Opinion ID: 1235129
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Summary Judgment Framework for Title VII Mixed-Motive Claims

Text: Since 1964, Title VII has made it an unlawful employment practice for an employer . . . . to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). Discrimination claims brought pursuant to this section are traditionally categorized as either single-motive claims, i.e., where an illegitimate reason motivated an employment decision, or mixed-motive claims, i.e., where both legitimate and illegitimate reasons motivated the employer's decision. Wright, 455 F.3d at 711. This distinction was first recognized by the Supreme Court in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, when it considered the issue of whether an employment decision is made because of a protected characteristic in a mixed-motive case. 490 U.S. 228, 240, 109 S.Ct. 1775, 104 L.Ed.2d 268 (1989). A divided Court found that, while Title VII prohibits an employer from taking a protected characteristic into account at all when making an employment decision, an employer could avoid liability under the statute by demonstrating that it would have made the same employment decision even if it had not taken into account the protected characteristic. See id. at 242, 109 S.Ct. 1775 (plurality opinion). In response to the Price Waterhouse decision and other Title VII decisions, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991. See Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 250, 114 S.Ct. 1483 (1994). Among other things, section 107 of this act created an alternative method of demonstrating an unlawful employment practice: Except as otherwise provided in this subchapter, an unlawful employment practice is established when the complaining party demonstrates that race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating factor for any employment practice, even though other factors also motivated the practice. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m). The purpose and effect of this section was to eliminate the employer's ability to escape liability in Title VII mixed-motive cases by proving that it would have made the same decision in the absence of the discriminatory motivation. Hill v. Lockheed Martin Logistics Mgmt., Inc., 354 F.3d 277, 284 (4th Cir. 2004) (en banc); accord Wright, 455 F.3d at 711. Under the statute, such proof only enables the employer to limit the remedies available to the plaintiff-employee for the Title VII violation. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(g)(2)(B) (prohibiting damages awards and allowing only the grant of declaratory relief, injunctive relief, and attorney's fees when the defendant-employer proves that it would have taken the same action in the absence of the impermissible motivating factor). For the first decade after the enactment of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m), many federal courts required a Title VII plaintiff asserting a mixed-motive claim under this section to produce direct, as opposed to circumstantial, evidence that consideration of a protected characteristic was a motivating factor in the challenged employment decision. See, e.g., Wexler, 317 F.3d at 571 (Under this mixed-motive analysis, the plaintiff must produce direct evidence that the employer considered impermissible factors when it made the adverse employment decision at issue. (emphasis added) (citing Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 244-46, 109 S.Ct. 1775)); Taylor v. Virginia Union Univ., 193 F.3d 219, 232 (4th Cir. 1999) (A plaintiff qualifies for the more advantageous standard of liability applicable in mixed-motive cases if the plaintiff presents `direct evidence that decision makers placed substantial negative reliance on an illegitimate criterion.' (citation omitted)). As mixed-motive plaintiffs were not allowed to demonstrate their claims through circumstantial evidence, these courts did not even consider whether such plaintiffs should be required to satisfy the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine burden shifting framework in order to reach a jury. [9] See Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U.S. 111, 121, 105 S.Ct. 613, 83 L.Ed.2d 523 (1985) ([T]he McDonnell Douglas test is inapplicable where the plaintiff presents direct evidence of discrimination.); Wright, 455 F.3d at 716 (Moore, J., concurring) (Our pre- Desert Palace view that direct evidence was required to establish a mixed-motive case, kept mixed-motive claims distinct from claims analyzed under the McDonnell Douglas framework, which was applied when the plaintiff relied on circumstantial evidence.). In Desert Palace, Inc. v. Costa , the Supreme Court altered this practice by finding that a plaintiff may prove a Title VII mixed-motive case by either direct or circumstantial evidence. 