Opinion ID: 389939
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: liability under title vii

Text: 61 We turn first to defendants' contention that the district court erred in finding the City liable for Title VII violations dating back to March 24, 1972, the date on which Title VII became applicable to the City. Defendants do not contend here that the 1975 exam or the 1971 exam was job related or that the impact of either exam was not discriminatory. Rather they argue principally that it is not permissible to hold the City liable under Title VII for hiring from an eligibility list based on a pre-Title VII test, and that the Title VII claims based on hiring pursuant to the 1971 exam were not timely filed under § 706 of the Act. 15 Neither contention has merit. 62
63 Defendants contend that the City cannot be held liable for any hiring pursuant to the list generated by its 1971 firefighters exam because that exam predated the applicability of Title VII to the City, and because its hiring from the 1971 exam was therefore pursuant to a bona fide merit system, which is made lawful by § 703(h) of the Act. Neither precedent nor reason supports these contentions. 64 Section 703(a) of the Act makes unlawful an employer's failure or refusal to hire an individual on the basis of race. When it was enacted in 1964, this provision did not apply to municipalities. The provision became applicable to the City on March 24, 1972, by the passage of Pub.L. 92-261, § 2(1), 86 Stat. 103, which simply broadened the definitional provisions so as to make Title VII applicable to municipalities and certain other entities not previously covered. Nothing in the broadened definition suggested that a continued application of past discriminatory standards was permissible; clearly the intention was to the contrary. Thus, in Guardians Association v. Civil Service Commission, 633 F.2d 232 (2d Cir. 1980) (Guardians III ), 16 we categorically rejected the notion that a municipal employer who held a discriminatory exam prior to March 24, 1972, could lawfully continue after that date to invoke the results of the discriminatory exam to make employment appointments. We observed that to conclude otherwise would permit an employer, with impunity, (to) refuse to hire in a timely manner hundreds of minority applicants, solely because of performance on an invalid test, years after Title VII explicitly forbade the use of testing results to discriminate in hiring. Id. at 252 (emphasis in original). 65 Nor does § 703(h) of the Act legitimate defendants' post-Title VII hiring. That section provides in pertinent part as follows: 66 Notwithstanding any other provision of this subchapter, it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to apply different standards of compensation, or different terms, conditions, or privileges of employment pursuant to a bona fide seniority or merit system, or a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production or to employees who work in different locations, provided that such differences are not the result of an intention to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, nor shall it be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to give and to act upon the results of any professionally developed ability test provided that such test, its administration or action upon the results is not designed, intended or used to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. 67 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(h) (emphasis added). The City seeks to characterize its 1971 exam as a bona fide merit system, in order to perpetuate its ability to use that test's results without violating Title VII. The district court, however, found that the 1971 exam was not job related and that it had a discriminatory impact findings that defendants do not challenge on this appeal. Thus, bypassing the question whether the term merit system even applies to hiring decisions, as contrasted with post-hiring decisions, see Guardians III, supra, 633 F.2d at 251-52, we reject the City's attempt to immunize its post-Act hiring by reference to § 703(h) for two reasons. First, since the 1971 test was used to discriminate against minorities, it is expressly excluded from § 703(h). More fundamentally, it would defy reason to characterize as a bona fide merit system a test that does not measure the fitness of those who take it for the positions to be filled according to its results. See id. at 252 ((A) hiring system that ranks applicants according to their performance on discriminatory examinations cannot claim the status of a 'bona fide merit system' within the meaning of the statute.) Thus, defendants' argument, like that of the defendants in Guardians III, is not supported by the decision of the Supreme Court in International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States : 68 Unlike the seniority system in Teamsters, the merit system in the instant case does not measure what it purports to measure. The failing of the department's hiring system is therefore not that it perpetuates the effects of past discrimination, but rather that it perpetuates discrimination. It is one thing to utilize a system that locks in the effects of past discriminatory hiring decisions; it is a very different thing to lock in a discriminatory method of making hiring decisions Nothing in Teamsters implies that by labelling a non-job-related system of employee selection a 'merit' system, an employer can avoid the command of Title VII that it henceforth select its workforce in a non-discriminatory fashion. 69 Guardians III, supra, 633 F.2d at 253 (emphasis in original). 70 Accordingly, we conclude that the City could be held liable under Title VII for its post-Act appointments based on the 1971 test.
