Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-07030/USCOURTS-caDC-96-07030-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
American Dental Association
Appellee
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Amicus Curiae
Carole Kolstad
Appellant

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 22, 1997 Decided May 8, 1998

No. 96-7030

Carole Kolstad,

Appellant/Cross-Appellee

v.

American Dental Association,

Appellee/Cross-Appellant

Consolidated with

No. 96-7047

----------

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 94cv01578)

Bruce S. Harrison and Elizabeth Torphy-Donzella argued

the cause and filed the briefs for appellee/cross-appellant.

Joseph A. Yablonski argued the cause and filed the brief

for appellant/cross-appellee.

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J. Ray Terry, Jr., Deputy General Counsel, and Robert J.

Gregory, Attorney, were on the brief for amicus curiae Equal

Employment Opportunity Commission.

Before: Edwards, Chief Judge, Wald, Silberman,

Williams, Ginsburg, Sentelle, Henderson, Randolph,

Rogers, Tatel and Garland, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Williams.

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge Randolph.

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge Tatel, with

whom Chief Judge Edwards, and Circuit Judges Wald,

Rogers and Garland join.

Williams, Circuit Judge: Carole Kolstad sued her employer, the American Dental Association ("ADA"), under Title VII

of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. s 2000e et seq. At the

close of evidence, the district court refused to instruct the

jury on punitive damages. The jury awarded Kolstad back

pay, and the district court denied ADA's motion for judgment

as a matter of law on the issue of liability. A panel of this

court reversed the district court's dismissal of Kolstad's punitive damages claim and remanded for a trial on punitive

damages. Kolstad v. American Dental Ass'n, 108 F.3d 1431,

1437-39 (D.C. Cir. 1997). We granted en banc review on the

question whether the standard of evidence for punitive damages under Title VII is, in all but a narrow range of cases, no

higher than the standard for liability. We reject that view

and hold that punitive damages in a Title VII case may be

imposed only on a showing of egregious conduct. We further

hold that no evidence of such behavior was shown at trial in

this case, and thus affirm the district court on the issue of

punitive damages.

* * *

ADA is a Chicago-based professional organization with an

office in Washington. Jack O'Donnell worked in the Washington office, where he held the double-barreled title of

Director of Legislation and Legislative Policy and Director of

the Council on Government Affairs and Federal Dental SerUSCA Case #96-7030 Document #351247 Filed: 05/08/1998 Page 2 of 41
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vices. The first role involved developing and advocating

ADA's stance on federal legislation and regulations; the

second entailed coordinating regular meetings of the Council

on Governmental Affairs, a policy-making body composed of

ADA members.

In September 1992 O'Donnell announced he would retire at

year's end. Upon learning of O'Donnell's impending departure, Kolstad (then serving as ADA's Director of Federal

Agency Relations) and Tom Spangler (then ADA's Legislative

Counsel) each expressed interest in the vacancy. Since 1988,

when Kolstad became responsible for federal regulatory matters at ADA, Leonard Wheat (the head of the Washington

office) had repeatedly rated her performance as "distinguished." Before coming to ADA, Kolstad had spent six

years in the General Counsel's office of the Department of

Defense, where she drafted proposed legislation, prepared

testimony for congressional hearings, and represented the

Department's interests on Capitol Hill. Spangler began

working at ADA in 1991. He dealt mainly with legislative

matters, and had also received "distinguished" performance

evaluations from Wheat. Before joining ADA, Spangler

spent five years as a lobbyist for the National Treasury

Employees Union. Both Kolstad and Spangler are lawyers.

Each had worked directly with O'Donnell, Spangler principally supporting his lobbying efforts and Kolstad assisting his

management of the Council.

Wheat asked Dr. William Allen, ADA's Executive Director

in Chicago, to appoint O'Donnell's successor. After consulting with Wheat, Allen revised the "Position Description Questionnaire" for O'Donnell's job, incorporating verbatim elements of the Position Description Questionnaire that had

been used to hire Spangler in 1991. (There is no evidence

that the job has not in fact included those elements.) In

October 1992 Wheat approved a performance evaluation of

Spangler in which Spangler stated that one of his objectives

for 1993 was to "provide management and administrative

support ... for the Council on Government Affairs," work

that O'Donnell was then performing.

Spangler formally applied for the vacancy once it was

posted in November 1992. Kolstad also applied, after comUSCA Case #96-7030 Document #351247 Filed: 05/08/1998 Page 3 of 41
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plaining in a letter to Allen that Wheat had refused for

several weeks to meet with her to discuss her interest in the

position. Wheat interviewed both applicants and recommended Spangler for the job. In December 1992 Allen

telephoned Kolstad to tell her that he had given the promotion to Spangler, explaining that she lacked experience

with health care reform and was too valuable to ADA in her

current position to take on O'Donnell's job.

Kolstad's claims of discrimination rest largely on the idea

that ADA had in effect picked Spangler in advance of the

formal selection process; seeing the formal process as largely

facade, she contends that its artificial quality evidences intent

to engage in sex discrimination. She also gave testimony,

hotly contested, that Wheat told sexually offensive jokes at

staff meetings and sometimes used derogatory terms to refer

to prominent professional women.

After exhausting her administrative remedies before the

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Kolstad filed

suit, charging ADA with unlawful employment discrimination

and seeking equitable relief, 42 U.S.C. s 2000e-5(g)(1), and

damages, 42 U.S.C. s 1981a. At the close of the trial evidence, the district judge declined to give the jury the issue of

punitive damages. The jury found that ADA had unlawfully

discriminated against Kolstad on the basis of sex and awarded her $52,718 in back pay. The district court denied ADA's

motion for judgment as a matter of law on liability. The

court also held that Kolstad was not entitled to attorneys'

fees or the equitable remedy of instatement. Kolstad v.

American Dental Ass'n, 912 F. Supp. 13 (D.D.C. 1996).

A panel of this court affirmed the denial of ADA's motion

for judgment as a matter of law, but reversed and remanded

for trial on punitive damages and for reconsideration of

Kolstad's claims for instatement and attorneys' fees. Kolstad

v. American Dental Ass'n, 108 F.3d 1431 (D.C. Cir. 1997).

We granted rehearing en banc on the question whether the

issue of punitive damages was properly withheld from the

jury in this case. We conclude that it was, and affirm the

district court.

* * *

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Until 1991 successful plaintiffs in Title VII cases could only

get "equitable" relief. See Landgraf v. USI Film Products,

511 U.S. 244, 252-53 (1994). In the Civil Rights Act of 1991,

Congress authorized a broader range of monetary remedies

for Title VII plaintiffs. The Act provides that a plaintiff who

proves "intentional discrimination" in violation of Title VII

may recover compensatory and punitive damages in addition

to the equitable relief available under prior law. 42 U.S.C.

s 1981a(a). A separate provision--the one at issue in this

proceeding--limits the recovery of punitive damages to cases

in which "the complaining party demonstrates that the respondent engaged in a discriminatory practice or discriminatory practices with malice or with reckless indifference to the

federally protected rights of an aggrieved individual." 42

U.S.C. s 1981a(b)(1). The sum of compensatory and punitive

damages is capped at a total ranging from $50,000 and

$300,000 depending on the employer's size. 42 U.S.C.

s 1981a(b)(3).

We think that by enacting a separate provision setting out

a special standard for the imposition of punitive damages,

Congress showed that it did not intend to make punitive

damages automatically available in the standard case of intentional discrimination under Title VII. The structure of the

statute--one standard for basic liability, another for the

exceptional remedy of punitive liability--strongly suggests

that, before the question of punitive damages can go to the

jury, the evidence of the defendant's culpability must exceed

what is needed to show intentional discrimination. To be

sure, Congress's choice of language ("malice or ... reckless

indifference to ... federally protected rights") hardly pinpoints what the content of that "something more" ought to be.

Still less, however, does that language support either the rule

proposed by Kolstad--that punitive damages should be available in every case strong enough to get to the jury on simple

compensation--or even the marginally less permissive rule

urged by the dissent.

We begin by rejecting Kolstad's broad assertion that a

finding of intentional discrimination is enough to put the

question of punitive damages before the jury in every Title

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VII case.1 Such an approach would conflict with the remedial

structure of the statute, with legislative history indicating

that Congress meant to reserve punitive damages for particularly egregious violations of Title VII, and with the Supreme

Court's pronouncements on the purposes and availability of

punitive damages. Kolstad's position does draw some superficial plausibility from the language of the statute: since

recklessness is typically subsumed within intent in the mens

rea taxonomy, it might appear logical to read s 1981a(b)(1) as

authorizing punitive damages whenever intent is shown--in

other words, whenever compensatory damages are available.

It is a stretch, however, to conclude that, in expressing the

standard for punitive damages in s 1981a(b)(1), Congress

used terms whose meaning is clear or well settled. We said

recently that mental-state standards like "recklessness" and

"reckless disregard" are among the most malleable and ambiguous in the law. See Saba v. Compagnie Nationale Air

France, 78 F.3d 664, 668-69 (D.C. Cir. 1996); see also United

States v. Krizek, 111 F.3d 934, 941 (D.C. Cir. 1997). "Malice,"

too, is susceptible of a range of meanings. See Smith v.

Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 41 n.8 (1983); New York Times Co. v.

Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 280 (1964). As we have said, the

structure of the statute strongly points to a two-tiered

scheme of liability; we decline to read the pliable and imprecise language of s 1981a(b)(1) to flatten that scheme.

