Opinion ID: 2982646
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Disparate-impact claim under Title VII5

Text: Tartt bases his disparate-impact claim on “Wilson County’s policy and practice of not advertising job openings and instead refering [sic] such jobs to white friends and families.” (Appellant Br. 33.) Wilson County is also entitled to summary judgment on Tartt’s disparate-impact claim under Title VII because he fails to identify with particularity how he personally has been harmed by the County’s alleged discriminatory practices. “Title VII prohibits employment practices that are ‘fair in form but discriminatory in action.’” Dunlap v. Tenn. Valley Auth., 519 F.3d 626, 629 (6th Cir. 2008) (quoting Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 431 (1971)). While disparate-treatment claims require a showing of an employer’s discriminatory intent, disparate-impact claims do not. Id. Instead, a plaintiff must show that “a facially neutral employment practice falls more harshly on one group than another and that the practice is not justified by 5 See supra note 4. - 11 - Case No. 13-6603 Tartt v. Wilson Cnty., Tenn. business necessity.” Id. (citing Rowe v. Cleveland Pneumatic Co., 690 F.2d 88, 92 (6th Cir. 1982)). Disparate-impact claims are evaluated under a three-part, burden-shifting framework. See Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 425 (1975); Dunlap, 519 F.3d at 629. Under this framework, a plaintiff must first establish a prima facie case of discrimination. Albemarle, 422 U.S. at 425. “If he succeeds, the employer must show that the protocol in question has ‘a manifest relationship to the employment’—the so-called ‘business necessity’ justification.” Dunlap, 519 F.3d at 629 (citing Griggs, 401 U.S. at 431). The plaintiff must then show that other methods could accomplish the same goals “without creating the discriminatory effect.” Id. (citing Albemarle, 422 U.S. at 425). To establish a prima facie case of discrimination on a disparate-impact theory, a plaintiff must 1) identify a specific employment practice to be challenged and 2) prove through relevant statistical analysis that the challenged practice has an adverse impact on a protected group. Id. (citing Johnson v. U.S. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., 30 F.3d 45, 48 (6th Cir. 1994)). We have found that, under the basic principles of legal standing, the plaintiff must also have “‘a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy’ and that the plaintiff must have suffered some real or threatened injury.” Bacon v. Honda of America Mfg., Inc., 370 F.3d 565, 577 (6th Cir. 2004) (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498 (1975)). Thus, a - 12 - Case No. 13-6603 Tartt v. Wilson Cnty., Tenn. plaintiff making an individual disparate-impact claim for discrimination must show “that the challenged policy directly disadvantaged him in some fashion.” Id. (citing Bowdish v. Cont’l Accessories, Inc., No. 91-1548, 1992 WL 133022, at  (6th Cir. June 12, 1992) (“An individual plaintiff in an employment discrimination case must present some evidence that demonstrates that his or her individual discharge was the result of discrimination.” (emphasis in original)) (holding that “[w]hatever the validity of [plaintiffs’] disparate impact claims . . . the plaintiffs [could] not show that the policies injured them personally, and therefore their claim must fail”). The district court found against Tartt and entered summary judgment for Wilson County on the basis of this last requirement. While Tartt alleges a number of instances of racial discrimination perpetrated by officers of Wilson County, he does not show that he a) applied for a position outside the Animal Control department—in which there were no open positions when he applied or for months thereafter—or b) that the County’s alleged racist practices injured him in some concrete way. Tartt thus lacks standing to proceed under a disparate-impact theory. On appeal, Tartt urges us to relax the requirements for a prima facie case. He argues that under the district court’s analysis, it would be impossible for him to establish standing. The County does not advertise most job openings; instead, it - 13 - Case No. 13-6603 Tartt v. Wilson Cnty., Tenn. fills vacancies through nepotism and by word-of-mouth. Without advertisement, Tartt could not reasonably have known of other available positions and have applied for them. As such, he was denied a fair opportunity to compete for those jobs, and was never able to reach the stage of a concrete adverse employment decision. It is true that other circuits have modified the standards for a prima facie case where, as here, “the hiring process itself, rather than just the decision-making behind the process, is implicated in the