Opinion ID: 758304
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Heading: The meaning of Hicks

Text: 18 The principal support for the proposition that a plaintiff can always avoid summary judgment by creating a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the employer's stated reason for its employment decision is the true reason derives from the following passage in Hicks: 19 The factfinder's disbelief of the reasons put forward by the defendant (particularly if disbelief is accompanied by a suspicion of mendacity) may, together with the elements of the prima facie case, suffice to show intentional discrimination. Thus, rejection of the defendant's proffered reasons will permit the trier of fact to infer the ultimate fact of intentional discrimination,4 and the Court of Appeals was correct when it noted that, upon such rejection, no additional proof of discrimination is required. But the Court of Appeals' holding that rejection of the defendant's proffered reasons compels judgment for the plaintiff disregards the fundamental principle of Rule [of Evidence] 301 that a presumption does not shift the burden of proof, and ignores our repeated admonition that the Title VII plaintiff at all times bears the 'ultimate burden of persuasion.' 20 Hicks, 509 U.S. at 511, 113 S.Ct. 2742 (emphasis and ellipsis in original) (citations omitted). Certainly, this passage indicates at a minimum that a factfinder's reasonable rejection of the defendant's proffered explanation will support an inference of discrimination. But this passage can be and has been read by some courts to go further, proclaiming that if the jury can reasonably reject the defendant's proffered reason, no additional proof of discrimination is ever required. See, e.g., Anderson, 13 F.3d at 1123-24; Washington, 10 F.3d at 1433. For reasons discussed below, common sense compels us to reject so broad a reading. The Court's every word and sentence cannot be read in a vacuum; its pronouncements must be read in light of the holding of the case and to the degree possible, so as to be consistent with the Court's apparent intentions and with other language in the same opinion. As the Court itself cautions elsewhere in Hicks, we think it generally undesirable, where holdings of the Court are not at issue, to dissect the sentences of the United States Reports as though they were the United States Code. Id. at 515, 113 S.Ct. 2742. 21 Two examples illustrate why we believe an unqualifiedly literal reading of this passage of Hicks would not carry out the Court's true purpose. First, let us consider a case in which the plaintiff calls the employer's explanation into question, but does so in a way that conclusively demonstrates that the real explanation for the employer's behavior is not discrimination, but some other motivation. For instance, in Rothmeier v. Investment Advisers, Inc., 85 F.3d 1328 (8th Cir.1996), the plaintiff claimed that he had been fired because of his age. When his former employer came forward with a number of nondiscriminatory explanations, including insubordination, the plaintiff responded with evidence that in fact the real reason he had been discharged was that he had discovered that his firm was not in compliance with Securities and Exchange Commission rules and his employer wished to cover the problem up--a contention that the panel rightly concluded undercut the plaintiff's own claim of age discrimination. See id. at 1337-38; cf. Hazen Paper v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604, 613, 113 S.Ct. 1701, 123 L.Ed.2d 338 (1993) (noting that inferring age motivation from the implausibility of the employer's explanation may be problematic in cases where other unsavory motives, such as pension interference, were present.). If a plaintiff shoots himself in the foot, surely there is no point in sending the case to the jury. See also Visser v. Packer Engineering Assoc., 924 F.2d 655, 657 (7th Cir.1991) (in banc) (observing that a plaintiff's evidence that he was fired because he was a whistleblower does not tend to show discrimination, and tends if anything to show the opposite). 22 Second, there may be no legitimate jury question as to discrimination in a case in which a plaintiff has created only a weak issue of material fact as to whether the employer's explanation is untrue, and there is abundant independent evidence in the record that no discrimination has occurred. The Hicks Court cited the example of a situation in which the hiring officer, as well as 40% of the employer's work force, were members of the same minority group as the plaintiff (even though the group in question comprised only 10% of the relevant labor market). See Hicks, 509 U.S. at 513, 113 S.Ct. 2742. Where an employer has a strong record of equal opportunity employment, any inference of discrimination arising from the discrediting of the employer's explanation may be a weak one, and in some cases not strong enough to let a reasonable factfinder conclude that discrimination has occurred at all. 23 Accordingly, as we read Hicks, the plaintiff's attack on the employer's explanation must always be assessed in light of the total circumstances of the case; in some instances, as we have pointed out, the fact that there are material questions as to whether the employer has given the real explanation will not suffice to support an inference of discrimination. It is obviously impossible to provide an exhaustive list of such situations. In the next section, however, we discuss the (often great) evidentiary weight to be accorded to the plaintiff's exposure of the defendant's excuse as false, an analysis that will assist in determining whether a particular showing suffices to permit an inference of discrimination. 24 Although we find that rebuttal evidence alone will not always suffice to permit an inference of discrimination, we do not endorse a reading of Hicks under which employment discrimination plaintiffs are presumptively required to submit evidence over and above such a rebuttal in order to avoid summary judgment. An example of a case adopting the latter approach is Hidalgo v. Overseas Condado Ins. Agencies, Inc., 120 F.3d 328 (1st Cir.1997). In Hidalgo, the First Circuit assumed for purposes of its decision that an age-discrimination plaintiff had raised a triable issue as to whether the employer's explanation was incorrect, 6 but nevertheless concluded that because the plaintiff had offered no evidence that reasonably could be construed to indicate that [the employer] intended to discriminate against him because of his age, it was appropriate to grant summary judgment for the defendant. Id. at 337. As we have said, the circumstances of some cases may render evidence undercutting the employer's explanation insufficient to infer discrimination; but Hidalgo, rather than explaining why the showing in that case fell short, simply said that the plaintiff had offered no evidence of intentional discrimination, without addressing the significance of the plaintiff's case at all. This suggests that the Hidalgo court believed that employment-discrimination plaintiffs must as a routine matter do more than discredit the employer's explanation in order to avoid summary judgment. That assumption we think would be inconsistent with Hicks, which makes clear that no additional proof of discrimination is required as a matter of course once a plaintiff has shown that a jury could reject the employer's proffered explanation. Hicks, 509 U.S. at 511, 113 S.Ct. 2742; see also Rothmeier, 85 F.3d at 1333-35 (reading Hicks to reject an approach under which a showing that the defendant's proffered explanation is false is presumptively insufficient to show discrimination); Anderson, 13 F.3d at 1123 (same); 7 cf. Rhodes, 75 F.3d at 993 (saying that evidence showing the employer's explanation to be false, standing alone, will ordinarily permit an inference of discrimination). Our reading of Hicks also accords with the Supreme Court's rule, set forth in United States Postal Serv. v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 714 n. 3, 717, 103 S.Ct. 1478, 75 L.Ed.2d 403 (1983), that it is improper to require plaintiffs to produce direct evidence of discriminatory intent in order to prevail at trial. 25