The legislative history of the Civil Rights Act of 1991

supports the conclusion we reach today. The House Report

stated:

Plaintiffs must first prove intentional discrimination, then

must prove actual injury or loss arising therefrom to

recover compensatory damages, and must meet an even

higher standard (establishing that the employer acted

__________

1 Neither compensatory nor punitive damages are available in socalled "disparate impact" cases, s 1981a(a)(1), or in "mixed motive"

cases in which the defendant demonstrates that it would have taken

the same action in the absence of the impermissible motivating

factor, 42 U.S.C. s 2000e-5(g)(2)(B); see, e.g., Sheppard v. Riverview Nursing Center, 88 F.3d 1332, 1334 (4th Cir. 1996).

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with malice or reckless or callous indifference to their

rights) to recover punitive damages.

H.R. Rep. No. 40(I), 102d Cong., 1st Sess. at 72 ("House

Report") (emphasis added).2 Other statements from both

sides of the legislative aisle indicate that Congress intended

to establish an egregiousness requirement for punitive damages as a matter of law. See, e.g., 137 Cong. Rec. S 15473

(Oct. 30, 1991) (Interp. Memo of Sen. Dole et al.) (punitive

damages to be available only in "extraordinarily egregious

cases"); 137 Cong. Rec. S 15479 (Oct. 30, 1991) (statement of

Sen. Bumpers) ("[Y]ou have to allege and prove intentional,

malicious, willful discrimination in order to receive [punitive]

damages under this bill, and certainly that is as it should be.

It is a heavy burden for plaintiffs.").

Of course, legislative history is not legislative text, and

House Reports are not, as the dissent implies, authoritative

sources for determining what Congress "intended" or "expected" or "wanted." Dissent at 8 (citing House Report at

69-70). Yet it bears mentioning that even among all the

conflicting and "frankly partisan" congressional statements

concerning the Civil Rights Act of 1991, see Landgraf, 511

U.S. at 262 & n.15, we find nothing to support the proposition

that Congress intended to make punitive damages available

on the same legal basis as compensatory damages in the

typical run of Title VII cases.

To be sure, the House Report does say that s 1981a(b)(1)

"sets the same standard courts have applied under [42

U.S.C.] section 1981," a Reconstruction-era civil rights statute

prohibiting racial discrimination in the making and enforce-

__________

2 This Report accompanied a House version of the 1991 Civil

Rights Act whose punitive damages provision differed from that of

the enacted legislation only in being arguably broader. The House

bill allowed punitive damages to be awarded when the defendant

engaged in a discriminatory practice "with malice, or with reckless

or callous indifference to the federally protected rights of others."

House Report at 12 (emphasis added). We have no reason to think

that the ultimate deletion of the words "or callous" reflected a

House purpose to expand the scope of punitive liability.

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ment of contracts. House Report at 74. See also 137 Cong.

Rec. H 9527 (Nov. 7, 1991) (Interp. Memo of Rep. Edwards)

("Punitive damages are available under [s 1981a] to the same

extent and under the same standards that they are available

to plaintiffs under 42 U.S.C. s 1981."). But a cross-reference

to s 1981 (a statute that lacks a separate punitive damages

provision) hardly counts as a firm view on the present question, for the circuits are deeply divided as to the proper

standard for punitive liability under s 1981.

Four courts of appeals have held that egregious misconduct

beyond mere intent to discriminate is required for punitive

damages under s 1981--and had done so before enactment of

s 1981a. See Stephens v. So. Atlantic Canners, Inc., 848

F.2d 484, 489 (4th Cir. 1988) (although evidence adequate to

go to jury on intentional discrimination, and although any

form of discrimination "constitutes reprehensible and abhorrent conduct," evidence nonetheless inadequate for punitive

damages); Beauford v. Sisters of Mercy-Province of Detroit,

816 F.2d 1104, 1109 (6th Cir. 1987) (stating that punitive

damages in civil rights actions have "generally been limited to

cases involving egregious conduct or a showing of willfulness

or malice on the part of the defendant"); Jackson v. Pool

Mortgage Co., 868 F.2d 1178, 1182 (10th Cir. 1989) (upholding

compensatory award, and affirming trial court's rejection of

punitive damages in the absence of a showing of defendant's

"personal animosity and malice" toward the plaintiff); Walters v. City of Atlanta, 803 F.2d 1135, 1147 (11th Cir. 1986)

(finding that there was adequate evidence of intentional discrimination to support jury's finding of liability under s 1981

but that defendants had not "acted with either the requisite ill

will or callous disregard" to justify punitive damages).

Three other circuits have held that a finding of intentional

discrimination, without more, is enough to put the question of

punitive damages before the jury in the usual s 1981 case--

although only two had done so at the time Congress enacted

s 1981a. In Rowlett v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 832 F.2d 194,

205 (1st Cir. 1987), the First Circuit applied to s 1981 a rule

that "punitive damages are within the jury's discretion in

cases requiring proof of intentional wrongdoing." In WilUSCA Case #96-7030 Document #351247 Filed: 05/08/1998 Page 8 of 41
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liamson v. Handy Button Machine Co., 817 F.2d 1290, 1296

(7th Cir. 1987), the Seventh Circuit appeared to say that

punitive damages were available for racial discrimination

under s 1981 so long as "the application of the law to the

facts at hand was so clear at the time of the act that

reasonably competent people would have agreed on its application." 3 And recently we held that the jury's (sustainable)

"finding of intentional racial discrimination permitted it to

find" the requisite ill will or reckless or callous indifference

for punitive damages in a s 1981 case. Barbour v. Merrill,

48 F.3d 1270, 1277 (D.C. Cir. 1995).

In fact, the House Report reflects this circuit split by citing

two illustrative cases decided under s 1981--one of which,

Rowlett, 832 F.2d at 205, supports Kolstad's position, while

the other, Beauford, 816 F.2d at 1109, supports ADA's position. See House Report at 74. Perhaps the House Report

could be said to invite each circuit to follow its own view of

s 1981 in construing s 1981a, but such an approach seems

unduly self-referential--and we note that at least two circuits

have already rejected it. Both the First and the Seventh

Circuit have endorsed a low threshold for punitive liability

under s 1981, yet both appear to set a higher standard for

__________

3 The position of the Seventh Circuit on the availability of punitive

damages under s 1981 is not wholly clear. Williamson appears to

permit automatic imposition of punitive damages with limited allowance for a defendant's mistake on an obscure issue of law. However, in Ramsey v. American Air Filter Co., Inc., 772 F.2d 1303, 1314

(7th Cir. 1985), the court held that "[i]n a section 1981 action, a

finding of liability for discrimination against a defendant does not

automatically entitle the prevailing plaintiff to an award of punitive

damages," and described the basis for punitive damages in terms of

"outrageous conduct" and the "defendant's ill will against the

plaintiff." And in Yarbrough v. Tower Oldsmobile, Inc., 789 F.2d

508, 514 (7th Cir. 1986), the court upheld the verdict of intentional

discrimination, finding the case basically a "swearing contest," and

then upheld the award of punitive damages, but only after characterizing it as "a close case." Unless there was a higher evidentiary

standard for punitive damages, it is hard to see why that case was

"close" and the liability issue not.

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punitive than for compensatory liability under s 1981a.

Compare Rowlett, 832 F.2d at 205, with McKinnon v. Kwong

Wah Restaurant, 83 F.3d 498, 507-09 (1st Cir. 1996); and

compare Williamson, 817 F.2d at 1296, with Emmel v. CocaCola Bottling, 95 F.3d 627, 636 (7th Cir. 1996). Those courts'

approach to s 1981a seems quite sound; the Report's indifferent citation to two antithetical opinions cannot reflect a

focus on their exact meaning.

Significantly, even the cosponsors of s 1981a do not seem

to have taken an expansive view of the availability of punitive

damages under s 1981. "Under 42 U.S.C. s 1981, victims of

intentional racial and ethnic discrimination are entitled not

only to equitable relief, but also to compensatory damages.

Further, in egregious cases, punitive damages may also be

awarded." 137 Cong. Rec. S 15483 (Oct. 30, 1991) (Sponsors'

Interp. Memo) (emphasis added).

Finally, the House Report also cites the Supreme Court's

decision in Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30 (1983); see House

Report at 74. More specifically, the Report includes a "pin

cite" to the concluding passage of Smith, 461 U.S. at 56, in

which the Court announced that "a jury may be permitted to

assess punitive damages in an action under [42 U.S.C.] s 1983

when the defendant's conduct is shown to be motivated by

evil motive or intent, or when it involves reckless or callous

indifference to the federally protected rights of others." That

Congress ultimately enacted language similar to that employed in Smith v. Wade is clear; we now turn to the

implications of that decision for our question.

Kolstad asks us to draw from Smith v. Wade the broad

principle that the issues of compensatory and punitive liability

must go to the jury on the same evidentiary standard in civil

rights cases. But we do not read that decision--much less

the House Report's isolated citation to Smith 's linguistic

formula--to go so far. In Smith, an inmate sued a prison

guard (among others) under 42 U.S.C. s 1983, alleging that

the guard violated his Eighth Amendment rights by failing to

protect him from violent physical and sexual abuse. The sole

dispute was over the proper standard for punitive damages,

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and because s 1983 makes no reference to such a remedy, the

Court looked to common law for the answer. It rejected the

proposition that "actual malicious intent--'ill will, spite, or

intent to injure,' " id. at 37, was required for punitive damages, and held instead, as noted above, that they were

allowable when the defendant's conduct was "motivated by

evil motive or intent, or when it involve[d] reckless or callous

indifference to the federally protected rights of others." Id.

at 56.

