Court Opinion

ID: 9475723
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:36:35.332293+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:53.796825
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the affirmance of the district judge’s decision in favor of the PAPP Clinic with regard to plaintiff’s claim of racial discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000(e), et seq. I believe the judge committed clear error in his findings, in particular, that the articulated legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons advanced by the Clinic for plaintiff’s discharge from her employment were justified (not pretextual) and that she was not the victim of racial discrimination. It is axiomatic that matters of credibility are, ordinarily, not open to appellate review. Here, however, the judge made no subsidiary findings in support of his ultimate conclusions. We must, therefore, resort to the record in order to determine whether those findings were free of error. Such an examination permits, in my opinion, but one conclusion: the plaintiff's discharge was racially motivated.
The evidence shows the following essential facts. The PAPP Clinic had an established practice of keeping the laboratory open until 6:00 p.m. on a weekday so that it would be available until that time to perform tests for Clinic physicians; however, a 5:30 p.m. closing was permitted if, after a careful check, it was determined by those in charge of testing that no more tests would be required. On the day in question, both Shumake and Smith were on duty during the afternoon hours. It was Shumake’s responsibility on this particular day to close the laboratory. (Smith and Shumake rotated that responsibility on a weekly basis.) Just before 5:30 p.m., a test was performed on a patient; Shumake then asked Smith to ascertain if any doctors were in the surgery department. After she checked, Smith informed Shumake that there were no doctors in surgery. Shumake in turn told Smith that Dr. Barron’s nurse, Jean Owens, called to say the doctor had finished his testing of a patient. (Jean Owens denied making this telephone call. Credibility of whether she did telephone does not affect the undisputed evidence that Shumake told Smith that the call had been made.) Thereafter and at some point before 6:00 p.m. the laboratory was closed and both Smith and Shumake left the premises. As it developed, Dr. Barron determined that he needed an additional test and upon learning that the lab was closed, he took the culture to another hospital for the necessary test. The following morning Smith’s employment was terminated. Shumake received only a reprimand.
Ordinarily, Shumake worked part-time during the afternoon hours. Another laboratory assistant worked during the morning hours. On the day in question, because she had to perform a personal errand, Smith asked Shumake to substitute for her during her absence. Sometime after coming to work, Shumake was given medication because she was suffering from something she had eaten earlier. She became drowsy and fell asleep. When Smith came to work about 11:00 a.m., she suggested that Shumake lie down and she did so. Later, Shumake’s mother came to the laboratory and took her daughter to lunch. Upon returning, Shumake said she was feeling better and she worked the remainder of the day.
Smith was told at the time of her discharge that she had been negligent in two situations over which she was given supervision: (1) Smith, while in charge of the laboratory on January 27, 1984, failed to send Shumake home after learning that the latter had taken prescribed medicine; and (2) Smith did not follow Clinic policy of keeping the laboratory open until 6:00 p.m. *1454or until the doctors had no need for further testing; that she “left the premises before 6 P.M. while patients were still present.”
With respect to the first charge of dereliction of duty, there is a dispute as to whether Smith was sufficiently in charge to have the authority to send Shumake home earlier in the day. That disputed fact is of no importance, however, because there is no evidence showing that Shumake was under any incapacity to perform her duties upon her return from lunch. She took no further medication, she did her assigned work, and her earlier indisposition was apparently no longer present. Given this state of the facts, the accusation of negligence on the part of Smith was false and, under any reasonable interpretation, the accusation served only as a pretext and not as a valid reason for Smith’s discharge from employment.
The events surrounding the closing of the laboratory on January 27, 1984 and the Clinic's reaction to those events are of a similar nature. Although it was Shumake's week to close the laboratory, it can reasonably be assumed that, as it turned out, both Smith and Shumake had that responsibility on the day in question. There can be no doubt that after checking with the doctors' offices, they jointly understood that no more testing was required. It is difficult to conclude in these circumstances that any negligence was involved. But, even if it was, the disparate treatment imposed for the infraction of Clinic policy leads to but one inference: race was the dominating factor for such treatment.
The majority opinion refers to PAPP Clinic’s proffered reasons why Smith “deserved the more severe punishment of discharge because (1) she had supervisory responsibilities in the lab; (2) she was in charge of the lab that day and had participated in closing it; and (3) she had three prior written warnings in her personnel file for infractions of company policies, including prior counseling regarding improper closing of the lab.” With respect to the third reason, it must be characterized as an “afterthought” as well as being false. Any deficiencies regarding Smith’s prior performance were not revealed by the Clinic until it responded to the EEOC’s complaint. The incidents did not cause the Clinic to warn or reprimand Smith. But most importantly, the Clinic admitted that these incidents played no part in Smith’s discharge. Ron Hall, the Clinic’s manager, wrote to the Unemployment Claims Center, that: “Prior situations for which Ms. Smith had received oral and written warnings on November 15, 1983 had no bearing on appellant being fired.”
Thus, in my view, the record demonstrates that the Clinic’s asserted reasons for firing Smith were not justified. The reasons were pretextual. The only purpose for such post-hoc justification is to obscure the fact that the Clinic dealt more harshly with Smith because she was black. The clincher is the fact that the Clinic replaced Smith with a white female employee. In my opinion, the trial judge’s ultimate findings were not supported by the record and were clearly erroneous.
I would reverse the dismissal of the Title VII claim.