Opinion ID: 3009621
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Liability Stage

Text: 1. After-Acquired Evidence Is Irrelevant at the Liability Stage A quick review of the overarching framework erected for employment discrimination claims, see supra at Error! Bookmark not defined. n.Error! Bookmark not defined., discloses why afteracquired evidence cannot be a defense to liability. What sets an after-acquired evidence case far apart from a mixed-motives case 0 With respect to reinstatement and front pay, the court held that those remedies would be inappropriate if the after-acquired evidence would have in and of itself led to the adverse employment action. See id. at 1181-82. An injunction against an employer's unlawful practices, it added, would not be available if the court did not also order the plaintiff reinstated. See id. at 1182. The court also determined, however, that afteracquired evidence would not affect the availability of declaratory relief. See id. According to the court, backpay should be awarded up until the date of judgment, unless the employer can prove that it would have discovered the after-acquired evidence prior to what would otherwise be the end of the backpay period in the absence of the allegedly unlawful acts and this litigation. Id. This division, the court explained, would fairly balance the employer's right to make lawful employment decisions and the employee's right to make-whole relief. Ending the backpay period when the employer actually discovered the evidence would not make the victim whole, the court maintained, insofar as absent the unlawful conduct and the resulting litigation, the employer would very likely not have detected the fraud or misconduct. See id. Finally, with regard to the award of attorneys' fees, the court held that if the employee obtained some benefit from the lawsuit or if the litigation materially altered the parties' legal relationship, she would as a prevailing party be entitled to partial attorneys' fees; the after-acquired evidence could diminish the award by an amount arrived at using traditional attorney fee principles. See id. at 1182-83. 18 like Price Waterhouse or a pretext case like McDonnell Douglas is that the articulated legitimate reason, which was non-existent at the time of the adverse decision, could not possibly have motivated the employer to the slightest degree. After-acquired evidence, simply put, is not relevant in establishing liability under Title VII or ADEA because the sole question to be answered at that stage is whether the employer discriminated against the employee on the basis of an impermissible factor at the instant of the adverse employment action. See Wallace, 968 F.2d at 1179 (pointing out that the Summers rule ignores the lapse of time between the employment decision and the discovery of a legitimate motive for that decision). The Supreme Court in Price Waterhouse held that in a mixed-motives case the employer could rely only on a legitimate motive it held at the time of the adverse employment decision. See 490 U.S. at 252, 109 S. Ct. at 1791 (plurality) (An employer may not . . . prevail in a mixed-motives case by offering a legitimate and sufficient reason for its decision if that reason did not motivate it at the time of the decision. (emphasis supplied)); id. at 250, 109 S. Ct. at 1790 (plurality) (requiring the employer's legitimate, sufficient reason to have motivated the employer at the moment of the decision); id. at 241, 109 S. Ct. at 1785 (plurality) (The critical inquiry . . . is whether [a protected characteristic] was a factor in the employment decision at the moment it was made. (emphasis in original)); id. at 259, 109 S. Ct. at 1795 (White, J., concurring) (stating that the employee must show that the unlawful motive was a 19 substantial factor in the adverse employment action (emphasis in original)); id. at 266-67, 109 S. Ct. at 1799 (O'Connor, J., concurring) (stating that the employer must show that despite consideration of illegitimate factors the individual plaintiff would not have been hired or promoted in any event). Thus, under the mixed-motives analysis, the employer in an after-acquired evidence case cannot contend that it would have reached the same decision at the time it was made absent the illicit motive. Concomitantly, under the pretext analysis, it should be simple for the employee to demonstrate beyond peradventure that the proffered legitimate (but after-acquired) reason was not the true cause for the decision but is merely a pretext. See, e.g., Eastland v. Tennessee Valley Auth., 704 F.2d 613, 626 (11th Cir. 1983) (holding that the employer's proffered non-discriminatory reason was pretextual because the employer was unaware of the proffered reason at the time it made its decision), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1066, 104 S. Ct. 1415 (1984); cf. McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802, 805, 93 S. Ct. at 1824, 1826 (assuming that the employer was aware of the proffered reason at the time of the decision). Although Summers reasoned not that the after-acquired evidence would avoid liability but instead that it would bar all remedies, the effect is the same, and therefore the Summers rationale entirely eviscerates the temporal holding in Price Waterhouse that an employer can rely on a non-discriminatory justification for its action only if that justification actually motivated it at the time of its decision. 