The Court in Smith noted at the outset that compensatory

damages had been assessed at trial on an extremely demanding standard, one which itself incorporated a requirement of

egregiousness:

In this case, the jury was instructed to apply a high

standard of constitutional right ("physical abuse of such

base, inhumane and barbaric proportions as to shock the

sensibilities"). It was also instructed, under the principle

of qualified immunity, that Smith could not be held liable

at all unless he was guilty of "a callous indifference or a

thoughtless disregard for the consequences of [his] act or

failure to act," or of "a flagrant or remarkably bad failure

to protect" Wade.

Id. at 50-51. Thus, while the criterion adopted by the Court

for punitive damages was not egregious in relation to the

applicable compensatory standard, it clearly was so in relation

to ordinary tortious conduct. Any of the discriminatory acts

penalized by s 1981a is deplorable and wrong, but not all rise

(or sink) to equivalence with "physical abuse of such base,

inhumane and barbaric proportions as to shock the sensibilities." Thus the decision in Smith supports rather than

refutes the idea that some form of egregiousness is essential

for punitive damages.

In fact, the Court made clear that "deterrence of future

egregious conduct is a primary purpose ... of punitive damages." Id. at 49 (emphasis added). It invoked common law

standards using such terms as "injury ... inflicted maliciously or wantonly," "criminal indifference to civil obligations," id.

at 41 (quoting Philadelphia, W. & B. R. Co. v. Quigley, 62

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U.S. 202, 214 (1859)), "wilful misconduct," and "conscious

indifference to consequences," id. at 42-43 (quoting Milwaukee & St. Paul R. Co. v. Arms, 91 U.S. 489, 495 (1876)).

Tellingly, the Court drew its formulation of the appropriate

standard for punitive damages from the Restatement of

Torts, which says that punitive damages are allowable "for

conduct that is outrageous, because of the defendant's evil

motive or his reckless indifference to the rights of others."

Restatement (Second) of Torts s 908(2) (1977) (emphasis

added). The Smith Court quoted the Restatement's observation that punitive damages are awarded "to punish [the

defendant] for his outrageous conduct and to deter him and

others like him from similar conduct in the future." Id.

s 908(1) (quoted in Smith, 461 U.S. at 54) (emphasis added).

The comments to Section 908 add that punitive damages are

only appropriate where there is "some element of outrage

similar to that usually found in crime." Id., comment b. See

also id., comment d (although award of punitive damages left

to jury discretion, "[i]t is error ... to award punitive damages if there has been no bad motive or wanton indifference").

The Court itself has since recognized that even in its

s 1983 context the Smith formula will commonly generate

two tiers of liability. In a later s 1983 case in which a trial

court's instructions had allowed the jury to include an impermissible element in calculation of compensatory damages, the

Court considered whether the award could nonetheless be

saved by recharacterizing it as punitive damages. Memphis

Community School Dist. v. Stachura, 477 U.S. 299, 306 n.9

(1986). The Court rejected this view, noting that punitive

damages "are available only on a showing of the requisite

intent," and citing as examples both Smith and the jury

instructions in the case before it, which "authoriz[ed] punitive

damages for acts 'maliciously, or wantonly, or oppressively

done'." Id.

In short, then, we construe Smith as establishing a threshold requirement of egregiousness for the imposition of punitive damages in s 1983 cases--a requirement which Congress

transferred largely intact to s 1981a(b)(1). This case does

not require us to define this requirement with specificity, for

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the evidence presented by Kolstad, as we will discuss shortly,

fails to show egregiousness in any form. We think, however,

that punitive damages would properly reach the jury where,

for example, the evidence shows that the defendant engaged

in a pervasive pattern of discriminatory acts, or manifested

genuine spite and malevolence,4 or otherwise evinced a "criminal indifference to civil obligations," Smith, 461 U.S. at 41

(quoting Philadelphia, W. & B.R. Co. v. Quigley, 62 U.S. 202,

214 (1859)).

One might agree with this characterization of egregiousness and still contend that the determination of that threshold

in individual cases has been entrusted by Smith--and hence

derivatively by s 1981a(b)(1) as well--to the jury's "discretionary moral judgment." Smith, 461 U.S. at 52. We do not

think s 1981a(b)(1) upsets the traditional relationship between court and jury in this fashion. Nor, in fact, do we

think Smith itself granted unfettered discretion to juries to

determine whether the minimum requirements for punitive

damages have been met. The Court in Smith correctly

pointed out that punitive damages "are never awarded as of

right, no matter how egregious the defendant's conduct." 461

U.S. at 52. Rather, as the Eighth Circuit recently said in a

s 1983 case, "punitive damages are awarded or rejected in a

particular case at the discretion of the fact finder once

sufficiently serious misconduct by the defendant is shown."

Coleman v. Rahija, 114 F.3d 778, 787 (8th Cir. 1997) (emphasis added). The Smith Court said that the jury retains

"discretionary moral judgment" over the award of punitive

damages, but this simply restates the commonplace that the

jury can choose not to award them even when the evidence is

sufficient to give it the choice. And indeed, none of the

__________

4 The dissent for some reason equates our use of "malevolence"

with the statutory term "malice," Dissent at 12, but as the Supreme

Court made clear in Smith, such an equation is far from automatic.

461 U.S. at 41 n.8. To the extent that the reference to "malice" does

mean malevolence, of course, the doctrine of noscitur a sociis--

which counsels courts to construe statutory terms in harmony with

the words that accompany them--argues against the dissent's broad

reading of "reckless indifference."

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authorities cited in Smith in support of the "discretionary

moral judgment" proposition goes so far as to deny the

court's traditional role in deciding whether a reasonable juror

could find the defendant's conduct sufficiently egregious for

the punitive damages issue to be submitted to the jury in the

first instance. See, e.g., Chuy v. Philadelphia Eagles Football Club, 595 F.2d 1265, 1277-78 n.15 (3d Cir. 1979) (en banc)

("Although the underlying conduct must be outrageous to

sustain liability [for intentional infliction of emotional distress], the factfinder may conclude, on the record in a particular case, that exemplary damages would not be warranted.")

(emphasis added) (cited in Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. at 52

n.14).

Lower courts have consequently read Smith as establishing

a legal standard of egregiousness that must be met before the

issue of punitive damages may go to the jury in a s 1983 case.

See, e.g., Coleman, 114 F.3d at 788 (upholding award of

compensatory damages but finding that the defendant's "conduct in this case was not sufficiently egregious to justify the

imposition of punitive damages"); Cornell v. Woods, 69 F.3d

1383, 1391 (8th Cir. 1995) (affirming liability for intentional

violation of plaintiff's clearly established First Amendment

rights, but holding that defendants' conduct, "though certainly not to be commended, did not rise to a level of egregiousness sufficient to justify the imposition of punitive damages");

Ivey v. Wilson, 832 F.2d 950, 958 (6th Cir. 1987) (citing Smith

v. Wade in reversing jury award of punitive damages in

s 1983 case); Soderbeck v. Burnett County, 752 F.2d 285, 289

(7th Cir. 1985) (holding that defendant's politically motivated

firing of plaintiff was enough to subject him to compensatory

but not punitive damages); Lavicky v. Burnett, 758 F.2d 468,

477 (10th Cir. 1985) (affirming judgment of liability for intentional violation of plaintiff's Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth

Amendment rights but holding that "there was no evidence of

malice, wantonness or oppressiveness to justify punitive damages"); Wulf v. City of Wichita, 883 F.2d 842, 867 (10th Cir.

1989) (affirming s 1983 liability for termination motivated by

plaintiff's protected speech, but reversing award of punitive

damages, holding that "not every intentional violation of a

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plaintiff's constitutional rights subjects a defendant to punitive damages").

There was, of course, no separate punitive damages provision in s 1983 for the Court to interpret in Smith. Our task

in this case is to construe a comprehensive statutory scheme

that includes a separate standard for punitive damages. For

Congress to have enacted the statutory terms of

s 1981a(b)(1) merely as guidelines to channel the jury's otherwise unchecked discretion would be quite a novelty. We

know of no other statutory provision that functions that way.

Congress writes laws; we do not casually assume it to have

done nothing more than draft jury instructions. Indeed, it is

difficult to imagine where one would look to find standards

that operate as a matter of law if not to the laws that

Congress has duly enacted.

The House Report lends support to this common sense

view. In speaking of the "even higher standard" the plaintiff

"must meet" to get punitive damages, the Report appears to

assume that the legislation will function in the normal way:

by establishing a legal standard, not simply a verbal formulation to be pondered by juries with no role for the trial court.

Thus, the Report notes that the s 1981a(b)(1) limitation,

among others, "serve[s] to check jury discretion in awarding

such damages." House Report at 72.

Kolstad contends that our insistence on preserving two

meaningful tiers of liability across the range of Title VII

cases is undercut by two Supreme Court opinions, Trans

World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U.S. 111 (1985), and

Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604 (1993), which

together rejected an egregiousness requirement for "liquidated damages" under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. But liquidated damages under the ADEA and

punitive damages under Title VII are not twins. To begin

with, the relevant language is different: the ADEA requires

"willful" conduct, not "malice" or "reckless indifference." 29

U.S.C. s 626(b).

