Court Opinion

ID: 9477027
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:11:30.848671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:38.515995
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part.
Lincoln fired Reeder-Baker after she flew into a rage on discovering a visible “trace” on her computer terminal. The district court found that Reeder-Baker “confronted her supervisors privately in a loud and abrasive manner” and that “during this confrontation Baker was hurling a computer printout in the air”, 649 F.Supp. 647, 651 (N.D.Ind.1986). Lincoln recalled from the golf course Robert Ambrisco, the Director of its Data Center. Ambrisco sent for Reeder-Baker and questioned her about the incident. At trial Reeder-Baker described the encounter this way:
When I first walked into Mr. Ambrisco’s office, his first comment was, “I hear you’re disrupting the harmony of the work unit again, and I want to know what you’ve been saying.”
My response was, “What have you heard?”
He goes, “I said I want to know what have you been saying?”
And I then responded again, “What have you heard?”
His next response was, “Since you have once again disrupted the harmony of the [workplace] and have not followed the rules of your probation, you are terminated.”
After he told me I was terminated, I told him what I said.
The district court held that Lincoln’s reliance on these undisputed events is a “pretext for discrimination”, Reeder-Baker being black. If Lincoln would not have fired a white worker (or a black worker who had not earlier filed a charge of discrimination) who behaved in the same manner under the same provocation, then its stated reason is a pretext for discrimination; yet the district court’s findings leave some doubt about whether that court asked and answered the right question.
The district court gave several reasons for its holding that the discharge violated Title VII. One is that Reeder-Baker did not disrupt the harmony of the work place. Some of her co-workers testified that they were able to work through the hubbub, and the judge believed them. A second is that if Reeder-Baker was disruptive, she was entitled to be so — perhaps because “Under the circumstances Baker’s confrontation was reasonable” (649 F.Supp. at 651), perhaps because a person who has filed a charge of discrimination is entitled to be raucous. (The district court wrote: “This confrontation was part of her participation in Title VII proceedings.” Id. at 660.) Still a third is that the degree of clamor and backtalk in question would not have led Lincoln to fire a white employee (or a black employee who had abstained from filing charges of discrimination). The district court observed that Reeder-Baker’s immediate supervisors advised Ambrisco to send her home for the day rather than to fire her and noted that Ambrisco had violated Lincoln’s rules by firing Reeder-Baker without consulting the firm’s Human Relations Department.
This third reason would be sufficient to decide in Reeder-Baker’s favor. We need to know why Ambrisco acted — because of race and the charge of discrimination, or because of Reeder-Baker’s tantrum. If the tantrum was not a sufficient cause of the discharge, Lincoln discriminated even if the tantrum was a necessary cause. Lincoln fired Reeder-Baker for violating the terms of her probation, not (necessarily) for conduct that would be cause for discharge of an employee not on probation. The district court found that Reeder-Baker was put on probation in retaliation for filing a charge of discrimination. If the probation was an essential ingredient of the discharge — and if an employee who refrained from complaining to the EEOC would not have been on probation — then the discharge is attributable to the charge filed with the EEOC. So a judgment in Reeder-Baker’s favor could be sustained.
*1381The first two reasons, however, are mistaken, and if the judgment depends on either one, it is incorrect. Let us suppose that Ambrisco was misinformed, that Reed-er-Baker had not disrupted the progress of work by staff at the computer center. This would be unimportant if Lincoln deemed the supervisors part of the work force, as it could. More, an error of fact does not imply discrimination. We dealt with the precise problem in Pollard v. Rea Magnet Wire Co., 824 F.2d 557 (7th Cir.1987). Rea fired Pollard because it believed he had lied about his reason for missing work. The district court found that Pollard had been truthful and therefore concluded that the employer’s reason for the discharge was a pretext. We observed {id. at 559):
[A] finding [that the employer was mistaken] does not show pretext in any use of that term, which requires hiding the truth. If you honestly explain the reasons behind your decision, but the decision was ill-informed or ill-considered, your explanation is not a “pretext”_ See Bechold v. IGW Systems, Inc., 817 F.2d 1282, 1285 (7th Cir.1987) (when the employer advances a reason unrelated to a characteristic covered by the statute, the issue “becomes one of credibility in determining whether the belief is genuinely held” rather than whether the belief is correct)....
To the extent the district judge’s conclusion about pretext depended on his belief that Ambrisco was mistaken in finding Reeder-Baker’s conduct beyond the pale, the judge repeated the error of law that led us to reverse his decision in Pollard. (The judge’s opinion in this case was written about five weeks after his opinion in Pollard, and well before our opinion in that case was released.) That some of Reeder-Baker’s fellow workers “testified that she had not disrupted the [workplace] on the night” she was fired, 649 F.Supp. at 660, does not undercut Lincoln’s case. Lincoln is not required to accept or even listen to line employees’ judgment about how much commotion is too much. Ambrisco did not speak with Reeder-Baker’s coworkers before firing her, and the district judge thought he should have. Title VII does not change the chain of command in a firm. If Ambrisco disdains the views of the staff when evaluating white employees, he may be equally disdainful when evaluating black employees. Pollard rejects the approach that may have led the district court to fault Lincoln for not using “good” methods of evaluating Reeder-Baker (as opposed to its ordinary methods). At all events, Lincoln is not liable under Title VII for Ambrisco’s failure to appreciate the true state of affairs. Pollard, 824 F.2d at 560-61.
The district court’s second reason — that the “confrontation was part of [Reeder-Baker’s] participation in Title VII proceedings” (649 F.Supp. at 660) — suggests that the court believes that an employee who files a claim of discrimination is privileged to flout the employer’s ordinary rules of conduct. Reeder-Baker could not be fired for punching Ambrisco in the nose, if she hit him to attract his attention to her complaint of discrimination (or if she got all worked up because of her complaint and could no longer restrain herself). Just as in labor law a union’s legitimate beef about an unfair labor practice does not justify putting sand in the gears, so a worker’s legitimate beef about race discrimination does not justify failure to conform to (nondiscriminatory) standards of conduct. If Reeder-Baker had gone into a funk and refused to work, Lincoln could fire her even though her sour attitude could be traced to discrimination. (Contrast Williamson v. Handy Button Machine Co., 817 F.2d 1290 (7th Cir.1987), holding that if discrimination makes an employee psychologically unable to work, the employer is liable for the full consequences, including lost wages. Reeder-Baker does not contend that Lincoln’s discrimination drove her over the brink in this way.) If the district judge believed, as his opinion suggests, that filing a claim of discrimination insulates otherwise unacceptable conduct — conduct that would end in the discharge of a white male who had not filed a claim — and if that belief influenced his assessment of the adequacy of Ambrisco’s reasons, then *1382the conclusion of “pretext” needs reassessment.
That reassessment may yield a fresh conclusion of discrimination. But when a judge advances some good reasons and some bad ones — and there is a fair chance that the bad ones influenced the outcome— we ought to remand so that the judge can decide the case free of the influence of legal mistakes. Mozee v. Jeffboat, Inc., 746 F.2d 365, 370 (7th Cir.1984); Denofre v. Transportation Insurance Rating Bureau, 532 F.2d 43, 45 (7th Cir.1976). An appellate court should not pick apart findings in search of nuances that may be criticized, but more than nuance may be awry here. The district judge might find that Pollard affects his appreciation of this case; we ought to give him the opportunity to review this record and reach conclusions untainted by legal misconceptions.