Opinion ID: 601824
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lopez et al.'s Claims

Text: 12 As was observed in the Union's brief to this court and again at oral argument, the summary judgment evidence filed by Lopez et al. suffered from several evidentiary problems. For the purpose of simplifying this appeal, however, we shall assume arguendo that all of Lopez et al.'s summary judgment evidence was validly presented to the court (i.e., properly authenticated and timely filed), and that such evidence at least facially implicates genuine issues of material fact. 9 13 In attempting to prove a prima facie case of Union discrimination against Hispanics, Lopez et al. submitted statistical evidence of a disparity between the number of Hispanics hired in the Roll Call system and the number of Hispanics hired by specific requests from employers. To put it bluntly, that comparison is apropos of nothing. The district court held that the comparison made by Lopez et al. was inadequate as a matter of law under Wards Cove. Specifically, that court stated: 14 Plaintiffs have gone to great lengths in their attempts to show statistically that the Union practice of allowing employers to request workers by name has a negative impact upon the number of Hispanics hired. In fact, their own statistics demonstrate the contrary, that the practice of allowing employers to request workers by name results in a higher percentage of Hispanics receiving work referrals from the union. Plaintiffs' attempts to find a statistically significant difference between the number of Hispanics referred from the roll call list and those requested by employers are unpersuasive and reflect an imperfect understanding of the relevant points of comparison. 15 On appeal Lopez et al. argue to us that it was the district court and not they who misinterpreted the statistics that were offered as proof of discrimination. They argue that their expert concluded that an analysis of the data from the period 1984-1986 indicates that the difference in percentage of Hispanics introduced from outside the roll call lists and those from the roll call lists is statistically significant. No analysis is made of the roll-call list and the number of Hispanics [sic] workers requested by employers. 16 Our independent review of the summary judgment evidence presented by Lopez et al. convinces us that the district court was correct in finding that Lopez et al. had an imperfect understanding of the relevant points of comparison. Essentially, Lopez et al.'s statistics fall into one of two sets, neither of which are competent to prove discrimination. The first set purports to be a comparison between 1) the number of Hispanics on the roll call lists and 2) the number of referrals that went to Hispanics from outside of that list. According to Lopez et al.'s expert, Hispanics make up 31% of the workers introduced from the roll call lists. That percentage is compared with the percentage of Hispanics who received work (were introduced to employers) from outside the Row [sic] Call lists--23%. Lopez et al. conclude that the difference between those two percentages alone--3.01 Standard Deviations --is statistically significant and demonstrates racial discrimination. 17 The second set of statistics relied on by Lopez et al. purports to be a comparison between 1) the percentages of Hispanic workers among all workers specifically requested by employers and 2) the percentages of Hispanic workers among all who were introduced from the TWI records, i.e., from the roll call list. The expert's report indicates that 31% of the specific requests by name were for Hispanic workers. That percentage is compared with the total number of Hispanics introduced to employers during the requisite period from the TWI records--26%. Again, Lopez et al. declare that this disparity alone--3.26 Standard Deviations --is statistically significant and demonstrates racial discrimination. 10 18 The essence of Lopez et al.'s assertion of error is that both sets of statistics independently demonstrate discrimination--that both sets contain a disparity greater than three standard deviations between the number of Hispanics in the labor pool and the number of Hispanics referred either from the roll call or via specific requests. Lopez et al. argue that as the percentages hired through the two different systems are more than three standard deviations from the percentage that should comprise that group, a prima facie case has been made out. 19 For more than a decade, we have recognized that a prima facie case of discrimination can be made out with statistics alone when a 'gross' disparity in treatment of workers based on race is shown. 11 We have further recognized that [a] deviation greater than three standard deviations is prima facie proof that the selection system is not random. 