Further, under the ADEA liquidated damages are double

damages; that is, they are always equal in amount to the

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compensatory award. See 29 U.S.C. s 216(b). By contrast,

although the sum of compensatory and punitive damages is

capped in absolute terms under Title VII, the proportion of

punitive to compensatory damages is statutorily unconstrained. Thus in an individual case the ratio may be astronomical--in principle infinite, if no compensatory damages

are awarded. It is one thing to award numerically equal

compensatory and liquidated damages on the basis of the

same conduct (the concept of double or treble damages for a

single violation is not an unfamiliar one); it is quite another

to leverage a compensatory award into a punitive award that

is ten or a hundred times greater, with no showing of

heightened culpability.

We turn next to the reading of the statute proposed by the

dissent, though not by Kolstad--a reading which preserves

the form of a two-tiered structure but scarcely the substance.

The argument runs as follows: Punitive damages are available when the defendant displays reckless indifference to the

plaintiff's federally protected rights. If the scope or nature

of a given right is sufficiently obscure, a defendant might

intentionally discriminate but be merely negligent as to the

existence of the right. Such a defendant would be subject to

compensatory but not punitive damages. This approach in

effect carves out a mistake-of-law defense to punitive liability.

We find it extremely unlikely that Congress meant to

codify a mistake-of-law defense through s 1981a(b)(1), much

less that it did so in "plain language," as the dissent repeatedly insists. Dissent at 1, 2, 5, 9. Contrary to the dissent's

confident assurances, we find the formulation Congress

chose--"with malice or with reckless indifference to the federally protected rights of an aggrieved individual"--to be an

unusually imprecise and roundabout way of articulating a

mistake-of-law defense. Of course there is no principle that

Congress must pick the clearest or most direct expression of

its standards. But the ornateness of the reasoning needed to

read the section as giving juries discretion to award punitive

damages for all knowing violations of Title VII, in relation to

simplicity of the language Congress might have used to

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achieve that result, makes such a reading extremely improbable.5

The improbability only increases when one reflects that the

class of disparate treatment cases that could escape exposure

to punitive damages on the dissent's theory is small, perhaps

vanishingly so. The prohibition against basing employment

decisions on sex, race, and other impermissible factors is

pervasive and well understood, as the dissent itself observes.

See Dissent at 5 (noting that "the statute and its prohibition

against discrimination are well known to employers"). In the

typical intentional discrimination case an employer could not

plausibly argue that it was merely negligent as to the law's

command. Nor do employers often (or advisedly) defend on

the sincere but mistaken basis that religion, sex, or national

origin constitutes a bona fide occupational qualification, and

as a matter of law they may never make such a claim for race.

See 42 U.S.C. s 2000e-2(e). Indeed, the relative implausibility of such "good faith" defenses in the Title VII context

reveals another feature that distinguishes this case from

Thurston and Hazen. Given the widespread belief among

employers that age can sometimes be a bona fide occupational

qualification--a belief reflected in mandatory retirement programs--the Supreme Court could reasonably suggest in Hazen that its broad reading of "willful" would not frustrate any

legislative intention to create "two tiers of liability across the

__________

5 The dissent claims to find additional support in a phrase

snatched from the crossfire in Smith v. Wade between Justices

Brennan and Rehnquist, namely Justice Brennan's reference to "the

defendant's subjective consciousness of risk ... of unlawfulness."

Dissent at 2 (quoting Smith, 461 U.S. at 38 n.6 (emphases altered

by dissent)). The full sentence reads: "Justice Rehnquist consistently confuses, and attempts to blend together, the quite distinct

concepts of intent to cause injury, on one hand, and subjective

consciousness of risk of injury (or of unlawfulness) on the other."

Smith, 461 U.S. at 38 n.6. (emphases in original). In short, the

Court's treatment of consciousness of unlawfulness was, quite literally, parenthetical.

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range of ADEA cases." 507 U.S. at 616. Such a suggestion

would be far weaker in relation to religion, sex, or national

origin discrimination under Title VII and completely out of

place for the race component. If s 1981a(b)(1) does nothing

more than establish a narrow mistake-of-law defense, then

every garden-variety disparate treatment case qualifies for

both compensatory and punitive damages--a result, as we

have already said, that seems hard to square with Congress's

chosen structure and language.

In its effort to show that its approach would not obliterate

the difference in standards between compensatory and punitive exposure under Title VII, the dissent places considerable

emphasis on the scenario involving "an attenuated agency

relationship" between an employer/defendant and an employee who intentionally discriminates. Dissent at 7.6 But even

in such cases the dissent does not argue that its approach

would produce a meaningful two-tiered system, in which a

significant fraction of cases would go to the jury on compensatory but not punitive damages. Instead, it simply serves

up another helping of the "discretionary moral judgment"

argument--predicting that when "the jury focuses on the

employer's ... awareness of its legal obligation," id., it may

be swayed by evidence that the employer has hired Title VIIsensitive managers or has provided punctilious equal employment opportunity training. Perhaps juries would be so

swayed under the dissent's approach, but that does not

answer the question of what legal standard Congress meant

to establish by enacting s 1981a(b)(1). And as we have

already noted, any test that makes the difference between

compensatory and punitive exposure depend on the employer's awareness of Title VII's legal mandates is likely to

produce only a negligible set of cases in which compensatory

but not punitive damages are available.

__________

6 It is unclear just why the dissent uses the word "attenuated" to

characterize the agency relationships on which it focuses. The acts

the dissent goes on to describe--discriminatory "hiring or firing

decision[s]," Dissent at 7-8--are "company acts" that do not involve

an unusual degree of attenuation between employer/defendant and

employee/wrongdoer. These are precisely the sorts of cases in

which employers' claims to have misunderstood the extent of their

legal obligations are least plausible.

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Just as important, the dissent never explains why it believes "[a]ttribution of employee state of mind differs when

the jury turns to the question of punitive damages." Dissent

at 7. In Title VII cases, the defendant is the employer, and

an employer is liable for "company acts"--hirings, firings,

promotions, demotions--performed by employees within the

scope of their employment.7 If those acts amount to intentional discrimination, the employer is subject to compensatory

damages; if the acts satisfy the requirements of

s 1981a(b)(1), the employer is subject to punitive damages.

There is nothing in the language of s 1981a(b)(1) that would

derail this standard presumption of respondeat superior for

company acts--and certainly that provision contains no clear

textual invitation for courts to explore the "employer's awareness," Dissent at 8, whatever that indeterminate phrase

might mean. In short, we fail to see how the dissent's special

new rule of imputation for punitive damages finds any

grounding in the statute's "plain language."

We note in conclusion that our decision today aligns us with

all but one of the several circuit courts to address this

question. See McKinnon v. Kwong Wah Restaurant, 83 F.3d

498, 508 (1st Cir. 1996) (endorsing concept of a higher standard for punitive damages under s 1981a, and noting that

such damages "are awarded as a matter of public policy to

punish outrageous conduct by the defendant or to deter

similar conduct in the future"); Harris v. L & L Wings, Inc.,

132 F.3d 978, 982 (4th Cir. 1997) (holding that under s 1981a,

"[p]unitive damages are an extraordinary remedy, to be reserved for egregious cases," and "are not an element of

recovery in every case involving an intentional tort") (citation

omitted); Turic v. Holland Hospitality, Inc., 85 F.3d 1211,

1216 (6th Cir. 1996) (despite sufficiency of evidence for liability and "duplicitous" actions of defendant's employees, evidence held insufficient for punitive damages); Emmel v.

Coca-Cola Bottling, 95 F.3d 627, 636 (7th Cir. 1996) (characterizing standard for punitive damages as a "higher hurdle"

__________

7 We need not address the scope of employer liability for "noncompany acts" such as sexual harassment.

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than that for proving the underlying discrimination); 8 Karcher v. Emerson Electric Co., 94 F.3d 502, 509 (8th Cir. 1996)

(although jury could properly infer intentional sex discrimination from inconsistent nature of hiring process and failure to

select and train women, it could not find malice or deliberate

indifference); Ngo v. Reno Hilton Resort Corp., 1998 WL

162166 (9th Cir. Apr. 9, 1998) (requiring "evidence of conduct

more egregious than intentional discrimination to support an

award of punitive damages in Title VII cases"); but see

Luciano v. Olsten Corp., 110 F.3d 210, 219-20 (2d Cir. 1997)

(finding that no additional evidence is required for punitive

liability).

The evidence in this case does not show the kind of

egregious discriminatory conduct necessary for the imposition

of punitive damages. As the district court noted, 912

F. Supp. at 14-15, the jury's finding of discrimination appears

to have been premised largely if not exclusively upon its

apparent rejection, as mere pretext, of ADA's proffered rationales--that Kolstad's legislative experience and writing skills

were inadequate. Whether such a rejection, by itself, is

enough to support an award of compensatory damages is a

question for a different en banc proceeding, see Aka v.

Washington Hospital Center, 116 F.3d 876 (D.C. Cir. 1997),

vacated pending rehearing en banc, 124 F.3d 1302 (D.C. Cir.

__________

8 As with s 1981, the position of the Seventh Circuit on this

question is not simple to characterize. The Emmel decision comports with the approach we take today, as do Tincher v. Wal-Mart

Stores, Inc., 118 F.3d 1125, 1132 (7th Cir. 1997) (holding that

evidence of egregiousness is required for punitive damages, since

otherwise "every employment discrimination claim [could] include a

punitive damage award because every employment discrimination

plaintiff must demonstrate an intentional unlawful discrimination"),

and Ortiz v. John O. Butler Co., 94 F.3d 1121, 1126-27 (7th Cir.