discrimination claim or is otherwise suspect.” E.E.O.C. v. Metal Servs. Co., 892 F.2d 341, 349 (3d Cir. 1990). Tartt cites a number of cases in other jurisdictions that have relaxed one or another element of the prima facie case to allow plaintiffs to survive summary judgment or other preliminary dispositions of their case. However, we note that in each case— including cases that Tartt cites—the court took leave to do so explicitly based on specific evidence of the impact the alleged practices had on the plaintiffs in the case. See, e.g., Gaines v. Boston, 998 F. Supp. 91, 108 (D. Mass 1998) (finding certain plaintiffs could challenge a company’s policy of hiring friends and family of current, white staffers and using a separate hiring process for those applicants); Metal Servs. Co., 892 F.2d at 350 (finding in a disparate treatment case that plaintiffs established a prima facie case where they had applied to specific positions through appropriate channels and were repeatedly passed over for white - 14 - Case No. 13-6603 Tartt v. Wilson Cnty., Tenn. applicants who were hired by word of mouth); Carmichael v. Birmingham Saw Works, 738 F.2d 1126, 1133 (11th Cir. 1984) (finding in a disparate treatment case that an employer “has a duty to consider all those who might reasonably be interested” where the record clearly showed that the plaintiff had repeatedly communicated his interest in a specific job to the employer and the employer used informal means to hire for open positions); Cox v. Am. Cast Iron Pipe Co., 784 F.2d 1546, 1560 (11th Cir. 1986) (“[N]onapplicants may be entitled to relief where the employer’s clear policy of exclusion would make an application a useless exercise[, but that result] requires two distinct determinations: that the nonapplicant would have applied but for discrimination and that he would have been discriminatorily rejected had he applied.” (quoting Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 367-68)). Taken together, these cases demonstrate that loosening the requirements of the prima facie case can at times be necessary to obtain justice under Title VII. However, Tartt has not presented evidence that he has such a case. As the district court concluded, Tartt applied for a position that was advertised; this was the sole position for which he applied. We therefore affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Wilson County on the disparate-impact claim. - 15 - Case No. 13-6603 Tartt v. Wilson Cnty., Tenn. D. Application under the Tennessee Human Rights Act Tartt also alleged discrimination under the THRA. Specifically, Tartt argues that we must employ the summary judgment standard articulated by the Supreme Court of Tennessee in Gossett v. Tractor Supply Co., 320 S.W.3d 777 (Tenn. 2010). Under Gossett, “a party moving for summary judgment must produce evidence or refer to evidence in the record that affirmatively negates an essential element of the nonmoving party’s claim or shows that the nonmoving party cannot prove an essential element of the claim at trial.” Id. at 782 (quoting Mills v. CSX Transp., Inc., 300 S.W.3d 627, 631 (Tenn. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted)). The district court found this argument to be moot, because soon after Gossett was published, the Tennessee state legislature abrogated the case by statute. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-21-311(e). On appeal, Tartt responds that the legislature explicitly intended for the law to apply to “causes of action accruing on or after June 10, 2011.” See Weaver v. Diversicare Leasing Corp., No. E201301560-COA-R3CV, 2014 WL 3734579 (Tenn. Ct. App. July 28, 2014) (citing 2011 Tenn. Pub. Acts 461; Coleman v. Humane Society of Memphis, No. W2012– 02687–COA–R9–CV, 2014 WL 587010 at  n. 7 (Tenn. Ct. App. Feb. 14, 2014)). In this case, Tartt’s causes of action accrued no later than August 2009, when he filed his complaint with the EEOC. Under the fundamentals of Erie Doctrine, he - 16 - Case No. 13-6603 Tartt v. Wilson Cnty., Tenn. says, we must therefore apply Gossett’s summary judgment framework in evaluating Wilson County’s motion. Tartt’s argument is unavailing. We have already considered cases similar to Tartt’s and found that federal law—i.e., the McDonnell Douglas framework— applies. See Scola v. Publix Supermarkets, Inc., 557 F. App’x 458, 463-65 (6th Cir. 2014) (holding that while a plaintiff’s THRA cause of action accrued before Gossett had been abrogated, the Gossett standard was procedural, and therefore the federal McDonnell Douglas standard was appropriate for a federal court sitting in diversity). We have therefore properly addressed Tartt’s THRA claims under the Title VII analysis above, and affirm the district court’s finding that the Gossett standard does not apply in Tartt’s case.