20 Having undermined the defendant's articulated legitimate explanation, under the standard employment discrimination burden-shifting scheme it would now be up to the factfinder to determine if the plaintiff met his or her burden of proving intentional discrimination. By removing this basic issue from the factfinder, courts applying the after-acquired evidence doctrine depart from the settled framework. Problematically, courts that allow after-acquired evidence to bar liability allow employers to make plaintiffs worse off for having a protected characteristic. That is because presumably, absent the wrong done the employee, the employer would not have discovered the legitimate motive evidence (at least during the relevant time frame) and the employee would still be employed. See Wallace, 968 F.2d at 1179 (observing that the Summers rule excuses all liability based on what hypothetically would have occurred absent the alleged discriminatory motive assuming the employer had knowledge that it would not acquire until sometime during the litigation arising from the discharge (some emphasis omitted)). To assure that the plaintiff is restored to the position he or she would have occupied absent the employer's unlawful discrimination, when the employer's motive was exclusively discriminatory at the time of the decision (as is assumed arguendo in the Summers-type cases), a legitimate reason for the decision brought out later must not be used nunc pro tunc by the employer to justify its actions. See Welch, 23 F.3d at ____ WL at  (Arnold, J., dissenting) (I think that the objects of deterrence and compensation both require us to examine a 21 defendant's mind for what it contained, not what it might have contained, to determine whether he has committed a wrong.). An employer's (assumed) discrimination is a deplorable wrong, and the fact that the employer might have accomplished a like result without maltreating the employee by employing different, nonharmful means (from the point of view of federal law) -- that is, by relying on legitimate instead of discriminatory reasons -- is beside the point, since if only it had used the other, defensible means there would have been no injury and no cause for the lawsuit. 2. Victims of Invidious Employment Discrimination Have Standing Some members of the no-liability camp advance the rationale that the plaintiff lacks standing because he or she was not qualified for the position (qualification being an element of the plaintiff's McDonnell Douglas prima facie case), an argument pertaining to the employer's de jure, as opposed to Summer's de facto, non-liability. See Dotson, 977 F.2d at 977-78; Gilty v. Village of Oak Park, 919 F.2d 1247, 1251 (7th Cir. 1990).0 That argument, however, is at odds with Supreme Court precedent. 0 Cf. Williams v. Boorstin, 663 F.2d 109, 115-18 (D.C. Cir. 1980) (reaching the same conclusion as Dotson and Gilty that the plaintiff could not establish a prima facie case because he was unqualified, but there the employer had discovered the employee lawyer lacked a law degree before discharging him), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 985, 101 S. Ct. 2319 (1981); Mantolete v. Bolger, 767 F.2d 1416, 1423 (9th Cir. 1985) (holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the defendant to introduce after-acquired evidence to rebut the plaintiff's prima facie case of qualification, but cautioning that it would be improper for the employer to use such evidence to justify its decision). 22 The plaintiff's McDonnell Douglas prima facie case was formulated to identify circumstances under which the discriminatory motive or intent of the employer may be inferred. See Hicks, 113 S. Ct. at 2747 (describing that the plaintiff's prima facie case gives rise to a presumption of discriminatory intent, which the defendant must rebut with evidence of a legitimate reason); Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253-54, 101 S. Ct. at 1094 (explaining that the plaintiff's prima facie case must give rise to an inference of unlawful discrimination); Furnco Constr. Corp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 576-77, 98 S. Ct. 2943, 2949-50 (1978) (A prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas raises an inference of discrimination only because we presume these acts, if otherwise unexplained, are more likely than not based on the consideration of impermissible factors.); Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 358, 97 S. Ct. at 1866. This reading is substantiated by the fact that the pliant McDonnell Douglas prima facie case is only one of many alternative routes available for a plaintiff to travel, amongst which is direct evidence bearing on discriminatory intent. See, e.g., United States Postal Serv. v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 715, 103 S. Ct. 1478, 1482 (1978).0 Consequently, what is relevant to the inquiry is the employer's subjective assessment of the plaintiff's qualifications, not the plaintiff's objective ones if unknown to the employer.0 In other words, the 0 Even were the Dotson and Gilty no standing rationale persuasive in McDonnell Douglas type cases, it could not help the employer in cases (such as this one) where the plaintiff adduces direct evidence of disparate treatment. 0 Many courts construing Title VII or ADEA have so held. See, e.g., Kristufek v. Hussmann Foodservice Co., 985 F.2d 364, 369 23 strength of the inference of discrimination based on the prima facie case is independent of the plaintiff's qualifications that were unknown to the employer. The no-standing argument additionally runs counter to the plain meaning of Title VII and ADEA. Those statutes grant standing to any individual discriminated against by a covered employer. See 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e-2(a) (1981); 29 U.S.C.A. § (7th Cir. 1993); Wallace, 968 F.2d at 1179; Smith v. General Scanning, Inc., 876 F.2d 1315, 1319 (1989); Sabree v. United Bhd. of Carpenters & Joiners Local No. 33, 921 F.2d 396, 402 (1st Cir. 1990); Norris v. City & County of San Francisco, 900 F.2d 1326, 1331 (9th Cir. 1990); Hill v. Seaboard C. L. R.R. Co., 767 F.2d 771, 774 (11th Cir. 1985), aff'd on reh'g, 885 F.2d 804 (11th Cir. 1989); Cuddy v. Carmen, 762 F.2d 119, 127 & n.12 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1034, 106 S. Ct. 597 (1985); Eastland v. Tennessee Valley Auth., 704 F.2d 613, 626 (11th Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1066, 104 S. Ct. 1415 (1984); Lee v. National Can Corp., 699 F.2d 932, 937 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 845, 104 S. Ct. 148 (1983); cf. Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 252, 109 S. Ct. at 1791; Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 369 n.53, 97 S. Ct. at 1872 n.53 (illustrating that an employer may rebut a plaintiff's prima facie case by showing that the nonapplicant's stated qualifications were insufficient (emphasis supplied)); see also Regents of University of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 320 n.54, 98 S. Ct. 2733, 2764 n.54 (1978) (Having injured respondent solely on the basis of an unlawful classification, petitioner cannot now hypothesize that it might have employed lawful means of achieving the same result.). This temporal knowledge limitation distinguishes a statutory unlawful discrimination claim from a contractual wrongful termination claim. In contract actions, if one party commits a material breach, the other party may generally use it to justify nonperformance even if, at the time of its own nonperformance, the second party was unaware of the first party's material breach. See College Point Boat Corp. v. United States, 267 U.S. 12, 15-16, 45 S. Ct. 199, 200-01 (1925); REST.2D CONTRACTS § 385 cmt. a (1981); id. § 225 & cmt. e; id. § 237 & cmt. c; cf. id. § 164 (fraudulent inducement makes a contract voidable). In a contract claim, questions like unidentified misrepresentations and the signing of an attestation clause are accordingly important. But in our view it is specious to conflate the two very different causes of action. 24 623(a) (1985). The result is no different if one focuses on the definition of employee rather than individual, since both statutes define an employee as an individual employed by an employer. 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e(f) (1981); 29 U.S.C.A. § 630(f) (1985). The point is that neither definition contains an exception for individuals who would not have been employed by the employer but for their fraud or misconduct, or for employees who measured against some objectively defined criteria are unqualified. Congress having granted standing in the circumstances we consider here, the matter is settled. See Kenneth G. Parker, Note, After-Acquired Evidence in Employment Discrimination Cases: A State of Disarray, 72 TEX. L. REV. 403, 428 (1993) (Simply put, the ability of the plaintiff to sue is delineated by the statute itself, and [the] remedy should be determined with reference to the dual purposes of making the plaintiff whole and deterring a discriminating employer.). 3. Victims of Invidious Employment Discrimination Suffer Real and Legal Injury Summers understood that McDonnell Douglas clearly presupposes a `legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason' known to the employer at the time of the employee's discharge. 864 F.2d at 705 (emphasis in original). Summers reached its conclusion that the employer would not be liable for the different, practical (as opposed to legal) reason that, the plaintiff not having been injured, he or she could obtain no relief. We disagree. 25 Reasoning that the plaintiff suffered no legal injury from invidious discrimination when after-acquired evidence reveals résumé fraud or work misconduct, see Summers, 864 F.2d at 708 (assuming that the employer's decision was motivated by an illegitimate reason); McKennon, 9 F.3d at 541, 542 (same); Milligan-Jensen, 975 F.2d at 305 (same); Washington, 969 F.2d at 255, 256-57 (same); Johnson, 955 F.2d at 415 (same), defies common sense. Imagine, for instance, an employer which intentionally batters an employee who procured his or her position through fraud or who falsified company records. The Summers rationale would bar the employee's recovery in an appropriate action because the employee had no right to be where he or she was at the moment of his or her injury. Surely that result flies in the face of reason and the whole body of tort law.0 Accord Welch, 23 F.3d at WL at  (Arnold, J., dissenting). 0 In Baab v. AMR Servs. Corp., 811 F. Supp. 1246 (N.D. Ohio 1993), the court concluded in context of an intentional-infliction of emotional distress claim tacked on to an employment discrimination suit that one could take the view that plaintiff should not complain of injury inflicted upon her at her workplace when, had the defendant been apprised of her wrongdoing, she would not have been there in the first place. This argument . . . misses the mark. The injury complained of here is injury to one's person and plaintiff is entitled to be free of that injury regardless of her status as a dischargeable employee. Id. at 1262. But cf. Russell v. Microdyne Corp., 830 F. Supp. 305, 306-08 (E.D. Va. 1993) (supplanting the Summers rationale to sexual harassment situations); Churchman v. Pinkerton's Inc., 756 F. Supp. 515, 518-21 (D. Kan. 1991) (same); Mathis v. Boeing 26 The rationale might have a stronger bite to it were the only injury to the victim the adverse employment action per se;0 but, quite to the contrary, in an employment discrimination suit the traumatic injury is having been subjected to the adverse employment action because of one's race, sex, age, or other protected characteristic, that is, having been unlawfully discriminated against. Put more dramatically, to maintain that a victim of employment discrimination has suffered no injury is to deprecate the federal right transgressed and to heap insult (You Military Airplane Co., 719 F. Supp. 991, 994-95 (D. Kan. 1989) (same). Indeed, even one whom the defendant knows to be a wrongdoer at the time of the defendant's actions is not too unworthy in the eyes of the law to recover for an unprivileged intentional or even a negligent tort. See REST.2D TORTS § 889 & cmts. a, b (1979) (One is not barred from recovery for an interference with his legally protected interests merely because at the time of the interference he was committing a tort or a crime . . . .); id. § 890 (discussing privileges); cf. id. § 870 & cmt. e (1979) (One who intentionally causes injury to another is subject to liability to the other for that injury, if his conduct is generally culpable and not [privileged].). Certainly, the defendant who does not know that the victim is a wrongdoer at the time the tort is committed has no privilege to inflict the harm. And it would seem that if one has no privilege --because there is missing some provocation or circumstance establishing the privileges of self-defense, defense of property, or defense of others -- to injure a known trespasser deliberately, a fortiori one has no such privilege with respect to someone invited onto the premises, albeit the invitation be procured through trick. 