1996) (plaintiff who had already received compensatory damages

not entitled to punitive damages because employer did not act

recklessly or maliciously). But Merriweather v. Family Dollar

Stores of Indiana, Inc., 103 F.3d 576, 581-82 (7th Cir. 1996), a case

which arose under both Title VII and s 1981, appears to point in

the opposite direction.

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1997), but in this case it falls far short of supplying grounds

for a punitive award.9

There was substantial evidence to indicate that Spangler

was pre-selected for the promotion, and that Kolstad was

never seriously in the running. Evidence of pre-selection

may of course be "relevant to the question of discriminatory

intent" insofar as an employer's departure from its own hiring

and promotion procedures might suggest that the reasons it

advances for its actions are pretextual. Krodel v. Young, 748

F.2d 701, 709 (D.C. Cir. 1984). But pre-selection by itself is

neither unusual nor illegal, much less egregiously wrongful.

Indeed, where the selection is to be made from among a

narrow band of current employees well known to the selectors, it is hard to see how there could not be a substantial

degree of pre-selection--unless the decision-makers were

asleep at the switch or the candidates' track records were

virtually identical. The dissent lingers over the evidence

concerning the process by which Spangler was promoted, see

__________

9 Given that a large portion of the dissent is devoted to attacking

positions that the Court does not adopt, see Dissent at 11-17, we

take pains here to state expressly what should be evident from a

straightforward reading of our opinion. While it is true that many

plaintiffs, like this one, who can offer only weak evidence of

discrimination will not be able to provide any evidence at all of

egregious conduct, nothing we say precludes the possibility of

sparse, but nonetheless adequate, evidence of egregious discrimination. And our position in no way "amount[s] to little more than a

requirement of direct rather than circumstantial evidence of discrimination as a prerequisite for punitive damages." Id. at 13. The

showing of egregious discrimination necessary for an award of

punitive damages, like any other element of a plaintiff's case, may

be made through circumstantial as well as direct evidence. Nor do

we hold that punitive damages may not be considered in pretextonly cases, see id. at 14-17, though legitimate punitive awards in

such cases do seem improbable. The reasoning behind this predictive judgment is simple: a plaintiff who can demonstrate that her

employer engaged in truly outrageous acts of discrimination will

generally be able to offer some evidence probative of the employer's

illicit motivations, rather than merely resting on a finding that its

claimed motivations were unworthy of belief.

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Dissent at 15-16, but the only evidence it adduces to show

ADA's knowledge of "the impropriety of preselection" is a

consent decree--expired at the time of the operative events--

under which ADA undertook not to engage in the practice.

Id. at 16. It scarcely bears repeating that "a consent decree

is a form of contract," Richardson v. Edwards, 127 F.3d 97,

101 (D.C. Cir. 1997), not a statement of what the law considers wrongful. Consequently, evidence of pre-selection is relevant only insofar as it logically supports an inference of

discriminatory intent, i.e., trivially at best. For the same

reason we reject Kolstad's fallback position that we should

remand for a new trial on punitive damages with a direction

that the trial court admit the consent decree into evidence.

The only evidence that pointed toward gender bias was

Kolstad's testimony that Wheat told sexually offensive jokes

at staff meetings and on occasion used derogatory terms to

refer to prominent professional women. But Wheat, as mentioned above, did not make the decision to promote Spangler

over Kolstad; Allen did. In any event, sexist remarks,

tasteless and lamentable though they may be, are "not always

conclusive of sex discrimination." Neuren v. Adduci, Mastriani, Meeks & Schill, 43 F.3d 1507, 1513 (D.C. Cir. 1995).

Wheat's statements standing alone do not form an adequate

basis for an award of punitive damages.

The judgment of the district court on the matter of punitive

damages is

Affirmed.

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Randolph, Circuit Judge, concurring: The interpretative

problem in this case starts with the interplay of the words

"intentional discrimination," which suffices for compensatory

damages, 42 U.S.C. s 1981a(a), and "reckless indifference,"

which along with the alternative "malice" is a prerequisite for

punitive damages, id. s 1981a(b)(1). The judicial mind naturally tends to view these words against a legal background,

here a Supreme Court decision defining "malice" to include

recklessness, Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 39 & n.8 (1982);

and the common legal notion, as expressed in the Model

Penal Code s 2.02(5), that "[w]hen recklessness suffices to

establish an element, such element also is established if a

person acts purposely or knowingly." If one fed this data

into a parsing machine, it would answer--s 1981a(a)'s standard for compensatory damages subsumes s 1981a(b)(1)'s

standard for punitive damages, or whenever there is intentional discrimination there is at least reckless disregard. Yet

one cannot help wondering why Congress would have enacted

two separate provisions when one would have sufficed, and

why all employers liable under s 1981a(a) should be swept

within s 1981a(b)(1). Those who voted for this legislation

surely must have believed that they were voting for a twotiered damages system, as the majority opinion describes it.

If the dissent is nevertheless correct in its interpretation, the

punitive damages subsection must be the product of a very

clever draftsman, someone who wanted to convey the appearance of limiting punitive damages to exceptional cases, while

hoping that courts would draw upon other legal sources to

find the limitation an illusion. Despite the dissent's linguistic

points, the majority opinion convinces me that Congress

wanted the subsections kept separate, that it intended punitive damages to be reserved for only the worst cases. The

structure of s 1981a certainly points in that direction, as do

the historical materials, the policies promoted by punitive

damages and the other factors skillfully marshalled in the

majority opinion. Although the matter is exceedingly close, I

also believe the language of s 1981a(b)(1) will bear the meaning the majority opinion ascribes to it. I therefore concur.

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Tatel, Circuit Judge, with whom Edwards, Chief Judge,

Wald, Rogers, and Garland, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting:

A jury found that the American Dental Association ("ADA")

intentionally discriminated against Carole Kolstad on the

basis of sex when it denied her a promotion in favor of a male

candidate. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1991, 42 U.S.C.

s 1981a(b)(1) (1994), victims of intentional employment discrimination who demonstrate that the employer acted "with

malice or with reckless indifference to [their] federally protected rights" may recover punitive damages. This court now

holds that Congress meant to require something more serious

than intentional discrimination--some undefined quantum of

egregiousness--before a jury may consider punitive damages.

Because this amorphous requirement nullifies the plain language of section 1981a(b)(1)'s reckless indifference standard,

and because it conflicts with Supreme Court decisions in

Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30 (1983), and Hazen Paper Co. v.

Biggins, 507 U.S. 604 (1993), I respectfully dissent.

I

Asserting that Congress "did not intend to make punitive

damages automatically available in the standard case of intentional discrimination under Title VII," Maj. Op. at 5, the court

declares that the evidence supporting punitive damages "must

exceed what is needed to show intentional discrimination," id.

If Congress had wanted to require something more serious

than intentional discrimination, however, it would have limited

section 1981a(b)(1) to "malice," or it would have written the

statute to require "malice or egregiousness." But section

1981a(b)(1) never mentions egregiousness. Instead, it allows

the jury to consider punitive damages if the employer acts not

only with malice, but also with "reckless indifference to ...

federally protected rights." Because this court's duty is to

"give effect, if possible, to every clause and word of [the]

statute," Bennett v. Spear, 117 S. Ct. 1154, 1166 (1997)

(internal quotation marks omitted), we may not ignore the

reckless indifference standard, but must interpret it as written by Congress. See National Credit Union Admin. v.

First Nat'l Bank & Trust Co., 118 S. Ct. 927, 938-40 (1998).

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According to its plain language, section 1981a(b)(1)'s "reckless indifference" threshold for punitive damages focuses on

the employer's awareness of "federally protected rights." In

Smith v. Wade, from which Congress drew section

1981a(b)(1)'s language, see H.R. Rep. No. 102-40, pt. 1, at 74

(1991) (citing Smith), Justice Brennan's opinion for the Court

referred to this inquiry as a measure of the defendant's

"subjective consciousness of risk ... of unlawfulness."

Smith, 461 U.S. at 38 n.6 (emphases altered). As this court

said in a different context, " 'the wrongdoer must consciously

be aware of his wrongdoing, i.e., the actor must not only

intend to do the act found to be wrongful, but also must know

that his conduct is wrongful.' " Saba v. Compagnie Nationale Air France, 78 F.3d 664, 668 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (emphasis

omitted) (quoting In re Korean Air Lines Disaster of Sept. 1,

1983, 704 F. Supp. 1135, 1136 (D.D.C. 1988)).

Although the details of the recklessness standard remain

open to debate, see Maj. Op. at 6 (citing Saba, 78 F.3d at 668-

69, and United States v. Krizek, 111 F.3d 934, 941 (D.C. Cir.

1997)); cf. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 836-37 (1994)

(discussing objective and subjective tests for reckless disregard), its basic contours are well settled; the language of

section 1981a(b)(1) is not the blank slate that the court seeks

to make of it. Whether relying on the employer's mental

state (Saba) or inferring recklessness from the entire record

(Krizek), a jury can award punitive damages under section

1981a(b)(1) if the employer either knew of Title VII's prohibitions and acted regardless or disregarded a substantial risk of

violating the statute. Cf. W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and

Keeton on the Law of Torts s 34, at 213 (5th ed. 1984)

(noting that the "usual meaning" of "reckless" is that "the

actor has intentionally done an act of an unreasonable character in disregard of a known or obvious risk that was so great

as to make it highly probable that harm would follow").

