Opinion ID: 492107
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Judicial and Agency Postures.

Text: 29
30 To date, courts have shown no disposition to extend these statutory employee protections to general partners. 14 The most widely recognized recent case is Hishon v. King & Spaulding, 678 F.2d 1022 (11th Cir.1982), rev'd on other grounds, 467 U.S. 69, 104 S.Ct. 2229, 81 L.Ed.2d 59 (1984). That case involved a Title VII claim asserted by a female lawyer-associate with respect to her firm's alleged refusal to consider her for partnership. In reversing the Eleventh Circuit the Supreme Court concluded that in appropriate circumstances partnership consideration may qualify as a term, condition, or privilege of a person's employment for purposes of Title VII coverage. Hishon, 467 U.S. at 78 n. 10, 104 S.Ct. at 2235 n. 10. However, the Court did not reach the question of application of Title VII to partners themselves. Thus, the views of the Eleventh Circuit on that subject remain as stated in its opinion in Hishon. There, the circuit court expressed reluctance to equate partners with employees, stating the partners own the partnership; they are not its 'employees' under Title VII. We find a clear distinction between employees of a corporation and partners of a law firm. Hishon, 678 F.2d at 1028. 31 The Seventh Circuit expressed similar views in Burke v. Friedman, 556 F.2d 867 (7th Cir.1977), which involved an accounting firm. The question in Burke was whether individual partners of the partnership could be counted as employees for purposes of the fifteen-employee minimum for Title VII coverage. The Seventh Circuit held they could not, under the facts of that case. In reaching its holding, the court said: 32 Partners manage and control the business and share in the profits and losses. See Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Tower, 327 U.S. 280, 66 S.Ct. 532, 90 L.Ed. 670 (1946); Wilson v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 161 F.2d 661, 664 (7th Cir.1947). In light of the foregoing, we do not see how partners can be regarded as employees rather than as employers who own and manage the operation of the business. 33