Opinion ID: 742998
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Partnership Consideration

Text: 36 Next comes Mungin's claim that the firm unlawfully failed to consider him for partnership in the summer of 1993 and thus deprived him of the remunerative and other rewards partnership brings. Mungin does not argue that the firm must make every eligible associate a member of the firm's partnership. Instead, he claims that he was unquestionably qualified to at least be considered for partnership pursuant to Katten's procedures, and that he was the only eligible associate who was not formally evaluated. Supplemental Final Brief of the Appellee at 24. 37 Mungin introduced evidence that department heads would confer with the other partners in their departments to recommend particular associates for partnership. The recommendations then passed through several more committees--the committee comprised of all the department heads, the partnership review committee, the executive committee, and finally the board of directors--with names being screened out along the way. 38 The firm presented evidence to establish that Mungin's lack of sophisticated bankruptcy experience and that the disappearance of bankruptcy work for which he was hired precluded him from qualification for partnership. 3 As in the case of Mungin's 1994 pay, we need not decide whether an interlocutory or mediate decision[ ] having no immediate effect on employment--here the partnership nomination that would not have resulted in Mungin's becoming a partner--fall[s] within the direct proscriptions of ... Title VII or, for that matter, § 1981 or the D.C. statute. Page, 645 F.2d at 233. 39 Mungin never contested the fact that associates are screened out from consideration at the first round, when the department head and/or the partners in that department decide not to nominate certain associates to the committee of department heads. It was well within Sergi's authority to decline to recommend finance and reorganization department associates for partnership. Sergi testified that no one in his department could recommend Mungin for partnership, so no one did. Trial Transcript at 971. Mungin found himself in a bind. The insurance group headed by Dombroff tried to build a bankruptcy practice of its own, but failed. Mungin was left trying to secure partnership from a department in which no one had worked extensively with him. Mungin offered absolutely nothing that would have permitted a reasonable jury to conclude that the firm discriminated against him when it failed to consider him for partnership. He tried to establish that the insurance group headed by Dombroff had certain procedures for recommending partners. But the partnership decisions were made by departments, and in Mungin's case, by the finance and reorganization department, not the insurance department. Without any evidence that this department--the one that chose not to nominate him--acted discriminatorily, Mungin failed to prove a claim.E. Constructive Discharge 40 Mungin's last ground to support the verdict is his alleged constructive discharge. He claims the firm's offers to transfer him to New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, were not bona fide, and that he deserved a more genuine offer to transfer to those offices, and more information so that he could make an informed decision whether to move. With respect to the computation of back pay, however, the district court concluded that Mungin had no reasonable expectation of continued employment in Katten Muchin's Washington office after October 1994. Mungin, 941 F.Supp. at 156. The court based this decision on the following reasons: 41 In July 1994, Katten, Muchin decided to close down the insurance practice that had provided work for plaintiff and a number of other lawyers in its Washington office. Between July and November 1994, defections and terminations reduced the number of lawyers in Katten, Muchin's Washington office from 42 to 14. The firm terminated all five of the Washington office associates whose work had been supported by Mark Dombroff's insurance clients but who were left behind by Dombroff's departure. 42 Id. We agree with the district court that Mungin had no reasonable expectation of continued employment, but unlike the district court, we find that this prevents Mungin from having any basis for a constructive discharge claim. 43 Even without the district court's finding, we would conclude that there was no constructive discharge. Circuit law is clear that a finding of constructive discharge depends on whether the employer deliberately made working conditions intolerable and drove the employee out. Clark v. Marsh, 665 F.2d 1168, 1173 (D.C.Cir.1981) (internal citations and modifications omitted). Constructive discharge thus requires a finding of discrimination and the existence of certain aggravating factors. Id. at 1174; see also Dashnaw v. Pena, 12 F.3d 1112, 1115 (D.C.Cir.1994). (These aggravating factors are those things that would force an employee to leave. Clark, 665 F.2d at 1174.) Having rejected all of Mungin's disparate treatment claims, we are left without any discriminatory acts upon which Mungin could rest his constructive discharge claim. And, as the district court said, Mungin ultimately was treated better than his peers, for unlike the four white associates who, after Dombroff's departure, were terminated without the opportunity to relocate, Mungin had a chance to stay with the firm. We therefore conclude that the jury had no basis for a finding of constructive discharge.