Opinion ID: 380460
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Hiring Claims

Text: 57 In this portion of the appeal, General argues that there was insufficient evidence to support the trial court's conclusions that General discriminated against the class members with respect to hiring. General questions both the factual sufficiency of the evidence, as well as the trial court's reliance on some statistics, as opposed to others. 58 In its Phase I order, the court focused on four statistical facts: 59 (1) 5.24% of the Dallas/Forth Worth labor force was Mexican-American; 60 (2) 1.22% of General's work force at Irving was Mexican-American in 1972; 61 (3) Twenty people were hired in 1972, but none of them was Mexican-American; 62 (4) Only 4% of those hired in 1973 were Mexican-American. 63 General claims that the district court improperly relied on the statistical disparity between the local labor force and the work force at the Irving facility, rather than relying on the plant hiring statistics for the years between 1972 and 1976. General contends that there is statistical evidence showing that: 64 (1) Mexican-Americans constituted 7.73% of the persons hired at the Irving facility from July 1972-July 1976, whereas only 5.24% of the local labor market was Spanish-American; 65 (2) From 1973 through 1976, 71 Mexican-Americans applied for jobs at the Irving facility and 13 were hired, an 18.3% percentage. During this time, only 5.66% of the Caucasian applicants were hired, although 81.5% of the local work force was Caucasian, as were 86.5% of the applicants. 66 See note 4. 67 Proof in this sort of class action case is usually dependent upon statistical comparisons. In International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 97 S.Ct. 1843, 52 L.Ed.2d 396 (1977), the Supreme Court found that a prima facie case of discrimination could be found by showing great disparities in general population/work force statistics. 15 In Hazelwood School District v. United States, 433 U.S. 299, 97 S.Ct. 2736, 53 L.Ed.2d 768 (1977), the Supreme Court found that this same showing of disparity, along with instances of individual discrimination, established a prima facie case. However, there, the Court ruled that this prima facie showing could be rebutted with favorable evidence comparing the qualified labor market with the defendant's hiring policies during the relevant period. 68 This Court recently said in United States v. City of Alexandria, 614 F.2d 1358, 1364 (5th Cir. 1980): 69 To make out a prima facie case of pattern or practice of discrimination in violation of Title VII, all that a private or government plaintiff need show initially is that there is a significant statistical disparity between the racial, sexual, or ethnic balance and composition of an employer's work force and that of the community from which the workers are hired. . . . This is true because, absent explanation, it is ordinarily to be expected that nondiscriminatory hiring practices will in time result in a work force more or less representative of the racial and ethnic composition of the population in the community from which employees are hired. Teamsters, supra, 97 S.Ct. at 1856 n. 20. 70 Once this prima facie case has been established, the employer may introduce evidence to attempt to rebut the inference raised by the figures. . . . 71 (Citations omitted.) 72 We take this to mean that once the plaintiff has offered some evidence that is probative of disparity that may be statutorily significant, it is then the defendant's burden to come up with more specific statistical evidence to rebut the plaintiff's proof. 73 In this case, the trial court found that in 1972, the Irving Division hired 20 Caucasians, but no Mexican-Americans, and that in 1973, the total number of Caucasians hired at Irving was 155 or 76.7%, and the number of Mexican-Americans hired was eight or 4%. However, the trial court made no findings about hiring in 1974 or 1975, even though both sides presented statistical evidence, at least through the period of July 30, 1975. 16 74 Evidently, the trial court relied on the plaintiff's evidence for its hiring findings concerning 1972 and the defendant for its findings concerning 1973. See note 16. However, the trial court made no findings of fact concerning 1974 or 1975. It appears that the trial court must have found discrimination for those periods since the class action notice approved by the court was addressed to all Mexican-Americans who applied for work at General Telephone Co. in Irving, Texas, in 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, and through October 18, 1976. 17 This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that some members of the class who received relief applied for jobs in late 1975 or early 1976. 75 It would clearly be inappropriate for us to rule on the appellant's claim concerning the use of these hiring statistics, as opposed to applicant flow data, without knowing how or why the trial court relied on the statistical evidence it did and why it found hiring discrimination for the years 1974 and 1975. In Hazelwood, the Supreme Court indicated that the determination of what set of statistics are relevant can best be decided on a case-by-case basis. 433 U.S. at 311-312. See Davis v. City of Dallas, 483 F.Supp. 54, 60 (N.D.Tex.1979). The evaluation of these statistics involves both a complex legal and factual inquiry. See e. g. Cooper v. University of Texas at Dallas, 482 F.Supp. 187 (N.D.Tex.1979); Davis v. City of Dallas, 483 F.Supp. 54 (N.D.Tex.1979); EEOC v. Radiator Specialty Co., 610 F.2d 178 (4th Cir. 1979). We therefore remand this part of the case to the district court for a more specific evaluation of both the plaintiff's and defendant's statistics with specific findings on the use of hiring data as opposed to applicant-flow data, including the reasons why the trial court concludes that the discrimination lasted past 1974. 18 76