Court Opinion

ID: 9481018
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:05:36.533464+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:03.191399
License: Public Domain

BOGGS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Because I believe that a logical and faithful reading of the Supreme Court case law compels the conclusion that discriminatory discharges are actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, I respectfully dissent.
I believe that the statutory language, “right ... to make ... contracts,” is properly interpreted to include the right to continue to work under an employment contract in the face of a discriminatory discharge. This interpretation has been confirmed by the Supreme Court on numerous occasions. See, e.g., Goodman v. Lukens Steel Co., 482 U.S. 656, 107 S.Ct. 2617, 96 L.Ed.2d 572 (1987); Saint Francis College v. Al-Khazraji, 481 U.S. 604, 107 S.Ct. 2022, 95 L.Ed.2d 582 (1987); McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 427 U.S. 273, 96 S.Ct. 2574, 49 L.Ed.2d 493 (1976). It has never been explicitly rejected.
A commonsense understanding of § 1981 is that the right to be free from discrimination in the making of a contract includes the right to be free from discrimination in the unilateral termination of that contract. Discharge is fundamentally different from harassment and other types of “conduct by the employer after the contract relation has been established.” Patterson, 109 S.Ct. at 2373. By subsuming discriminatory discharge under the category of .“conduct which occurs after the formation of a contract,” id. at 2369, the court today dismisses what seems to me to be a basic distinction: by no other postformation action is the employee deprived of the fundamental benefit of the employment contract — a job. A discriminatory discharge destroys the very existence of the contract and deprives the employee of the essence of the right to make an employment contract.
It seems to me rather irrelevant that, as the court notes, Prather was not terminated the very day or week after he entered his employment contract. That “[t]he discriminatory conduct that he experienced took place well after his contract of employment was in place” (opinion at 1258) does not diminish the harshness of the court’s general holding. By relieving an employer of liability under § 1981 for firing an employee after hiring, the court permits an employer to accomplish through the back door what § 1981 will not permit that employer to do directly. I find it thoroughly inconsistent to require an employer to be nondiscriminatory in hiring but to allow that employer to fire with impunity under the statute.
The Supreme Court decisions interpreting 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and its reach are not a model of clarity. In the landmark case of Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S. 160, 96 S.Ct. 2586, 49 L.Ed.2d 415 (1976), the Supreme Court pushed the meaning of § 1981 beyond its obvious language. The statute states only that “all persons ... shall have the same right ... to make and enforce contracts as is enjoyed by white citizens.” (Emphasis added). However, the Supreme *1260Court held that in cases involving discrimination, persons should have a right not otherwise accorded to white citizens, the right to make a contract with an unwilling opposing party. This decision added a panoply of new remedies, including jury trial and damages, as well as a new range of targets, such as private schools, to the nation’s basic anti-discrimination laws.
The law at this point was relatively clear. In Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989), however, the Supreme Court, while retaining the basic interpretation of “right” as meaning “privilege,” revisited the term “make contracts” and restricted the meaning of that term. Patterson, 109 S.Ct. at 2373-75.
Having previously determined that a proper interpretation of § 1981 permits a suit for a discriminatory discharge, I find, as others have, that “the difficult question is whether that interpretation can and does survive Patterson.” McKnight v. General Motors Corporation, 908 F.2d 104, 117 (7th Cir.1990) (Fairchild, J., concurring in part). The language of Patterson, to the extent it can be read as pertaining to discharges, is equivocal at best. For example, the Court states that the right to make a contract “extends only to the formation of a contract, but not to problems that arise later from the conditions of continuing employment109 S.Ct. at 2372 (emphasis added). This language seems to imply that if a discharge is not a “problem” arising from a “condition of continuing employment,” then it is actionable under § 1981. Elsewhere, however, the Court states with apparently greater definitiveness that “§ 1981 ... does not apply to conduct which occurs after the formation of a contract_” Id. at 2369 (emphasis added). But still later, the Court states that “postformation conduct does not involve the right to make a contract, but rather implicates the performance of established contract obligations and the conditions of continuing employment_” Id. at 2373 (emphasis added). This statement suggests that, to the extent that a discharge does more than “implicate[ ] ... the conditions of continuing employment,” a discharge is not the sort of postformation conduct that the Court found not to “involve the right to make a contract.”
