Opinion ID: 78563
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Glass

Text: Stacey Glass, a white male, and not the plaintiff Brown, was promoted to the position of Assistant Bureau Chief of the Maintenance Bureau on March 20, 2004. The Department challenges Brown's claim of discrimination as to this promotion on the ground that her absence from the relevant Certificate of Eligibles prevents her from establishing a prima facie case and provides a non-discriminatory reason for hiring Glass. Brown argued at trial, however, that the Department manipulated the registers to avoid promoting her. We think that the evidence before the jury adequately supported this claim. While an employee must meet the employer's objective promotion criteria, Vessels v. Atlanta Indep. Sch. Sys., 408 F.3d 763, 769 (11th Cir.2005), such as scoring high enough to appear on a Certificate of Eligibles, Brown demonstrated that her test score was high enough to have placed her on the Certificate for the Assistant Bureau Chief position. The Department requested the Certificate on January 8, 2004, and received it on January 15. Yet, while the Certificate did contain ten names drawn from the correct register, neither Brown's name nor that of any other black candidate appeared on it. The overwhelming inference, Brown suggested, was that the Department had manipulated the registers. The Department countered that Brown's name did not appear on the January 15 Certificate because she had limited her availability to Tuscaloosa and Jefferson Counties. The evidence, however, showed that the register reflected Brown's near-statewide availability through mid-November 2003, and that Brown had taken many steps during this period to ensure that her availability remained listed as statewide, with the exception only of Clarke County. Specifically, after her discussion with Mr. Camp in November 2003, Brown wrote to the State Personnel Department on November 6, 2003, asking it to ensure that [her] name remain[ed] on the Civil Engineering Administrator Register and [to] provide [her] with written confirmation of this. She received confirmation on November 19, 2003, that her name w[ould] remain active on this list of eligibles to be considered for future vacancies. Still concerned, however, Brown wrote again on November 30 and still again on December 11, noting specifically in the second communication that she was unavailable for appointment in Clarke County only at this time but [was] available in all other Divisions now. Brown copied management-level Department officials, such as the Eighth Division Engineer, on her December 11 request that she be listed as available everywhere but in Clarke County. On January 30, 2004after the Department had received the Certificate, but well before it made any hiring decisions Brown sent yet another communication, albeit to the Certification Section of the State Personnel Department, asking that her name remain on the register for all counties except Clarke. The Department contends that this exchange is immaterial because it lacks the ability to influence register listings maintained by the Personnel Department and may only hire from the Certificate that the Personnel Department provides. These contentions do not carry the day for two reasons. First, despite the Department's disclaimer of any influence over the registers, other testimony revealed that the Department, not SPD, furnished the information used to justify removal of an employee from the registers. It was therefore reasonable for the jury to infer that the Department was responsible for the unexplained disappearance of Brown's name from the list, less than two months before the Department obtained a Certificate that contained no black candidates. Indeed, as the jury heard, the Department was prohibited by the Frazer injunction from intentionally requesting Certificates at times when no black candidates appeared on them, as it was found to have done. Second, Brown had notified the Department of her improper removal from the CEA register and requested an investigation well before the Department filled the subject vacancy. Yet despite notice of Brown's situation, the Department filled the position from the original Certificate. From this evidence, the jury was free to inferas it undoubtedly didthat the Department manipulated the hiring system, either by affirmatively seeking Brown's removal from the CEA register, or by waiting to request a Certificate until, for whatever reason, no black candidates appeared on it.