Court Opinion

ID: 9707623
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:16:56.817326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:35.924029
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion ry
Judge Craig:
This court should not approve a principle which would permit an employer to ignore available information concerning a formerly employed minority applicant’s qualifications so as to thwart that applicant from being able to establish a prima facie case of discrimination with respect to refusal to rehire.
Under Allegheny Housing Rehabilitation Corp. v. Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, 516 Pa. 124, 532 A.2d 315 (1987), and General Electric Corp. v. Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, 469 Pa. 292, 365 A.2d 649 (1976), the elements of a prima facie case consist of proof that the complainant (1) belongs toa racial minority, (2) applied for a job opening, (3) was rejected despite being qualified and thereby (4) was subjected to discrimination as against other applicants. With such a prima facie case established, the complainant prevails if the employer does not meet its burden of supplying a satisfactory explanation for the rejection.
The key question in this case is whether the complainant proved that she was rejected despite being qualified for a receptionist position. As the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission found, the complainant, as a former employee laid off through no fault of her own, *359had demonstrated her qualifications for the Switchboard Operator Typist position because, while formerly employed as a typist, she had actually performed the switchboard operator functions in a satisfactory manner.
The employer authority, through its personnel, necessarily possessed knowledge of the complainant’s previous qualifying experience. This court should not permit the authority’s hiring committee to restrict the scope of its own vision by holding that:
[T]here is no impropriety attached to a review procedure that is restricted to the submitted applications and the information contained therein.
We should not confer our imprimatur on any hiring procedure which can be “restricted” by the hiring body to considerations of its own choosing.
Moreover, the complainant’s application, as this court quotes it, included the statement that she had indeed “worked switchboard” in the past. Although briefly stated, that information, did more than put the hiring body on notice to investigate further; it informed the hiring body that the identified applicant, who was personally known as a former employee to two members of that body (Finding of Fact No. 25), had previous experience which was quite appropriate, because it was in precisely the kind of work involved.
Because the commission’s findings are supported by substantial evidence, because the complainant’s prima facie case was complete, and because the employer offered no explanation for the rejection other than an acknowledgment that the hiring body subjected itself to vision-narrowing blinders, the commission’s decision should be affirmed.