Opinion ID: 801002
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Because of Equals Motivating Factor: The Plain Language View

Text: As previously mentioned, many mixed-motive decisions have adopted a motivating factor standard with minimal analysis, finding this interpretation under a plain reading of the statute. Pinkerton v. Spellings, 529 F.3d 513, 516-17 (5th Cir. 2008). As a preliminary matter, I take issue with any characterization of this difficult subject as plain or obvious. If the issue had been simple, the Supreme Court would not have labored over it so long and unsuccessfully in Price Waterhouse. Emblematic of this approach is Head v. Glacier Northwest, Inc., 413 F.3d 1053 (9th Cir.2005). The court first rejected solely because of as the appropriate causation standard under the ADA, just as we have. Id. at 1065. The court then concluded that a motivating factor standard is most consistent with the plain language and the purposes of the statute, holding that the ADA outlaws adverse employment decisions motivated, even in part, by animus based on a plaintiff's disability or request for an accommodation. Id. Finally, the court provided Jury instructions required under the ADA reflective of its holding: [A]lthough the statute uses because of language, the ADA plaintiff need not show more than that impermissible motives were a motivating factor in any adverse action. The approach also reflects the fact that the evidence in a particular case may not suggest more than one possible reason for the challenged action. Under the first alternative . . . if the judge determines that the only reasonable conclusion the jury could reach is that discriminatory animus is the sole reason for the challenged action or that discrimination played no role in the decision, the jury should be instructed to determine whether the challenged action was taken because of the prohibited reason. The second alternative applies in a case in which the evidence could support a finding that discrimination is one of two or more reasons for the challenged decision, at least one of which may be legitimate. In that case the jury should be instructed to determine whether the discriminatory reason was a motivating factor in the challenged action. Id. at 1065-66 (emphasis added). What is striking, and in my view alarming, about these jury instructions is that there is no hint of either the balanced burden-shifting approach of Price Waterhouse or the modified approach of the present-day Title VII. Motivating factor is the causation standard, and apparently the end of the story. [2] This view of the motivating factor standard is entirely untethered from its historical moorings and dispenses, without justification, the backstop provided by the same decision test. Perhaps the court in Head was fully aware that it was omitting a step. Perhaps it intentionally addressed only the issue of liability, leaving unspoken but implied the determination of damages, which would require giving the defendant the opportunity to show it would have taken the same action absent any discriminatory animus. But there is no evidence of such awareness or intention and the omission invites considerable misunderstanding. Whatever causation standard this Court adopts, our opinion should provide clear instruction as to how that standard is to be applied procedurally. I conclude that it is insufficient, and perilous, to simply declare that, under the ADA, because of means motivating factor, without also setting forth the second half of the Price Waterhouse /Title VII formula.