Opinion ID: 1302380
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Whether Davis's Promotion Was an Improper Grant of Equitable Relief.

Text: The city argues that the court ignored budget realities when it ordered Davis to be promoted to the foreman position and, at the same time, vacated its original decision, canceling Thompson's appointment as foreman. The city urges that the court may not require it to have an extra foreman within the street department. In Title VII cases, if race is in any way a discernible factor in favoring one person over another in a hiring decision, the disfavored person is entitled to some measure of relief. Bibbs v. Block, 778 F.2d 1318, 1323-24 (8th Cir.1985). We have reached the same conclusion with respect to actions based on chapter 216. Lynch, 454 N.W.2d at 835-37. If it is further shown that the disfavored employee would have been the person hired or promoted if race had not been considered, the disfavored party is entitled to be placed, as nearly as practicable, in the position that he or she would have held but for the discrimination. King v. Staley, 849 F.2d 1143, 1145 (8th Cir.1988). Because the district court in the present case found that the city would have promoted Davis but for the improper consideration of race, the broader measure of relief is appropriate. See King v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 738 F.2d 255, 259 (8th Cir.1984). In awarding relief in instances of sex discrimination under Title VII, a court is obligated to grant a successful plaintiff the most complete relief possible. Franks v. Bowman Transp. Co., 424 U.S. 747, 764, 96 S.Ct. 1251, 1264, 47 L.Ed.2d 444, 461-62 (1976). The Court in Franks emphasized the concept of competitive status seniority and the need to protect an injured employee from loss of that status. Quoting from a law review article, the Court described competitive status seniority as including: [N]ot only promotion and layoff, but also transfer, demotion, rest days, shift assignments, prerogative in scheduling vacation, order of layoffs, possibility of lateral transfer to avoid layoff, bumping possibilities in the face of layoff, order of recall, training opportunities, working conditions, length of layoff endured without reducing seniority, length of layoff recall rights will withstand, overtime opportunities, parking privileges, and, in one plant, a preferred place in the punch-out line. Id. at 766-67, 96 S.Ct. at 1265, 47 L.Ed.2d at 463 (quoting Aaron, Reflections on the Legal Nature and Enforceability of Seniority Rights, 75 Harv.L.Rev. 1532, 1535 (1962)). In some instances, preservation of competing status seniority has been held to require bumping innocent incumbents from a position and installing the person against whom discrimination has been practiced. See Lander v. Lujan, 888 F.2d 153, 157 (D.C.Cir.1989). In other instances, federal courts have been loath to approve bumping of innocent incumbents. See Romasanta v. United Air Lines, Inc., 717 F.2d 1140, 1151 (7th Cir.1983); Spagnuolo v. Whirlpool Corp., 717 F.2d 114, 121 (4th Cir.1983); Gamble v. Birmingham S. R.R., 514 F.2d 678, 684-85 (5th Cir.1975). In shaping Davis's relief in the present case, the district court ordered the city to promote Davis to the status of a street department foreman but took no action to remove Thompson from that position. The city in its argument suggests that this is requiring it to create an additional foreman job within the department. Some courts have solved the problem of competitive-status seniority by (1) awarding the person who has been discriminated against back pay, front pay, and future pay at the rate of the position denied, plus all of the seniority rights of that position; and (2) ordering the injured party to be promoted to that position when the next available opening occurs. See King, 849 F.2d at 1144-45. We approved a similar grant of relief under chapter 216 of the Iowa Code in Hy-Vee Food Stores v. Iowa Civil Rights Commission, 453 N.W.2d 512, 532 (Iowa 1990). Unlike the present case, however, the Hy-Vee Food Stores case involved a pattern of discrimination affecting the promotion of several employees to a category of jobs within a large enterprise. It was not an undue burden to require the objects of discrimination to await the next available opening for promotion because such openings regularly occurred within that employer's operation. That is not the situation that Davis faces. Given the relative ages of Davis and Thompson, it is not likely that the foreman job will again be vacant during the time that Davis will be employed by the city. For this reason, we conclude that, for purposes of both the Title VII claim and the chapter 216 claim, the district court acted properly in ordering Davis's immediate appointment to the foreman position that he had been illegally denied. If, as the city suggests, the equitable relief ordered by the district court creates overlapping job descriptions between Davis and Thompson, that is a dilemma of the city's own making. We are confident that the city is so empowered in the direction of its employees that a workable solution to this problem may be formulated. In so doing, however, the city must avoid taking action that will diminish the benefit to Davis of the relief ordered by the district court.