Opinion ID: 394903
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Promotion to Relief Man

Text: 26 The district court apparently considered Locke qualified for a relief man job and thought Locke would have been promoted to relief man but for the discrimination against him. We cannot tell whether the court was of the view that the relief man job required essentially the same qualifications as the plant helper job or that Locke had any additional qualifications required for the relief man job or for some other reason. In any event the findings concerning Locke's qualifications and KCP&L's promotion practices are inadequate for us to evaluate the promotion of Locke to relief man as a remedial measure. 27 A court can in appropriate circumstances order a promotion as make whole relief for a victim of discrimination, but cannot under Title VII properly order the promotion of an employee to a position for which he or she is not qualified. Marquez v. Omaha District Sales Office, supra, 440 F.2d at 1162-63; see also Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., supra, 424 U.S. at 772 n.31, 96 S.Ct. at 1268 n.31; Richerson v. Jones, 551 F.2d 918 (3d Cir. 1977). See generally 2 A. Larson, Employment Discrimination § 55.23 (1980). Our research has not, however, discovered any cases precisely similar to this one, where a court has ordered a Title VII plaintiff who has suffered discrimination in the hiring process instated to a higher position than entry level. 28 There is some support for the district court's action in a series of cases providing for job-skipping where an employer has discriminatorily excluded some employees from whole lines of progression within the employer's work force. E. g., Watkins v. Scott Paper Co., 530 F.2d 1159 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 861, 97 S.Ct. 163, 50 L.Ed.2d 139 (1976); Rogers v. International Paper Co., 510 F.2d 1340, 1354 (8th Cir.), vacated on other grounds, 423 U.S. 809, 96 S.Ct. 19, 46 L.Ed.2d 29, on remand, 526 F.2d 722 (1975); Long v. Georgia Kraft Co., 450 F.2d 557 (5th Cir. 1971); see also United States v. City of Philadelphia, 573 F.2d 802 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 830, 99 S.Ct. 105, 58 L.Ed.2d 123 (1978). Such job-skipping cases have involved lines of progression between lower and higher level jobs in a plant, where a certain amount of time in a lower level job is generally required before moving up to the next higher job. Victims of discriminatory exclusion from the whole line of progression, especially those who have worked in other jobs within a facility, may be left without any real remedy if, for example, they must take a reduction in pay to transfer into the line of progression at entry level. Courts have in this context carefully scrutinized the lower level jobs prerequisite for advancement within lines of progression and have allowed job-skipping to make whole victims of discrimination where it has specifically been found that the lower level jobs prerequisite is not justified by business necessity. But job-skipping is only appropriate where the beneficiary has demonstrated the skills or other qualifications legitimately required or the higher level job and the promotion is in a line of progression where a promotion is normally forthcoming after some interval of time in the lower level job. Young v. Edgcomb Steel Co., 499 F.2d 97 (4th Cir. 1974). 29 Under the job-skipping cases the district court has discretion to order Locke instated as a relief man only if it makes the following findings: (1) that Locke had the particular skills or other job-related qualifications required by KCP&L for a relief man, (2) that the relief man position was in a line of progression upward from the plant helper position, that is, a plant helper would normally be promoted to relief man after some interval of acceptable performance as a plant helper, and (3) that the prerequisite service as a plant helper is not itself justified by business necessity aside from the skills or other qualifications to perform the relief man job. Moreover, in exercising its discretion we think the court should consider the possibility for making Locke whole economically by other means such as retroactive seniority, see Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., supra, 426 U.S. 747, 96 S.Ct. 1251, 47 L.Ed.2d 444, or front pay discussed below. 30 In any event, KCP&L does not appear to contend that Locke is not entitled to instatement as a plant helper on the basis of the district court's discrimination finding that we have affirmed above and to nondiscriminatory consideration for promotion in the future. Therefore, regardless of the decision on the relief man issue, Locke is in this posture of the case entitled to no less than instatement in a plant helper position.