Opinion ID: 72778
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the deputy chief position

Text: Arrington argues that material questions of fact exist with regard to her claims that appellees discriminated against her on the basis of her gender in denying her the Deputy Chief position. For Title VII and § 1983 gender discrimination claims, the order and allocation of proof are well established.15 First, the plaintiff must prove a prima facie case of discrimination by a preponderance of the evidence. Second, if the plaintiff makes out a prima facie case, the defendant must produce a 14 We note again that Arrington has conceded that the district court’s judgment on her § 1983 Fire Chief claim against the County is justified on the alternative, Monell grounds relied upon by the magistrate judge. Arrington, therefore, has not appealed the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the County on this claim. On remand, the only remaining claim based on Arrington’s failure to receive promotion to Fire Chief will be her § 1983 claim against Hightower. 15 This framework would also apply to any evaluation of the merits of Arrington’s § 1983 Fire Chief claim against Hightower, discussed above. 21 legitimate, non-discriminatory reason to explain the challenged action. Third, should the defendant carry this burden, the plaintiff must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant’s proffered explanation was a pretext for discrimination. See Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 252-53, 101 S. Ct. 1089, 1093, 67 L. Ed. 2d 207 (1981). Since Arrington has produced no direct evidence that appellees’ harbored an illegal motive for refusing her the Deputy Chief position, she must rely on the test set out in McDonnell to establish her prima facie case of discrimination through circumstantial evidence. Under this four-pronged test, Arrington must show that (1) she is a member of a protected class, (2) she applied and was qualified for the Deputy Chief position, (3) she was rejected in spite of her qualifications, and (4) the Deputy Chief position went to an equally or less qualified person who was not a member of a protected class. 22 See McDonnell, 411 U.S. at 802, 93 S. Ct. at 1824; Batey v. Stone, 24 F.3d 1330, 1334 n.11 (11th Cir. 1994).16 Plainly, Arrington is a member of a protected group (women), did not receive the position at issue (Deputy Chief), and lost the position at issue to a person who was not a member of a protected class (the new, male Deputy Chief, Hayes). Appellees, however, argue that Arrington was not qualified for the Deputy Chief position because she lacked the “operational experience” necessary for the proper performance of the job. As part of the County’s reorganization of its public safety agencies, the appellees contend, the new Deputy Chief must perform operational tasks formerly assigned to the Assistant Chief for Operations, while the administrative duties of the former Assistant Chief for Administration have been largely reassigned to the Public Safety Department’s central 16 Although the McDonnell case concerned only Title VII, its analytical framework for the establishment of a prima facie case of employment discrimination applies equally to discrimination claims brought under § 1983. See, e.g, Burns v. Gadsen State Community College, 908 F.2d 1512, 1518 (11th Cir. 1990) (per curiam). 23 administrative office. Thus, appellees contend both that Arrington cannot prove a prima facie case of discrimination and that they had a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for refusing to interview Arrington for the Deputy Chief position: her lack of operational experience rendered her unqualified to shoulder the operational responsibilities the new position demanded.17 If Arrington had not been able to provide the district court with additional evidence of her qualification for the Deputy Chief position, the district court’s grant of summary judgment against Arrington might well have been appropriate; without more, it would seem reasonable to us that a Fire Chief might 17 In granting summary judgment for appellees, the district court ruled that Arrington was sufficiently qualified to establish a prima facie case. Nonetheless, the court ultimately accepted appellees’ asserted nondiscriminatory reason for denying Arrington the Deputy Chief position, apparently because Arrington was unable to rebut appellees’ explanation with direct evidence that appellees’ acted with a discriminatory motive. Given that appellees’ asserted reason is the exact converse of one element of a prima facie McDonnell case of discrimination, we regret that the district court did not explain further its conclusion that Arrington was “arguably qualified” but that there was no material question of fact regarding appellees’ contention that she was not qualified. 24 choose to pass over a candidate for Deputy Chief who did not have first-hand experience fighting fires. Arrington, however, has presented circumstantial evidence and testimony that could lead a reasonable jury to conclude that the appellees’ explanations mask an illegitimate, discriminatory motive. Although the appellees maintain that the job of Deputy Chief is a new, “operational” position, Arrington’s evidence appears to demonstrate that Deputy Chief Hayes is in fact performing the same tasks formerly performed by Arrington as Assistant Chief. Shortly after his promotion, Hayes filled out a “Position Description Questionnaire” in which he detailed his duties as Deputy Chief and the time he spent on each: All sections except Fire Prevention and Arson answer directly to me. As an administrative staff member I must attend various meetings both outside and inside the department. . . . [50%] The Chief or I must approve all purchase requests. . . . We monitor activities from month to month to make sure we stay within the budgeted funds and must take 25 corrective actions if necessary to correct overages. . . . [8%] The chief and I are responsible for the total preparation of our $28,000,000 budget. This includes proposals for new equipment or programs as well as establishing ongoing budget proposals from existing data as well as known factors that may influence expenditures. . . . [5%] I oversee the Emergency Medical Services program of the county. . . . [20%] I answer large or unusual fire and rescue calls on an emergency basis. Once on the scene I assume