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FILED 

I lnited Scates Court of Appeals 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit 

NOLA L. SWAIN, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

THE RESOLUTION TRUST CORPORATION, 

as conservator for Otero Savings 

and Loan Association, 

Defendant-Appellee. 

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ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

MAR 18 1991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 89-1211 

(D.C. No. 82-C-1609) 

(Dist. of Colo.) 

Before HOLLOWAY and BARRETT, Circuit Judges, and BROWN**, District 

Judge. 

** The Honorable Wesley E. Brown, Senior Judge, United States 

District Court for the District of Kansas, sitting by designation. 

Nola Swain ("Swain") sued Resolution Trust Corporation as 

Conservator for Otero Savings and Loan Association ("Otero") for 

employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act 

of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e to 2000e-17. Swain now appeals from a 

bench trial after which the district court dismissed her claims as 

meritless. 

Swain worked at Otero from November 7, 1977, to August 8, 

1978. She began at Otero as a staff appraiser, and, after five 

* This Order and Judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppal. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

Appellate Case: 89-1211 Document: 010110031197 Date Filed: 03/18/1991 Page: 1 
weeks, was promoted to supervisor of Otero's Colorado Springs 

appraisal department. Because she was not given a salary increase 

with her promotion, Swain asked Otero in March, 1978, to reassign 

her as a staff appraiser, which Otero did. 

In July, 1978, Swain requested that Otero give her a salary 

increase pursuant to an oral agreement she had with Merle 

Carpenter, the president of Otero. Her request was denied. She 

wrote a letter to Carpenter on August 7, 1978, complaining about 

her lack of salary increase. On August 8, 1978, Carpenter told 

Roy Younker and William Moss, Swain's supervisors, to fire her for 

having a "poor attitude" unless her attitude changed. Younker and 

Moss met with Swain and, after determining that her attitude had 

not changed, fired her. Swain and Otero agree that Swain was 

officially fired for "poor job performance" and "poor attitude." 

Swain initiated this Title VII suit after receiving a "Notice 

of Right to Sue" from the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. 

Within her complaint, Swain alleged disparate treatment, disparate 

impact, and retaliation. 

At the close of Swain's case, the district court granted 

Otero's motion for a directed verdict on Swain's claim for 

disparate treatment. At the end of trial, the court filed a 

Memorandum of Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, in which it 

dismissed all of Swain's claims as meritless. In its order of 

dismissal, the court memorialized its earlier finding that Swain 

failed to establish a disparate treatment case. In addition, the 

court found that Swain also failed to establish a prima facie case 

of disparate impact and that the evidence, taken as a whole, did 

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Appellate Case: 89-1211 Document: 010110031197 Date Filed: 03/18/1991 Page: 2 
not support her retaliation claim. On appeal, Swain asserts that 

the court erred in dismissing her claims as meritless. We have 

carefully reviewed the record and find no error in the district 

court's dismissal of all claims. 

Swain asserts that the district court erred in requiring that 

she prove that Otero intentionally discriminated against her as 

part of her disparate impact claim. It is true that an employer's 

intent to discriminate is not an issue in disparate impact cases. 

Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U.S. 977, 986-87 (1988). 

However, in order to establish a prima facie disparate impact 

claim, Swain was required not only to identify the specific 

employment practice that she was challenging, but also to prove 

"causation; that is, the plaintiff must offer statistical evidence 

of a kind and degree sufficient to show that the practice in 

question has caused the exclusion of applicants for jobs or 

promotions because of their membership in a protected group .. 

[the Court has] consistently stressed that statistical disparities 

must be sufficiently substantial that they raise such an inference 

of causation." Watson, 487 U.S. at 994-95. 

Here, Swain utterly failed to develop statistical evidence 

"sufficiently substantial" to prove "an inference of causation." 

Swain did present evidence that, between 1976 and 1982, all 

employees fired for "poor attitude" and most employees fired for 

"poor job performance" were women. However, Swain did not develop 

the percentage of total employees who were affected by these 

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Appellate Case: 89-1211 Document: 010110031197 Date Filed: 03/18/1991 Page: 3 
discharge practices. Without such a percentage, her statistics 

are meaningless. 

Swain claims that three of her exhibits indicate the total 

workforce for Otero between 1976 and 1978, so that her discharge 

statistics are meaningful for those years. However, a cursory 

glance at these exhibits reflects that the names of numerous 

employees are duplicated and that other names are omitted. Swain 

cannot rely on this raw data on appeal because she did nothing at 

trial to develop it or explain its inconsistencies. Id. 

AFFIRMED. 

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Entered for the Court: 

James E. Barrett, 

Senior United States 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 89-1211 Document: 010110031197 Date Filed: 03/18/1991 Page: 4