12 Seizing on those two abstract generalities of employment discrimination law, Lopez et al. argue that, as they have presented statistics over the three standard deviations threshold, the district court should have found that they made out a prima facie case. 20 Even assuming the applicability of our statement in Williams as to a prima facie case being provable by demonstrating a disparity of three standard deviations, 13 Lopez et al.'s statistics are fatally flawed. True, they have concocted numbers to create the requisite standard deviations, but they have done so on the basis of completely inappropriate data. The starting point or base of Lopez et al.'s (or any) standard deviation model must be the probability of a member of the suspect class's being employed in a particular position--i.e., the percentage of the minority group in the relevant labor pool. 14 In Williams, for instance, African Americans constituted 75% of the workers in the available pool. For purposes of the statistical analysis in Williams, therefore, African Americans had a 75% chance of receiving the job assignment in question. 21 In both of Lopez et al.'s statistical models, the probability of Hispanics that is represented as the base figure (the probability of a Hispanic being referred) is 31%. Unfortunately for Lopez, et al., however, the numbers used to create this base statistic in both sets of figures are simply irrelevant to any effort to demonstrate employment discrimination. 22 As for the percentages of Hispanics on the roll call lists compared to those who obtain work from those lists, Lopez et al.'s statistician states that [t]he fraction of Hispanic names introduced from the Row [sic] call lists is equal to 0.31. 15 The fraction of Hispanic names introduced from the roll call lists, however, does not represent the probability (for purposes of this statistical model) that a Hispanic would have received a referral from that list. The relevant statistic to use as the base for the standard deviation analysis would be the percentage of workers on the lists who were Hispanic. As Lopez et al.'s expert used an incorrect base for the statistical model, the numbers and conclusions flowing from that model are incompetent summary judgment evidence. 23 Similarly, Lopez et al. used an incorrect base for their statistical analysis of the specific requests by name received by the Union. Concerning that pool of workers, Lopez et al.'s statistician states that [t]he overall fraction of Hispanic names requested in the Work Call [specific requests] (WC) records is equal to 0.31. Again, the percentage of Hispanics requested is not the correct base figure. This figure should represent all of the Hispanics who were available and qualified to be called through the specific request exception to the roll call system. 16 24 Clearly, the district court's statement quoted above was uttered by an understandably frustrated court that was struggling to make sense out of a statistical presentation that is simply insusceptible of making sense under the relevant case law or the claims being asserted. The district court 1) considered the percentage of Hispanics who received work through the specific name request method as compared to all workers who received work through that method (26%); 2) compared that to the percentage of Hispanics who received referrals from the roll call lists as compared to all of the referrals from the roll call lists (23%); and 3) concluded that inasmuch as the former percentage was higher than the latter, the claim of Lopez et al. that maintenance of the specific request system had a negative effect on Hispanics was an impossibility in the face of their own numbers. The district court's analysis was a game attempt to interpret Lopez et al.'s befuddled statistics; the gravamen of their claim, after all, was that a negative impact on employment of Hispanic laborers resulted either from the system of specific requests per se or from the way it was being administered by the Union. 25 What is clear to us and the district court, but apparently not comprehensible (or at least not acceptable) to Lopez et al., is that the statistics generated by their own expert fail to meet the burden of proving a prima facie case. In attempting to prove such a case with statistics, the appellants have failed to use a valid base or starting point and they have improperly mixed their statistical evidence. In simplest terms, Lopez et al. misapprehend the relevant points of comparison. In Wards Cove, the Supreme Court reiterated the requirement that when statistical evidence is used in an effort to prove a prima facie case of discrimination, the proper comparison must be made between the qualified persons in the labor market and persons holding at-issue jobs. 17 As discussed above, Lopez et al. never made--or at least never submitted--a statistical comparison grounded in the correct base figure of qualified Hispanics in the relevant labor market. Instead, they rely for the statistical bases of their different analyses on either 1) the number of Hispanics introduced from the ro[ll] call list, or 2) the number of Hispanics for whom requests are made through the specific request exception to the roll call system. Viewed another way, they cherry-picked some of the parts but never considered the whole; they made no effort to provide any statistics from the relevant labor market. 26 As the viability of appellants' position is totally dependent on the soundness of their statistics, their claims necessarily crumble when the multiple errors of the underlying numbers are exposed. 18 III