0 Although even were that the case an argument can be made that the plaintiff was still legally injured since, absent the discrimination, he or she would still have been employed and the employer presumably would not have exposed the fraud or misconduct for some unknown span of time. See Massey v. Trump's Castle Hotel & Casino, 828 F. Supp. 314, 322 (D.N.J. 1993) (Absent those illegal motives, the employee would still be employed. Thus, an illegal discharge causes an injury regardless of an employee's previous misconduct, and that injury must be subject to some redress.). 27 had it coming) upon injury. Cf. Richard Granofsky & Jay S. Becker, After-Acquired Evidence in Employment Discrimination Cases, 36 DEF. 19, 24 (1994) (referring to such employees as unworthy). A victim of discrimination suffers a dehumanizing injury as real as, and often of far more severe and lasting harm than, a blow to the jaw.0 See H.R. REP. No. 40(I), 102d Cong., 1st Sess. 15 (1991), reprinted in 1991 U.S.C.C.A.N. 549, 553 (The Committee intends to confirm that the principle of antidiscrimination is as important as the principle that prohibits assaults, batteries and other intentional injuries to people.). In the 1991 Act, Congress understood as much and changed the result reached in Price Waterhouse: in cases decided 0 See United States v. Burke, 112 S. Ct. 1867, 1872 (1992) (It is beyond question that discrimination in employment on the basis of sex, race, or any of the other classifications protected by Title VII is, as . . . this Court consistently has held, an invidious practice that causes grave harm to its victims.); H.R. REP. No. 40(I), 102d Cong., 1st Sess. 14 (1991) (Victims of intentional discrimination often endure terrible humiliation, pain and suffering while on the job. This distress often manifests itself in emotional disorders and medical problems.), reprinted in 1991 U.S.C.C.A.N. 549, 552; id. at 66-69 (documenting the disastrous effects of invidious discrimination on its victims), reprinted in 1991 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 604-07; Pauline Yoo, Note, The AfterAcquired Evidence Doctrine, 25 COLUM. HUM. RTS. L. REV. 219, 252 & n.201 (1993) (Discrimination can damage a victim emotionally, psychologically, or physically.); id. at 243 & n.150 (same); Cheryl K. Zemelman, Note, The After-Acquired Evidence Defense to Employment Discrimination Claims: The Privatization of Title VII and the Contours of Social Responsibility, 46 STAN. L. REV. 175, 199-200 (1993) [hereinafter Zemelman, The After-Acquired Evidence Defense]; see also Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub. L. No. 102-166, § 107(b), 105 Stat. 1075-76 (codified at 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e- 5(g)(2)(B) (Supp. 1994)) (allowing a court to grant a victim in a mixed-motives case declaratory and injunctive relief and to award him or her attorneys' fees and costs even if the employer had a legitimate, sufficient motive when it acted). 28 under the 1991 Act, the plaintiff is entitled to some relief even if the employer actually would have taken the same action at the same time absent any invidious motive. See Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub. L. No. 102-166, § 107, 105 Stat. 1075-76 (codified at 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 2000e-2(m), 2000e-5(g)(2)(B) (Supp. 1994)). Moreover, we think it clear that, where a federal right has been violated, federal courts must provide a remedy. The right which is violated by an employer which discriminates on the basis of a protected characteristic is not the employee's right to the job, but the employee's right to equal, fair, and impartial treatment, the violation of which frequently results, inter alia, in a significant injury to the victim's dignity and a demoralizing impairment of his or her self-esteem. See supra at Error! Bookmark not defined. n.Error! Bookmark not defined.; cf. H.R. REP. No. 40(I) at 64-65, reprinted in 1991 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 602-03; Brown v. Board of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 494, 74 S. Ct. 686, 691-92 (1954); see also Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub. L. No. 102-166, § 102, 105 Stat. 1072-73 (codified at 42 U.S.C.A. § 1981a(b)(3) (Supp. 1994)) (providing a plaintiff may recover compensatory damages under Title VII for emotional pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, and other nonpecuniary losses). The plaintiff's deceit or misconduct toward the employer is most appropriately considered in the remedies stage, or in any claim compatible with the federal anti-discrimination laws that the employer may properly assert against the employee under appropriate state or federal law. See Massey, 828 F. Supp. at 323 ([I]f the employer has 29 somehow been damaged by the plaintiff's misrepresentations or misconduct on the job, it may seek its own damages where appropriate.). The Summers rationale confuses the question whether the employer injuriously discriminated against the employee with the question whether the employee had an entitlement to the job. Whether the employee had some right to the job in question is not an issue in a Title VII or ADEA action; the issue is whether the employer discriminated based on an impermissible factor. Besides receiving no mention in the statutes, the property right inquiry is irrelevant for the simple reason that both Title VII and ADEA operate against the presumed backdrop of atwill employment, meaning that the employee is presumptively not entitled to the job, irrespective of résumé fraud or performance misconduct. Under the traditional employment-at-will doctrine, an employer may discipline or terminate an employee for any reason or no reason.0 Thus, if entitlement to the job were a 0 See, e.g., Poff v. Western Nat'l Mut. Ins. Co., 