Opinion ID: 772395
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Circumstantial Evidence Supporting the Title VII Claim

Text: 32 Even though Chief Moody's statements are not direct evidence of discrimination, we believe that Bass has put forth ample circumstantial evidence of discrimination to permit his Title VII, 1981 and Florida Civil Rights Act claims to go to a jury. In addition, for the reasons explained in section 4, infra, we find that the County's affirmative action plans, when viewed in light of the circumstantial evidence which would allow a reasonable jury to conclude that the Division was acting pursuant to those plans, do constitute direct evidence of racial discrimination against Bass. Therefore, we conclude that the district court erred in entering summary judgment against Bass' Title VII race discrimination claims. 33 It is undisputed that Bass established a prima facie case of race discrimination under the McDonnell Douglas framework. Consequently, a presumption of discrimination arose and the burden shifted to the County to proffer a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for not hiring Bass. See Combs, 106 F. 3d at 1527-28. To meet that burden of production, the County proffered one reason, a subjective one, for not hiring Bass for a Training Instructor position. The County claimed that Bass did not score as well on his interview (purportedly the only selection criterion used) as the other candidates selected for the position. 34 This Court recently reaffirmed that a subjective reason for an employer's action - such as poor interview performance - can be as legitimate as any other reason. See Chapman v. AI Transport, 229 F. 3d 1012, 1033 (11th Cir. 2000) (en banc). An interview is frequently necessary to assess qualities that are particularly important in supervisory or professional positions. Id. at 1033. This is because [t]raits such as common sense, good judgment, originality, ambition, loyalty, and tact often must be assessed primarily in a subjective fashion. Id. at 1034 (internal marks and citations omitted). However, in order for a subjective reason to constitute a legally sufficient, legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason, the defendant must articulate a clear and reasonably specific factual basis upon which it based its subjective opinion. Id.; see also Burdine, 450 U.S. at 258, 101 S. Ct. at 1096 ([T]he defendant's explanation of its legitimate reasons must be clear and reasonably specific so that the plaintiff be afforded a `full and fair opportunity' to demonstrate pretext.). 35 Although the proffered reason, Bass' poor interview, was subjective, the County offered explanations of why the interview panel, the decisionmakers, arrived at that subjective conclusion. Valle stated that Bass did not interview anywhere near as well as [he] expected him to and observed that Bass didn't answer the questions that [the interviewers] were asking. Middleton opined that Bass could have presented himself better and that Bass gave answers irrespective of the questions. Bass' testimony does not contradict the panel members' assessment of his interview performance. Bass stated that he had the impression that [the interview] was just some kind of a go-through-the-motion thing. Although Bass admitted that he did not perform well during the interview, he claimed that his poor performance was caused by Middleton's interrupting him while he was trying to answer the questions. Middleton did not recall interrupting Bass during the interview, but Valle testified that if a candidate was headed in the wrong direction the interviewers would try and help the candidate by clarify[ing] what it was [they] were looking for. 36 Because the interviewers explained the grounds for their subjective evaluation with reasonable clarity and specificity, the County met its burden of producing a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for not hiring Bass as a Training Instructor. After the County articulated this reason, the burden shifted back to Bass to present sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of fact that the County's non-discriminatory reason was pretext for discrimination. In response, Bass argued that: (1) the County encouraged employees to hire and promote based on race and established a system for hiring and promotion which created leeway so that minorities could advance more easily; (2) Chief Moody said that the County was going to continue to promote on the basis of color; (3) Preston, the black candidate selected as a Training Instructor, did not meet the minimal qualifications for the position; (4) the Fire and Rescue Division deviated from its established procedures and the interview process was otherwise tainted; and last, but not least, (5) the County had in place affirmative action plans with the goal of increasing minority representation within the Division. 37
38 With respect to Bass' first pretext argument, he introduced evidence of county officials' emphasis on hiring and promoting based upon race. Montes de Oca, Chief of the Fire and Rescue Division from 1990 though 1997, testified that he was pressured to hire more minorities and that he had received periodic reports showing the number of women and blacks in all positions. Mitch Floyd, Chief of the Division from 1989 until April 1, 1995, testified that managers' success or failure in meeting the County's affirmative action goals could adversely affect their future as managers, and that the County Administrator, County Chairwoman, and the County Commission regularly communicated this to the Division managers. From that evidence a jury could reasonably find the County had a policy of racial discrimination against non-Hispanic whites. 39 Bass also presented evidence that the interview system, the same system that was used in hiring the Training Instructors, was used to carry out the affirmative action plans' goals of emphasizing race in hiring decisions, i.e., the policy of racial discrimination against non-Hispanic whites. Floyd, who developed the interview system for the Training Instructor and Group Supervisor positions and who was a member of the Group Supervisor interview panel, testified that Performance Based interviews were adopted as a subjective evaluation process that would create leeway in promoting minorities because the County didn't have the time or vacancies to wait out the gradual improvement of skills. 40 This evidence of pressure in the County to hire minorities over non-minorities, combined with the existence of an interview system adopted in order to create leeway to promote minorities, constitutes circumstantial evidence of discriminatory intent behind the Division's hiring decisions. 41
42 As to his second pretext argument, Bass testified that when he confronted Chief Moody about Henry Preston's lacking the requisite qualifications, Moody told him that the County would continue to promote on the basis of color. As we have already said, because Bass did not introduce sufficient evidence establishing that Moody was a decisionmaker, his statement cannot constitute direct evidence of discrimination. Nonetheless, this statement does constitute circumstantial evidence of discrimination because it raises the inference that the Training Instructor interview panel members improperly based their decisions on race, rather than performance during the interview or other legitimate criteria. 43