Our problem is created by the fact that these two principles point to directly opposite conclusions in the case of firings motivated by allegedly racial discrimination. A literal application of the language on “post-formation conduct” means § 1981 does not cover firings. Firings, by definition must follow hirings. However, the Court has indicated that at least one type of conduct that appears to be post-formation, promotion, shall be deemed to relate to the making of a new contract, and thus falls outside this language. Id. at 2377.
On the other hand, a literal application of the second stricture would allow suits concerning firing. Mr. Prather does not complain of his conditions of employment. He complains that he has no employment, having been wrongly fired. The majority concedes that a hiring, followed closely by a firing, could be considered the functional equivalent of no hiring at all, thus triggering § 1981 coverage. Opinion at 1257. It seems to me that a firing at any date raises the same concerns as a failure to hire:
(1) The party has no contract; it was made in the past, but it has now been completely unmade.
(2) There is no relationship to salvage. It has been terminated by the employer.
(3) Title VII may not provide complete relief.
As none of this language seems to remove discharge claims from the protective scope of § 1981, the dissent in Patterson assumed, without objection by the majority, the statute’s continuing application:
The very same legislative history that supports our interpretation of § 1981 in Runyon [v. McCrary, 427 Ü.S. 160, 96 S.Ct. 2586, 49 L.Ed.2d 415 (1976)] also demonstrates that the 39th Congress intended, in the employment context, to go beyond protecting the freedmen from refusals to contract for their labor and *1261from discriminatory decisions to discharge them.
109 S.Ct. at 2388 (emphasis added).
I find illuminating the Court’s consideration of Patterson’s claim for failure to promote. The Court held that a racially discriminatory denial of a promotion, in contrast to the harassment of an employee, is actionable under § 1981 “where the promotion rises to the level of an opportunity for a new and distinct relation between the employee and the employer.” Id. at 2377. This holding indicates that the Court believed that some post-contract formation activity — that which strikes at the essence of the contract or affects its very existence — is actionable under § 1981.
I would hold that the entire reason for protecting “the right to make contracts” is because of the benefits of the status of having a contract or job. If § 1981 can cover the failure to achieve a “new and distinct relation” within an existing job, it would seem to me to be most illogical to deny that § 1981 covers a persons being cast into a “new and distinct relation”— that of unemployment — from an existing job. Certainly that severance is far more drastic in practical terms than the failure to achieve a promotion. It is also more destructive of the existing relationship, the very relationship that is a reason given for not allowing actions based on conditions of employment. See Patterson, 109 S.Ct. at 2374-75.
The court today emphasizes that Prather’s claim is more properly cognizable under Title VII, and that the Patterson Court sought to avoid “[ujnnecessary overlap between Title VII and § 1981.” Id. at 2375 n. 4. Patterson recognized, however, that “some overlap will remain between the two statutes: specifically, a refusal to enter into an employment contract on the basis of race.” Id. at 2375. Because I believe that a discriminatory discharge constitutes a constructive refusal to enter into a nondiscriminatory employment contract, I find this to be a case in which overlap between the two remedial statutes is appropriate under Runyon.
In explaining why it took the action that it did in Patterson, the court emphasized the following factors distinguishing the areas remaining under the “privilege” doctrine of § 1981:
(1) they involve the essence of an employment relationship, Id. at 2377;
(2) the overlap with Title VII and other remedies is more understandable, Id. at 2375; and,
(3) the more meliorative remedies of Title VII would be preferable only where a relationship existed. Ibid.
The facts here offer a particularly compelling case for a resort to § 1981. Prather filed an EEOC charge, and the Ohio Civil Rights Commission ordered an award of back pay. Prather now seeks a remedy unavailable under Title VII — the recovery of damages sufficient to compensate him completely for the discrimination he suffered. I cannot agree with the court that Prather’s § 1981 claim would allow him to “circumvent” Title VII’s procedures, since Title VII does not offer the relief sought.1
A very recent Third Circuit case shows the extremely strained construction that can arise from an absolutely fixed gaze on the moment of contract formation. In Perry v. Command Performance, 913 F.2d 99 (3d Cir.1990), a black customer called a hairdressing parlor and made an appointment for service. When she appeared, the available hairdresser made the claim (perhaps novel in American jurisprudence) “I’m from New Hampshire and I don’t deal with blacks!” Id. at 100. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants on the ground that this act was clearly “post formation.” The Third Circuit reversed and remanded, directing the district court to determine whether the contract *1262was made at the time of the phone call or was only made if service was offered when the customer appeared. Id. at 102. The circuit court apparently agreed with the majority in our case that any type of conduct, no matter how discriminatory, is not encompassed by § 1981 if it literally occurs after formation.
