Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-94-05207/USCOURTS-caDC-94-05207-0/pdf.json

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 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 5, 1996 Decided October 25, 1996

No. 94-5207

RAYMOND KOGER, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

JANET RENO, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 91cv01058)

Alan G. Warner argued the cause and filed the briefs for

appellants. 

Keith V. Morgan, Assistant United States Attorney, argued the cause

for appellee. Eric H. Holder, Jr., United States Attorney, and R.

Craig Lawrence, Assistant United States Attorney, were on the brief

with him. John D. Bates entered an appearance.

Before: WALD, WILLIAMS and GINSBURG, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge: A class of older Deputy U.S. Marshals

alleges age discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination

in Employment Act ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 623, 633a et seq. The

class consists of deputies who, while they were GS-11 Criminal

Investigators, were eligible and applied for positions as GS-12

Senior Criminal Investigators; who were at least 40 years old at

the time of the disputed selections; and who were not selected for

vacancies for which deputies under 40 were selected.

The district court rejected the plaintiffs' disparate impact

claim on summary judgment, ruling that they failed to establish a

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prima facie case. It rejected their disparate treatment claim

after a full trial, finding that the plaintiffs had failed to carry

their burden of proof. We affirm.

* * *

The Marshals Service is part of the Department of Justice and

its mission is "to provide for the security and to obey, execute,

and enforce all orders of the United States District Courts, the

United States Courts of Appeals and the Court of International

Trade." 28 U.S.C. § 566 (1994). A deputy marshal can be called

upon to perform a wide range of duties, including the protection of

the federal judiciary, the transportation of federal prisoners, and

the seizure of assets.

When the Service created the post of GS-12 Senior Criminal

Investigator in 1987, it also devised a system for filling the

positions, a system it has maintained, with modifications made in

1989 and 1990, through to the time of the district court's decision

in 1994. Under this system, the positions are allocated among the

judicial districts; typically only those deputies working in a

particular district may apply for a promotion in that district.

Any applicant must have at least one year of experience at the

GS-11 level. Each submits an "Application for Law Enforcement

Positions," which includes information about the applicant in each

of the first four of seven categories of information that will

later be "scored," namely experience, education, training, and

awards. The applicant also submits copies of his two most recent

"Annual Performance Evaluations" and his physical fitness test

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results (the "FIT Assessment"). These all go to the applicant's

supervisor, who adds a "Supervisory Promotion Evaluation."

Based upon the information in this package, the merit

promotion staff at the Marshals Service headquarters scores most

applications under the guidance of a confidential Rating Guide (the

districts originally did the scoring and are still permitted to do

so if they choose). The person scoring the package can award the

applicant a maximum of 100 points, divided as follows:

Experience Section 40 points

Training Section 10 points

Awards Section 10 points

Education 10 points

Annual Performance Evaluation 10 points

Physical Fitness (FIT Test) 10 points

Supervisory Evaluation 10 points

The scores of all the applicants for a particular vacancy are

recorded on a "Verification of Scores List," and the

highest-scoring applicants are placed on a "Certification List."

The marshal for the district filling its vacancy may request the

selection of any deputy on the certification list. Starting in

1988, the marshal's recommendation was forwarded to the Career

Development Board at the Service's headquarters, along with the

verification list and the certification list. The Board usually

selected the candidate recommended by the marshal; in the absence

of a recommendation, it typically chose the highest-scoring

applicant. More recently, the marshal's recommendation has been

subject only to approval by the merit promotion staff, with the

Associate Director of the Service resolving cases in which the

staff raises an objection.

Although older deputies and younger (under 40) deputies were

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appointed in proportion to their frequency in the applicant pool,

plaintiffs identify statistical disparities in two separate phases

of the process. First, in some years the younger deputies did

proportionately better than the older ones in four of the seven

formally scored categoriesTraining, Education, Physical Fitness

and Annual Appraisals. Second, plaintiffs offered evidence that if

scores on the seven-part scoring system are held constant, younger

deputies did better than older ones in the final phase of the

process, actual promotion. In addition, plaintiffs specifically

attack several of the criteria in the scoring system, claiming that

the Service has chosen them with an intent to discriminate against

older deputies.

We address the disparate treatment claim first, then the

disparate impact claim.

