Court Opinion

ID: 9458424
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:51:47.668943+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:45.703548
License: Public Domain

JOHNSEN, Senior Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
I.
I agree with the holding in subdivision I of the majority opinion that Green’s attempt to assert a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 in 1970, for his layoff which occurred in 1964, was barred as a matter of limitations.
I also agree with the holding in subdivision II that the “stall-in” activity engaged in by Green against McDonnell constituted an unlawful form of protest and was without any right of protection under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a).
I further agree with the holding in subdivision III that the district court was mistaken in its initial view and ruling that Green could not make assertion in his complaint of a claim that he had been denied rehiring because of his race, since the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had not made a finding that reasonable cause existed to believe that this basis had underlain McDonnell's refusal to rehire him. The question has not been passed upon by the Supreme Court, but such an array of decisions by the lower federal courts exists thereon that I think it presently must be regarded as accepted law that where charges of violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 have been lodged with the Commission, and the Commission thereafter notifies the complainant that it has not been able (for whatever reason) to effect compliance in respect thereto, the failure of the Commission to make a finding of reasonable cause on some particular charge does not preclude that charge from being asserted as a claim in a suit brought under § 2000e-5.
II.
I am not, however, able to agree with the holding in subdivision II that Green *347had no such part in the “lock-in” activity-involved as to enable it to be regarded as an unlawful form of protest on his part against McDonnell.
The “lock-in” was the focal point of a demonstration which was planned and put on against McDonnell by an activist organization calling itself ACTION. Green was chairman or head of the organization. In organizing the demonstration, it would be only natural conduct, as common experience is able to attest, that the members would communicate and discuss with Green, as their chairman and leader, the activities which were organizationally to be engaged in. Further, the record to me carries sufficient implication that this was indeed the actual fact of the situation. There is no testimony that Green had delegated to anyone the role of serving as leader of the ACTION group for the occasion or that anyone had presumed to take over and carry on this function for him. Green admitted having knowledge that a part of what was going to be done was to chain and padlock the doors of the office building.
The building housed a part of McDonnell’s offices, and a staff of McDonnell's employees was working in it at the time. I should have supposed that, within common experience, no one could have any difficulty in believing that the primary objective of the affair was to be the locking up of McDonnell’s employees in the building, and that it was because of this unlawful aspect that the matter was taken up with Green as the organization’s head.
The majority opinion passes all this off with the mere statement that “The record does not support the trial court’s conclusion that Green ‘actively cooperated’ in chaining the doors of the downtown St Louis building during the ‘lock-in’ demonstration”. The concurring opinion, apparently to give this a bit of bolstering, engages in adding:
“The record shows that one of the grounds stated by Mr. Windsor, defendant’s Director of Personnel Services, for the refusal to hire Green was because he had ‘chained the doors of the Roberts Building’. There is no evidence which supports this charge. On the day of the ‘lock-in’, Green was engaged in protected picketing activities. He was told by one member of the picketing group that someone was going to chain the doors of the Roberts Building. When Green arrived at the scene, the chain had either already been removed or officials were in the process of removing it. A complete stranger to this litigation did the chaining. Evidence of mere subjective approval of this incident at the time of trial is not proof of Green’s direction or authorization of it. Only if it could be shown that a principal-agent relationship existed between Green and the active participants can their wrongdoing be imputed to him”.
I have some difficulty with these statements. I pause on them only because they appear to be accepted and made part of the majority opinion, by Judge Bright’s statement therein, “See Judge Lay’s concurring opinion, infra”. Thus the position of the majority seems to be that no responsibility for the chaining of the doors can properly be attributed to Green because, from his own testimony, he did not personally do the act and McDonnell did not show that he had commissioned the others to do it for him.
I think this overlooks the reality that the demonstration was not one made by a mere aggregation of separate individuals, each of whom was intendedly free to carry out his own aims and engage in such personal actions as he might see fit. As I have indicated, it was conduct engaged in by the membership of ACTION as a body. It was concerted action planned and taken by the organization. It was heralded and was intended to have attribution and credit given to the organization ACTION. It was action carried on by those who went to the scene as the membership body of ACTION. Its focal point was intended to be the chaining and padlocking of the doors of the building. Because of the character of this aspect, it would be only *348natural, as I have said, within ordinary experience, that it should be and had been taken up with Green in his organizational prerogatives.
