Court Opinion

ID: 9859960
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:04:13.433108+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:11:24.594877
License: Public Domain

NEUMANN, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the remand for a new trial. I am, however, very confused as to how that trial is to be conducted. There appears to me to be diametric opposition between the majority’s opinion here and what a majority of this Court said in Schweigert, in the event the employer should fail to overcome the presumption that is raised by a prima facie case. Schweigert v. Provident Life Ins. Co., 503 N.W.2d 225 (N.D.1993).
Footnote 2 in Schweigert tells us that a prima facie case is established by an employee’s showing that (1) the employee was a member of a protected class; (2) the employee was satisfactorily performing the duties of the job; (3) the employee was discharged; and (4) others not in the protected class were treated more favorably. 503 N.W.2d at 227 n. 2. The prima facie case does not require any evidence of the ultimate fact of intentional discrimination. It does, however, shift the burden to the employer to prove that the employer did not intentionally discriminate. Id. What happens if the employer fails to meet that burden of proof? Does the employee win, without having directly proved intentional discrimination? That is what some parts of Schweigert seem to say, and that certainly is the interpretation of Schwei-gert which Justice Meschke urges in his separate concurrence in this case. Can the employer’s failure to prove a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the discharge somehow become the missing evidence of intentional discrimination?
Or is it possible, as the majority opinion in this case suggests, for an employee to lose the lawsuit even though the employee has successfully proved a prima facie case and the employer has failed to rebut it? That certainly is the state of federal law at this point, but it makes sense only because of the very different effect of a presumption under Federal Rule 301. Under our version of Rule 301, with its dramatically different ef-*385feet of a presumption, id. at 228-29, such an outcome makes no sense at all.
It appears the majority implicitly overrules a portion of Schweigert. If that is the case, we would give better guidance to the trial court if it were done explicitly. Our trial colleagues should not be left in a bewilder-They, after all, are the ones who actually must try this ease. ment of ambiguity.