The court and concurring opinion reject the statute's reckless indifference standard because they view it, mistakenly in

my view, as "subsumed" by section 1981a(a)'s liability determination. When the jury determines liability in a Title VII

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ployer made the challenged employment decision "because of"

the plaintiff's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. See

42 U.S.C. s 2000e-2. The employer's awareness of its legal

obligations plays no role. In this case, for example, the

verdict in Kolstad's favor, a verdict unanimously affirmed by

the panel and not now before this court, rested solely on the

jury's conclusion that ADA denied Kolstad the promotion

because of her sex. ADA's liability for punitive damages, by

comparison, turns on its awareness of its legal obligations:

When it denied Kolstad the promotion because of sex, did it

intend to violate Title VII? Did it know of its legal obligations yet recklessly disregard them? Or can reckless

indifference to federally protected rights be inferred from the

entire record?

Criticizing this reading of the Act, the court says that "any

test that makes the difference between compensatory and

punitive exposure depend on the employer's awareness of

Title VII's legal mandates is likely to produce only a negligible set of cases in which compensatory but not punitive

damages are available." Maj. Op. at 18. Quite apart from its

entirely speculative nature, this statement disregards the fact

that section 1981a(b)(1), by focusing specifically on whether

the employer acted with "reckless indifference ... to federally protected rights," in fact makes the difference between

compensatory and punitive damages "depend on the employer's awareness of Title VII's legal mandates."

In addition to appearing nowhere in section 1981a, the

court's new egregiousness requirement conflicts with Smith v.

Wade 's holding that "a jury may be permitted to assess

punitive damages in an action under [42 U.S.C.] s 1983 when

the defendant's conduct is shown to be motivated by evil

motive or intent, or when it involves reckless or callous

indifference to the federally protected rights of others,"

Smith, 461 U.S. at 56. Rejecting the notion that punitive

damages under section 1983 require anything as egregious as

"actual malicious intent--'ill will, spite, or intent to injure,' "

Smith, 461 U.S. at 37, the Court noted that the majority

common law rule recognizes that "punitive damages in tort

cases may be awarded not only for actual intent to injure or

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evil motive, but also for recklessness, serious indifference to

or disregard for the rights of others, or even gross negligence," id. at 48. Although citing the Restatement (Second)

of Torts' view that punitive damages "punish [the defendant]

for his outrageous conduct," Restatement (Second) of Torts

s 908(1) (1979), quoted in Smith, 461 U.S. at 54, Smith

actually draws its standard for punitive damages from the

Restatement's subsequent explanation that conduct can be

outrageous "because of the defendant's evil motive or his

reckless indifference to the rights of others," id. s 908(2)

(emphasis added), quoted in Smith, 461 U.S. at 46-47.

Smith also rejected the proposition, central to my colleagues' interpretation of section 1981a, that "the threshold

for punitive damages should always be higher than that for

liability in the first instance," Smith, 461 U.S. at 38; see also

id. at 51-54. According to Smith, the reckless indifference

threshold for punitive damages "applies even when the underlying standard of liability for compensatory damages is one of

recklessness." Id. at 56.

The Supreme Court reached the same result under the Age

Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), notwithstanding that statute's "two-tiered scheme of liability," Maj. Op. at

6. Interpreting the term "willful" as used in the ADEA, the

Court held that an employer should be assessed liquidated

damages, the statute's equivalent of punitive damages, if it

"knew or showed reckless disregard for the matter of whether its conduct was prohibited by the ADEA." Trans World

Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U.S. 111, 126 (1985) (quoting

Air Line Pilots Ass'n, Int'l v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 713

F.2d 940, 956 (2d Cir. 1983)). Lower courts, concerned that

the reckless disregard standard "would defeat the two-tiered

system of liability intended by Congress, because every employer that engages in informal age discrimination knows or

recklessly disregards the illegality of its conduct," Hazen

Paper, 507 U.S. at 615-16, added just the kind of heightened

culpability requirement that my colleagues now read into

section 1981a, see id. at 615 (citing, e.g., Lockhart v. Westinghouse Credit Corp., 879 F.2d 43, 57-58 (3d Cir. 1989), which

allowed liquidated damages only if employer's conduct was

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"outrageous"). Flatly rejecting these decisions, Hazen Paper

holds that "[t]he ADEA does not provide for liquidated

damages 'where consistent with the principle of a two-tiered

liability scheme.' It provides for liquidated damages where

the violation was 'willful.' ... Once a 'willful' violation has

been shown, the employee need not additionally demonstrate

that the employer's conduct was outrageous." Id. at 616-17.

Read in light of Smith and Hazen Paper, section 1981a's

plain language thus leaves no doubt that juries may consider

punitive damages on the basis of evidence showing nothing

more than "reckless indifference to ... federally protected

rights." Moreover, even though the liability determination

(Did the employer intentionally take account of sex?) differs

from the reckless indifference inquiry (When the employer

intentionally discriminated, was it aware of its legal obligations?), proof of unlawful intentional discrimination can also

demonstrate reckless indifference to federally protected

rights. Considering that Congress passed the Civil Rights

Act over three decades ago, that the statute and its prohibition against discrimination are well known to employers, that

many companies have instituted Title VII compliance programs, and that an industry of equal employment opportunity

consultants and attorneys is readily available to employers in

need of assistance, a jury could reasonably conclude that an

employer nevertheless refusing to hire or promote a woman

because of sex is worthy of punishment.

This does not mean, as the court fears, that juries will

automatically award punitive damages in every Title VII

disparate treatment case. Punitive damages "are never

awarded as of right, no matter how egregious the defendant's

conduct." Smith, 461 U.S. at 52. If a jury believes that an

employer has acted maliciously or with reckless indifference

to a plaintiff's federally protected rights, it then decides

whether to punish the defendant, a determination the law

leaves to the jury's "discretionary moral judgment." Id.

Although a jury exercising its moral discretion might conclude that an employer recklessly indifferent to federally

protected rights deserves punishment, a jury could also reach

the opposite conclusion, that because of extenuating circumUSCA Case #96-7030 Document #351247 Filed: 05/08/1998 Page 28 of 41
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stances--e.g., the employer had no history of discrimination,

showed remorse, or had already taken steps to rectify the

injury--the employer should not have to pay punitive damages.

Because liability and punitive damages require distinct

inquiries, moreover, employers found to have intentionally

discriminated in employment in violation of federal law may

introduce evidence to demonstrate that they did everything

they could to comply with the law and were therefore not

recklessly indifferent to their legal obligations. In Trans

World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, for example, the Supreme

Court held that employers who intentionally violate the

ADEA may nevertheless avoid liquidated damages by demonstrating that they attempted "reasonably and in good faith" to

comply with the law. Thurston, 469 U.S. at 129. Although

finding that TWA's mandatory retirement policy violated the

Act, the Court denied plaintiffs liquidated damages because,

by seeking legal advice and consulting with the union, TWA

demonstrated that it had not acted in " 'reckless disregard' of

the requirements of the ADEA." Id. at 130. Cf., e.g., Harris

v. L & L Wings, Inc., 132 F.3d 978, 984 (4th Cir. 1997) (noting

"that the institution of a written sexual harassment policy

goes a long way towards dispelling any claim about the

employer's 'reckless' or 'malicious' state of mind").

For similar reasons, employers found to have intentionally

discriminated in violation of Title VII may be able to persuade a jury that they had acted without reckless indifference; employers may even be able to convince a judge to

remove the question of punitive damages from jury consideration altogether. For example, evidence that an employer

erroneously used religion, sex, or national origin as a "bona

fide occupational qualification" for employment, see 42 U.S.C.

s 2000e-2(e), or overreached in a good-faith effort to remedy

the effects of past discrimination, could demonstrate that the

employer acted without reckless indifference to its legal

obligations. Punitive damages might be equally inappropriate where liability rests on a novel legal theory. See, e.g.,

Turic v. Holland Hospitality, Inc., 85 F.3d 1211, 1216 (6th

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ployer liable for dismissing female employee who had contemplated an abortion, an entirely novel theory of liability); see

also Hernandez-Tirado v. Artau, 874 F.2d 866, 870 (1st Cir.

1989) (although intentionally violating the First Amendment

in a politically motivated employment decision, defendant was

only "negligent [as] to the existence of a federally protected

right").

Evidence sufficient to prove liability may also fall short of

establishing an employer's reckless indifference to its legal

obligations where the employer's liability arises from an

attenuated agency relationship with an employee found to

have committed an intentional act of discrimination. Because

employers are responsible for injuries caused by employees

acting within the scope of employment, juries considering

liability in traditional Title VII cases attribute employees'

intentional use of race or sex to the employer. See Meritor

Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 75 (1986) (Marshall, J., concurring in judgment) (in the typical Title VII case

"when a supervisor discriminatorily fires or refuses to promote a black employee, that act is, without more, considered

the act of the employer"); see also Restatement (Second) of

Agency s 219 (1958) ("A master is subject to liability for the

torts of his servants committed while acting in the scope of

their employment."). Attribution of employee state of mind

differs when the jury turns to the question of punitive damages. Because punitive damages are intended not to compensate the victim, but rather to punish employers for the

discriminatory acts of employees, cf. Smith, 461 U.S. at 54 (in

the punitive damages inquiry, "[t]he focus is on the character

of the tortfeasor's conduct--whether it is of the sort that calls

for deterrence and punishment over and above that provided

by compensatory awards"), the jury focuses on the employer's, not the employee's, awareness of its legal obligations.