Disparate Treatment

Age discrimination is governed by the disparate treatment

analysis developed in the Title VII context. Arnold v. U.S. Postal

Service, 863 F.2d 994, 996 (D.C. Cir. 1988). To prevail, the

plaintiff must first establish a prima facie case by showing that

the plaintiff is a member of the protected class (here, persons 40

or older) who was qualified for and applied for a position, but was

rejected in favor of a younger deputy. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v.

Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 (1973); Texas Department of Community

Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253-54 n.6 (1981). If the

plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, the defendant must come

forward with a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for its

actions. Finally, if the defendant meets its burden of production,

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the burden shifts back to the plaintiff to persuade the fact finder

that the defendant's reason for its action is a mere pretext for

discrimination and (thus) that the defendant acted with

"discriminatory intent." Id. at 252-54; Arnold v. U.S. Postal

Service, 863 F.2d 994, 996 (D.C. Cir. 1988).

The plaintiffs' prima facie case is not in dispute. We

therefore turn to the district court's conclusion that the

plaintiff failed to show discriminatory intent, reviewing for clear

error. Bazemore v. Friday, 478 U.S. 385, 398 (1986).

Non-Statistical Evidence

The district court found that the system was indeed legitimate

and non-discriminatory, "designed to measure a range of variables

that, in combination, reliably indicate whether the applicant is

among the best deputies in his or her district and whether the

applicant has the skills and background necessary to perform a

broad range of tasks." Memorandum of June 6, 1994 ("Disparate

Treatment Memorandum") at 8. The court also framed its findings

about the system partly in terms of incentives, saying that it

provided

an incentive for deputies to gain experience, update

training, gain additional education, strive for awards,

achieve high levels of performance, and be physically

fitall of which are important qualities in performing

the varied duties of a Deputy United States Marshal.

Id. And the court noted that the Service gave heavy weight to

experience, a factor on which the older deputies did

disproportionately well, as plaintiffs' expert had conceded.

Finally, it observed that promotion rates were proportional as

between younger and older deputies.

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At oral argument plaintiffs suggested that some of the

Service's criteria were illegitimate, because, they said, they were

aimed at providing desirable incentives for deputy marshals rather

than choosing the persons most fit for the jobs, in violation of

regulations of the Office of Personnel Management. We are not

clear why plaintiffs assume that there is a conflict between

criteria aimed at selecting the most suitable candidate and at

providing incentives for career development, but in any event we

need not address the issue. The allusions to the theory in

plaintiffs' opening brief are sketchy at best, at no point

identifying the language in OPM regulations that plaintiffs see as

barring career development purposes. Lest opposing litigants be

sandbagged, we do not resolve issues raised so fecklessly. See,

e.g., Carducci v. Regan, 714 F.2d 171, 177 (D.C. Cir. 1983); cf.

Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(6).

The district court also found that the plaintiffs failed to

show that the Service's reasons for using any of the seven criteria

of the formal scoring were pretextual, and we find no error. The

improbability of pretext is suggested by the Service's system of

scoring on physical fitness. Deputies receive 0, 1 or 2 fitness

points for various degrees of fitness in each of five categories,

but the system is scaled so that in each category older deputies

can earn points for lower levels of fitness than younger ones.

Disparate Treatment Memorandum at 11; see also the Service's

Rating Guide 5-7, 5-12. Plaintiffs seem to be imputing a rather

machiavellian spirit to the Service, implicitly arguing that,

although intentionally discriminating against older workers, it

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simultaneously lay a false trail by explicitly discriminating in

their favor. Nonetheless, we work through plaintiffs'

superficially most promising attacks on the court's rejection of

their attempted proof of pretext.

Although the older deputies did proportionately better than

younger ones in the experience portion of the rating system,

plaintiffs argue that they would have done even better had the

system not been rigged against them. The key part of the alleged

rigging stems from the Service's Deputy Development Program, which

is aimed at enhancing the experience of newly hired

deputiespresumably the ones for whom the incremental value of

extra doses of varied experience and training is greatest.

Deputies in the program must complete assignments in six different

areas over a period of three years: fugitive investigations;

witness security; special assignments; asset forfeiture;

headquarters; and supervisor observation. Disparate Treatment

Memorandum at 12. Although plaintiffs argue that the Deputy

Development Program assignment system benefits younger deputies,

the district court found that these assignments do not correspond

to specific tasks in the GS-12 application package and that the

assignments are frequently not considered desirable. Id. And the

court found that supervisors do not give deputies in the program

priority in assignments, except when the deputies need particular

assignments in order to complete their program requirements. Id.

