Opinion ID: 6983495
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Content Validity of the HSSTB

Text: The district court correctly concluded that the HSSTB is content valid. The Uniform Guidelines state that “[a] selection procedure can be supported by a content validity strategy to the extent that it is a representative sample of the content of the job.” 29 C.F.R. § 1607.14(C)(1). We conclude that content-validity is an appropriate method of validation of the test at issue here, and that Ford'has demonstrated that the test has such validity. The record demonstrates that Ford utilized HRStrategies, a professional test developer, to conduct a job analysis that complied with the technical standards contained in the Guidelines. HR began with Ford’s requirement that applicants for employment in hourly positions are not hired for a specific position but, depending upon such variables as production requirements and other employees’ exercise of seniority rights under the collective bargaining agreement, must be able to rotate among numerous job classifications. Using the Dictionary of Occupational Titles as a guide, HR assigned each of Ford’s roughly 1000 hourly positions into one of 13 categories; HR then utilized 238 Ford supervisors 7 at 18 separate Ford locations, 211 of whom had at least 10 years tenure at Ford and 125 of whom had at least 10 years in their current jobs at Ford, to rate each of the job activities contained in the respective categories, first, as to the extent to which each activity was part of the jobs within the category, and second, as to the importance of each activity to the jobs within the category. These raters were further presented with a list of 59 different job requirements, identical across all jobs, and asked to rate each requirement as to its contemporaneous importance to the job and its anticipated importance five years hence. HR then performed overlap analy-ses of those ratings to determine the extent to which there was agreement across raters, examining the overlap among raters in the same Ford plant rating the same job, 8 the overlap among raters in different plants of the same type with regard to each job group, 9 and the overlap across different plant types for each job category and across the 13 categories. 10 Finally, HR computed a job requirement profile for each job category by averaging the job requirement ratings for all of the experts in the respective category and, after performing a series of cluster analy-ses to determine which categories of jobs should be combined, resolved the 13 categories into three rationally based clusters: jobs related to machining/finishing'testing operations and processes; jobs related to off-line support for manufacturing processes; and jobs directly related to the assembly line and the assembly process. HR then determined which job requirements had a mean importance rating of 2 or higher, indicating that the requirement was important — both now and 5 years hence — to the jobs in the respective cluster, and which skill requirements were important across the clusters. From those findings, HR determined which skills would be assessed by the test to be administered by Ford. Against this evidence, the plaintiffs presented the report and affidavits of their expert, Dr. Cranny. The district court found, and we agree, that Dr. Cranny’s opinions are wholly insufficient to create a genuine issue with regard to the content validity of the HSSTB. Dr. Cranny’s criticisms of the content-validity study are entirely conclusory, are unsupported by any specific data, and are premised on the unsupportable factual assertion that the data was collected after the test had been administered. The district court cited Merit Motors, Inc. v. Chrysler Corp., 569 F.2d 666, 673 (D.C.Cir.1977) and Hayes v. Douglas Dynamics, Inc., 8 F.3d 88, 92 (1st Cir.1993) in holding that the existence of opposing experts does not foreclose summary judgment. Ford cites both Hayes and Mid-State Fertilizer Co. v. Exchange National Bank, 877 F.2d 1333, 1339 (7th Cir.1989) for the proposition that an expert witness with a conflicting opinion does not provide a free pass to trial. In Hayes, plaintiffs produced the affidavits of a number of expert witnesses and argued that, under Federal Rule of Evidence 705, the court must accept the conclusions of these experts. The First Circuit ruled that “while nonmovants may rely on the affidavits of experts in order to defeat a motion for summary judgment, such evidence must still meet the standards of Rule 56. Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(e) requires that the nonmoving party ‘set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial,’ ” and noted that “[although expert testimony may be more inferential than that of fact witnesses, in order to defeat a motion for summary judgment an expert opinion must be more than a conclusory assertion about ultimate legal issues.” 8 F.3d at 92 (citing Bowen v. Manchester, 966 F.2d 13, n. 16 (1st Cir.1992); Moody v. Boston & Maine Corp., 921 F.2d 1, 5 (1st Cir.1990); Merit Motors, Inc. v. Chrysler Corp., 569 F.2d 666, 673 (D.C.Cir.1977) (“The evidentiary rules regarding expert testimony at trial were ‘not intended ... to make summary judgment impossible whenever a party has produced an expert to support its position.’ ”)). Thus, the First Circuit held We are not willing to allow the reliance on a bare ultimate expert conclusion to become a free pass to trial every time that a conflict of fact is based on expert testimony.... Where an expert presents “nothing but conclusions — no facts, no hint of an inferential process, no discussion of hypotheses considered and rejected”, such testimony will be insufficient to defeat a motion for summary judgment. Although an expert affidavit need not include details about all of the raw data used to produce a conclusion, or about scientific or other specialized input which might be confusing to a lay person, it must at least include the factual basis and the process of reasoning which makes the conclusion viable in order to defeat a motion for summary judgment. We find that each of the expert affidavits failed to contain sufficient support for the conclusion that the injury to [plaintiff] was caused by the defendant’s product. 8 F.3d 88, 92 (internal citation omitted). This circuit reached a similar conclusion in Monks v. General Electric Co., 919 F.2d 1189, 1192 (6th Cir.1990). The court initially pointed out that “To the extent Merit Motors articulates any type of standard, it is that affidavits by experts who have not familiarized themselves with the record are insufficient to withstand a summary judgment motion.” The court went on to find that because the expert’s affidavit offered by the plaintiff “would under no circumstances be sufficient, by itself, to establish an element of plaintiffs case, we conclude that summary judgment for defendants was properly granted.” Id. at 1193. In challenging Ford’s motion for summary judgment the plaintiffs are not required to prove their claims, but they are required to present enough specific facts as to raise a genuine issue material to the relationship between the HSSTB and the job activities and requirements of Ford’s hourly production jobs. Plaintiffs cannot challenge the motion for summary judgment by relying on allegations contained in their complaint or on affidavits that merely state conclusory allegations. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56. Ford correctly asserts and the district court correctly found that Dr. Cranny’s affidavit did not raise a genuine issue of fact material to the content validity of the HSSTB. The plaintiffs claim that Ford did hire some applicants who scored “low” on the test, and that this negates the test’s content validity. Plaintiffs point to no authority to support this claim, and they presented no evidence to counter Ford’s testimony that any such hires were in fact “rehires” — individuals who had once worked at Ford and who were rehired only pursuant to an agreement with the union in spite of their poor performance on the HSSTB. Finally, Plaintiffs presented no alternative test or selection device whatsoever, much less one that lacks the adverse impact of the HSSTB and that would serve Ford’s legitimate interest in hiring adequately skilled workers. Accordingly, we conclude that Ford has sustained its burden of showing that the HSSTB is manifestly job-related; that is, Ford has demonstrated that “the content of the selection procedure is representative of important aspects of performance on the job for which the candidates are to be evaluated.” 29 C.F.R. § 1607.5B. Plaintiffs have wholly failed to present any evidence to raise a genuine issue of fact with regard to the content validity of the test or to raise a genuine issue with regard to whether Ford’s use of the test is pretextual.