Opinion ID: 43762
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Intentional Discrimination Claim

Text: Given our holding with respect to Virdi’s facial challenge, we must disagree with the district court’s holding that the District had no unconstitutional policy in place. Nevertheless, the District is still entitled to judgment on Virdi’s intentional discrimination claim. While the MVP’s goals themselves are unconstitutional, they do not constitute evidence that Virdi himself was discriminated against.9 There is no evidence that the MVP or its unconstitutionality caused Virdi to lose a contract that he otherwise would have received. Thus, Virdi has failed to establish a causal connection between the unconstitutional aspect of the MVP and his alleged injury – i.e., the failure to obtain architectural work with the District. Moreover, there is insufficient other evidence to impose liability upon the District for damages to Virdi for intentional discrimination.10 Thus, the district court did not err in granting judgment in favor of the District on Virdi’s intentional discrimination 9 Indeed, implementation of the goals might have been of assistance to Virdi in obtaining employment. 10 Virdi’s flawed statistics cannot provide evidence of intentional discrimination against him. And, as noted below, Virdi has failed to adduce sufficient evidence to create a jury question of intentional discrimination on the part of either Pritchett or Hallford. 14 claim. With respect to Virdi’s claims against Hallford, the undisputed evidence is that Hallford simply accepted the recommendations he received from Pritchett. Pritchett took over as Executive Director in mid-1996 and had no knowledge of the resource files kept by his predecessors. He had no need to know the contents of those files, because during the summer and fall of 1996 he was inundated with calls from architectural firms seeking to work on SPLOST projects. The list of architects approved to work on SPLOST projects (the “SPLOST list”), which was prepared in late 1996 and early 1997, consisted solely of those current contacts. At trial, Virdi failed to present sufficient evidence from which a jury could conclude that he contacted Pritchett’s office and requested an interview during that time period; his first and only meeting with Pritchett took place in the fall of 1997, after the completion of the SPLOST list. Virdi also failed to adduce evidence that would allow a jury to disbelieve Pritchett’s uncontradicted testimony that all nonspeciality firms that worked on SPLOST projects were selected from the SPLOST list.11 Because Virdi did not adduce evidence from which a jury could conclude 11 Virdi testified that he was told on earlier dates by persons who worked for Pritchett’s predecessors-in-office that architect selections were made from the resource files and that his submissions for the resource files in 1991 and 1994 were all that he needed to be considered. However, such testimony cannot create a jury issue in light of Pritchett’s uncontradicted testimony that both he and the Manager, Cunningham, came on board later, in mid-1996, that shortly thereafter they were inundated with applications from architectural firms 15 that Pritchett intentionally discriminated against him, he certainly failed to do so with respect to Hallford, who merely acted on Pritchett’s recommendations. The district court correctly granted Hallford’s motion for judgment as a matter of law.12