In my view, this simply emphasizes that the focus should be on whether the contract is actually in existence and being carried out to some degree, in which case quarrels over conditions of employment or conditions of service are not actionable. To say that there is no action for making a contract on the phone and breaking it when the person appears is to undermine completely the court’s holding in Runyon and its reaffirmation in Patterson.
There is further evidence that the Court in Patterson did not intend to withdraw discharge suits from § 1981’s protection. The Court has several times in subsequent cases indicated that it has not decided this question. In Jett v. Dallas Independent School District, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 2702, 2709, 105 L.Ed.2d 598 (1989), decided one week after Patterson, the Supreme Court assumed arguendo that the scope of the “right ... to make ... contracts” under § 1981 reaches racially motivated discharges. In Jett, the employer school district did not contest that the football coach who was relieved of his duties was protected by § 1981. The Court therefore “assume[d] ..., without deciding, that petitioner’s rights under § 1981 have been violated by his removal and reassignment.” Id. 109 S.Ct. at 2710. It appears that the Court had a clear opportunity in Jett to apply Patterson to discharge cases but declined to do so.
Then in Lytle v. Household Manufacturing, Inc., — U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 1331, 108 L.Ed.2d 504 (1990), the Court reaffirmed that it had not decided the question whether a retaliatory discharge is actionable under § 1981. Because the district court had not addressed the question, the Court refused to decide the matter without the benefit of a complete record. Justice O’Con-nor in concurrence noted that:
[o]n remand, therefore, the parties will have ample opportunity to present arguments, and the lower courts will have the first opportunity to consider whether either of petitioner’s charges relates to the formation or enforcement of a contract, the two types of claims actionable under § 1981, Patterson, ... 109 S.Ct., at 2374, or relates only to “postformation conduct unrelated to an employee’s right to enforce [his] contract.” Id., at ... 2367.
Id. at 1339.
I do not believe that the Court would have failed to discuss in Patterson the implication of that opinion for the substantial body of Supreme Court case law permitting discharge suits under § 1981 if Patterson was intended to have any such implication. I also find it significant that neither Jett nor Lytle makes the same assumptions about Patterson’s effect on discharge claims that the court’s opinion does today.
In our situation, the Supreme Court apparently having been deliberately ambiguous, it seems to me that we should interpret its ambiguities in a fashion that makes the law a more coherent scheme. Having been precluded from a rigorous interpretation of the language of the statute by the decisions in Runyon and Patterson, we should give those decisions an interpretation that will provide sensible coverage of “an evil aimed at” rather than a strained construction, not compelled by the statutory language. Our decision today will, in the words of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “keep the word of promise to our ear, and break it to our hope.”2
If Mr. Prather has a right to “make” a contract with an unwilling adversary, that right is substantially vitiated if the adversary can “unmake” the contract without legal liability or opportunity for redress.
As Patterson leaves open the question whether a discriminatory discharge violates § 1981, I would respect the principle of stare decisis and continue to permit, under *1263§ 1981, suits alleging discriminatory discharges. I therefore would agree with the decision of the Eighth Circuit in Hicks v. Brown Group, Inc., 902 F.2d 630 (8th Cir.1990) and would reverse and remand for a new trial.

. Although the court cites the statistic that 43% of all Title VII cases involve discharge claims (opinion at 1257, n. 3) in support of its argument that a claim such as Prather’s can be adequately addressed by Title VII, I note that studies have indicated that discriminatory discharge actions have traditionally been one of the most common uses of § 1981. See Hicks v. Brown Group, Inc., 902 F.2d 630, 638 (8th Cir.1990) (citing Eisenberg and Schwab, The Importance of Section 1981, 73 Cornell L.Rev. 596, 599-601 (1988)).

. Macbeth, Act V, Scene vii, lines 50-51.