Court Opinion

ID: 9490808
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:55:21.092594+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:19.914257
License: Public Domain

ROTH, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I join in all parts of the majority opinion except for Part II.B. I do not believe that we can avoid resolving the question of whether Ryan’s alleged statement on April 13, 1992, constituted “direct evidence” within the meaning of Price Waterhouse. In avoiding this question, the majority is by necessity deciding something. First of all, it is deciding that “direct” evidence may be of such little probative value that it need not rise to the level of creating a material issue of fact or of preventing a grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant. If such a decision were not implicit in the majority’s conclusion in Part II.B, the majority would *1115have not been able to affirm the district court’s granting of summary judgment in a case in which there is the possibility that “direct evidence” has been proffered by the non-moving plaintiff. I do not consider that “direct evidence” could be of such little probative value that, if it were present in any given case, it would be sufficient to be classified as “direct” but not sufficient to prevent summary judgment.
A second implied determination that can be read into Part II.B is that “direct evidence” may be determined by reviewing all the evidence that will be presented to the fact finder. I am troubled by the breadth of such a holding. Moreover, I am not sure that it can be read to follow from Justice O’Connor’s statement in Price Waterhouse. I would conclude instead that, when Ryan’s April 13 remark is viewed in the context in which it was made and in light of the possible ambiguities inherent in the language he used, his statement is not “direct evidence.”
A third assumption that I can draw from the reasoning of Part II.B is that the majority arrived at the decision that it did in Part II.A.2 only by, in essence, determining that Ryan’s April 13 remark was not “direct evidence” of discrimination. If that is so, then why not say so.