13 F.3d 1189, 1191 (8th Cir. 1994) (Minnesota law); Richards v. General Motors Corp., 991 F.2d 1227, 1234-35 (6th Cir. 1993) (Michigan law); Hall v. Western Prod. Co., 988 F.2d 1050, 1058-59 (10th Cir. 1993) (Wyoming law); Carlson v. Arnot-Ogden Memorial Hosp., 918 F.2d 411, 414 (3d Cir. 1990) (Pennsylvania law). While the federal anti-employment discrimination laws were not designed to impinge directly upon employer free choice, indirect effects are inevitable. No doubt the federal employment discrimination laws have curtailed the more excessive aspects of the employment-at-will doctrine with respect to protected persons. Now, a covered employer who arbitrarily and capriciously terminates a protected person without any animus toward the protected characteristic runs a not insubstantial risk of liability. For example, the Supreme Court has intimated that an arbitrary and capricious rationale may not meet the employer's burden of rebutting a plaintiff's prima facie case of 30 prerequisite to liability or recovery, then no at-will employee could recover under Title VII or ADEA -- but that plainly is not the case. See Washington, 969 F.2d at 256 (A `property right' in one's job . . . is not a requirement in a federal discrimination claim.). What is the case is that neither Title VII nor ADEA strips a wrongdoing employee of his or her entitlement to protection against unlawful discrimination. Instead of focusing on the worthiness of the victim, the statutes exclusively and unambiguously fix on the employer's motives. See Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 51, 94 S. Ct. 1011, 1021 (1974) (Title VII's strictures are absolute and represent a congressional command that each employee be free of discrimination. (emphasis supplied)); Massey, 828 F. Supp. at 323 (There is nothing in [Title VII] itself to support a requirement that the job had been acquired honestly.). An employee's fraud or misconduct, while bearing on his or her fitness for the job, simply does not justify, excuse, or make harmless the employer's intentional, invidious discrimination. Because the Summers approach ignores these precepts, thereby denying remedial justice for a grievous injury, we reject that approach. discrimination. See Burdine, 450 U.S. at 255, 101 S. Ct. at 1094 (The [legitimate] explanation [the defendant] provided must be legally sufficient to justify a judgment for the defendant.); McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802-03, 93 S. Ct. at 1824 (We need not attempt in the instant case to detail every matter which fairly could be recognized as a reasonable basis for a refusal to hire.). Nevertheless, the employment-at-will doctrine has been abridged only to the extent necessary to enforce the federal employment discrimination laws. 31 4. Summers Ignores the Compelling Public Interest in Enforcement Besides slighting the very real injury suffered by a victim of employment discrimination, the Summers rule disregards that an act of employment discrimination is much more than an ordinary font of tort law. The anti-employment discrimination laws are suffused with a public aura for reasons that are well known. Throughout this Nation's history, persons have far too often been judged not by their individual merit, but by the fortuity of their race, the color of their skin, the sex or year of their birth, the nation of their origin, or the religion of their conscientious choosing. Congress has responded to these pernicious misconceptions and ignoble hatreds with humanitarian laws formulated to wipe out the iniquity of discrimination in employment, not merely to recompense the individuals so harmed but principally to deter future violations. The anti-employment discrimination laws Congress enacted consequently resonate with a forceful public policy vilifying discrimination.0 A plaintiff in an employment- 0 See, e.g., Aikens, 460 U.S. at 716, 103 S. Ct. at 1482 (The prohibitions against discrimination contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 reflect an important national policy.); Franks v. Bowman Transp. Co., 424 U.S. 747, 778 n.40, 96 S. Ct. 1251, 1271 n.40 (1976) (stating that claims under Title VII involve the vindication of a major public interest (internal quotations omitted)); id. at 763, 96 S. Ct. at 1263 ([Congress] ordained that its policy of outlawing [discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin] should have the `highest priority' . . . .); Alexander, 415 U.S. at 45, 94 S. Ct. at 1018 ([T]he private litigant not only redresses his own injury but also vindicates the important congressional policy against discriminatory employment practices.); cf. Newman v. Piggie Park 32 discrimination case accordingly acts not only to vindicate his or her personal interests in being made whole, but also as a private attorney general to enforce the paramount public interest in eradicating invidious discrimination.0 In sum, it appears that the employee's misconduct or fraud is a possible wrong against the employer, whereas the employer's discrimination is a wrong against the employee and society at large. See Massey, 828 F. Supp. at 323 (Any concern Enters., 390 U.S. 400, 402, 88 S. Ct. 964, 966 (1968) (per curiam) (decided under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) (stating that Congress intended the struggle against discrimination to be a policy of the highest priority). 