Opinion ID: 165179
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Single employer analysis

Text: 24 We weigh four factors in considering whether two nominally separate entities constitute an integrated enterprise or a single employer: (1) interrelations of operations; (2) common management; (3) centralized control of labor relations; and (4) common ownership and financial control. Bristol v. Bd. of County Comm'rs of the County of Clear Creek, 312 F.3d 1213, 1220 (10th Cir.2002) ( en banc ). For purposes of finding shared liability, we generally consider the third factor — centralized control of labor relations — to be the most important. Id. See also 1 Arthur Larson & Lex K. Larson, Employment Discrimination § 5.03[1][a], at 5-22 (2d ed. 2003) ([T]o determine whether both entities are properly before the court, the four-part [ ] test has been recited by the courts. But an examination of the decisions nevertheless shows that the courts rely primarily on one factor when determining whether an entity is liable under Title VII: the extent of control an entity has over employment decisionmaking.) 25 The post-IGA BRCC and the City of Boulder do not satisfy our single employer standard. Sandoval has pointed to no evidence in the record showing that the BRCC and the City had sufficiently interrelated operations. The City Police Department's secondment of its employees to the BRCC, like its receipt of emergency communications services from the BRCC, merely identified the City as one of the member-municipalities of the BRCC. See Frank v. U.S. West, Inc., 3 F.3d 1357, 1362-63 (10th Cir.1993) (listing common indications of interrelated operations, including joint bookkeeping and payroll, shared office space and equipment, common employees, or common advertising). Nor did the BRCC and the City have common management, since the heads of the City Fire and Police Departments only occupied two out of the seven seats on the BRCC's Executive Committee, and the EC had no influence over the general operations of the Boulder City Police or Fire Departments. Cf. id. at 1364 (listing circumstances of common management as those including identical or heavily overlapping officer ranks or boards of directors, and common presidents). 26 Most importantly, the BRCC and the City Police did not share centralized control of labor relations. Under the 1996 IGA, all BRCC staff other than the Executive Director remained employees of their respective municipal agencies but were effectively seconded to the BRCC through the localities' contract with the BRCC. The BRCC Executive Committee had oversight over work and discipline issues within the BRCC, and the EC had authority to terminate any staff member's assignment to the BRCC. The EC did not, however, have any influence over any staff member's continued employment with his or her home agency. As was pointed out above, the Executive Director of the BRCC was an at will employee of the EC, and the City's influence on the hiring and firing of the Executive Director was limited to its two votes on the seven-member Executive Committee. 27 In Swallows v. Barnes & Noble Book Stores, Inc., the Sixth Circuit found, in similar circumstances, that a university and the bookseller with whom it had contracted to run its bookstore could not be considered a single employer for purposes of the ADA and the ADEA. 128 F.3d 990, 995-96 (6th Cir.1997). The university had retained control over which employees of the private bookseller could be assigned to staff the university bookstore, but the school had no control over the bookseller's hiring or firing decisions. Id. at 995. 28 We have previously observed that the right to terminate employment is the most important aspect of the control over the terms and conditions of an employment relationship that we require in this context, Bristol, 312 F.3d at 1219, and we therefore conclude, as did the Sixth Circuit, that while an organization's ability to control which employees of a contract partner are assigned to work for that organization may give it a voice in certain employment decisions made by the contract partner, it does not grant the kind of control over the partner's employment decisions that would justify treating the two entities as a single employer. See Swallows, 128 F.3d at 995. 3 We conclude, therefore, that Sandoval cannot hold the City liable for any discrimination on the part of the BRCC Executive Committee under a single employer theory.