The Deputy Development Program presumably gives new hires an

advantage that they would not have had in its absence. On its face

that seems a completely innocent consequence of a legitimate and

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non-discriminatory decision to focus resources where they will

yield the most payoff in enhanced experience. There is, however,

a wrinkle to the system that looks superficially fishy. Because

Congress has authorized the Service to set a maximum age for new

hires, 5 U.S.C. § 3307 (1994), an age which is currently set at 37

years, and the Service has exercised that authority, the deputies

in the three-year program are evidently never over 40, so that,

plaintiffs evidently claim, the program is really a device for

aiding deputies outside the ADEA-protected class. We have already

held, however, that the authority to set an age entry maximum

trumps the ADEA (so long as the authority is properly exercised,

and here no claim is made to the contrary). Stewart v. Smith, 673

F.2d 485 (D.C. Cir. 1982). It would make no sense to say that §

3307 allows the Service to engage in explicit age discrimination in

hiring, but that the ADEA disables it from setting up a program

legitimately designed to train new hiresat least where there is no

evidence that the focus on new hires was pretextual. There being

no such evidence, the fact of the Deputy Development Program, with

its age-related collateral effects on the experience and other

criteria of the scoring system, does not help the plaintiffs

establish discriminatory intent.

A closely related claim is that deputies in the Deputy

Development Program are advantaged by the requirement that in the

experience segment of the application deputies set forth narratives

of their experience. Deputies in the program evidently receive

assistance in completing these narratives. Again, such assistance

seems a non-discriminatory way of speeding the development of new

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hires. Nor is there any reason whatever to believe that the

requirement of narratives is itself either illegitimate or

pretextual. Indeed, one of the plaintiffs himself testified that

in some respects the requirement of narratives aids older deputies,

because they learn through experience how to use the narratives to

their advantage. Disparate Treatment Memorandum at 13.

Plaintiffs also argue that the system for scoring training and

awards improperly disadvantages older deputies. Training and

awards are given full credit if they occurred in the last five

years before the application, half credit if earlier (originally no

credit was given for earlier training and awards, but the Service

later chose to give half credit). Plaintiffs offer nothing to

suggest any illegitimacy or pretextuality in this system. The

benefits of training erode over time (even among the young), and

past triumphs decay as predictors of the future.

Finally, plaintiffs object to the Service's policy of giving

points in the education criterion for college-level course work,

saying that this disadvantages older deputies because most of them

do not have a college education, while most younger ones do. A

minimum of ten semester hours is required to receive points, with

no restrictions on the subject matter of the courses. The court

accepted evidence that this aspect of the scoring system provided

information about a deputy's ability to analyze and assimilate

information, and that the need for these skills had increased over

the past ten years as the deputies' responsibilities have expanded

to include areas such as asset forfeiture. Disparate Treatment

Memorandum at 15. Plaintiffs offer no reason to doubt these

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conclusions.

Statistical Evidence

Plaintiffs' expert examined the years 1988-1993 and found

that, on certain components of the promotion package, the older an

applicant the more likely his scores were to be low, and that for

the years listed below these negative correlations were

statistically significant:

Negative Correlation with Age Year

Training 1988

Education All Years

FIT Assessment All Years

Annual Appraisal 1989, 1990, 1991

She also found a number of statistically significant positive

correlations (i.e., in favor of the older candidates):

Positive Correlation with Age Year

Experience 1989

Training 1992

Supervisory Evaluations 1989

The presence of statistically significant deviations from

proportionality in both directions plainly cuts against the

inference plaintiffs seek to draw.

In these analyses plaintiffs' expert treated age as a

continuous variable, so that, for example, a 25-year-old deputy

outscoring a 35-year-old deputy would tend to increase the apparent

advantage of the young. She also conducted additional analyses,

however, using a "dummy variable" for age ("AGEDUM") that divided

applicants into an under- 40 category and an over-40 category,

which also yielded a statistically significant negative

correlation.

Finally, the expert conducted an analysis on the final stage

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of the promotion process, to test whether, even if the scoring

system was not discriminatory as between older and younger

deputies, the Service might be discriminating in the final choices

from the certification list. The expert ran a regression from

which she concluded that, as between deputies with the same total

score, older deputies were less likely to receive promotion. She

found this disparity statistically significant for three of the

years examined1988, 1989 and 1992. In this analysis she used only

the continuous variable for age.