0 See EEOC v. Associated Dry Goods Corp., 449 U.S. 590, 602, 101 S. Ct. 817, 824 (1981) (Congress considered the charging party a `private attorney general,' whose role in enforcing the ban on discrimination is parallel to that of the [Equal Employment Opportunity] Commission itself. (citing Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U.S. 412, 421, 98 S. Ct. 694, 700 (1978)); New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v. Carey, 447 U.S. 54, 63, 100 S. Ct. 2024, 2030-31 (1980); Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody 422 U.S. 405, 415, 95 S. Ct. 2362, 2370 (1975); Alexander, 415 U.S. at 45, 94 S. Ct. at 1018; see also Newman, 390 U.S. at 401-02, 88 S. Ct. at 966 (decided under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964). In the Civil Rights Act of 1991, by authorizing a court to grant a victim of discrimination in a mixed-motives case declaratory and injunctive relief and partial attorneys' fees and costs, Congress again recognized the public interest in eradicating discrimination even when the employer had acted at the time of its decision for a legitimate reason that would have propelled it to take the same actions standing alone. See Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub. L. No. 102-166, §107(b), 105 Stat. 107576 (codified at 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e-5(g)(2)(B) (Supp. 1994)). That is, the 1991 Act reinforces the common sense notion that, even if the plaintiff is entitled to no personal relief, at least the remedies inuring to the public's benefit -- a declaratory judgment, injunctive relief, and, derivatively, attorneys' fees, see supra (discussing the litigant's role as a private attorney general) -- should be considered in an after-acquired evidence case. Since those remedies do not economically benefit the plaintiff, that provision evidences a strong public policy in favor of enforcement of the anti-employment discrimination laws. 33 we may have in awarding damages to employees who have acquired their jobs improperly does not outweigh the plaintiff's statutory right to recover . . . .). The Summers approach unjustifiably exalts the employer's purely private state right above the employee's quasi-public federal one. 5. Non-Liability Undermines the Statutes' Purposes As described supra Part 31, Congress prescribed a strong medicine, the anti-employment discrimination laws, to cure the social malady of invidious discrimination. Deterrence is accomplished by placing an economic price on discriminatory acts, and by exposing and stigmatizing the wrongdoer's acts before the entire community. We also bear in mind that, as remedial statutes, Title VII and ADEA should be liberally construed to advance their beneficent purposes.0 Unfortunately, the Summers approach disregards that canon of construction and frustrates the paramount objective of Title VII and ADEA, to deter violations of 0 See, e.g., Hart v. J. T. Baker Chem. Co., 598 F.2d 829, 831 (3d Cir. 1979) (Title VII); Oscar Mayer & Co. v. Evans, 441 U.S. 750, 765-66, 99 S. Ct. 2066, 2076 (1979) (Blackmun, J., concurring) (ADEA); Holliday v. Ketchum, MacLeod & Grove, Inc., 584 F.2d 1221, 1229 (3d Cir. 1978) (in banc) (same); cf., e.g., Dennis v. Higgins, 498 U.S. 439, 443, 111 S. Ct. 865, 868 (1991) (section 1983). One overriding lesson the 1991 Act tutors all but its most unmindful reader is that Congress was unhappy with increasingly parsimonious constructions of Title VII. Essentially, Congress forcefully reminded courts of the canon that Title VII and ADEA, as remedial statutes, are to be construed liberally to promote their welfare purposes, equality of treatment and employment opportunities. 34 the law.0 See Wallace, 968 F.2d at 1180-81; cf. Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 265, 109 S. Ct. at 1798 (O'Connor, J., concurring) (stating that if an illegitimate criterion was a substantial factor in an adverse employment decision, the deterrent purpose of [Title VII] has clearly been triggered. (emphasis in original)). A strong deterrence policy is the needed stimulus to propel otherwise indifferent employers into taking affirmative steps to educate and discipline members of their workforce insensitive to or disdainful of their co-workers' civil rights. Economic penalties work as reliable engines to drive home forcefully to rational employers the seriousness and solemnity of our national policy denouncing discrimination, and thereby inspire affirmative responses. See Albemarle Paper, 422 U.S. at 417-18, 95 S. Ct. at 2371-72 (It is the reasonably certain prospect of a backpay award that provide[s] the spur or catalyst which causes employers . . . to self-examine and to self-evaluate their employment practices and to endeavor to eliminate, so far 0 The `primary objective' of Title VII is to bring employment discrimination to an end. Ford Motor Co. v. EEOC, 458 U.S. 219, 228, 102 S. Ct. 3057, 3063 (1982) (citing Albemarle Paper, 422 U.S. at 417, 95 S. Ct. at 2371); see 28 U.S.C.A. § 621(b) (1985) (listing the purposes of ADEA, including to prohibit arbitrary age discrimination in employment); Zinger v. Blanchette, 549 F.2d 901, 905 (3d Cir. 1977) (The primary purpose behind [ADEA] is to prevent age discrimination in hiring and discharging workers.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1008, 98 S. Ct. 717 (1978). Compensating victims to make them whole, while also of great weight, is a secondary objective. See Albemarle Paper, 422 U.S. at 417-18, 95 S. Ct. at 2371-72; cf. Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 364, 97 S. Ct. at 1869 (stating that the deterrence and compensatory purposes are equally important). 35 as possible, the last vestiges of an unfortunate and ignominious page in this country's history. (internal quotations omitted)); cf. Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 114 S. Ct. 1483, 1506 & n.35 (1994) (recognizing that liability impacts private parties' planning); City of Riverside v. Rivera, 477 U.S. 561, 575, 106 S. Ct. 2686, 2694 (1986) (plurality) (section 1983) (stating that the damages a plaintiff recovers contribute significantly to the deterrence of civil rights violations in the future).0 0 On the other hand, allowing employees or applicants who committed fraud or misbehaved on the job to prevail will not notably diminish their disincentive to wrong or deceive their employers or their prospective employers. It seems unreasonable to attribute to the wrongdoing employee or applicant the strategy to lie to or cheat his or her employer or prospective employer with the expectation that, if the employer unlawfully discriminates against him or her, it will not be able to use that wrongful conduct against him or her if discovered in the course of the resulting proceedings. See Massey, 828 F. Supp. at 322 n.10 (We find it preposterous that an employee would