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

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" 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

RHONDA FERRELL, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

) 

) 

) 

) 

.FILED 

nited S!3tes Court of Appeah '" •• I 't '"l ~. ~ ..... !A 

FEB 17 1988 

ROBER'l' L. HU~CKER 

Clerk 

vs. ) No. 86 - 1227 

STATE OF WYOMING, MICHAELE. 

HUBER, STEPHEN E. DAVIDSON, 

and JANET REED, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

) (D.C. No. C85-0145-B) 

) (D. Wyoming) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT 

Before LOGAN, MOORE, and ANDERSON, Ci rcuit Judges. 

Plaintiff Rhonda Ferrell appeals from the district court' s 

decision in favor of defendants in an action alleging employment 

discrimination in viola t ion o f Titl e VII of the Civil Rights Ac t 

o f 1964, as amended by t he Pregnancy Discrimination Act, 42 U.S.C. 

§ 2000(e) (1982). Mr s. Ferrell challenges as clearly erroneous 

t he district cour c's finding t hat the defendants' decision not to 

hire her was based o n l egitimate nondiscriminatory reasons. We 

disagree and accordingly affirm the judgment of the district 

court. 

Appellate Case: 86-1227 Document: 010110027448 Date Filed: 02/17/1988 Page: 1 
I . 

In January 1983, Mrs. Ferrell interviewed with defendants 

Janet Reed and Michael Huber for a job at the Natrona County Court 

clerk's office. She was eight months pregnant. During the 

interview, the defendants informed Mrs. Ferrell that the Court 

required new employees to commit to uninterrupted service during 

the first six months of employment. Mrs. Ferrell testified that 

the defendants told her they could not hire her until after she 

had delivered her baby. The defendants, on the other hand, 

contended that Mrs. Ferrell told them she did not want to work 

until after she had delivered and was interviewing only in order 

to maintain her California unemployment benefits. In any event, 

there is no dispute that defendants did not offer Mrs. Ferrell a 

job and instead asked her to recontact the clerk's office when she 

was available to work. 

Janet Reed recontacted Mrs. Ferrell in May 1983 to ask if she 

would be interested in a clerk position. Mrs. Ferrell said that 

she was interested but would need to take time off in July to 

attend to her ailing father-in-law in California. Mrs. Reed asked 

Mrs. Ferrell to contact the clerk's office when she returned from 

California. Mrs. Ferrell returned to the clerk's office in 

October 1983, at which time she was told that there was a vacancy 

but no authority to hire. Mrs. Ferrell called back several times 

in October and November to discuss salary and benefits and was 

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Appellate Case: 86-1227 Document: 010110027448 Date Filed: 02/17/1988 Page: 2 
told no authority to hire had yet been granted. Mrs. Reed 

testified that, during the course of these conversations, Mrs. 

Ferrell expressed some doubt whether the job's salary would 

justify the cost of hiring a baby-sitter. Mrs. Reed also 

testified that Mrs. Ferrell called sometime in November to say she 

was pregnant and did not feel well enough to begin work. Mrs. 

Ferrell denies having said she did not want to begin work. 

In December 1983, the clerk's office ran a newspaper 

advertisement for two records management career positions. After 

seeing the advertisement, Mrs. Ferrell and a friend personally 

visited the clerk's office and presented Janet Reed with an 

updated resume. According to statements written by Mrs. Ferrell 

and her friend directly after the visit, Mrs. Reed answered 

affirmatively when asked if the Court had a policy against hiring 

pregnant women. Mrs. Reed contends that Mrs. Ferrell asked only 

whether the Court still had a policy requiring six months of 

uninterrupted service. 

Mrs. Ferrell was not hired for either of the positions listed 

in the newspaper advertisement. Mrs. Reed testified that the 

Court received over 200 applications in response to the 

advertisement and that Mrs. Ferrell was among the final seven 

individuals considered for the positions. Mrs. Reed also 

testified that she had not hired Mrs. Ferrell because the 

applicant interviews had indicated that two other women had better 

attitudes towards the position, more interest in the job, more 

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Appellate Case: 86-1227 Document: 010110027448 Date Filed: 02/17/1988 Page: 3 
... 

experience dealing with the public and handling money, and more 

stability in the community. However, Mrs. Reed interviewed only 

four of the seven final applicants and did not reinterview Mrs. 

Ferrell. 

The district court found that Mrs. Ferrell was not really 

interested in beginning work at any time in 1983. The district 

court also found that Mrs. Ferrell had made out a prima facie case 

of disparate treatment with respect to the defendants' refusal to 

hire her in January 1984, 1 but that she failed to show that the 

defendants' alleged legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons for not 

hiring her were pretextual. Accordingly, the court denied Mrs. 