To repeat — like the district court, I have no difficulty regarding it as a rational inference, (1) that the communication with Green was done for the purpose of having him give assent and authorization thereto; (2) that with the chaining and padlocking being carried out as planned, Green had in fact given it such approval and authorization; and (3) that further, with no other reason or basis being shown therefor, Green’s presence at the scene could only have been for the purpose of constituting a participation by him in the organization’s intention and action of chaining the doors of the building and of giving any direction and other assistance necessary to have it accomplished.
Thus, in my view, McDonnell could properly regard Green as having responsibility for the chaining and padlocking and as having intended this to constitute a targeting on his part of McDonnell. In the unlawfulness of the act, his responsibility as to McDonnell would be a personal one; it could not be shunted off by him on the basis of official cloak or shield. I am therefore not quite able to understand how it can realistically be said that all Green did was “to make a mere subjective approval of this incident at the time of trial”. It seems to me that in making reversal of the trial court’s finding as to Green’s responsibility for the “lock-in” action, the majority have engaged in artificiality.
III.
McDonnell’s right to consider the question of rehiring Green thus was, in my opinion, entitled to have as its basis both the “lock-in” and the “stall-in” action which had been engaged in against it. The majority opinion merely makes reference to the “stall-in” situation; it does not set out the facts. Rows of cars were lined up across all four of the public highways from which entrance had to be made to the McDonnell plant area. The blockades were set up just before a shift of some 10,000 employees was due to arrive for work. The plant, with its total of over 30,000 employees, was being operated in three shifts. The members of the shift which the 7:00 a. m. one was to replace would thereupon be leaving for their homes.
It is not difficult to envision — and indeed it seems to me that McDonnell could hardly escape having concern for this aspect — what consequence the blockade could and presumably was intended to effect, in its public significance, in its substantial disruption of plant operation, and in natural reaction on the part of the vast number of employees whose right of ingress and egress were sought to be thwarted. It happened that these consequences were averted, not by any change in conscience on Green’s part, but by the prompt action of the police in breaking up the blockade and in placing Green under arrest. The record does not enable any subjective immunity to be accorded Green on the “stall-in” events, as has been done in relation to the “lock-in” action, for Green chose not to try public-wise to deny or to justify the unlawful action of tying up general highway traffic and seeking to prevent 10,-000 of McDonnell’s employees from getting to their work, but elected instead to engage in the expedient of pleading guilty and being permitted to pay a fine of $50.00 for the traffic violation.
It was both the “stall-in” and the “lock-in” situations with which McDonnell was faced when Green presented himself at its personnel office and made application for one of the newly-opened jobs that had been advertised. As noted, 1 think both of these situations were properly entitled to be given consideration by McDonnell on the question of rehiring Green. The majority have now, however, closed the door upon McDonnell’s right to give any consideration to the “lock-in” affair. But even on the “stall-in” situation alone, I should not suppose that a Gallup poll would be needed to show that any employer with self respect and with concern for his rela*349tions with his other employees hardly would hire a workman, whether white or black, who had engaged in such an unlawful and indicative misdeed against him, against his employees, and against his business being permitted to operate.
I am therefore not able to see how any presumption of racial discrimination would legally be capable of attaching or could rationally be given application to such a situation. Green could have no right to have the question of hiring consideration dealt with in these circumstances differently than would be done by McDonnell in relation to any other person, white or black, who had engaged in such unlawful conduct against it. It is familiar fact that whites, as well as blacks, have through the years engaged in illegal acts, such as the “stall-in’’ and “lock-in” here and other possession-takings and worse, against particular businesses and employers, for varying reasons, sometimes personal, sometimes social, and sometimes political.
