Court Opinion

ID: 9468850
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:25:23.970837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:05.251186
License: Public Domain

HARLINGTON WOOD, Jr., Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Although I fully agree with the general principles of law discussed in the preceding opinion, I view the oral and written opinions of Judge Evans a little more charitably.
I believe that Judge Evans’ findings need some clarification, but they need only be repaired, not junked. In both of his opinions, he identified at least part of the issue to be whether or not Rucker was discriminated against because he spoke out in opposition to discrimination against the white employee. Judge Evans concluded by stating that he was unable to find any causal connection between Rucker’s support of the white woman and his firing.
Judge Evans heard the evidence about the various reasons advanced by the employer for Rucker’s firing and said in his oral opinion he would embark on that anal*1185ysis if required. That evidence included testimony of the director of the agency, not Spraggins, that he could not believe Rucker. The evidence in support of the employer’s reasons is too substantial to be ignored. Most of that evidence was previously aired in state administrative proceedings and finally ended up in the Circuit Court of Dane County, Wisconsin. The judge of that court concluded that Rucker’s acts constituted “an intentional and substantial disregard of the employer’s interest.” It may be that Judge Evans would also conclude from the evidence that the reasons for the firing advanced by the employer were not pretex-tual, but that the pretext was in Rucker’s efforts to picture his firing as a Title VII violation.
I do not consider Judge Evans’ comment about Rucker seeming to be a “fine upstanding man” worthy of note one way or the other, but if Judge Evans meant to find that Rucker was also a “fine upstanding employee,” then I would let him say so. Considering the troubled relationship within this agency, it at least appears that somebody had to go if the public was to be fully served by the agency.
Rucker was fired about 5 years ago and some kind of litigation has been going on about it ever since. Now that the case is headed back for a new trial with a different judge, I will not be surprised to see it all again another year. To bring in the same witnesses and paw over the same unsatisfactory internal office situation seems to me to be a waste of everybody’s time and money.
I, therefore, concur in the general result reached in the majority opinion, but I respectfully disagree with the directed solution. Judge Evans is fully capable of reviewing this matter and clarifying his opinion and findings, particularly with the assistance of the majority’s clarification of the issue. I would remand this case to give Judge Evans that opportunity, rather than issue new tickets to a rerun of an old show.