Court Opinion

ID: 9473846
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:41:12.218373+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:45.946201
License: Public Domain

*1015BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Because there is merit in Evans’ argument that he proved a prima facie case of retaliation in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3, I would reverse and remand for further proceedings.
Evans was a truck driver for Davie Trucking Company. From time to time, he asked the company’s president to explain how wages were computed. Evans observed white drivers with larger paychecks and asked the president if race explained the difference. Although the president told Evans that all drivers were equally compensated, Evans persisted in questioning the system of compensation. Many of Evans’ inquiries were rebuffed by the president.
The dispatcher called Evans and informed him that “when we need you, we’ll call you.” When he went to the company the next morning to remove his personal gear, he found that employees junior to him had been assigned work. Four days after the dispatcher’s call, Evans, who had not been contacted in the meantime, returned to pick up his paycheck. With it was a separation notice stating that he had voluntarily quit. Evans protested the voluntary quit statement to the office secretary, but he never spoke with the president or the dispatcher. Evans testified that he thought being put on standby meant he was fired, and he reiterated that he did not voluntarily quit.
After Evans rested his case, the district court granted the company’s motion for dismissal pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(b). The court ruled that Evans failed to establish a prima facie case because he had not proved that he suffered adverse employment action by the company. The court went on to find that Evans had voluntarily quit, and it dismissed the case without requiring the dispatcher or the president to explain why Evans was placed on standby while junior employees were assigned work. Nor did the district court require any explanation for the company’s decision to treat Evans’ termination as a voluntary quit, despite Evans’ protests that he had not quit.
The district court did not have the benefit of a case we recently decided, Ross v. Communications Satellite Corp., 759 F.2d 355 (4th Cir.1985), which sets forth the principles for determining whether an employee has established a prima facie case of retaliation. Citing Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1093, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981), Ross admonishes that “the burden of establishing a prima facie retaliation case ‘is not onerous.’ ” 759 F.2d at 365. Ross explains that a prima facie case “consists of three elements: 1) the employee engaged in protected activity; 2) the employer took adverse employment action against the employee; and 3) a causal connection existed between the protected activity and the adverse action.” 759 F.2d at 365.
Evans was entitled to wages equal to those paid white drivers for the same work. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(l). His inquiries about compensation were protected activity. Thus Evans satisfies the first element of a prima facie case.
The flaw in the district court’s reasoning is its failure to perceive that putting Evans on standby, coupled with the assignment of junior employees to work that would otherwise have been assigned to him, was an adverse employment action. Although other drivers had from time to time been notified not to come in unless called, Evans had never previously received such a notice. Evans’ work was satisfactory. He had always been assigned work when work was available. With respect to consecutive years of service, he was the senior driver. The record does not disclose a previous instance of placing a senior driver on standby while junior drivers worked. Insofar as the present record discloses, the only trouble with Evans, from the company’s standpoint, was his persistent inquiry about *1016whether he was paid as much as white drivers for equal work. The company’s act of placing him on standby while assigning work to junior drivers established proof of an adverse action. Thus Evans satisfied the second requirement for proving a prima facie case.
The third element in Ross is causation: “that the adverse action would not have occurred ‘but for’ the protected conduct.” 759 F.2d at 366. A Title VII plaintiff will ordinarily ask a fact finder to infer causation from factual circumstances. The most probative indicators of causation at this stage of a trial often are unexplained acts by the employer. The Court emphasized the significance of unexplained adverse action against an employee in Furnco Construction Corp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 577, 98 S.Ct. 2943, 2949-50, 57 L.Ed.2d 957 (1978):
A prima facie case ... raises an inference of discrimination only because we presume these acts, if otherwise unexplained, are more likely than not based on the consideration of impermissible factors____ And we are willing to presume this largely because we know from our experience that more often than not people do not act in a totally arbitrary manner, without any underlying reasons, especially in a business setting.
The most important act in the present record is unexplained: what caused the company to place Evans, a senior driver, on standby on the eve of a busy day? The company was unable in its brief or at oral argument to point us to any fact in the record that explains this action. Because we are instructed to “presume these acts, if otherwise unexplained, are more likely than not based on the consideration of impermissible factors,” Furnco, 438 U.S. at 577, 98 S.Ct. at 2949-50, Evans satisfied the third element of Ross and thus made a prima facie showing of retaliation. The district court erred in finding to the contrary.
I would vacate the judgment of dismissal and remand the case for further proceedings. On remand the district court should adhere to the sequence of proof and the burdens prescribed in Ross. After a prima facie case of retaliation has been established, the employer has the burden of producing a legitimate reason for the adverse action. The employee then has the ultimate burden of proving retaliation by showing that the employer’s reason is pretextual. In this connection, the employee must show that the adverse action would not have occurred “but for” the protected conduct. See Ross, 759 F.2d at 366.
I do not know whether Evans ultimately can prevail. But he is entitled to have his statutory cause of action decided in the rational manner prescribed by law. The district court, lacking guidance from Ross, did not follow precepts that govern decision of a retaliation claim, and for this reason I dissent. I concur in the disposition of the cross-appeal.