But whatever the reason therefor, one who has committed such unlawful deeds against some business and then seeks to be hired by it, does not, in my opinion, stand in any different position or have any right to different treatment because he is a black, than if he were a white, in relation to the right of refusal to hire him. Of course, racial motivation may not enter into such a situation in relation to a black. On the prima facie aspect, however, created by the commission of the illegal deeds here involved, it cannot, in my judgment, properly be held that nevertheless if the perpetrator has been a black, the situation should be regarded as one of prima facie racial discrimination.
IV.
But the majority opinion goes still farther in its holding in subdivision V. If I read the statements in this subdivision correctly, together with some of those appearing in subdivision IV, the effect of the court’s holding is that, even though the actual reason for McDonnell's refusal to hire Green was the unlawful acts which he had committed against it and no racial motivation was involved therein, this would not be able to constitute a justification for its not hiring him.
In subdivision IV, the statement is made that “Additionally, as discussed in part V below, the district court failed to consider whether the reasons given by McDonnell for not rehiring Green were related to the requirements of the job”. Subdivision V then goes on to declare :
“When a black man demonstrates that he possesses the qualifications to fill a job opening and that he was denied the job, we think he presents a prima facie case of racial discrimination and that the burden passes to the employer to demonstrate a substantial relationship between the reasons offered for denying employment and the requirements of the job. Here, McDonnell has not demonstrated by any testimony or other evidence that Green’s participation in the ‘stall-in’ would impede his ability to perform the job for which he applied. There is no evidence that Green’s conduct would cause fellow employees or supervisors to refuse to cooperate with Green, thereby disrupting plant operations”.
I had thought the question in the case was whether, in the denial of employment to Green, the situation either was one in which McDonnell had acted with some racial motive, or otherwise was one in which there did not exist an equal opportunity for Green to get a job with a white person that had engaged in doing the same things against it Green had done. Under Title VII, no racial discrimination may exist as to Negro employment, either actually in the form of racial bias or operatively in not producing the same degree of employment opportunity with a white person (other than in a respect recognized by the statute).
The effect of the majority holding is, as I view it, that even though no racial motivation was in fact involved on the *350part of McDonnell, and even though its refusal to hire anyone who had engaged in such unlawful acts against it as were involved would not afford Green any less opportunity for employment than it did a white who had engaged in the same unlawful acts against it, McDonnell could nevertheless not refuse to hire Green unless his presence in the plant would disrupt its operations.
The holding purports to be predicated on a sentence in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 431, 91 S.Ct. 849, 853, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971) that “If an employment practice which operates to exclude Negroes cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited”. But this sentence may not be read apart from the one which immediately precedes it: “The [1964 Civil Rights] Act proscribes not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation”.
The thrust of Duke, as I read it, is that, within the purpose and scope of the 1964 Act, a lack of equal opportunity, and hence a discrimination, is created by an employer’s utilization of practices, procedures or tests which, even though not so intended, operatively produce the result of keeping blacks from obtaining jobs or of not being able to progress to other jobs or classifications the same as whites, where the things so utilized are without any significant relationship to a performance of the work involved.
I do not see in this a warrant for a holding that refusal by an employer to hire a person who has engaged in such illegal conduct against it, as is here involved, is entitled to be deemed to operate as a lack of equal opportunity in employment, if the one who has done the misdeeds is a Negro. Surely, the majority does not mean to say that a Negro will not have equal opportunity for employment within the intent of Title VII unless unlawful acts committed by him against a business or an employer are required to be condoned, although American concepts have never required such a business condonation as to a white.
I take the liberty of adding a word, in realistic certainty and not in mystic prophecy, as to what the significance and result of the majority’s holding will actually be. While the opinion allows McDonnell “the opportunity to present evidence” on whether Green’s “stall-in” misdeeds “could impede his ability to work harmoniously in surroundings characterized by close personal, or working, relationships among employees or between employees and management”, that opportunity can hardly under the indications and intimations of the opinion, constitute more than a theoretical and hollow one to McDonnell.
The opinion says that McDonnell must be able to make proof “in some objective way” that Green’s presence in the plant would disrupt its operations. Testimony on the part of McDonnell’s officials as to what their opinion would be on this aspect would not be able to meet the court’s prescription, in light of its further declaration that “employment decisions based on subjective, rather than objective, criteria carry little weight in rebutting charges of discrimination”.