44 In support of his third pretext argument, Bass presented evidence that he was the most qualified applicant for the position and that Preston did not even meet the minimum qualifications for the position. At the time he applied for the Training Instructor position, Preston's resume reflected that he had no experience as a Training Instructor and only two years of experience with the Fire and Rescue Division and had earned no credits toward his teaching certificate. It should have been obvious on the face of Preston's application that he could not meet the mandatory criterion of obtaining a Florida teaching certification within 18 months of being promoted and that he lacked the requisite two years of Training Instructor experience. 45 Hiring a less qualified person can support an inference of discriminatory motivation. See Alexander v. Fulton County, 207 F.3d 1303, 1340 (11th Cir. 2000) (both the Supreme Court and this court have observed that evidence showing an employer hired a less qualified applicant over the plaintiff may be probative of whether the employer's proffered reason for not promoting plaintiff was pretextual); Walker v. Mortham, 158 F.3d 1177, 1190 (11th Cir. 1998) (The fact that a court may think that the employer misjudged the qualifications of the applicants does not in itself expose him to Title VII liability, although this may be probative of whether the employer's reasons are pretexts for discrimination. (internal marks, emphasis and citation omitted)). Here, the fact that the Division promoted Preston, an employee who was unqualified under the Division's criteria, over Bass supports an inference of discrimination. This inference is further strengthened by Chief Moody's statement that the County would continue to promote based on race and by other circumstantial evidence of discrimination. 46
47 In support of his fourth pretext argument, Bass presented evidence indicating that the Fire and Rescue Division departed from its standard procedure when it interviewed the applicants for the Training Instructor positions. Tom Preston, who developed the interview process for the Training Instructor and Group Supervisor positions, testified that interview scores were not intended to be determinative, and the interview policy specifically stated that scores were not to be totaled and that the interview was only one component to be considered. The policy, which was identified in deposition by Valle, included the following instructions: 48 NOTE: Do not total scores. This process is intended to develop a profile, highlighting a candidate's areas of strength and weakness. This process was designed as one component to be used in conjunction with other criteria to determine a final selection. 49 The Division violated these written procedures by totaling the scores and relying exclusively upon the interviews. An employer's violation of its own normal hiring procedure may be evidence of pretext. See Hill v. Seaboard Coast Line R.R., 885 F.2d 804, 811 (11th Cir. 1989). We believe that this is especially true where, as here, an employer disregards all but one of the factors and qualifications generally taken into consideration and relies solely on a factor which was designed to create leeway for the promotion of people of a certain race. 50 Furthermore, other facts surrounding the interview process used in selecting the Training Instructors indicate that the process was suspect. For example, the interviewers, who were the sole decisionmakers, received no training or guidelines to help them evaluate which candidates were best qualified for the Training Instructor positions. The interviewers were supposed to evaluate the applicants' responses to certain situations to determine which candidates would make the best Training Instructors, yet the interviewers were never even informed of what duties a Training Instructor had. Although Middleton testified that he had at some time received training in the interview process itself, he said he received no training with respect to the specific qualifications to look for when interviewing the Training Instructor applicants. Valle, another member of the Training Instructor interview panel, testified that he knew very little about firefighter training at the time he served on the panel. Meeks, the final member of the Training Instructor interview panel, testified that she had no knowledge of firefighting or training when she served on the panel. Furthermore, despite the fact that the panel members were called upon to judge the applicants' qualifications to be Training Instructors, Middleton, who chose the other two panel members, testified that he [t]ried to select people who had little or no involvement with the training function. 51 We recognize that a defendant may terminate an employee for a good or bad reason without violating federal law and [w]e are not in the business of adjudging whether employment decisions are prudent or fair. Damon v. Fleming Supermarkets of Florida, Inc., 196 F.3d 1354, 1361 (11th Cir. 1999). We are, however, in the business of adjudging whether an employer violated Title VII by improperly making employment decisions on account of race. In this case, the selection process employed by the Division, when viewed in light of the other evidence of the County's race- conscious hiring and promotion efforts, constituted circumstantial evidence that the Division was acting with race in mind while selecting Training Instructors. 52
53 The last category of evidence that the proffered interview reason was pretext is the County's affirmative action plans, which were in effect at the time that the Fire and Rescue Division refused Bass a Training Instructor position. As we will explain in the next section, we think the County's affirmative action plans are actually direct evidence of discrimination. But if they were not direct evidence, they would certainly be strong circumstantial evidence of discrimination. 54
55 We conclude that the evidence offered by Bass was more than sufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact about whether the County's articulated nondiscriminatory reason for not hiring him was pretextual. The county officials' emphasis on promoting employees based upon race, the statement by Chief Moody concerning race-conscious efforts, the Division's deviation from procedures, the hiring of an unqualified candidate instead of Bass, and the existence of formal affirmative action plans provide more than enough evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that the County's proffered non- discriminatory explanation for its actions was pretextual. The district court erred when it granted summary judgment in favor of the County on Bass' race discrimination claims under Title VII, 1981 and the Florida Civil Rights Act. 4 56