Court Opinion

ID: 9479532
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:21:01.313695+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:06.318647
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the judgment of the court. I am also pleased to join much of the thoughtful opinion of the court. However, I respectfully must decline to join that part of the opinion that suggests that Patterson v. McClean Credit Union, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989), can be read as permitting a section 1981 action whenever the position to which the employee desires promotion could be filled by a stranger to the firm. Patterson quite simply says that “the question whether a promotion claim is actionable under § 1981 depends on whether the nature of the change in position was such that it involved the opportunity to enter into a new contract with the employer.” 109 S.Ct. at 2377. Whether the position can be filled by a stranger to the firm indeed may be a factor to consider in answering this question. However, it is not a litmus test that may be applied to trigger, by its own force, the applicability of section 1981.
As the majority suggests, there may be a lack of symmetry in a regulatory scheme that provides different remedies to those who are already employees of the defendant and those who have no preexisting contractual relationship with the defendant. I do not see how that condition, an accident of history or of political will, permits us to revise the scheme. If making *1318statutes logical or symmetrical was the judicial task, we would be a law revision commission, not a court.
In my view, the majority's gratuitous suggestion undermines Patterson, and, I fear, will create a great deal of needless confusion in the bench and bar. As a lower federal court, we always should strive to avoid introducing such ambiguity into the holdings of the Supreme Court. Here, we ought to be particularly circumspect because the Supreme Court has warned us rather pointedly that we are to apply Patterson, not undermine it. When dealing with this very issue, the Supreme Court specifically warned us to give “a fair and natural reading to the statutory phrase ‘the same right ... to make ... contracts’ ” and admonished us that we “should not strain in an undue manner the language of § 1981.” Id.
With respect to the matter of retaliation, Judge Cudahy’s analysis, consonant with the approach of other circuits, certainly presents a strong case. Patterson recognizes that section 1981 forbids conduct that “impairs the employee’s ability to enforce ... contract rights.” Id. at 2373. As Judge Posner notes, however, the record does not permit us to reach the issue in this case.
With the exceptions noted, I am pleased to join the judgment and opinion of the court.