refrain from lying [on a résumé or employment application] because she anticipates that she may be illegally discriminated against later and wants to preserve her right to recover damages.). Applicants misrepresent their qualifications in order to secure the employment in the first place, a powerful incentive that will not be curtailed by the unlikely prospect, of which the great bulk of applicants and employees will be unaware, that the employer may discover the falsehood in an employment discrimination action and will be able to exploit it to bar the employee's or applicant's claim. The applicant's incentive not to be dishonest, and the employee's incentive not to breach his or her duties of truthfulness, loyalty, and obedience, stem from the fact that he or she is always subject to disciplinary measures if the employer learns of the wrong outside the context of discovery in an employment discrimination case. The only applicant or employee incentive that will wane if after-acquired evidence is allowed to bar all liability is the plaintiff's vindication of his or her federal rights when he or she is unlawfully discriminated against, even where the discrimination is ongoing, especially since any attorney the plaintiff might consult would presumably become aware of the rule. We note in passing that many employers in fact responsibly investigate applicants across-the-board before hiring 36 Of course, the efficacy of the after-acquired evidence tactic has not escaped the attention of defense counsel, some of whom have recommended that, to maximize a client's odds of success, defense counsel's first step when defending an employment discrimination claim should be thoroughly to investigate the plaintiff's background and job performance. Indeed, many have instructed employers on specific policies they can implement to erect the strongest possible defense in employment discrimination suits, and, if recognized, one can anticipate the extensive and effective use of the after-acquired evidence doctrine.0 The prospect of a defendant's thorough someone, and that the employer's need for truthful employment applications has been sharpened with the spread of employer liability for negligent hiring. An employment-discrimination suit brought by a discharged employee or unsuccessful applicant, however, does not provide a sound business (as opposed to litigation) reason for the employer to begin investigating its exemployee's or applicant's honesty and fidelity. 0 See James A. Burstein & Steven L. Hamann, Better Late Than Never -- After-Acquired Evidence in Employment Discrimination Cases, 19 EMPLOYEE REL. L.J. 193, 202-03 (1993) ([A]fter-acquired evidence should be factored in crafting personnel policies. Foremost among the considerations is to ensure that applications and employee manuals expressly state that resumé fraud or application misrepresentations will result in suspension pending discharge. . . . Second, a prompt and thorough investigation of a complaint's discrimination charge should be conducted.); David D. Kadue & William J. Dritsas, The Use of After-Acquired Evidence in Employee Misconduct and Resume Fraud Cases, 1993 LAB. L.J. 531, 531 [hereinafter Kadue & Dritsas, The Use of After-Acquired Evidence] (stating that when an employee sues for employment discrimination, commonly the employer investigates the former employee's background with special care); George D. Mesritz, After-Acquired Evidence of Pre-Employment Representations: An Effective Defense Against Wrongful Discharge Claims, 18 EMPLOYEE REL. L.J. 215, 215, 222-25 (1992) (Management should respond to this favorable development [-- the judicial recognition of the after-acquired evidence doctrine --] by routinely searching for pre-employment misrepresentations as a potential defense in all 37 inquiry into the details of a plaintiff's pre- and post-hiring conduct, however, may chill the enthusiasm and frequency with which employment discrimination claims are pursued, even in cases where the victim of discrimination has nothing to hide, let alone cases where the potential plaintiff is not entirely blameless.0 Placed in context of the general pervasiveness of résumé fraud and employee misconduct,0 the likely consequence of the widedischarge litigation. Employers in turn should maximize the probability that `after-acquired' evidence is available as a defense by revising employment applications to elicit even more specific information.); Robert M. Shea, Posttermination Discovery of Employee Misconduct: A New Defense in Employment Discrimination Litigation, 17 EMPLOYEE REL. L.J. 103, 103-04, 109 (1991) [hereinafter Shea, Posttermination Discovery of Employee Misconduct] (explaining that Summers gives employers a legal basis and, more importantly, a good reason for taking a broader approach to discovery in employment discrimination litigation and advising employers to scrutinize representations made by the plaintiff during the hiring process and to look for previously undiscovered misconduct); William S. Waldo & Rosemary A. Mahar, Lost Cause and Found Defense: Using Evidence Discovered After an Employee's Discharge to Bar Discrimination Claims, 9 LAB. LAW. 31, 32, 40-42 (1993) (advising defense counsel to leave no stone unturned in ferreting out any evidence of résumé fraud or employment misconduct by conducting a thorough post-termination investigation). 0 See Massey, 828 F. Supp. at 323 (reasoning that the use of after acquired evidence to bar a discrimination claim in its entirety could cause employees who did something wrong in the past to quietly endure discriminatory treatment rather than complain, regardless of how long ago the misconduct occurred or its triviality). Moreover, the inevitable fishing expedition[] . . . for `minor, trivial or technical infractions,' Washington, 969 F.2d at 256 (quoting O'Driscoll v. Hercules, Inc., 745 F. Supp. 656 (D. Utah 1990)), might curtail the success of victims of employment discrimination in bringing lawsuits and thereby erode the effectiveness of Title VII and ADEA. See, e.g., McKennon, 9 F.3d at 540-41 & nn.1 & 3 (describing the employer's masterful use of after-acquired evidence). 