Obviously, if the person discriminating is the same as the

employer--in a sole proprietorship, for example--there is no

difference between the employer's awareness of its legal

obligations and the employee's. But where a gap exists in

the agency relationship between the agent and the entity

being held liable, i.e., where the employee making the hiring

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or firing decision does not constitute the employer's entire

decision-making apparatus, the punitive damages inquiry requires the jury to examine the employer's awareness of the

law. An employer could thus argue that even though it had

been found liable for the discriminatory acts of an employee

and ordered to pay compensatory damages to the victim, it

should not have to pay punitive damages because it had

undertaken good-faith efforts to comply with Title VII--for

example, by hiring staff and managers sensitive to Title VII

responsibilities, by requiring effective EEO training, or by

developing and using objective hiring and promotion standards--thereby demonstrating that it never acted in reckless

disregard of federally protected rights.

This interpretation of section 1981a sets up exactly the

incentives Congress intended. While Congress expected victims of intentional discrimination to be compensated for their

losses, it also wanted to motivate employers to detect and

deter Title VII violations. See H.R. Rep. No. 102-40, pt. 1, at

69-70 (recounting testimony encouraging employers to design

and implement effective structures to combat discrimination).

Giving punitive damages protection to employers who make

good-faith efforts to prevent discrimination in the workplace

accomplishes just this purpose. Employers making no such

efforts will not only have to compensate victims, but may be

punished for their reckless indifference to federal law.

Applying section 1981a(b)(1)'s reckless indifference standard to the facts of this case, I believe the district court

should have allowed the jury to consider punitive damages.

Found to have intentionally discriminated against Kolstad,

ADA never argued that it made good-faith efforts to comply

with the law; the case involves no novel issues of Title VII

liability; and the decision to deny Kolstad the promotion was

made not by a low-level employee, but by ADA's executive

director. Under these circumstances, the jury should have

been allowed to consider whether in denying Kolstad a promotion because of her sex ADA acted with reckless indifference to her federally protected rights.

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II

The court spends most of its opinion struggling to avoid the

plain language of section 1981a and the holdings of Smith and

Hazen Paper. It begins by detecting an egregiousness standard in section 1981a's legislative history. Contentious and

partisan, see Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 262

(1994), the Act's legislative history actually manifests contradictory signals regarding congressional intent about punitive

damages. As the court acknowledges, see Maj. Op. at 9, the

House Report it relies on for a "heightened" standard cites

two irreconcilable section 1981 cases--Beauford v. Sisters of

Mercy-Province of Detroit, Inc., 816 F.2d 1104, 1109 (6th Cir.

1987), limiting punitive damages to "egregious" cases, and

Rowlett v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 832 F.2d 194, 205-06 (1st

Cir. 1987), holding that plaintiffs need prove nothing beyond

intentional discrimination for juries to consider punitive damages. The court's egregiousness standard comports with

Beauford. My interpretation of section 1981a comports with

Rowlett. Given the clarity of section 1981a's text, we should

follow the statute rather than selective bits of its confused

legislative history.

Next, appearing to concede that Congress drew the language of section 1981a(b)(1) from Smith, see Maj. Op. at 10,

the court then reads Smith to require proof of egregiousness

for punitive damages, see id. at 12. Even if recklessly

violating the Eighth Amendment is somehow more egregious

than intentionally discriminating in employment on the basis

of sex or race in violation of federal law, see id. at 11, it does

not follow that because liability in Smith required "base,

inhumane and barbaric" action, Smith, 461 U.S. at 32, the

standard for punitive damages must always include "some

form of egregiousness," Maj. Op. at 11. Like the rest of the

court's opinion, its reliance on Smith's underlying standard

for liability rests on its failure to acknowledge that the

punitive damages inquiry depends not on the seriousness of

the behavior giving rise to liability, but on the defendant's

awareness of its legal obligations. Both "base, inhumane and

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nation in employment (Title VII) can be committed with

"reckless indifference to ... federally protected rights."

The court relies on Memphis Community School District v.

Stachura, 477 U.S. 299 (1986), but nothing in that case casts

doubt on Smith's holding that proof of reckless indifference

suffices for punitive damages. Noting in dicta that punitive

damages are available on a showing of "requisite intent," id.

at 306 n.9, Stachura drew the "maliciously, or wantonly, or

oppressively done" standard not from Smith, but from the

jury instruction under review in that case, see id. Moreover,

while our sister circuits have split over the meaning of Smith,

compare Maj. Op. at 14-15 (collecting cases reading Smith to

require egregiousness), with, e.g., Savarese v. Agriss, 883

F.2d 1194, 1203-04 (3d Cir. 1989) (rejecting heightened culpability requirement under Smith); Melear v. Spears, 862 F.2d

1177, 1187 (5th Cir. 1989) (applying Smith's reckless indifference standard without proof of egregiousness), we have consistently read Smith's reckless indifference standard without

adding an egregiousness requirement, see, e.g., Samaritan

Inns, Inc. v. District of Columbia, 114 F.3d 1227, 1239 (D.C.

Cir. 1997) (applying Smith to the Fair Housing Act); Barbour v. Merrill, 48 F.3d 1270, 1277 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (applying

Smith to section 1981).

My colleagues make two unpersuasive attempts to distinguish Hazen Paper's clear rejection of their "two-tiers" rationale. Asserting first that the ADEA's "willful" standard has

no bearing on the "malice" or "reckless indifference" required

under section 1981a(b)(1), Maj. Op. at 15, the court ignores

Thurston's holding that "willful" conduct includes "reckless

disregard," a term courts use interchangeably with "reckless

indifference," see, e.g., Williams v. Borough of West Chester,

891 F.2d 458, 464 n.10 (3d Cir. 1989).

Second, the court points out that unlike the double damages authorized by the liquidated damages provision of the

ADEA, the ratio between compensatory and punitive damages under Title VII is potentially unlimited. Maj. Op. at 15-

16. This observation is interesting, but Congress chose to

deal with the risk of disproportionate punitive damages

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awards under Title VII by preserving judges' traditional

oversight of jury discretion. See H.R. Rep. No. 102-40, pt. 1,

at 72 ("Judges serve as an additional check: they can and do

reduce awards which are disproportionate to the defendant's

discriminatory conduct or the plaintiff's resulting loss."). I

have no doubt that district courts--and if necessary, circuit

courts--have all the authority they need to correct disproportionate awards, particularly an "infinite[ly]" disproportionate

award, Maj. Op. at 16, should one ever occur. Equally

significant, when enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Congress carefully limited punitive damages in other ways. It

capped total damages at between $50,000 and $300,000 depending on the employer's size, 42 U.S.C. s 1981a(b)(3), and

barred punitive damages altogether in disparate impact cases,

see id. s 1981a(a)(1), in mixed motive cases, see id.

s 2000e-5(g)(2), and against governmental defendants, see id.

s 1981a(b)(1). Because Congress itself carefully cabined punitive damages, it is particularly inappropriate for this court

to add a limitation not found in the language of the statute.

"Courts may not create their own limitations on legislation,

no matter how alluring the policy arguments for doing

so...." Brogan v. United States, 118 S. Ct. 805, 811-12

(1998).

III

Not only does the court's egregiousness standard conflict

with the language of section 1981a and with Smith and Hazen

Paper, but my colleagues offer no clear definition of the term,

shifting from one interpretation to another and leaving district courts little guidance.

Egregiousness as a Measure of the Seriousness

•••of the Discrimination

Initially, the court equates egregiousness with the seriousness of the underlying discrimination. See Maj. Op. at 2, 5.

But unlike reckless indifference, or even malice, which also

focuses on an employer's state of mind, see, e.g., Dellums v.

Powell, 660 F.2d 802, 808 (D.C. Cir. 1981) (noting that malice

is a subjective inquiry), the jury considers the seriousness of

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the underlying intentional discrimination in setting compensatory damages; the more egregious the harm, the greater the

compensation awarded. Of course, the egregiousness of the

violation can relate to the punitive damages inquiry in the

sense that egregious discrimination can be probative of malice or reckless indifference. To consider egregiousness in

awarding punitive damages, however, the jury must make an

inference not required at the liability stage: that the egregiousness of the discrimination suggests malice or reckless indifference to federally protected rights.

The court's effort to define egregiousness as a measure of

the severity of discrimination suffers from several other

defects. At one point, for example, the court defines egregiousness as "a pervasive pattern of discriminatory acts."

Maj. Op. at 13. Not only does the court provide no support

for this new standard, but exposing only those employers to

punitive damages who commit multiple acts of discrimination

essentially allows employers to engage in a single act of

invidious discrimination without fear of punitive damages.

Offering still another definition, again without citation, the

court says that egregiousness might be demonstrated by an

employer's "genuine spite and malevolence." Id. Not content to read the reckless indifference standard out of the

statute, the court here tinkers with section 1981a's other

punitive damages test, suggesting that it requires not just

"malice," but some kind of "genuine" malice, whatever that

means.

Under any of these iterations of egregiousness-as-ameasure-of-seriousness, it is entirely unclear how district

judges will determine when intentional discrimination is sufficiently non-egregious to take the issue from the jury. Never

offering a clear answer, the court leaves it to district courts to

decide for themselves whether an employer's conduct is worthy of punishment, thus allowing judges to usurp the jury's

exercise of moral judgment.

Egregiousness as a Measure of the Plaintiff's Evidence

Applying its egregiousness standard to the facts of this

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ness as a reflection of the seriousness of the discrimination to

a measure of the strength of Kolstad's proof. According to

the court, the "only evidence that pointed toward gender bias

was Kolstad's testimony that Wheat told sexually offensive

jokes at staff meetings and on occasion used derogatory

terms to refer to prominent professional women." Id. at 22.

