Opinion ID: 543624
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: allocation of burdens

Text: 42 The purpose of Title VII 4 is to achieve equality of employment opportunities through the eradication of employment barriers which discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, and other protected classifications. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 429-31, 91 S.Ct. 849, 852-53, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971). The Supreme Court has recognized that Title VII forbids not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation. Griggs, 401 U.S. at 431, 91 S.Ct. at 853. Employment practices which, although facially neutral, are discriminatory in practice have given rise to the theory of liability commonly known as the disparate impact theory. Under this basis for liability, a specific employment practice may be deemed violative of Title VII without proving the employer's subjective intent to discriminate. Wards Cove Packing v. Atonio, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 2115, 2119, 104 L.Ed.2d 733, 744 (1989). Here, plaintiffs proceeded under the disparate impact theory. 43 In Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 95 S.Ct. 2362, 45 L.Ed.2d 280 (1975), the Supreme Court outlined the burdens of the parties in disparate impact cases: 44 Title VII forbids the use of employment tests that are discriminatory in effect unless the employer meets the burden of showing that any given requirement [has] ... a manifest relationship to the employment in question. [Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. at 432, 91 S.Ct. at 854.] This burden arises, of course, only after the complaining party or class has made out a prima facie case of discrimination, i.e., has shown in effect that the tests in question select applicants for hire or promotion in a racial pattern significantly different from that of the pool of applicants. See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 [93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824, 36 L.Ed.2d 668] (1973). If an employer does then meet the burden of proving that its tests are job related, it remains open to the complaining party to show that other tests or selection devices, without a similarly undesirable racial effect, would also serve the employer's legitimate interest in efficient and trustworthy workmanship. Id. at 801 [93 S.Ct. at 1823]. 45 Albemarle, 422 U.S. at 425, 95 S.Ct. at 2375. 46 In Wards Cove, the Supreme Court clarified prior case law by pointing out that once a plaintiff has made out a prima facie case, 5 it is not the burden of persuasion which shifts to the employer; instead, at that point, the employer shoulders the burden of production, of producing evidence of a business justification: The ultimate burden of proving that discrimination against a protected group has been caused by a specific employment practice remains with the plaintiff at all times. Wards Cove, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. at 2126, 104 L.Ed.2d at 753 (citing Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust Co., 487 U.S. 977, 108 S.Ct. 2777, 101 L.Ed.2d 827 (1988)). 47 Prior to Wards Cove, this circuit adopted the doctrine announced in Spurlock v. United Airlines, Inc., which allows an employer to meet a lighter standard of proof of job-relatedness where the job at issue clearly requires a high degree of skill and the economic and human risks involved in hiring an unqualified applicant are great. Chrisner v. Complete Auto Transit, Inc., 645 F.2d 1251 (6th Cir.1981). 48 The district court specifically held that firefighting poses sufficient risks to the public's safety to invoke the Spurlock doctrine: The risks to the public in terms of life, limb and property as a consequence of hiring an unqualified firefighter are great, resulting in a less heavy burden for demonstrating the job relatedness of the employment criteria. Zamlen, 686 F.Supp. at 654. On appeal, plaintiffs contend that, since the Spurlock doctrine was intended to apply to jobs which require special skills or abilities which are extremely difficult to define with significant precision and even harder--to the extent so identified--to test for or measure, Davis v. City of Dallas, 777 F.2d 205, 215 (5th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1116, 106 S.Ct. 1972, 90 L.Ed.2d 656 (1986), and since the 1983 examination at issue was designed to measure tangible, objective cognitive abilities and concrete physical capabilities, the district court improperly invoked this doctrine. 49 Actually, we need not decide whether the Spurlock doctrine was properly invoked since, in view of the Supreme Court's intervening opinion in Wards Cove, whether the district court lowered the city's burden of persuasion is no longer at issue. The city had only the burden of producing evidence to justify the use of its selection device. Since the city was found to have satisfied the Spurlock burden of persuasion, and that burden is still more onerous than the burden of production which the city actually is obligated to bear under Wards Cove, the city, having met the heavier burden, necessarily satisfied the lighter burden. While one may produce without persuading, one cannot persuade without first producing. Accordingly, plaintiffs were not harmed by the district court's allocation of burdens. 50