Defendant attacked these statistics on three grounds, and

offered alternative figures leading to the opposite conclusion

about the last stage of the promotion process, i.e., tending to

show that older deputies were more likely to be promoted, holding

scores constant. The first alleged error is not disputed here, and

we discuss it only to explain why it does not play a role in our

assessment of the evidence. The expert assumed in the analysis of

the final stage, promotion itself, that all applicants were

competing for all vacancies, while in fact they competed

district-by-district for specific vacancies. Thus if scores were

generally higher in some districts (because of scoring variation or

a different general level of qualifications), the non-appointment

of a high-scoring older deputy would produce figures suggesting

that younger deputies did better holding all factors constant,

while in fact the older deputy had simply lost out to a

higher-scoring deputy. While we think the methodological choice

indeed impaired plaintiffs' analysis of the final stage, that

analysis falls because of a more drastic defect, which we address

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shortly. So far as the expert's study of the scoring system is

concerned, this aspect of her approach seems to us simply

irrelevant.

The two disputed methodological issues are these: First,

defendant argues that plaintiffs' analysis of the final stage of

the process was flawed because it used a continuous variable for

age rather than a variable that classified a deputy as either over

40 or under 40. Second, defendant says that plaintiff failed to

include certain competitions, such as those between deputies over

40. The district court found both of these critiques, as well as

the now undisputed one, convincing. Turning to the two contested

issues, we agree with the district court that the plaintiff's

expert was incorrect to use the continuous variable for age, but we

find the plaintiff's exclusion of certain contests to be proper.

Age as a Continuous Variable

The sole evidence offered in support of discrimination at the

stage of ultimate promotion was plaintiffs' regression analysis

purporting to show that, holding aggregate scores constant, the

younger deputies had a greater chance of promotion. The district

court rejected this on the ground that the regression was based

simply on variation in age, as opposed to discrimination against

those 40 or over. Because the expert used a continuous variable

for age, her results do not address the issue of whether, holding

scores constant, a deputy 40 years old or more is less likely to be

promoted than a deputy under 40. All the regression shows is that

older deputies (of any age) are less likely to be promoted,

relative to younger deputies (of any age). But the entire

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statistical advantage of the younger deputies could have come from

disparate promotion rates as between deputies in the under-40

category. Because these deputies are not protected under the ADEA,

regardless of demonstrated discrimination, the inclusion of this

data is fatal to the expert's conclusion. See Murnane v. American

Airlines, Inc., 667 F.2d 98, 99-100 & n.3 (D.C. Cir. 1981)

(employer's guideline against hiring persons over 30 considered

only insofar as it was applicable to those over 40, because those

under 40 are not protected under the ADEA); see also Ramona L.

Paetzold and Steven L. Willborn, The Statistics of Discrimination:

Using Statistical Evidence in Discrimination Cases, § 7.07 at 7-12

(1995) (observing that it would be error to infer illegal

discrimination from figures simply showing statistical significance

in "the relationship between age and termination for all

employees").

Plaintiffs urge that despite this defect, the court should

have accepted the regression as having some probative value. They

point especially to Bazemore v. Friday, 478 U.S. 385 (1986), in

which the Court held that the lower courts erred in rejecting the

plaintiffs' regression analysis. The analysis had demonstrated a

wage disparity between black and white employees with the same job

title, education and tenure. The district court had rejected the

regression because there were other variables, such as

county-by-county wage variations, that might have accounted for the

salary disparity. The Supreme Court rejected this argument,

holding that "the omission of variables from a regression analysis

may render the analysis less probative than it otherwise might be,"

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but that it does not make the analysis unacceptable as evidence.

Id. at 400. The Court also said that the defendants had "made no

attempt ... to demonstrate that when these factors were properly

organized and accounted for there was no significant disparity

between the salaries of blacks and whites." Id. at 403-04 n.14.

Following Bazemore courts have taken the view that a defendant

cannot undermine a regression analysis simply by pointing to

variables not taken into account that might conceivably have pulled

the analysis's sting. See, e.g., Palmer v. Shultz, 815 F.2d 84,

106 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (possible impact of individual preferences

insufficient to justify rejection of plaintiffs' analysis); Segar

v. Smith, 738 F.2d 1249, 1277 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (similar); EEOC v.

