Opinion ID: 70662
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: 3 Henry Goodgame and James Brown, who are African-American, brought suit against ACIPCO, claiming that they were denied promotions because of their race. Goodgame and Brown worked in ACIPCO's pipe manufacturing plant in Birmingham, Alabama. ACIPCO hired Goodgame as a laborer in 1954, and over the years he learned how to perform all the different jobs in the plant's Monocast Department. By 1971, Goodgame was supervising other employees in operating an annealing oven, used to heat pipe segments in order to relieve stress within the pipe material. In 1975, ACIPCO promoted Goodgame to a permanent supervisory position, Shift Foreman in the Number 2 Cleaning Shed. After his promotion, Goodgame held various supervisory positions within the Monocast Department. 4 In January 1990, ACIPCO promoted David Burnett, instead of Goodgame, to the position of Shop Foreman over the Number 2 and 3 Cleaning Sheds. ACIPCO hired Burnett, who is white, in 1963; over the years, Burnett worked in various capacities in the Monocast Department. At the time Burnett was promoted, Goodgame had been reassigned to the Number 1 Cleaning Shed. After the promotion was announced, Goodgame met with Superintendent Paul Crocker to protest Burnett's selection. Crocker told Goodgame that Burnett was chosen only because he happened to be up there in the Number 2 Shed working as a supervisory employee. (R. 5-55 at 75.) According to Crocker, who made selection decisions for supervisory jobs in the Monocast Department, the two employees' comparative experience was not a determinative factor, since both Goodgame and Burnett had worked for ACIPCO for so long. (R. 6-55 at 383-84.) 5 ACIPCO hired James Brown in 1969 to work in the Monocast Department as a Spigotman. Over the next fifteen years, Brown held various nonsupervisory positions. In 1984 he was promoted to Casting Machine Operator, a position he held until 1988, when he became Shop Preparation Leadman. While a Casting Machine Operator, Brown trained two white employees, Roy Caffee and Mike Short, to operate his machine, and after he became a Shop Preparation Leadman, he trained David Allgood, who is also white, in shop preparation. ACIPCO eventually promoted all three trainees, allegedly at Brown's expense: in December 1989 Caffee was selected for the position of Casting Shift Foreman in the Number 2 Shop; about the same time, Short was promoted to the position of Casting Leadman in the Number 3 Shop; and in September 1990 Allgood was selected for the position of Casting Leadman in the Number 1 Shop. 1 Brown contends that in July 1991, he was denied a fourth promotion because of his race when ACIPCO named Lawrence Vickers, a white man, Shift Foreman in the Number 3 Shop, despite the fact that Brown had more experience than Vickers in the Number 3 Shop. 6 Shortly after ACIPCO promoted Burnett to Shop Foreman, Goodgame filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging that ACIPCO refused to promote Goodgame because of his race. Brown filed a similar EEOC complaint in September 1990, soon after he was denied the promotion to Casting Leadman that Allgood received. Brown asserted that ACIPCO's refusal to promote him was continuing and further alleged that ACIPCO used selection criteria for promotions that had a disparate impact on African-American employees. The EEOC issued Goodgame and Brown right-to-sue letters, and in January 1991 they filed this lawsuit.