Court Opinion

ID: 9479649
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:24:20.820711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:10.616810
License: Public Domain

*159RUTH BADER GINSBURG, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
While I concur in the court’s opinion, I write separately to underscore my view that bumping can be a problematic remedy in Title VII cases, to the extent that someone other than the wrongdoing employer is made to pay for the employer’s violation. Unlike an employee hired to replace a striker, a person situated as was the incumbent in this case may lack notice that another lays claim to the job. For that reason, the “rightful place” approach, when it is coupled with a “front pay” award, is sometimes the more appropriate remedy. Under this approach, which has been used routinely for lower- or middle-level jobs, the victim of discrimination receives the next available vacancy or promotion but, while waiting, is paid at the higher level. See, e.g., Thompson v. Sawyer, 678 F.2d 257, 293 (D.C.Cir.1982) (approving continuation of front pay remedy “until the wrongs for which the plaintiffs are owed back pay” —the failure to promote female employees in proportion to their numbers in the workforce — “have been righted”); Wattleton v. Ladish Co., 520 F.Supp. 1329, 1350 (E.D. Wis.1981), aff'd sub nom. Wattleton v. International Bhd. of Boilermakers, Local 1509, 686 F.2d 586 (7th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1208, 103 S.Ct. 1199, 75 L.Ed.2d 442 (1983) (awarding front pay to remedy discrimination in union seniority system until discriminatees are able to obtain their “rightful place”).
On the facts and circumstances here presented, however, I agree that bumping was fully warranted. As distinct from instances in which the rightful place approach has been most fruitfully applied, this case involves a unique, top-level job, one for which no equivalent vacancy could be projected. Furthermore, the displaced incumbent, Fagin, was not dismissed or discharged; instead, he received a transfer to another senior executive service post. Finally, the district court appropriately considered the posture of the employing agency. The district judge specifically found that “the agency was aware of the dispute [over the MSO position] when it appointed the present incumbent.” Lander v. Hodel, No. 85-3833, Memorandum Order at 7, 1988 WL 122580 (Nov. 7, 1988). Were bumping not ordered in this situation, an agency could avoid its obligation to provide full “make whole” relief by moving swiftly to fill a vacancy created by its own illegal acts.*

 Inexplicably, although the district court entered judgment for Lander on January 30, 1987, and the government withdrew its appeal from that liability-determining, back pay-setting ruling, Lander did not receive the back pay to which he was entitled until the instant appeal was filed and briefed, over two years after the district court’s initial judgment.