Nor would I think that McDonnell could properly go around in the plant and undertake to canvass its employees on how they would feel if Green were to be rehired. And if McDonnell did presume to do so, one would have to be naive to expect that an employee who might have feelings or concern would be willing to make such an expression — although within factory life he might not hesitate to manifest his attitude toward Green upon a favorable opportunity presenting itself in the plant for personally doing so. Beyond this, even if some employee might be willing to so declare and testify, this would only carry the situation onto the side track of a charge of racial bias being hurled against him.
What the court has held can therefore, in my opinion, only mean that McDonnell is being required to rehire Green.
*351V.
The opinion contains still another ground for making reversal. I have previously indicated my agreement that the district court was mistaken in its initial view and ruling that Green was not entitled to make assertion in his complaint of a claim that he had been denied rehiring because of his race. I am not able, however, in the circumstances shown by the record, to agree with the holding in subdivision IV that the initial striking from the complaint of Green’s allegation of racial motivation entitles him to a reversal of the judgment.
Despite the district court’s initial pleading ruling, Green was allowed discovery in respect to McDonnell’s requirements for employment, on the nature of the tests and inteiwiews given, on the exemptions made therefrom, and on the weight accorded to the ratings arrived at from these processes, as they existed at the time of his application for rehiring. He had access to and introduced evidence at the trial on what the racial composition of the work force at the plant had been during a substantial number of years, and as to the applications, terminations, status changes, classifications, et cetera, which had been involved as to nonwhite persons. He was permitted to give detailed testimony at the trial on his own employment history at the plant, including all incidents which he regarded as having racial significance, such as conversations had with him about the matter of his personal grooming and the attire worn by him. Indeed, such was the volume of this that the majority opinion takes occasion to note “the commendable zeal displayed by his counsel in producing an abundant record of events and circumstances relating to Green’s employment relationship with McDonnell”.
It is clear to me that at the trial the district court did not adhere to its initial pleading ruling. It is also clear that Green’s counsel, from the evidence which he adduced at the trial, did not regard himself as being subject to any such restriction. It further is clear from the character and scope of Green’s personal testimony that he had such familiarity with the plant as to provide rational basis for inferring that he could and would have produced instances of discriminatory practices if these had existed in the plant.
The district court appraised all of the evidence thus produced and found that it did not indicate or suggest that “defendant was motivated by racial prejudice in its refusal to rehire Green”. The court recognized and declared in its Memorandum that the “controlling and ultimate” considerations in the situation were whether the “stall-in” and “lock-in” actions of Green were “the real reasons for defendant’s refusal to rehire the plaintiff”, and whether, if they were, this could constitute sufficient basis legally to “justify defendant’s refusal to rehire [the plaintiff]”.
The majority take the abstract position here, that “We cannot say that the district court’s action in striking the racial discrimination claim did not hamper the preparation and presentation of Green’s case”. With the lack of adherence to its pleading ruling which the district court engaged in; with the scope and character of the discovery which the court allowed; and with the nature and extent of the evidence which Green’s counsel produced at the trial — the practical effect of the majority’s holding can only be that the district court must now accord Green the full extent of the discovery which he sought To me, Green was allowed sufficient representative information — part of whose character and scope I have indicated above — so that no reversible error existed in the court’s denial of his burdensome and harassing initial request to be given access to some 200,000 general McDonnell files or of his later request to be permitted to go through some 70,000 individual employment files. The denials which the court made and the alternatives which it allowed in relation to Green’s requests seem to me to be well within the scope of the judicial discretion which the court had a right to exercise in the situation.
*352Again, I do not hesitate to state that I am certain, that, after all the discovery has occurred to which Green has now been given access, no more objectivity is likely to be produced thereby than that which can be argued to exist in the representative information, figures, et cetera, to which Green has had access and which he adduced at the trial.
VI.
For the reasons I have indicated, I respectfully must dissent from the reversal made of the judgment, and to each of the three separate grounds on which i< has been predicated.