Opinion ID: 438801
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Individualized Hearings

Text: 130 DEA objects to the District Court's decision to forego in this case the individualized relief hearings prescribed in Teamsters, supra, 431 U.S. at 361, 97 S.Ct. at 1867. The gravamen of DEA's objection is that class-wide relief may benefit some black agents who were not victims of illegal discrimination. The Court in Teamsters stated that when plaintiffs seek relief as victims of the discriminatory practice, a district court must usually conduct additional proceedings after the liability phase of the trial to determine the scope of individual relief. Id. In the wake of Teamsters individualized hearings have been common features of Title VII class actions. See, e.g., McKenzie v. Sawyer, 684 F.2d 62, 75 (D.C.Cir.1982). 131 Though Teamsters certainly raises a presumption in favor of individualized hearings, the case should not be read as an unyielding limit on a court's equitable power to fashion effective relief for proven discrimination. 36 The language of Teamsters is not so inflexible; after stating that individual hearings are usually required, Teamsters, supra, 431 U.S. at 361, 97 S.Ct. at 1867, the Court went on to note that [i]n determining the specific remedies to be afforded, a district court is 'to fashion such relief as the particular circumstances of a case may require to effect restitution.'  Id. at 364, 97 S.Ct. at 1869, quoting Franks, supra, 424 U.S. at 764, 96 S.Ct. at 1264. Later courts have often faced situations in which the Teamsters hearing preference had to bend to accommodate Title VII's remedial purposes. Primarily, courts have not required hearings when discrimination has so percolated through an employment system that any attempt to reconstruct individual employment histories would drag the court into a quagmire of hypothetical judgments. Thompson v. Boyle, 499 F.Supp. 1147, 1170 (D.D.C.1979) (quoting pettway v. aMerican casT iron piPe co., 494 f.2d 211, 260 (5th Cir.1974), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1115, 99 S.Ct. 1020, 59 L.Ed.2d 74 (1979)), aff'd, 678 F.2d 257 (D.C.Cir.1982); Hamheed v. Int'l Ass'n of Ironworkers, 637 F.2d 506, 520 (8th Cir.1980). See also Stewart v. General Motors Corp., 542 F.2d 445, 452-453 (7th Cir.1976) (pre-Teamsters ), cert. denied, 433 U.S. 919, 97 S.Ct. 2995, 53 L.Ed.2d 1105 (1977); Bowe v. Colgate Palmolive Co., 416 F.2d 711, 721 (7th Cir.1969) (same). 132 Applying these principles to the present controversy, we note at the outset that the District Court did not rush willy-nilly to impose class-wide relief. The court specifically ordered individual relief hearings where feasible. All claims of backpay for discrimination at levels below GS-11 will be resolved in individualized hearings. See Mem.Op. at 3, JA 116. At these levels individualized hearings are appropriate because a small number of discernible decisions as to initial grade assignment and promotions will be in issue for each agent. These determinations are akin to those in Teamsters, where the required hearings were to involve a single determination as to whether individual plaintiffs had applied and were qualified for particular line driver positions in the trucking industry. 431 U.S. at 371-372, 97 S.Ct. at 1872-1873. 133 After careful consideration, the District Court here ordered class-wide relief only for discrimination above GS-11. The court had found that discrimination impeded black agents at every turn; blacks faced extra hurdles in DEA's initial grade assignments, work assignments, supervisory evaluations, imposition of discipline, and promotions. At the higher levels the cumulative effect of these pervasive discriminatory practices became severe, and the increased subjectivity in evaluations gave discrimination more room to work its effects. In such a situation exact reconstruction of each individual claimant's work history, as if discrimination had not occurred, is not only imprecise but impractical. Pettway, supra, 494 F.2d at 262. The District Court here specifically found that [e]ach major criterion in the promotion process at DEA was tainted by discrimination, making discrimination in the promotion process cumulative. Any attempt to recreate the employment histories of individual employees absent discrimination would result in mere guesswork. Mem.Op. at 2 n. 1, JA 115. Our role in reviewing this determination is limited. The framing of a remedial decree is left largely in the hands of the district judge, whose assessment of the needs of the situation is a factual judgment reviewable only for clear error   . McKenzie v. Sawyer, supra, 684 F.2d at 75. 134 We perceive no error in the District Court's finding that it would be impossible to reconstruct the employment histories of DEA's senior black agents. Examination of discrete promotion decisions, as difficult as even that might be, will not suffice. The decisive criteria for promotions decisions--supervisory evaluations, breadth of experience, and disciplinary history, see Part I-A supra--were themselves found to be tainted with illegal discrimination. The court found that discrimination had skewed evaluations of black agents, but the court could have had no way of knowing how much more favorable a particular agent's evaluation should have been, or how a fair evaluation might have affected the agent's chances for obtaining a particular promotion. Similarly, the court found that discrimination in work assignments--leaving black agents with a disproportionately large share of undercover assignments--had impeded black agents in promotions, but the court could have had no way to divine what other broadening experiences a particular agent might have had, and no way to gauge how this hypothetical additional experience would have affected particular promotion decisions. And though the court found that black agents have been disciplined more frequently and more severely than white agents committing similar infractions, the court could have had no way of knowing exactly what effect the disproportionate disciplinary sanctions had on a particular agent's chances for particular promotions. Finally, because promotions at DEA are cumulative, the effects of discrimination in promotions are also cumulative. Denial of promotion to one grade affects the agent's eligibility for later promotions to higher grades. 135 To require individualized hearings in these circumstances would be to deny relief to the bulk of DEA's black agents despite a finding of pervasive discrimination against them. In effect, DEA would have us preclude relief unless the remedial order is perfectly tailored to award relief only to those injured and only in the exact amount of their injury. Though Section 706(g) generally does not allow for backpay to those whom discrimination has not injured, this section should not be read as requiring effective denial of backpay to the large numbers of agents whom DEA's discrimination has injured in order to account for the risk that a small number of undeserving individuals might receive backpay. Such a result cannot be squared with what the Supreme Court has told us about the nature of a court's remedial authority under Title VII. [T]he scope of a district court's remedial powers under Title VII is determined by the purposes of the Act. Teamsters, supra, 431 U.S. at 364, 97 S.Ct. at 1869. A core purpose of Title VII is to make persons whole for injuries suffered on account of unlawful employment discrimination. Albemarle Paper Co., supra, 422 U.S. at 418, 95 S.Ct. at 2372. [F]ederal courts are empowered to fashion such relief as the particular circumstances require to effect restitution, making whole insofar as possible the victims of racial discrimination   . Franks, supra, 424 U.S. at 764, 96 S.Ct. at 1264; accord Albemarle Paper Co., supra, 422 U.S. at 418, 95 S.Ct. at 2372 (the District Courts have not merely the power but the duty to render a decree which will so far as possible eliminate the discriminatory effects of the past as well as bar like discrimination in the future); Teamsters, supra, 431 U.S. at 364-365, 97 S.Ct. at 1869-1870. The trial court found that the particular circumstances of this case required class-wide relief for black agents at GS-11 and above to ensure that they were made whole for the pervasive discrimination they have suffered. If effective relief for the victims of discrimination necessarily entails the risk that a few nonvictims might also benefit from the relief, then the employer, as a proven discriminator, must bear that risk. See Stewart v. General Motors Corp., supra, 542 F.2d at 452-453. 136