71 Defendants' other principal challenge to the district court's ruling under Title VII is based on the statute of limitations established by § 706(e) of the Act. That section provides that in order to maintain a suit under Title VII, a plaintiff must have filed a charge of discrimination with EEOC within 300 days of the alleged discriminatory act. 17 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e) (1976). See, e. g., United Air Lines, Inc. v. Evans, 431 U.S. 553, 555 n.4, 97 S.Ct. 1885, 1887 n.4, 52 L.Ed.2d 571 (1977); Cates v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 561 F.2d 1064 (2d Cir. 1977). The City's last hirings based on the 1971 exam occurred on May 2, 1973, and there were no further hirings until after 1975. Plaintiffs' first EEOC charge pertaining to defendants' hiring practices was filed in October 1975. Defendants argue, therefore, that insofar as plaintiffs' claims relate to the 1973 and earlier hirings, they are barred by the 300-day period of limitations. This contention takes an impermissibly myopic view of the nature of the City's unlawful conduct. 72 As a general matter, the mere continuation of a discriminatory act's effects, when the act itself occurred prior to the pertinent limitations period, is not sufficient to support recovery under Title VII. United Air Lines, Inc. v. Evans, supra, 431 U.S. at 558, 97 S.Ct. at 1889. See also Delaware State College v. Ricks, -- U.S. --, 101 S.Ct. 498, 66 L.Ed.2d 431 (1980). The act that constitutes the violation must be still fresh within the statutory period. Egelston v. State University College, 535 F.2d 752, 755 (2d Cir. 1976). Thus, had the 1971 exam and the hiring on the basis of that exam been isolated acts of discrimination, defendants' statute of limitations argument would be well taken, even though the effects of that past discrimination were still being felt by reason of the resulting racial makeup of the fire department. 73 Where, however, the defendant has engaged in a continuous policy of discrimination, acts in furtherance of that policy are not viewed in isolation. In such circumstances if the charge has been filed no later than 300 days after the last act by the defendant pursuant to its policy, the plaintiff may recover for earlier acts of discrimination as well. See Guardians III, supra, 633 F.2d at 249; Acha v. Beame, 570 F.2d 57, 65 (2d Cir. 1978); see also Smith v. American President Lines, Ltd., 571 F.2d 102 (2d Cir. 1978). In Acha v. Beame, we stated this principle as follows: 74 To succeed at trial, the appellants must be able to demonstrate a Title VII violation occurring after the effective date of the Act and within the period of the statute of limitations, or 300 day charge-filing period. But such a violation is not limited to hiring violations per se. 75 A continuously maintained illegal employment policy may be the subject of a valid complaint until a specified number of days after the last occurrence of an instance of that policy Furthermore, where an illegal policy is so maintained, relief for injuries sustained even before the beginning of the limitations period is appropriate. 76 570 F.2d at 65 (emphasis in original; citations omitted). 77 There can be no doubt that the continuous-policy principle governs the present case. The district court made express findings as to several discriminatory acts by the City that occurred within 300 days of October 1975. These included the giving of the 1975 exam that was not job related and had discriminatory impact, and the individual acts of discrimination against several minority candidates who sought to take that exam in 1975. In addition, the court found that the City had engaged in a continuing pattern and practice of post-Title VII discrimination against black and hispanic persons, 479 F.Supp. at 104; that it had a continuing policy and practice of discriminating against black and hispanic persons, id. at 111-12; and that it had engaged in a 'clear-cut pattern of long-continued and egregious racial discrimination,'  id. at 112. The court concluded as follows: This Court also finds that the discrimination has been 'long-continued' whether one examines the entire history of the City's hiring of firefighters or only its post-Act conduct. Id. at 113. 78 In light of these findings, which are not clearly erroneous, the City's 1975 discriminatory acts cannot be divorced from its earlier acts or its overall history. We conclude that all of plaintiffs' Title VII claims are timely, and we affirm the ruling of the district court that the City violated Title VII from March 24, 1972, by making appointments after that date that had discriminatory impact, based on its discriminatory 1971 test.