Opinion ID: 449050
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Refusal to Disclose Self-Critical Portions of the Affirmative Action Plans.

Text: 71 Plaintiffs also maintain that the district court erred in its pervasive reliance on evidence of defendants' affirmative action efforts in areas unrelated to discharges and in refusing plaintiffs' request to discover self-critical portions of defendants' annual affirmative action plans. Plaintiffs also contend that even if the self-critical portions of defendants' affirmative action plans were subject to a qualified privilege and thus not discoverable, whatever privilege existed was waived when defendants affirmatively offered evidence of their affirmative action efforts on the issue of the existence or nonexistence of a pattern or practice of discrimination. Plaintiffs complain that the district court thus erred in allowing defendants to offer evidence of their affirmative action efforts without allowing plaintiffs to discover defendants' self-critical evaluations of those efforts. 72 The prevailing view is that self-critical portions of affirmative action plans are privileged and not subject to discovery by plaintiffs, see, e.g., Jamison v. Storer Broadcasting Co., 511 F.Supp. 1286, 1296-97 (E.D.Mich.1981), although courts have sometimes permitted discovery in conjunction with a protective order maintaining the confidentiality of the self-critical studies, see, e.g., Ford v. University of Notre Dame, 24 Empl.Prac.Dec. (CCH) p 31,203 (N.D.Ind.1980). The precise bounds of the privilege depend on the extent to which the policy of equal opportunity in employment will best be served in the particular circumstances presented by each case. O'Connor v. Chrysler Corp., 86 F.R.D. 211, 26 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 459, 464 (D.Mass.1980). We need not decide, however, whether the district court's order denying pretrial discovery of defendants' self-critical evaluations was proper in this case (the court had first examined the documents in camera ). The voluntary use by defendants at trial of their affirmative action efforts to prove nondiscrimination opened the door and waived whatever qualified privilege may have existed. The district court therefore should have permitted plaintiffs to have access to defendants' subjective evaluations of their own affirmative action efforts. The policy behind a qualified privilege for self-critical affirmative action evaluations is to promote the overall goal of removing discriminatory practices from the workplace. Allowing self-critical evaluations to remain confidential is thought to assure fairness to persons who have been required by law to engage in self-evaluation ... and to make the self-evaluation process more effective by creating an effective incentive structure for candid and unconstrained self-evaluation, O'Connor, 86 F.R.D. at 218, 26 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) at 464, thus encouraging conscious efforts to engage in fair employment practices. But an employer should not be able to offer its affirmative action policy before the trier of fact as a manifestation of nondiscrimination and at the same time be able to hide self-critical evaluations that may undercut the employer's portrayal of its efforts. Fairness requires that the qualified privilege not be allowed to mask discrimination when the overall policy behind the privilege is directed toward eliminating it. 73 Although we believe that the district court abused its discretion in denying plaintiffs' request, we believe that plaintiffs were not substantially prejudiced. Despite plaintiffs' contention to the contrary, we believe the district court's reliance on the evidence of defendants' affirmative action efforts as probative of nondiscrimination was not pervasive. Certainly the court paid some attention to this evidence. Although we have recognized that evidence of an employer's behavior in nonchallenged employment practices may relate only obliquely to the issue of discrimination in the challenged practices, we have held that trial courts should at least consider such evidence. Soria, 704 F.2d at 999. Here the district court did that, and we are unconvinced that its reliance on the evidence was beyond what the evidence merited when weighed in the context of this case. The evidence of seeking minorities for construction, and for employees, supervisors and managers at a level above the relevant available work force, which is unrebutted, strongly suggests that plaintiffs would have found little help in the company's self-analysis. In any event, defendants' other evidence was sufficient to undercut plaintiffs' prima facie case so that we would still conclude that, even without its reliance on the affirmative action evidence, the district court's finding of nondiscrimination was not clearly erroneous.