0 By all accounts, résumé fraud is a serious and recurrent problem facing employers. See, e.g., Mitchell H. Rubinstein, The Use of Predischarge Misconduct Discovered After an Employee['s] Termination as a Defense in Employment Litigation, 24 SUFFOLK U. 38 spread exploitation of after-acquired evidence will be underenforcement of Title VII and ADEA, and consequently underdeterrence of discriminatory employment practices.0 This leads us to a final reason why liability is proper in a Title VII or ADEA after-acquired evidence case, namely, the other paramount objective of those statutes `to make persons whole for injuries suffered on account of unlawful employment discrimination.' Franks, 424 U.S. at 763, 96 S. Ct. at 1264 (quoting Albemarle Paper, 422 U.S. at 418, 95 S. Ct. at 2372); see id. at 764, 96 S. Ct. at 1264 (stating that the plaintiff should be made whole insofar as possible); see Albemarle Paper, 422 U.S. at 418-21, 95 S. Ct. at 2372-73; supra at Error! Bookmark not defined. n.Error! Bookmark not defined.. Of course, the corollary to the make-whole directive is that the protected L. REV. 1, 1 n.2 (1990); Shea, Posttermination Discovery of Employee Misconduct, 17 EMPLOYEE REL. L.J. at 403 n.3; Zemelman, The After-Acquired Evidence Defense, 46 STAN. L. REV. at 176 n.5; see also Douglas L. Williams & Julia A. Davis, Title VII Update -- Skeletons and a Double-Edged Sword, C669 A.L.I.-A.B.A. 303, 305 (1991) (At one time or another probably every employee commits an infraction at work and hopes that the boss never finds out.). 0 Some courts have tried to deal with the problem of underenforcement by requiring the fraud or misconduct to be material before accepting the employer's defense, see, e.g., O'Driscoll, 12 F.3d at 180, but the meaning of materiality has not been settled. For example, at least one court confronted with a boilerplate attestation clause in an employment application has held that the misrepresentation itself, whether material or not standing alone, became material by virtue of the clause, rendering the materiality requirement largely meaningless. See Milligan-Jensen, 975 F.2d at 303-04 & nn. 1 & 2; cf. Johnson, 955 F.2d at 414 (holding that an employer's asserted actual reliance upon the plaintiff's misrepresentation made it material as a matter of law); Gilty, 919 F.2d at 1251 (holding that a plaintiff's misrepresentation ipso facto rendered him unqualified for the job). 39 employee is not to be catapulted into a better position than he or she would have enjoyed had the employer not acted unlawfully. See Burdine, 450 U.S. at 259, 101 S. Ct. at 1096 (Title VII . . . does not demand that an employer give preferential treatment to minorities or women.); cf. Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. at 285-86, 97 S. Ct. at 575. Keeping in mind the aspiration, then, that the plaintiff should be left in the same position as he or she was in before the discrimination, the bottom line is straightforward. On the one hand, holding the employer liable and providing the victim appropriately fashioned remedies would restore the victim to his or her prior position, not a better one than had he or she not suffered from unlawful discrimination. On the other hand, barring all remedies would leave the victim in a worse position than had the employer not unlawfully discriminated against him or her (in which case the employee assumedly would still be employed), and elevates the employer to a superior position insofar as it lets the employer get off scot-free despite its blameworthy conduct. These two observations hold true especially in instances where the employer's discovery of the after-acquired evidence was brought about due to the legal proceedings instituted in response to the employer's wrongful acts, since in those cases, absent the discrimination, the employer may never have discovered the evidence (or at least not until some indeterminate future time). See Wallace, 968 F.2d at 1179-80; 40 Welch, 23 F.3d at WL at  (Arnold, J., dissenting);0 cf. John Cuneo, Inc., 298 N.L.R.B. 856, 856 (1990). In short, a major weakness of the Summers approach is that it does not restore a victim to the position he or she would have occupied but for the discrimination. 6. Summary For all the foregoing reasons, we hold that after- acquired evidence is inadmissible, because irrelevant, at the liability stage of a cause of action brought under Title VII or ADEA. We do not rule out the potentiality that such evidence may 0 We think that Judge Arnold got the better of the argument in his dissent in Welch: I respectfully suggest that the court errs in concluding that if defendant can show that it would never have hired Mr. Welch but for his misrepresentation, then Mr. Welch will be in no worse position than he would have been but for the alleged illegal act. The crucial points are that the defendant did hire him and did not know of the facts that might have led to Mr. Welch's discharge until it discovered them because suit was filed against it. The defendant might never have learned of those facts, or it might have learned of them fortuitously at some later time. Until it did so, those facts could hardly provide an excuse for termination, since they could not have provided any part of the defendant's motive. If Mr. Welch is not compensated for losses suffered between the time he would have been fired on account of the discovery of relevant facts, he is not in the same position he would have been in but for a wrong committed against him, and the purpose of the protective legislation is entirely lost. . . . The plaintiff does not seek to benefit from his misrepresentation, if any. He seeks simply to have the law applied to him in an evenhanded way. Id. at ____ . 41 serve as the foundation for a claim of fraud, conversion, or the like by the employer against the plaintiff in an appropriate forum, but only that it may not be introduced substantively for the purpose of defending against liability. We must accordingly reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment to Harleysville and remand for further consideration.