responsibility for the incident even if I don’t take command of the incident. [5%] I am responsible for the writing of many technical papers, reports and projects for the department. . . . [10%]. From time to time I speak to various outside organizations representing the department. . . . [1%] I am a member of various committees or organizations including the Cobb County Emergency Medical Services Council, the Excel Alumni Association, and the Georgia Firefighters Burn Foundation. [1%] R2-26 Exh. M. Significantly, Arrington performed all of these activities when she served as Assistant Chief. Like Deputy Chief 26 Hayes, Arrington supervised and assessed the various section leaders within the Department, and she prepared and policed the Department’s budgets. Like Hayes, Arrington also oversaw the County’s EMS program; in fact, she was responsible for the program’s creation. Moreover, Arrington, like Hayes, was on call to take responsibility for a variety of emergency situations, and she prepared a variety of technical papers and reports. Finally, like Hayes, Arrington commonly represented the Department both before the County Commission and before a variety of public and private groups.18 Again, past and present statements by Arrington’s former superior, former Chief Hilton, call into question appellees’ explanations for their behavior. In response to the 1992 personnel study of the Department, for example, Hilton reported that: 18 The appellees have offered no evidence of any significant, specific, “operational” task actually performed by the Deputy Chief that Arrington is not at least arguably qualified to perform or that she has not already actually performed as de facto head of the County’s Fire Department under Chief Hilton. We also note that it is curious that appellees believed Arrington to be sufficiently qualified for the Fire Chief position to consider her through two rounds of interviews, yet found her to be so lacking in qualification for the Deputy Chief position as to be unworthy of consideration. 27 [Arrington] works jointly with me to provide the total fire and EMS service to our citizens. Nothing goes out of our building, either to our own people, interdepartment, or to the public, without her approval. She assigns work to the Colonels and makes decisions daily about every phase of our service. There has to be a coordination of daily operations and someone to keep everyone going down the same road and out of the ditches. I depend completely on her to do this and trust her to make any decision necessary in my absence to carry on. She is expected to and very often does present new programs or better ways of doing what we do. This requires research and heavy contact with other fire services organizations. R2-26 Exh. D at 3. In the same vein, Hilton now states in his affidavit that: I concur that Nancy Arrington was performing the duties of managing and supervising the operations side of the Fire Department along with being responsible for the administrative aspects of the Department. Nancy Arrington was second in command of the entire Cobb County Fire Department. R2-26 Exh. A ¶ 22 at 7. Given the striking similarity between the actual responsibilities of current Deputy Chief Hayes and former Assistant Chief Arrington, we have difficulty finding that reasonable minds could not differ concerning appellees’ claims that Arrington 28 was unqualified even to be interviewed for the Deputy Chief position.19 Thus, we conclude that a jury might reasonably infer that Arrington was qualified for the Deputy Chief position, thereby both establishing the final element of Arrington’s prima facie case and significantly undermining the credibility of appellees’ asserted nondiscriminatory explanation for their actions.20 The only question remaining, then, is whether Arrington may proceed to trial on evidence that only undermines the credibility of appellees’ asserted reason for not considering her for the Deputy Chief position, without directly showing that appellees harbored an illegal motive. As this court has repeatedly held, a Title VII plaintiff 19 Significantly, appellees make no attempt to dispute any of this evidence. Instead, appellees rely on the bald proposition that it would be absurd for a person without actual line experience fighting fires to become the second-in-command (let alone the Chief) of a fire department. Although we recognize that such an argument might ultimately persuade a jury, we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, Arrington. From this perspective, we cannot ignore the substantial evidence from which a jury might reasonably infer that the appellees’ emphasis on operational experience was a pretext for gender discrimination. 20 A plaintiff may rely on the same evidence both to establish her prima facie case and to cast doubt on the defendant’s nondiscriminatory explanations. See Carter v. Three Springs Residential Treatment, No. 97-6256, Slip. Op., __ F.3d __, 1115 (11th Cir. 1998). 29 may defeat a motion for summary judgment by undermining the credibility of a defendant’s explanation for its actions: [P]roof that a defendant’s articulated reasons are false is not proof of intentional discrimination; it is merely evidence of intentional discrimination. However, evidence of intentional discrimination is all a plaintiff needs to defeat a motion for summary judgment. That evidence must be sufficient to create a genuine factual issue with respect to the truthfulness of the defendant’s proffered explanation. Howard v. BP Oil Co., 32 F. 3d 520, 525 (11th Cir. 1994).21 In this case, Arrington has produced sufficient evidence undermining appellees’ explanation for denying her the Deputy Chief position that a reasonable jury might infer that the appellees intentionally discriminated against Arrington, in violation of her Title VII and equal protection rights. Both the appellees and the district court, however, appear to have misread our precedents as to the type of 21 We understand that there may once have been some confusion regarding our court’s precedents on this issue. See Isenbergh v. Knight-Ridder Newspaper Sales, Inc. , 97 F.3d 436 (11 th Cir. 1996) (criticizing Howard). Today, however, Howard clearly represents the law in this circuit, see Combs, 106 F.3d at 1529-35 (collecting cases), as the author of Isenbergh has subsequently acknowledged, see Evans v. McClain of Ga., Inc., 131 F. 3d 957, 964-65 (11th Cir.