General Telephone Co., 885 F.2d 575, 582 (9th Cir. 1989) (similar);

Sobel v. Yeshiva Univ., 839 F.2d 18, 33-34 (2d Cir. 1988)

(similar). Courts have not, however, understood Bazemore to

require acceptance of regressions from which clearly major

variables have been omittedsuch as education and prior work

experience, Sheehan v. Purolator, Inc., 839 F.2d 99, 103 (2d Cir.

1988), or, in decisions on academic pay, rank and tenure, the

quality of teaching and research, and community and institutional

service, Penk v. Oregon State Bd. of Higher Educ., 816 F.2d 458,

464-65 (9th Cir. 1987) (distinguished in General Telephone, 885

F.2d at 581-82).

Here, however, we do not deal with a regression that simply

omits a variable of potential significance. Instead we have one

that (if valid at all) supports an inference that is not legally

relevantthat, holding aggregate scores constant, variations in age

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over the entire age range of applicants, are statistically

associated with promotion. It thus fails to show a disparity that

disfavors deputies 40 or older. To have required the defendant to

have constructed and conducted the proper analysis to correct the

plaintiffs' error would be to improperly shift the burden of proof.

Nor does the other aspect of Bazemore's analysis of

statistical proof suggest that the court should have given

plaintiffs' regression any weight. The decision considered whether

the inclusion of pre-Title VII data invalidated the plaintiffs'

statistical analysis and concluded that it did not, because

proof that an employer engaged in racial discrimination

prior to the effective date of Title VII might in some

circumstances support the inference that such

discrimination continued, particularly where relevant

aspects of the decisionmaking process had undergone

little change.

Id. at 402; see also Valentino v. U.S. Postal Service, 674 F.2d

56, 71 n.26 (D.C. Cir. 1982). The inclusion of pre-Title VII data

might be thought analogous to the use of the continuous variable

for age in our case, in the sense that both involve the inclusion

of data that relate to unactionable discrimination. In Bazemore,

however, the inclusion of pre-Title VII data provided information

about an employer's treatment of the protected class (just at a

different time), whereas statistical disparities within the under40 category say nothing about treatment of the protected class.

Exclusion of Certain Promotion Decisions

Plaintiffs' expert excluded those promotion contests where

there were no applicants who were over 40, where there were no

applicants under age 40, or where there was no competition for the

promotion. The district court found that this was an error because

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1Cf. Palmer v. Shultz, 815 F.2d 84 (D.C. Cir. 1987). In

rejecting the district court's contention that plaintiff should

have included cross-class competitions, the court reasoned:

Appellants are trying to demonstrate ... that women in

class 5 are less likely than men in class 5 to [get

desirable assignments].... Given this purpose, it is

entirely irrelevant that officers from other classes

may compete with men and women in class 5 for those

assignments....

Id. at 109. 

it "excluded pertinent information concerning part of the plaintiff

class." Disparate Treatment Memorandum at 16. This conclusion,

however, disregards the definition of the class, and therefore, the

nature of the claims being made by the plaintiffs. The class is

specifically defined as those deputies over 40 who were denied

promotions in contests in which deputies under 40 were promoted.1

We think the district court's reasoning is in error on this point.

Adequacy of Evidence on Scoring

Although neither the defendants nor the district court have

been clear on the effect of the statistical criticisms on the

expert's findings about the scoring, we cannot see that the

criticisms are applicable. First, in her alternative treatment of

the scoring, the plaintiffs' expert did use the variable AGEDUM,

which properly divided the deputies into over-40 v. under-40.

Second, the failure to consider the district-by-district nature of

the competition was significant only in regard to plaintiffs'

evidence as to possible discrimination in the final stage of the

promotion process, evidence we've rejected because of the use of

age as a continuous variable. Thus there remains the question

whether the district court erred in excluding the evidence on the

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scoring itself, and if so, whether the error was harmless.

