Court Opinion

ID: 9457062
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:11:15.458176+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:12.304881
License: Public Domain

PER CURIAM:
Margie Delores Colbert, plaintiff-appellant, a Negro female, applied for the position of secretary with H-K Corporation, defendant-appellee. After performing unsatisfactorily on the dictation and typing examination for the secretarial position, she was invited by the Company’s personnel manager to apply for certain clerical positions. To qualify for the positions, she was required to make a certain score on two tests, the Otis Self-Administering Test of Mental Ability, and the 16 Personality Factor Test. Because her performance on the tests did not meet H-K’s standard, she was not hired. Subsequently the Company filled a clerical position with a white applicant who had not been tested.
Miss Colbert filed suit in district court, alleging that (1) the pre-employment tests to which she was subjected are neither job-related nor professionally-developed ability tests and thus do not comply with the standards embodied in . Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, • 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(h); and (2) she was denied employment by H-K by reason of her race or color in violation of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a) (1). The district court determined that the tests had been professionally developed within the meaning of Title VII and were reasonably related to the jobs for which Miss Colbert applied. In addition, the court determined that the Company’s denial of employment to Miss Colbert was not racially motivated.
*1382The district court’s decision, 295 F.Supp. 1091, was rendered prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Company, 401 U.S. 424, 91 S.Ct. 849, 28 L.Ed.2d 158, wherein the standards governing an employer’s use of testing and measuring procedures for employment purposes were articulated. The judgment herein must be vacated and the cause remanded to the district court for further consideration in light of Griggs v. Duke Power Company, supra.
Vacated and remanded.