Court Opinion

ID: 6989522
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 03:22:24.602757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:09:33.637258
License: Public Domain

BETTY B. FLETCHER, Circuit Judge,
Dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The Quaker Oats Company (“Quaker”) embarked on a major *1298restructuring of its work force involving considerable downsizing. It sought consultation to prevent gender and racial discrimination in the process, but none to prevent age discrimination. Nobody denies that the statistics in this case show that the reduction in force terminations seriously impacted the older employees— much more so than the younger employees.1 So regardless of intent, the real issue in this case is whether the process had a disparate impact on the older protected members of the work force.
The majority blinds itself to our own circuit precedent and to what all the parties knew this case was about in refusing to look at disparate impact. For this reason, I must dissent.
To reach its result — finding disparate impact not sufficiently or timely pled -the panel adopts a rule that is inconsistent with our own prior precedent regarding the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Yet, even under the erroneous rule the panel adopts, the plaintiffs in this case have stated a discrimination claim using the disparate impact theory and the district judge should be required to analyze whether the evidence is sufficient to go to trial on that theory.
In Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Local 350, Plumbers and Pipefitters, we held that plaintiffs may use the disparate impact theory to prove discrimination under the ADEA. See EEOC v. Local 350, Plumbers and Pipefitters, 998 F.2d 641, 648 n. 2 (9th Cir.1993) (as amended on reconsideration). Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, decided while EEOC v. Local 350 was pending, explicitly left that issue open. See Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604, 113 S.Ct. 1701, 123 L.Ed.2d 338 (1993). In EEOC v. Local 350, we further held that a plaintiff need not use the words “disparate impact” in order to state a claim in the complaint that is cognizable using such a theory.2 See EEOC v. Local 350, 998 F.2d at 648 n. 2. Rather, we held that a complaint that identifies a company policy that falls more harshly on one group than another is “cognizable as a disparate impact challenge.” Id. Examining the pleadings in that case, we said “[t]he EEOC does not specify in its pleadings or briefs on appeal whether it is proceeding under a disparate treatment or disparate impact theory of discrimination. Because in this circuit a plaintiff may challenge age discrimination under a disparate impact analysis, both theories were potentially available to the EEOC.” Id.
In Arnett v. California Public Employees Retirement System, 179 F.3d 690, 697 (9th Cir.1999), vacated and remanded on other grounds, 528 U.S. 1111, 120 S.Ct. 930, 145 L.Ed.2d 807 (2000), we reaffirmed that plaintiffs may bring suit using a “dis*1299parate impact” theory under the ADEA.3 We were asked whether an individual who challenges an employment policy whose consequences “fall more harshly” on those in the protected class states a claim of disparate impact under the ADEA; we answered in the affirmative. Id. at 692. In Arnett, we reinstated a disparate impact claim after the district court granted a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ complaint because we found plaintiffs’ allegations sufficient to survive dismissal at the pleadings stage. Id. at 693. While plaintiffs had amended their complaint to state the impact claim explicitly, we focused on the adequacy of the pleading as a whole, not on the use of the words “disparate impact.” Id.
Rather than confronting and relying on our own precedent, the majority turns to a third circuit case, Josey v. John R. Hollingsworth Corporation, 996 F.2d 632 (3d Cir.1993), which has facts very different from those in our case. In Josey, the Third Circuit held that the plaintiffs had not provided notice of their disparate impact claim when they raised it only after the close of discovery. See id. at 641-2. However, in that case the original complaint did not identify a specific employment practice that had a disparate impact. See id. at 642. Here, the plaintiffs’ claims are grounded in a challenge to the termination policies of Quaker in the context of its downsizing; the claims were therefore always directed at the impact of a facially neutral policy. Furthermore, in this case, unlike in Josey, the plaintiffs did give notice, both in the wording of the complaint and by the discovery they conducted, including the resulting statistical evidence they put forward.
Even under the erroneous standard that the majority adopts, the plaintiffs in this case sufficiently stated a claim of disparate impact in their complaints. The inartful language in the complaints uses neither “disparate treatment” nor “disparate impact” to describe the allegations against Quaker. Instead, they use the phrase “discrimination under the ADEA” to describe their claims. Since a plaintiff may prove discrimination using either theory, the complaint was sufficient to state both a disparate treatment and a disparate impact claim. Further, the complaint language that described Quaker’s “practices,” “policies” and “procedures” as discriminatory applies more aptly to impact than to treatment. No amendment of the complaint was required to allow the plaintiffs to prove their claim using a disparate impact approach. The district court considered the disparate treatment claims based on this generic language; it likewise should have considered the disparate impact claims.
Furthermore, the majority’s argument that Quaker did not have notice of the disparate impact claims fails to recognize that all of the evidence of impact was in the company’s hands and under its control. The discovery of the statistical evidence that suggests disparate impact was extensive and gave sufficient notice to Quaker of the disparate impact approach. This is especially true because statistics, while admissible to prove a disparate treatment *1300claim, usually are unnecessary. Disparate impact claims, on the other hand, rely heavily and usually necessarily on statistics. In short, the extensive statistical discovery in this case surely placed Quaker on notice of plaintiffs’ impact theory. Any claim to the contrary is disingenuous.
Even if we were to take a very narrow view and conclude that there was no notice to Quaker of the disparate impact claim until the summer of 1998 when that claim was fully briefed and plaintiffs moved for summary judgment on the claim, that was time enough. All of the relevant data was in Quaker’s possession. Considerable time remained for Quaker to prepare its defense. No trial date had yet been set. The judge took nine months to determine the outcome of the summary judgment motions.
The majority errs in adopting a standard that conflicts with our prior precedent. Even under the standard adopted by the majority, we should remand each of these cases to the district court to analyze whether the evidence is adequate to go to trial on the impact theory.