If there was any error, it was plainly harmless. First,

although plaintiffs offered data showing statistically significant

disparities, they never offered to show the size of the

disparities, even though, where the sample size is large enough, a

very slight disparity can be statistically significant. See

Paetzold & Willborn § 4.13 at 4-31 & n.97. Second, where the

criteria producing the alleged disparities are legitimate and

non-pretextual, as the court found, we doubt that evidence of

disparities can add much. Once it is determined, for example, that

fitness is a legitimate criterion, it is not informative to learn

that the old do less well than the young (even after the scaling in

their favor). Finally, as we have already noted, the same data

showed statistically significant disparities in favor of the older

deputies. This is true even for one of the criteria for which

plaintiffs point to disparities running against them: training

(1988statistically significant disparities in favor of young;

1992statistically significant disparities in favor of old).

Accordingly, any possible error in exclusion of the data was

plainly harmless. See, e.g., Neuren v. Adduci, Mastriani, Meeks &

Schill, 43 F.3d 1507, 1512 (D.C. Cir. 1995).

Disparate Impact

Even where there is proportionality as between members of the

protected class and others in promotion rates, as here, under Title

VII a non-proportionality in some earlier phase of the selection

process can be the basis of a disparate impact claim. Connecticut

v. Teal, 457 U.S. 440 (1982). Plaintiffs argue that the

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2Because the district court decided the disparate impact

claim on summary judgment by addressing only the legal issue, it

did not address the validity of the statistical evidence at this

stage. The statistical evidence, however, has been thoroughly

addressed both by the district court and in our earlier

discussions of the disparate treatment claim. Our conclusion in

that section was that the evidence of disparate scores was not

condemned by the criticisms that were sufficient to exclude

plaintiffs' analysis of the final, subjective portion of the

promotion process. Nonetheless, as is discussed below, we find

the evidence inadequate to establish a prima facie case of

disparate impact. 

non-proportionalities in some of the segments of the seven-factor

scoring system in fact give rise to such a claim and require us to

reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment in

defendant's favor.2 We assume without deciding that disparate

impact analysis applies to age discrimination claims.

The parties' dispute here has largely revolved around the

issue of whether Teal allows a disparate impact claim for scoring

in a phase of the process that is non-dispositive, i.e., a phase

that may affect applicants' aggregate scores (and thus the

probability of promotion), but that does not in itself create an

outright barrier to promotion. In this connection the parties

offer conflicting views as to whether our decision in Arnold v.

U.S. Postal Service, 863 F.2d 994, 999 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (applying

Teal only where a factor is a "free-standing element") limits

disparate impact analysis to such barrierswhere there is no

"bottom-line" disparity. We need not resolve that dispute,

however, because plaintiffs have simply failed to show that the

disparities in the intermediate phases of the process actually

disadvantaged them at all.

Disparate impact analysis requires that plaintiffs show that

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the practice attacked caused at least some members of the class to

be deprived of a promotion, or at least the opportunity of being

considered for a promotion. "[T]he 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." Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U.S.

977, 994 (1988) (O'Connor, J., concurring); see also Robinson v.

Polaroid Corp, 732 F.2d 1010 (1st Cir. 1984).

By requiring plaintiffs to demonstrate "causation," we do not

mean that they must point to an outright barrier to promotion,

precisely the issue we do not decide. Nor do we mean that they

must show a bottom-line disparity. For example, suppose that

plaintiffs had demonstrated that there was disparity on fitness

scores, that promotions went strictly according to rank on the

list, and that some older deputies would have been promoted if not

for the disparity. The plaintiffs would then have demonstrated a

causal link between disparate results in the fitness tests and the

end results, even though the fitness test was not an absolute

barrier (because lower scores on it could be compensated for by

higher scores in other sections of the promotion package).

Here plaintiffs have demonstrated no impact caused by low

scores. They have pointed to no person who was deprived of

promotion due to low scores. Further, as we said before, although

they showed that the disparity between old and young was

statistically significant for some factors, they offered no

evidence on the size of the disparity or its effect on any

promotion decision involving a match up between old and young

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candidates. Nor do they show that the lower scores on the relevant

portions of the promotion package in practice decreased the

probability of promotion (even holding all factors constant). For

all we know from the plaintiffs' data, the magnitude of the

disparity is de minimis. See, again, Paetzold & Willborn § 4.13 at

4-31 & n.97. If we were to dispense with a causation requirement,

it would, ironically, allow a group of older deputies to prevail on

the ground that the fitness test gave them lower scores even if all

the older deputiesand none of the younger oneswere promoted. We

affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment for

defendants.

The judgment of the district court is

Affirmed.

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