Opinion ID: 67090
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Title VII Violation

Text: As noted, Lee's principal complaint is that his firing by KCS was the result of racial discrimination, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. [10] He insists that white employees were not fired, or that they received leniency in the form of reinstatement, for violations similar to his. To establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination in employment, an employee must demonstrate that (1) he is a member of a protected class, (2) he was qualified for the position at issue, (3) he was the subject of an adverse employment action, and (4) he was treated less favorably because of his membership in that protected class than were other similarly situated employees who were not members of the protected class, under nearly identical circumstances. [11] Once an employee has made out a prima facie case, an inference of intentional discrimination is raised [12] and the burden of production shifts to the employer, who must offer an alternative non-discriminatory explanation for the adverse employment action. [13] If the employer can provide a legitimate nondiscriminatory explanation, the inference of discrimination drops out and the burden shifts back to the employee to demonstrate that the employer's explanation is merely a pretext for racial bias. [14] The first three elements of a prima facie case of race-based discrimination are not in dispute in this appeal; we consider only the fourth, as did the district court. Lee asserts that white KCS engineers with similar safety records were not fired despite similar violations of equal magnitude. Lee identified for the district court some half-dozen putative comparators. Only two, Greggory Bickham and James McClure, [15] are the focus of this appeal.
The question whether Lee presented a prima facie case of racial discrimination turns here on whether either or both of the white engineers identified by Lee as comparators were similarly situated to him. If Lee established this fourth element of his prima facie discrimination case, the burden shifts to KCS to demonstrate that it had a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for taking the adverse action against Lee. [16] We have considered the requirement for one employee to be similarly situated to another on any number of occasions. Employees with different supervisors, who work for different divisions of a company or who were the subject of adverse employment actions too remote in time from that taken against the plaintiff generally will not be deemed similarly situated. [17] Likewise, employees who have different work responsibilities or who are subjected to adverse employment action for dissimilar violations are not similarly situated. [18] This is because we require that an employee who proffers a fellow employee as a comparator demonstrate that the employment actions at issue were taken under nearly identical circumstances. [19] The employment actions being compared will be deemed to have been taken under nearly identical circumstances when the employees being compared held the same job or responsibilities, [20] shared the same supervisor or had their employment status determined by the same person, [21] and have essentially comparable violation histories. [22] And, critically, the plaintiff's conduct that drew the adverse employment decision must have been nearly identical to that of the proffered comparator who allegedly drew dissimilar employment decisions. [23] If the difference between the plaintiff's conduct and that of those alleged to be similarly situated accounts for the difference in treatment received from the employer, the employees are not similarly situated for the purposes of an employment discrimination analysis. [24] We do not, however, interpret nearly identical as synonymous with identical. [25] Applied to the broader circumstances of a plaintiff's employment and that of his proffered comparator, a requirement of complete or total identity rather than near identity would be essentially insurmountable, as it would only be in the rarest of circumstances that the situations of two employees would be totally identical. [26] For example, it is sufficient that the ultimate decisionmaker as to employees' continued employment is the same individual, even if the employees do not share an immediate supervisor. Each employee's track record at the company need not comprise the identical number of identical infractions, albeit these records must be comparable. [27] As the Supreme Court has instructed, the similitude of employee violations may turn on the comparable seriousness of the offenses for which discipline was meted out [28] and not necessarily on how a company codes an infraction under its rules and regulations. Otherwise, an employer could avoid liability for discriminatory practices simply by coding one employee's violation differently from another's.
In this case, the district court determined that Lee did not satisfy his initial burden of establishing a prima facie case because he did not demonstrate that he had been treated disparately from any other similarly situated KCS engineer. When we apply the foregoing factors to Lee's proffered comparators, McClure and Bickham, we find that we are in partial disagreement with the district court. With respect to McClure, who was fired for dishonesty and misuse of company property, we agree that his offenses and his employment history are too dissimilar to those for which Lee was fired to render him similarly situated to Lee. With respect to Bickham, however, we hold that he is an appropriate comparator. Lee was fired for (1) disregarding a block signal that indicated he had to stop the train and (2) failing to contact his dispatcher for authorization to proceed. Six months prior to his firing, Lee had committed another moving violationfailing to slow his train in compliance with a signalfor which he received a 30-day suspension. And, eighteen months earlier, Lee had committed yet another moving violation for which he had received a five-day suspension. On this record, Redd decided to fire Lee, and, crucially, Alexander decided not to grant Lee leniency, which, if granted, would have led to his reinstatement. Also in late 2004, Bickham had failed to halt his train at a stop signal; yet, even though he was fired, Alexander granted him leniency and reinstated him. Bickham had committed a like number of moving violations as had Lee. During the same period over which Lee's previous violations were accumulated, Bickham had (1) failed to inspect a train in compliance with a trackside warning signal, for which he received a 30-day suspension; (2) improperly handled a train that separated as a result, for which he received a 5-day suspension; and (3) occupied a main track without authority, for which he was fired, only to be reinstated by Alexander. We are satisfied that employment histories marked by a comparable number of serious moving violations by train engineers who perform the same job are sufficiently similar to require comparison of the two when, as here, the final violationsfailing to obey a stop signalare indistinguishable. KCS points to a host of distinctions between Bickham's situation and Lee's: Bickham did not have a similarly serious infraction just six months before his failure to stop as did Lee; Bickham's failure to stop was excused by foggy conditions and took place in a rural area where potential damage to persons and property was minimal; Bickham and Lee had different supervisors, and it was those different supervisors who made the decisions to fire these engineers. We are not persuaded that these distinctions add up to a difference, at least not one sufficient to eschew comparison. Alexander stated that she reviewed an employee's entire history with the company, not merely the previous six months. Redd stated that he reviewed Lee's record going back three years, and Bickham's violations over this longer period are equally grave and similar in number. KCS would emphasize the comparison of the preceding six-month periods to distance Bickham from Lee, but that was not the only period considered at the time the firing and leniency decisions were made. Further, just as Bickham's vision was obscured by fog, Lee, too, could not see the signal that he failed to obey. And, although KCS tries to make much of the fact that Lee's infraction took place in downtown Shreveport rather than in a rural setting as did Bickham's, we note that the Lee incident occurred inside a railyard, not out on the city streets where members of the general public might have been endangered directly. Finally, although these two men had different supervisors, Alexander oversaw leniency, which Bickham received and Lee did not, so the ultimate decisionmaker on rehiring after firing was the same person for both engineers. On this analysis, we conclude that Lee and Bickham are similarly situated making Bickham a proper comparator whom the district court nevertheless rejected. They held identical positions at KCS, compiled a similar number of serious moving violations over a similar period of time, including an identical infraction for which Lee was fired and Bickham was granted leniency, and their ultimate employment status rested with the same person. We should not be understood to say that the distinctions noted by KCS are not relevant; indeed they might very well prove to be relevant in the event that KCS proffers a legitimate nondiscriminatory explanation for the disparate results in Lee's and Bickham's cases. But our sole task today is to determine whether Lee satisfied his burden of establishing a prima facie case; and we hold that, by validly identifying Bickham as a comparator, he has.