539 U.S. 90, 92, 123 S.Ct. 2148, 156 L.Ed.2d 84 (2003). Relying on the plain text of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m), the Court held that in order to obtain a mixed-motive jury instruction, a plaintiff need only present sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude, by a preponderance of the evidence, that `race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating factor for any employment practice.' Id. at 101, 123 S.Ct. 2148 (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m)). However, as the issue in Desert Palace concerned a jury-instruction challenge, the Court did not consider whether the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine burden-shifting framework should apply to the pretrial summary judgment analysis of mixed-motive discrimination claims based on circumstantial evidence in the same way that it applies to single-motive discrimination claims based on circumstantial evidence. See Tysinger, 463 F.3d at 577; Suits v. Heil, 192 Fed.Appx. 399, 408 (6th Cir.2006) (unpublished). Since Desert Palace, the federal courts of appeals have, without much, if any, consideration of the issue, developed widely differing approaches to the question of how to analyze summary judgment challenges in Title VII mixed-motive cases. See generally Wright, 455 F.3d at 716-19 (Moore, J., concurring) (discussing and evaluating the responses of our sister circuits to the Supreme Court's decision in Desert Palace ). The Eighth Circuit has explicitly held that the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine burden-shifting framework applies to the summary judgment analysis of mixed-motive claims after Desert Palace. See Griffith v. City of Des Moines, 387 F.3d 733, 736 (8th Cir.2004) ([W]e conclude that Desert Palace had no impact on prior Eighth Circuit summary judgment decisions.). The Eleventh Circuit seems to have joined the Eighth Circuit in this regard. See Burstein v. Emtel, Inc., 137 Fed.Appx. 205, 209 n. 8 (11th Cir.2005) (unpublished) (suggesting that the McDonnell Douglas analysis continues to apply in mixed-motive cases without modification post- Desert Palace ); Cooper v. Southern Co., 390 F.3d 695, 725 n. 17 (11th Cir.2004) (rejecting an argument that the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting analysis . . . was radically revised by the Supreme Court in Desert Palace  and noting that after Desert Palace was decided, this Court has continued to apply the McDonnell Douglas analysis in non-mixed-motive cases). The Fifth Circuit, in contrast, has adopted a modified McDonnell Douglas  approach, under which a plaintiff in a mixed-motive case can rebut the defendant's legitimate non-discriminatory reason not only through evidence of pretext (the traditional McDonnell Douglas/Burdine burden), but also with evidence that the defendant's proffered reason is only one of the reasons for its conduct (the mixed-motive alternative). See Machinchick v. PB Power, Inc., 398 F.3d 345, 352 (5th Cir.2005); Rachid v. Jack in the Box, Inc., 376 F.3d 305, 312 (5th Cir.2004). Adopting a sort of middle ground between these two positions are the Fourth and Ninth Circuits which permit a mixed-motive plaintiff to avoid a defendant's motion for summary judgment by proceeding either under the pretext framework of the traditional McDonnell Douglas/Burdine analysis or by presenting direct or circumstantial evidence that raises a genuine issue of material fact as to whether an impermissible factor such as race motivated [, at least in part,] the adverse employment decision. Diamond v. Colonial Life & Accident Ins. Co., 416 F.3d 310, 318 (4th Cir.2005); see Hill, 354 F.3d at 284-85; McGinest v. GTE Serv. Corp., 360 F.3d 1103, 1122 (9th Cir.2004) (finding that a mixed-motive plaintiff may proceed using the McDonnell Douglas framework, or alternatively, may simply produce direct or circumstantial evidence demonstrating that a discriminatory reason more likely than not motivated the employment decision). The D.C. Circuit appears to have recently joined this middle ground approach. See Fogg v. Gonzales, 492 F.3d 447, 451 & n (D.C.Cir.2007) (indicating that a plaintiff can establish an unlawful employment practice by showing that `discrimination or retaliation played a motivating part or was a substantial factor in the employment decision' but noting that a plaintiff may also, of course, use evidence of pretext and the McDonnell Douglas framework to prove a mixed-motive case). Failing to adopt any of these views, the First, Third, and Tenth Circuits have refrained from deciding whether the McDonnell Douglas framework applies to mixed-motive claims. See Houser v. Carpenter Tech. Corp., 216 Fed.Appx. 263, 265 (3d Cir.2007) (unpublished) (refusing to decide the issue because the plaintiff had failed to produce sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment under any mixed-motive standard); Furaus v. Citadel Comm. Corp., 168 Fed.Appx. 257, 260 (10th Cir. 2006) (unpublished) (refusing to decide the issue because