"Wheat's statements standing alone," the court says, "do not

form an adequate basis for an award of punitive damages."

Id.

Amounting to little more than a requirement of direct

rather than circumstantial evidence of discrimination as a

prerequisite for punitive damages, the court's approach conflicts with Hazen Paper, 507 U.S. at 615 (rejecting requirement of Neufeld v. Searle Laboratories, 884 F.2d 335, 340

(8th Cir. 1989), that underlying evidence of liability be direct

before allowing liquidated damages). It also conflicts with

this circuit's case law holding that at least with respect to

proof of liability, circumstantial evidence can be as probative

as direct evidence. See, e.g., Crawford-El v. Britton, 93 F.3d

813, 818 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (en banc) (Williams, J.) ("[T]he

distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence has no

direct correlation with the strength of [a] plaintiff's case."),

rev'd on other grounds, No. 96-827, 1998 WL 213193 (U.S.

May 4, 1998); cf. Thomas v. National Football League Players Ass'n, 131 F.3d 198, 204 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (" '[D]irect'

evidence [in the Title VII mixed motive context] may be

circumstantial in nature, so long as it establishes that discriminatory motive played a substantial role in the employment

decision."). I see no reason why the same rule should not

apply to proof of punitive damages, particularly since the

presence or absence of direct evidence of intent is not necessarily an accurate measure of blameworthiness. Why, for

example, is an employer who leaves behind clear evidence of

its intentional, discriminatory refusal to promote one woman--"these are jobs for men"--more worthy of punishment

than an employer who subtly, but equally intentionally, refuses to promote an entire class of women? Under the

court's direct evidence rule, employers who effectively cover

up evidence of their discriminatory intent will escape punitive

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damages no matter how egregious their discrimination. Congress, acting to strengthen Title VII in the Civil Rights Act of

1991, could not have intended such a nonsensical result.

Egregiousness as a Requirement

••• of More than Mere Pretext

Acknowledging that we are considering the question of

whether rejection of a proffered nondiscriminatory rationale

by itself can support a finding of intentional discrimination in

a different en banc case, see Maj. Op. at 20 (citing Aka v.

Washington Hosp. Ctr., 116 F.3d 876 (D.C. Cir.), judgment

vacated pending reh'g en banc, 124 F.3d 1302, 1302 (D.C. Cir.

1997)), the court says that in this case such evidence "falls far

short of supplying grounds for a punitive award," id. at 21.

Although punitive damage awards in pretext-only cases may

be "improbable," id. at 21 n.9, the court's premise is entirely

unsupported by the record. Properly reviewed, the evidence

in this case demonstrates that the jury's verdict could have

rested on much more than rejection of the employer's proffered nondiscriminatory justification. This court's job is not

to weigh the evidence, as my colleagues seem to have done,

but to view the evidence "in the light most favorable" to

Kolstad, giving her "the benefit of every fair and reasonable

inference," Anderson v. Group Hospitalization, Inc., 820 F.2d

465, 471 (D.C. Cir. 1987). Viewed this way, the jury could

have based its finding of liability--again, a finding of intentional discrimination affirmed unanimously by the panel--on

much more than "rejection, as mere pretext, of ADA's proffered rationales," Maj. Op. at 20.

To begin with, the record contains evidence from which the

jury could have concluded that Kolstad was the more qualified of the two candidates. A lawyer, Kolstad worked for six

years as the principal legislative draftsperson for the Department of Defense, preparing testimony for congressional hearings and representing the Department's interests on Capitol

Hill. Employed for four years at ADA when the position

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cern to ADA. She consistently received "distinguished" performance evaluations from the Director of ADA's Washington

office. By contrast, Tom Spangler, the male candidate who

got the promotion, began working for ADA only a year and a

half before the position opened, technically failed to meet the

minimum posted requirements for the position, and received

negative comments about his writing ability, a skill ADA

highlighted at trial as central to the position.

Although the court describes what it perceives to have been

a benign, routine selection process, the record contains evidence from which the jury could have concluded that because

ADA preselected Spangler for the position, the selection

process was a sham. Before ADA posted the opening, Spangler met frequently with the incumbent (Jack O'Donnell),

ADA did not post the position promptly after O'Donnell

decided to retire, and a secretary familiar with the process

testified that she thought Spangler was being groomed for

the job. Leonard Wheat, head of ADA's Washington office

and the person most closely supervising the competing candidates, refused to meet with Kolstad to discuss O'Donnell's

position, despite frequently meeting with Spangler. Although

Executive Director Dr. William Allen formally appointed

O'Donnell's successor, Allen--based in ADA's Chicago headquarters--relied heavily upon Wheat's recommendation of

Spangler. Assigning all legislative work to Spangler, Wheat

repeatedly refused Kolstad's requests to work on legislative

matters, despite their relevance to the regulatory issues she

covered and her experience in the field. Formally interviewing Spangler but not Kolstad, Allen failed to review Kolstad's

numerous, detailed, positive performance evaluations.

The record also contains evidence, equally minimized by

the court, from which the jury could have concluded that

ADA attempted to cover up Spangler's preselection. Compiling a description of O'Donnell's position a few days before

posting the job, Allen edited the description to fit Spangler's

qualifications. O'Donnell's position description originally

stated that its "most important responsibility" was to "[m]aintain liaison with federal agencies, bureaus and Administration," corresponding directly to Kolstad's work at ADA. TaiUSCA Case #96-7030 Document #351247 Filed: 05/08/1998 Page 38 of 41
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loring the job description to Spangler's specialty, Allen added

"Congress" before "federal agencies," and also added whole

phrases from the position description questionnaire used to

hire Spangler. As Kolstad argued, the jury could have

believed that ADA, in an effort to bolster its claim that

Spangler was more qualified, altered documents to justify his

promotion.

Kolstad proffered a 1984 consent decree settling a class

action suit brought against ADA by female employees under

Title VII and the Equal Pay Act. Resnick v. American

Dental Ass'n, No. 79-C-3785 (N.D. Ill.). Denying wrongdoing and expiring prior to the decision not to promote Kolstad,

the decree showed that ADA had specific knowledge of the

impropriety of preselection, as well as of the connection

between preselection and employment discrimination. The

decree stated that "pre-selection of a favored candidate is

contrary to ADA's firm policy of giving full and fair consideration to each application. Violations of this policy will have

an adverse impact on an employee's annual merit review and

will be cause for discipline." The district court refused to

admit the decree to prove liability, but the panel stated in a

portion of the opinion not before us that the district court

could admit the decree in a trial on punitive damages. See

Kolstad v. American Dental Ass'n, 108 F.3d 1431, 1439 (D.C.

Cir. 1997).

From the evidence, the jury also could have found that

ADA changed its explanation for rejecting Kolstad. After

telling her that she was passed over because she lacked

experience with health care reform and was too valuable in

her position, ADA abandoned that justification at trial, instead attacking Kolstad's general qualifications and writing

ability. My colleagues ignore this testimony, but the jury

was entitled to consider it as evidence of ADA's falsehood,

and therefore of its discrimination. See St. Mary's Honor

Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 511 (1993) ("The factfinder's

disbelief of the reasons put forward by the defendant (particularly if disbelief is accompanied by a suspicion of mendacity) may, together with the elements of the prima facie case,

suffice to show intentional discrimination.") (emphasis added).

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The record also contains evidence from which the jury

could have concluded that Wheat, Kolstad's supervisor whose

advice Allen relied on in deciding to promote Spangler instead

of Kolstad, told sexually offensive jokes at the office and

referred to professional women as "bitches" and "battleaxes."

Although this testimony may have been "contested" (the

panel's word) or even "hotly contested," (the court's words),

nothing in the record indicates that the testimony lacked

sufficient credibility for the jury to believe it.

In addition to weighing the evidence instead of viewing it

from a reasonable juror's perspective, my colleagues isolate

each element of Kolstad's case, diminishing the cumulative

significance of her proof. Of course, preselection "by itself,"

Maj. Op. at 21, violates no law, and "sexist remarks ... are

'not always conclusive of sex discrimination,' " id. at 22 (quoting Neuren v. Adduci, Mastriani, Meeks & Schill, 43 F.3d

1507, 1513 (D.C. Cir. 1995)). As in even the most compelling

cases of discrimination, any aspect of Kolstad's case taken in

isolation might seem minimal. Considering her evidence

together, as this court must, see, e.g., Downes v. Volkswagen

of America, Inc., 41 F.3d 1132, 1140 (7th Cir. 1994), and

reviewing it "in the light most favorable" to Kolstad, giving

her "the benefit of every fair and reasonable inference,"

Anderson, 820 F.2d at 471, the jury could have concluded that

this record contains substantial circumstantial, perhaps even

direct, evidence of invidious, intentional, unlawful discrimination that society no longer tolerates. Therefore, even if

punitive damages are "improbable" in a case where the

verdict rests on no more than the jury's rejection of the

employer's nondiscriminatory rationale, this is not that case.

IV

Because this court has found that the record contains

sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding of intentional

discrimination on the basis of sex, and because ADA never

attempted to justify its use of sex in the promotion decision,

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never disavowed the actions of its agents (Wheat and Allen),

never offered evidence that it had taken any specific steps to

comply with Title VII, and never otherwise demonstrated

that in intentionally discriminating against Kolstad, it had not

acted with reckless indifference to her federally protected

rights, I would remand for a trial on punitive damages.

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