Opinion ID: 795238
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Statistical Evidence—General Principles

Text: 56 Statistical evidence is an acceptable, and common, means of proving disparate impact. See, e.g., Sandoval v. City of Boulder, 388 F.3d 1312, 1326 (10th Cir.2004); Bullington, 186 F.3d at 1312 (As is typical in disparate impact cases, [plaintiff] relies on statistical evidence to establish her prima facie case.); Mountain Side Mobile Estates P'ship v. Sec'y of HUD, 56 F.3d 1243, 1251 (10th Cir. 1995) (In Title VII employment discrimination cases, plaintiffs may rely solely on a statistical showing of disparate effect to establish a prima facie case of disparate impact.). The statistics must, however, relate to the proper population. For example, when the claim is disparate impact in hiring, the statistics should be based on data with respect to persons qualified for the job. See Wards Cove, 490 U.S. at 650-51, 109 S.Ct. 2115 (It is such a comparison—between the racial composition of the qualified persons in the labor market and the persons holding at-issue jobs—that generally forms the proper basis for the initial inquiry in a disparate-impact case.); see also Bullington, 186 F.3d at 1314 ([Plaintiff's] applicant pool was appropriately limited to persons who sought out and were at least minimally qualified for the position. . . .). The same requirement applies to other job benefits. See Crum, 198 F.3d at 1309, 1312 (relating to alleged discrimination in layoffs, recalls from layoffs, terminations, discipline, hiring, rehiring, evaluations, compensation, transfers, job duty assignments, recruitment, screening, selection procedures, denial of promotions, demotions, rollbacks, sick leave, subjective decision-making practices, and other terms and conditions of employment (internal quotation marks omitted)). The essential requirement is that the data concern those persons subject to the challenged employment practice. 57 After specifying the employment practice allegedly responsible for excluding members of their protected class from a benefit, plaintiffs must identify the correct population for analysis. In the typical disparate impact case the proper population for analysis is the applicant pool or the eligible labor pool. The composition of this population is compared to the composition of the employer's workforce in a relevant manner, depending on the nature of the benefit sought. 58 Smith, 196 F.3d at 368. When the selection process is only partially subjective, a disparate-impact plaintiff should control for the constraints placed upon the decisionmaker's discretion. See Anderson v. Westinghouse Savannah River Co., 406 F.3d 248, 266-67 (4th Cir.2005); cf. Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U.S. 977, 994, 108 S.Ct. 2777, 101 L.Ed.2d 827 (1988) (O'Connor, J., plurality opinion) (Especially in cases where an employer combines subjective criteria with the use of more rigid standardized rules or tests, the plaintiff is in our view responsible for isolating and identifying the specific employment practices that are allegedly responsible for any observed statistical disparities.). 59 To be sure, the population selected for statistical analysis need not perfectly match the pool of qualified persons. Such perfection may be impossible to obtain. When reliable data regarding that pool are unavailable, a different population may be used if it adequately reflects the population of qualified persons. See Ramona L. Paetzold & Steven L. Willborn, The Statistics of Discrimination § 5.04 (2002) (In some instances, where applicant data are not available, reliable, or are believed to be biased, and where statistical information regarding the labor market is difficult to ascertain, the general population might adequately reflect the population of qualified job applicants.); see also Malave v. Potter, 320 F.3d 321, 326-27 (2d Cir.2003) ([I]t was error [to reject] out of hand [Plaintiff's] statistical analysis simply because it failed to conform to the preferred methodology described in Wards Cove, given the Supreme Court's express endorsement in that decision of alternative methodologies if the preferred statistics are `difficult' or `impossible' to obtain.); cf. Trout v. Lehman, 702 F.2d 1094, 1102 (D.C.Cir.1983) (in disparate-treatment case brought before the Civil Rights Act of 1991, plaintiffs cannot legitimately be faulted for gaps in their statistical analysis when the information necessary to close those gaps was possessed only by defendants and was not furnished either to plaintiffs or to the Court (internal quotation marks omitted)), vacated on other grounds by Lehman v. Trout, 465 U.S. 1056, 104 S.Ct. 1404, 79 L.Ed.2d 732 (1984), and abrogated on other grounds by Berger v. Iron Workers Reinforced Rodmen, Local 201, 170 F.3d 1111, 1124-25 (D.C.Cir.1999). For example, in Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U.S. 321, 97 S.Ct. 2720, 53 L.Ed.2d 786 (1977), the Supreme Court determined that plaintiffs who were challenging Alabama's height and weight requirements for prison guards could use height and weight statistics based on national data for comparison. [R]eliance on general population demographic data was not misplaced where there was no reason to suppose that physical height and weight characteristics of Alabama men and women differ markedly from those of the national population. Id. at 330, 97 S.Ct. 2720. 60 Nevertheless, absent a close fit between the population used to measure disparate impact and the population of those qualified for a benefit, the statistical results cannot be persuasive. [S]tatistics based on an applicant pool containing individuals lacking minimal qualifications for the job would be of little probative value. Watson, 487 U.S. at 997, 108 S.Ct. 2777. 61 Thus, a statistical analysis cannot establish a plaintiff's prima facie case unless it is based on data restricted to qualified employees, or (1) reliable data with respect to that group are unavailable and (2) the plaintiff establishes that the statistical analysis uses a reliable proxy for qualification. This approach holds plaintiffs to their statutory burden to demonstrate[] that a respondent uses a particular employment practice that causes a disparate impact on the basis of . . . sex, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(k)(1)(A)(i), without imposing an insurmountable burden when reliable data on a qualification are not available. 2