Opinion ID: 198793
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Available Analytic Methods.

Text: 18 A plaintiff alleging disparate treatment under Title VII may proceed on a mixed-motive approach or on a pretext approach. For purposes of this case, it is important to understand the basic difference between these two modalities. 19 Mixed-motive analysis applies when the evidence shows that an employer considered both a proscribed factor (say, race) and one or more legitimate factors (say, competence) in making a challenged employment decision. See Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 241-42. In that scenario, the plaintiff is not obliged to separate out the relative import of each element that went into the decision; rather, once the plaintiff proves that a proscribed factor played a motivating part in the decision, the burden of persuasion shifts to the employer, who will be held liable for damages under Title VII unless it can prove that, even if it had not taken [the proscribed factor] into account, it would have come to the same decision regarding [the plaintiff]. Id. at 242, 244. Even then, because Congress has reshaped mixed-motive analysis in certain respects, the employee may be entitled to equitable relief so long as he has proven that the proscribed factor played some part in the decisional calculus. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2(m); 2000e-5(g)(2)(B); see also Higgins v. New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc., 194 F.3d 252, 259 n.3 (1st Cir. 1999); Carey v. Mt. Desert Island Hosp., 156 F.3d 31, 43-44 (1st Cir. 1998). 20 It is readily apparent that this mixed-motive approach, uncabined, has the potential to swallow whole the traditional McDonnell Douglas analysis. To guard against this possibility, the Court restricted its applicability to those infrequent cases in which a plaintiff can demonstrate with a high degree of assurance that the employment decision of which he complains was the product of a mixture of legitimate and illegitimate motives. Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 247. Under this formulation, access to the mixed-motive approach ultimately depends on the quality of the available evidence. Most courts agree that Justice O'Connor's seminal concurrence in Price Waterhouse furnishes the best device for testing quality (and, thus, the best roadmap for segregating mixed-motive cases from the mine-run of discrimination cases). After all, when the Supreme Court rules by means of a plurality opinion (as was true in Price Waterhouse), inferior courts should give effect to the narrowest ground upon which a majority of the Justices supporting the judgment would agree. See Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977). The O'Connor concurrence fits this profile. Hence, we turn to it. 21 What is required [to trigger mixed-motive analysis] is . . . direct evidence that decisionmakers placed substantial negative reliance on an illegitimate criterion in reaching their decision. Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 277 (O'Connor, J., concurring). Because discrimination tends more and more to operate in subtle ways, direct evidence is relatively rare; when it comes to light, however, a plaintiff can use it to demonstrate that an illegitimate factor played a substantial role in a particular employment decision. Id. at 275. It follows that plaintiffs may use the Price Waterhouse mechanism in disparate treatment cases in which they adduce direct evidence of a discriminatory animus, whereas they must proceed under the conventional McDonnell Douglas framework (commonly called pretext analysis) in all other cases. See Ayala-Gerena v. Bristol Myers-Squibb Co., 95 F.3d 86, 95 (1st Cir. 1996). 22 Under the pretext method, the plaintiff first must establish a prima facie case. See Texas Dep't of Comm'y Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 252-53 (1981); McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802. We shall return to the components of the prima facie case; for now, it suffices to say that this requirement is not onerous. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253. If the plaintiff clears this modest hurdle, the burden of production -- but not the burden of persuasion -- shifts to the employer, who must articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment action. See St. Mary's Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 506-07 (1993); Burdine, 450 U.S. at 254-55. Once that occurs, the plaintiff must show both that the employer's proffered reason is a sham, and that discriminatory animus sparked [its] actions. Conward, 171 F.3d at 19. To this end, the full panoply of circumstantial evidence is available, including but not limited to statistical evidence showing disparate treatment by the employer of members of the protected class, comments by decisionmakers which denigrate [persons in the protected group], the incidence of differential treatment in the workplace, and the deployment of . . . replacements. Mesnick v. General Elec. Co., 950 F.2d 816, 824 (1st Cir. 1991) (citations omitted). The totality of the evidence then is examined as part of an aggregate package of proof. Id. 23 A plaintiff, uncertain of what discovery will yield or how a judge will react to certain proffers, may elect to proceed simultaneously on both fronts (mixed-motive and pretext), cognizant that the trial court, at an appropriate stage of the litigation, will channel the case into one format or the other. See Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 247 n.12; Thomas v. National Football League Players Ass'n, 131 F.3d 198, 202 (D.C. Cir. 1997). Consistent with the O'Connor concurrence, the court typically will make that determination based on the availability or unavailability of direct evidence. See Taylor v. Virginia Union Univ., 193 F.3d 219, 232 (4th Cir. 1999) (en banc); Ostrowski v. Atlantic Mut. Ins. Cos., 968 F.2d 171, 181-82 (2d Cir. 1992). 24 This ruling can have important effects on the outcome of the litigation. In a mixed-motive analysis, the burden of persuasion shifts from the employee to the employer, who must then affirmatively prove that it would have made the same decision even if it had not taken the protected characteristic into account. Ayala-Gerena, 95 F.3d at 95-96; accord Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 246 (explaining that, under a mixed-motive analysis, the plaintiff must persuade the factfinder on one point, and then the employer, if it wishes to prevail, must persuade it on another). This contrasts vividly with pretext analysis, under which the employee retains the burden of persuasion throughout. See Cumpiano v. Banco Santander P.R., 902 F.2d 148, 153 (1st Cir. 1990). 25