Opinion ID: 584190
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the price waterhouse standard

Text: In Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 241-42, 109 S.Ct. at 1785-86, the Supreme Court held that [w]hen ... an employer considers both gender and legitimate factors at the time of making a decision ... [the employee is not obligated] to identify the precise causal role played by legitimate and illegitimate motivations in the employment decision she challenges. We conclude, instead, that Congress meant to obligate her to prove that the employer relied upon sex-based considerations in coming to its decision. The Court continued: In saying that gender played a motivating part in an employment decision, we mean that, if we asked the employer at the moment of the decision what its reasons were and if we received a truthful response, one of those reasons would be that the applicant or employee was a woman. Id. at 250, 109 S.Ct. at 1790. Once the plaintiff has proven that her gender partly motivated the employer's adverse employment action or decision, the employer will be liable under Title VII unless it can prove that, even if it had not taken gender into account, it would have come to the same decision regarding [her]. Id. at 242, 109 S.Ct. at 1786. The Court noted that, because it does not employ burden-shifting, this framework differs from Burdine. Under Price Waterhouse, the plaintiff must persuade the factfinder on one point, and then the employer, if it wishes to prevail, must persuade it on another. Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 246, 109 S.Ct. at 1788. Price Waterhouse therefore does not supplant Burdine. Burdine' § burden-shifting approach applies to cases where either a legitimate or an illegitimate set of considerations led to the challenged decision. Id. at 247, 109 S.Ct. at 1789 (emphasis in original). Price Waterhouse applies only [w]here a decision was the product of a mixture of legitimate and illegitimate motives (commonly referred to as mixed motive cases). Id. at 247, 109 S.Ct. at 1788.