the plaintiff failed to properly preserve the argument for appeal); Rodriguez v. Sears Roebuck De Puerto Rico, Inc., 432 F.3d 379, 380-81 (1st Cir. 2005); Hillstrom v. Best Western TLC Hotel, 354 F.3d 27, 31 (1st Cir.2003). Finally, the Second and Seventh Circuits appear not to have even considered this issue. Our Circuit, like the First, Third, and Tenth Circuits, has yet to resolve the question of the appropriate framework to apply to Title VII mixed-motive claims at the summary judgment stage despite having been presented with the issue in five (two published, three unpublished) prior cases. See Tysinger, 463 F.3d at 578 (finding it unnecessary to consider whether the McDonnell Douglas framework still applies in analyzing mixed-motive summary judgment challenges because the plaintiff's evidence failed to create a genuine issue of material fact on the question of whether discriminatory animus was a motivating factor in the employment decision); Wright, 455 F.3d at 712-13 (same); Suits, 192 Fed.Appx. at 408 (finding that whatever the import of Desert Palace . . . [m]ixed motive analysis cannot apply here because plaintiff has failed to come forward with evidence from which a trier of fact could find that discrimination was even partly a motivation for her termination); Aquino v. Honda of America, Inc., 158 Fed.Appx. 667, 674-76 (6th Cir. 2005) (unpublished) (failing to address the impact of Desert Palace on Title VII claims, but holding that  Desert Palace does not modify McDonnell Douglas in employment discrimination lawsuits filed under § 1981); Harris v. Giant Eagle, Inc., 133 Fed.Appx. 288, 297 (6th Cir.2005) (unpublished) (finding it unnecessary to address the question of whether the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework should be modified in the wake of Desert Palace  because the plaintiff had not set forth sufficient evidence from which a jury could reasonably infer that race was a motivating factor in the employment decision). But see Wright, 455 F.3d at 720-21 (Moore, J., concurring) (proposing that we resolve the issue by finding that the McDonnell Douglas framework does not apply to mixed-motive claims based on circumstantial evidence). This case now presents us with the opportunity to finally clarify how Title VII mixed-motive claims should be analyzed at the summary judgment stage. We do so by holding that the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine burden-shifting framework does not apply to the summary judgment analysis of Title VII mixed-motive claims. [10] We likewise hold that to survive a defendant's motion for summary judgment, a Title VII plaintiff asserting a mixed-motive claim need only produce evidence sufficient to convince a jury that: (1) the defendant took an adverse employment action against the plaintiff; and (2) race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating factor for the defendant's adverse employment action. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m) (emphasis added). See Wright, 455 F.3d at 716 (Moore, J., concurring) ([A]n employee raising a mixed-motive claim can defeat an employer's motion for summary judgment by presenting evidence  either direct or circumstantial  to `demonstrate' that a protected characteristic `was a motivating factor for an employment practice, even though other factors also motivated the practice.' (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m))). This burden of producing some evidence in support of a mixed-motive claim is not onerous and should preclude sending the case to the jury only where the record is devoid of evidence that could reasonably be construed to support the plaintiff's claim. See Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505. Moreover, as it is irrelevant, for purposes of a summary judgment determination, whether the plaintiff has presented direct or circumstantial evidence in support of the mixed-motive claim, see Desert Palace, 539 U.S. at 99-100, 123 S.Ct. 2148, we direct that this summary judgment analysis just described, rather than the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine burden-shifting framework, be applied in all Title VII mixed-motive cases regardless of the type of proof presented by the plaintiff. Our refusal to extend the application of the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine framework to our summary judgment analysis of Title VII mixed-motive claims is based upon a careful consideration of the Supreme Court's opinions in those cases. In Burdine, the Court explained that the purpose of the  McDonnell Douglas division of intermediate evidentiary burdens is to bring litigants and the court expeditiously and fairly to [the] ultimate question of whether the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253, 101 S.Ct. 1089. In single-motive Title VII cases, the McDonnell Douglas shifting burdens of production effectively accomplish this task by smok[ing] out the single, ultimate reason for the adverse employment decision. Wright, 455 F.3d at 720 (Moore, J, concurring). In particular, the prima facie case requirement eliminates the most common nondiscriminatory reasons for the adverse employment action, and thus creates a presumption that the adverse employment action was not motivated by legitimate reasons, but rather by a discriminatory animus. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 254, 101 S.Ct. 1089. Likewise, the pretext requirement is designed to test whether the defendant's allegedly legitimate reason was the real motivation for its actions. Id. at 256, 101 S.Ct. 1089. Such a narrowing of the actual reasons for the adverse employment action is necessary to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to proceed to trial in a single-motive discrimination case because the plaintiff in such a case must prove that the defendant's discriminatory animus, and not some legitimate business concern, was the ultimate reason for the adverse employment action. See id. However, this elimination of possible legitimate reasons for the defendant's action is not needed when assessing whether trial is warranted in the mixed-motive context. In mixed-motive cases, a plaintiff can win simply by showing that the defendant's consideration of a protected characteristic was a motivating factor for any employment practice, even though other factors also motivated the practice.  42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m) (emphasis added). In order to reach a jury, the plaintiff is not required to eliminate or rebut all the possible legitimate motivations of the defendant as long as the plaintiff can demonstrate that an illegitimate discriminatory animus factored into the defendant's decision to take the adverse employment action. As the shifting burdens of McDonnell Douglas and Burdine are unnecessary to assist a court in determining whether the plaintiff has produced sufficient evidence to convince a jury of the presence of at least one illegitimate motivation on the part of the defendant, we conclude that the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine framework does not apply to our summary judgment analysis of mixed-motive claims. The only question that a court need ask in determining whether the plaintiff is entitled to submit his claim to a jury in such cases is whether the plaintiff has presented sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude, by a preponderance of the evidence, that `race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating factor for' the defendant's adverse employment decision. Desert Palace, 539 U.S. at 101, 123 S.Ct. 2148 (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m)). A Title VII plaintiff may certainly find parts of the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine framework to be useful in presenting a mixed-motive claim. As Judge Moore has aptly noted: Although the employee need not establish a McDonnell Douglas prima facie case to defeat a motion for summary judgment on a mixed-motive claim, setting forth a prima facie case of discrimination under McDonnell Douglas can aid the employee in showing that an illegitimate reason motivated the adverse employment decision. [Likewise, in] assessing whether an employee has demonstrated that an illegitimate reason was a motivating factor in the employer's adverse decision, the court should also consider evidence presented by the employer that the protected characteristic was not a motivating factor for its employment decision. Wright, 455 F.3d at 720 (Moore, J., concurring). Nevertheless, we emphasize that compliance with the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine shifting burdens of production is not required in order to demonstrate that the defendant's adverse employment action was motivated in part by a consideration of the plaintiff's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m). The ultimate question for the court in making a summary judgment determination in such a case is not whether the plaintiff has produced sufficient evidence to survive the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine shifting burdens, but rather whether there are any genuine issues of material fact concerning the defendant's motivation for its adverse employment decision, and, if none are present, whether the law  42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m)  supports a judgment in favor of the moving party on the basis of the undisputed facts. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). As [i]nquiries regarding what actually motivated an employer's decision are very fact intensive, such issues will generally be difficult to determine at the summary judgment stage and thus will typically require sending the case to the jury. Wright, 455 F.3d at 721 (Moore, J., concurring) (citing Singfield v. Akron Metro. Hous. Auth., 389 F.3d 555, 564 (6th Cir.2004)).