Ferrell's claim of disparate treatment. See Texas Dep't of 

Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 256 (1981). 2 The 

district court also held that Mrs. Ferrell lacked standing to 

challenge the "six-months uninterrupted service" rule on the basis 

of disparate impact because the allegedly discriminatory rule was 

never applied to her on the basis of pregnancy. 

Wright, 468 U.S. 737 (1984). 

See Allen v. 

1 rn order to establish a prima facie case of disparate treatment, 

a plaintiff must prove that (i) she belongs to a protected 

minority; (ii) she applied for and was qualified for a position 

for which the employer was seeking applicants; (iii) she was 

rejected despite her qualifications; and (iv) the position 

remained open after her rejection and the employer continued to 

seek applicants from persons of her qualifications. See McDonnell 

Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-03 (1973). 

2rn Burdine, the Supreme Court held that a plaintiff claiming 

disparate treatment has the burden of persuading the trial court 

either that a discriminatory reason "more likely" motivated the 

employer or that the employer's proffered explanation is "unworthy 

of credence." Id. at 256. 

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Appellate Case: 86-1227 Document: 010110027448 Date Filed: 02/17/1988 Page: 4 
II. 

Mrs. Ferrell argues that we should reverse the trial court's 

ruling that she failed to establish disparate treatment and lacked 

standing to challenge disparate impact because the trial court's 

finding that the defendants had legitimate nonpretextual reasons 

for not hiring her is clearly erroneous. She argues that pretext 

is clearly established by the fact that defendants never 

interviewed her for the January 1984 positions; by Janet Reed's 

express admission in a letter to the Wyoming Department of Labor 

(DOL) stating that Mrs. Ferrell was not hired because she was 

pregnant and could not meet the requirement of six-months 

uninterrupted service; by the defendants' prior admission in a 

pretrial memorandum that Mrs. Ferrell was denied employment 

because her pregnancy disqualified her under their general policy 

of not hiring applicants who could not commit to six months of 

uninterrupted service; 3 by evidence showing that Mrs. Reed told 

Mrs. Ferrell that the Court had a policy against hiring pregnant 

women; and by evidence that Mrs. Reed told a DOL investigator that 

Judge Davidson, a third defendant, said he would "probably not 

hire" a woman who was pregnant. 

3The pretrial memorandum defined the issue in the case as "whether 

defendants' policy of refusal to consider for employment any 

applicant who cannot commit to an uninterrupted six-month training 

and probationary period violates the prohibitions of Title VII of 

the Civil Rights Act." 

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Appellate Case: 86-1227 Document: 010110027448 Date Filed: 02/17/1988 Page: 5 
Upon reviewing the record, we conclude that the finding of 

the district court is not clearly erroneous. The credibility of 

the defendants' alleged legitimate and nondiscriminatory reasons 

is supported by substantial evidence in the record. Unlike the 

other two applicants who were hired, Mrs. Ferrell never asked if 

she could come in and sit in court; never called with any 

questions regarding the office; had little experience working with 

the public or handling cash; and was unsure whether she was going 

to stay in Casper. At trial, Mrs. Ferrell admitted that she had 

hoped to find a better job, was not particularly interested in the 

clerk's position, and would have continued looking for another job 

even if she had been hired by the clerk's office. 

The evidence Mrs. Ferrell cites in support of her argument of 

pretext is not sufficient to convince us that the district court's 

judgment is clearly erroneous. The defendants' failure to 

reinterview Mrs. Ferrell in January 1984 is not persuasive, since 

the defendants had interviewed her in January 1983 and had 

maintained periodic contact with her after that time. The trial 

court was not bound by any "admission" in the defendants' pretrial 

memorandum, since the argument that Mrs. Ferrell was not hired for 

legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons was preserved in the 

defendants' answer, in other parts of the pretrial memorandum, 4 

and in the pretrial order. The other evidence cited by Mrs. 

4The pretrial memorandum stated that Mrs. Reed and Judge Huber 

would testify that in each instance of alleged discrimination Mrs. 

Ferrell was not hired for reasons other than pregnancy. 

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Appellate Case: 86-1227 Document: 010110027448 Date Filed: 02/17/1988 Page: 6 
Ferrell in support of her argument of pretext is also insufficient 

to leave us with "the definite and firm conviction that a mistake 

has been made." Colon-Sanchez v. Marsh, 733 F.2d 78, 81 (10th 

Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 855 (1984). 

Accordingly, we hold that the district court's determination 

that Mrs. Ferrell's was not denied employment on the basis of her 

pregnancy is not clearly erroneous and AFFIRM the judgment of the 

district court. 

Entered for the Court 

John P. Moore 

Circuit Judge 

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