. See majority opinion at 1282-83, providing examples of the findings and characterizing the statistical disparities as "striking”; id. at 1285, explaining that the plaintiffs’ statistics demonstrated that employees over 40 received significantly lower rankings on average than those under 40.

. This holding was foreshadowed by Cotton v. City of Alameda, 812 F.2d 1245, 1247 (9th Cir.1987), where we allowed a liberal construction of an ADEA claim as both a disparate treatment and a disparate impact claim, and by Palmer v. United States, 794 F.2d 534, 538 (9th Cir.1986), where we allowed a claim that "did not specifically allege discrimination under the disparate impact theory” to go forward based on the notice provided by attachments to the complaint. In Palmer, the district court had determined that statistical studies attached to the complaint that strongly suggested a discriminatory impact constituted notice of an impact claim. Id.
Similarly, in the Title VII context, we have construed complaints that simply challenged discriminatory policies and practices without specifying the theory under which they were proceeding as disparate impact claims. Golden v. Local 55 of the International Association of Firefighters, 633 F.2d 817, 821 (9th Cir.1980).

. We reaffirmed the Arnett holding in a recent opinion. In Frank v. United Airlines, Inc., 216 F.3d 845, 856 (9th Cir.2000), we explained that the Arnett opinion "squarely decided that a disparate impact claim is cognizable in an ADEA case.” We affirmed that this holding was not rejected by the Supreme Court when it vacated Arnett in light of Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regents, 528 U.S. 62, 120 S.Ct. 631, 145 L.Ed.2d 522 (2000). The Kimel Court held that ADEA does not abrogate the Eleventh Amendment. As we explained in Frank, "The Eleventh Amendment issue is irrelevant to a case, such as this one, in which a private rather than state entity is a defendant, and the Court's vacation of our decision has no bearing on the correctness of our conclusions that a disparate impact claim is cognizable under the ADEA. We see no reason to depart from our conclusion in Arnett and we again hold that a disparate impact claim is cognizable under the ADEA.” Frank, 216 F.3d at 856.