Opinion ID: 676159
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Nepotism

Text: 40 The most significant alleged inconsistency in BP's explanations of its dealership assignment decisions arises with regard to the stations awarded to relatives of current dealers. Nepotism does not violate Title VII per se but it may be evidence of intentional discrimination when it works to the detriment of a protected class. See Holder v. City of Raleigh, 867 F.2d 823, 825-26 (4th Cir.1989). In the instant case the evidence of disparate impact or equal impact is inconclusive. 41 BP claims it awarded stations to Bart Dean, Mike Robertson and Mary Bailey because their relatives ran successful stations and these applicants received experience working in their relatives' stations. BP also notes that it awarded a station to Fernando Gordon, a black man, because he had experience working in his father's station. The district court rejected Howard's claim that ad hoc contracting decisions, many of which were based on nepotism, discriminatorily impacted blacks. The trial court relied on Brown, which held: It is difficult to hold that a practice which affects applicants of all races in the same manner is actually designed to conceal a racially discriminatory motive. 939 F.2d at 952. 42 While Howard's case is not based on a disparate impact theory, proof of disparate impact would be one form of evidence with which Howard could prove disparate treatment. At oral argument, we directed the parties to file supplemental briefs on the issue of whether the ad hoc contracting decisions disparately impacted black applicants. Neither brief contained meaningful statistics. Therefore, there remains no evidence that nepotism was used as a pretext for discrimination. 43 The fact question that arises with regard to BP's nepotism is not so much whether the employment of nepotistic policies is evidence of discrimination. Rather, the real question is whether BP employed such a policy at all. BP's district manager, James Boulware, testified in his deposition that he was unaware of any BP policy or practice to favor relatives of BP dealers. BP explains Boulware's unfamiliarity with this practice, claiming that Boulware was not the ultimate decision-maker. But the fact that Boulware was not ultimately responsible for choosing dealers from among the applicants, does not explain why the district manager, who was intimately involved in recruiting new dealers, was unaware that BP had a policy favoring relatives of existing dealers. This apparent inconsistency, viewed against the backdrop of BP's unwritten, shifting criteria, would enable a reasonable jury to find that BP, in fact, had no policy of favoring relatives of dealers and that BP's explanation for awarding stations to Mary Bailey, Bart Dean and Mike Robertson is false.