Court Opinion

ID: 9482073
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:39:35.422622+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:44.982679
License: Public Domain

RALPH B. GUY, JR., Circuit Judge,
concurring in result.
I concur in the result reached by the court, but disassociate myself from part III, which I feel involves impermissible factfinding at the appellate level. I am not sure why Northern Telecom discharged the plaintiff. I am convinced, however, that plaintiff failed to show that the reason given by the company was a mere pretext to mask racial animus.
This case was referred to a magistrate judge who, acting as a special master, heard all the evidence. The magistrate judge rejected the company’s proffered reason for discharge and then jumped to the conclusion that this required a finding of pretext. In this, I believe, he was clearly erroneous. The plaintiff still must prove the purpose of the pretext was to hide an impermissible reason for discharge. The record is devoid of such proof.
GEORGE CLIFTON EDWARDS, Jr., Senior Circuit Judge, dissenting.
I find myself at odds with the decision here for two reasons. First, the clearly erroneous standard of review governed the district court’s analysis of the Magistrate’s findings of fact in this case. Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1984); Brown v. Wesley’s Quaker Maid, 771 F.2d 952 (6th Cir.1985). The only real question before this court, then, is whether Judge Higgins properly reviewed the Magistrate’s finding that the company’s proffered reason for terminating the plaintiff was a pretext leading to a presumption of disparate treatment, and, an illegal discharge. Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981); Beaven v. Commonwealth of Ky., 783 F.2d 672 (6th Cir.1985).
The burden was on the defendant in this instance, not the plaintiff, to show that their reason for termination was legitimate and nondiscriminatory. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253, 101 S.Ct. at 1093-94. The Magistrate found the “voluntary termination” excuse “incredible” and Judge Higgins was obliged to defer to the findings on this issue of credibility. As the Anderson Court instructed:
*284“If the account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, (the reviewing) court may not reverse it even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact it would have weighed the evidence differently. Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous. 450 U.S. at 574 [105 S.Ct. at 1511-12], (emphasis supplied). See also, Wrenn v. Gould, 808 F.2d 493 (6th Cir.1987); Brown, supra.”
Second, it is indeed ironic that, like the Magistrate, Judge Boggs finds the company’s excuse for Ms. Galbraith’s termination “unworthy of belief” which necessarily establishes the prima facie case of unlawful discrimination. U.S. Postal Service Bd. of Gov. v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 103 S.Ct. 1478, 75 L.Ed.2d 403 (1983). As the Ai-kens court explained “the plaintiff ... may succeed ... either by directly persuading the court that a discriminatory reason more likely motivated the employer or indirectly by showing that the employer’s proffered explanation is unworthy of credence.” Id. at 716, 103 S.Ct. at 1482 (citing Burdine, 450 U.S. at 256, 101 S.Ct. at 1095.) The plaintiff here chose the second method of proof and the magistrate concluded in his findings that the defendants committed an unlawful termination. Following the Bur-dine analysis, the defendant here had the burden of production to “clearly set forth, through the introduction of admissible evidence, the reasons for the plaintiff’s” termination. Burdine at 255, 101 S.Ct. at 1094-95. Moreover, as the Court noted, “an articulation not admitted as evidence will not suffice." Id. at n. 9. In light of the defendant’s insistence that the termination was based on their so-called “voluntary termination” policy deemed by the Magistrate and this court as “unworthy of belief,” there is simply no legal justification to rule in their favor.
Yet, instead of affording the plaintiff her rightful remedy under the law, Judge Boggs supposes some other legitimate reason existed for the termination, one unrelated to racial discrimination. There is absolutely no admitted evidence of some other valid reason for the defendant’s acts. In effect, then, this decision compounds error with error and in the process turns disparate treatment analysis on its head. In one breath he admonishes the company for its lack of candor, but, in the next implies that, despite the incredible nature of the explanation, the termination was somehow legitimate.
Judge Guy, in his concurrence, is troubled with these impermissible factual findings. I, instead, am distressed by the choice of a judicial tongue-lashing as the sole remedy for this aggrieved plaintiff. Once she established the pretextual presumption, Northern Telecom had the complete burden to demonstrate a factually legitimate reason for Ms. Galbraith’s termination, not merely articulate a “sham” excuse. This is the essence of the Title VII pretext analysis. Because Northern Tele-com clearly refused to do this, I would uphold the Magistrate that the defendant should be held fully liable under the remedial provisions of Title VII. Accordingly, I dissent.