Yuhas v. Libbey-Owens-Ford Co.

• Decision Date: 28 September 1977
• Docket Number: LIBBEY-OWENS-FORD,No. 77-1143,77-1143
• Citation: 562 F.2d 496
• Parties: 16 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 891, 15 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 7861 Dorothy I. YUHAS and Nancy Anderson, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v.COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 496

562 F.2d 496

16 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 891, 15 Empl. Prac.

Dec. P 7861

Dorothy I. YUHAS and Nancy Anderson, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. LIBBEY-OWENS-FORD COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 77-1143.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued June 10, 1977.

Decided Sept. 28, 1977.

Charles J. Griffin, Jr., Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellant.

Alvin L. Kruse, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs-appellees.

Before SWYGERT, SPRECHER and TONE, Circuit Judges.

SWYGERT, Circuit Judge.

We must decide whether an employer's rule that a present employee's spouse may not be hired in a similar capacity violates the antidiscrimination provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq. The district court found a violation. We take a contrary view and reverse.

I

Defendant Libbey-Owens-Ford Company operates two plants in Ottawa, Illinois. The company has a rule against hiring an hourly employee at these plants when the applicant's spouse is already employed there in the same capacity. The rule was promulgated at the Ottawa plants on July 1, 1968 as an extension of a company policy which has been in effect since before 1953. The rule is directed only to the hiring of new employees, whether male or female. It does not require discharging either spouse of couples already married on July 1, 1968, and does not require terminating an employee who marries a fellow employee.

On June 30, 1969, plaintiff Dorothy I. Yuhas applied for employment as an hourly employee at defendant's Ottawa plants. Her application was denied, pursuant to the no-spouse rule, because her husband was then employed as an hourly employee at one of those plants.

Contending that she was the victim of sexual discrimination, Yuhas filed charges against defendant with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on August 15, 1969. The gravamen of her claim was that the no-spouse rule had a discriminatory effect because since its inception seventy-one women, compared to three men, had been denied employment for the reason that their spouses were already employed as hourly employees. Yuhas obtained a right-to-sue letter from the EEOC on June 2, 1972, and filed this action in the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on August 22, 1972. The court permitted Nancy Anderson, who was denied employment pursuant to the no-spouse rule in August 1972 and received a right-to-sue letter on May 23, 1973, to join the action as a party-plaintiff on May 30, 1973. Plaintiffs maintained the action on behalf of themselves and the class of all similarly situated women.

After discovery and the reassignment of the case to a new district judge, each side moved for summary judgment on January 12, 1976. The district court found that although the no-spouse rule was sexually neutral on its face, it had "a greatly disparate impact" under Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 91 S.Ct. 849, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971). The court held plaintiffs had therefore made out a prima facie case for relief. This prima facie case could be rebutted only if defendant could show that the rule was job-related. The court found that there was a question of fact as to whether the rule was job-related which could only be resolved by a trial. 411 F.Supp. 77 (N.D.Ill.1976).

At a bench trial, defendant attempted to demonstrate that the no-spouse rule served a legitimate, business-related function. It introduced evidence that hourly workers who are married to each other are absent from work or tardy in appearing for work more often than other workers. It also tried to show that the employment of both partners in a marriage led to problems in the scheduling of vacations and work assignments because both partners often wanted the same vacation and work assignment. Finally, it presented testimony that the employment of both spouses undermined employee morale and efficiency because the relationship between the spouses interfered with the ordinary relationships workers have with each other and with their supervisors.

On December 15, 1976, the district court held that the evidence introduced by defendant was insufficient to rebut plaintiffs' prima facie case. It found the statistical evidence of absenteeism and tardiness to be unconvincing, and rejected the validity of the other testimony presented by defendant on the ground that there was "no hard information as to what specific production problems were ever caused in any particular case." Accordingly, the court enjoined defendant from continuing to maintain its no-spouse rule.

Defendant now appeals. It contends both that the district court erred in holding that plaintiffs had made out a prima facie case of employment discrimination and that, in any event, the no-spouse rule is job-related.

II

Defendant's argument that the district court erred in holding that plaintiffs had established a prima facie case is based on the claim that Griggs, which was a case of racial discrimination, should not be extended to cases of sexual discrimination. It contends, relying on General Electric v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 125, 97 S.Ct. 401, 50 L.Ed.2d 343 (1976), that an employment rule which is not based on gender is not sexually discriminatory within the meaning of Title VII, regardless of whether the rule has a discriminatory impact.

We cannot accept this argument. In the recent case of Dothard v. Rawlinson, --- U.S. ----, 97 S.Ct. 2720, 53 L.Ed.2d 786 (1977), the Supreme Court expressly extended Griggs to a case of sexual discrimination. Alabama had a rule requiring all state prison guards to be at least five feet, two inches tall and to weigh at least 120 pounds. The rule excluded 41.13 percent of the female population in the United States while excluding less than one percent of the male population. The Court held that these statistics alone, without a showing of discriminatory intent, were sufficient to make out a prima facie case of unlawful sexual discrimination. It stated:

The gist of the claim that the statutory height and weight requirements discriminate against women does not involve an assertion of purposeful discriminatory motive. It is asserted rather, that these facially neutral qualification standards work in fact disproportionately to exclude women from eligibility for employment by the Alabama Board of Corrections. We dealt in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., supra, and Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 95 S.Ct. 2362, 45 L.Ed.2d 280, with similar allegations that facially neutral employment standards disproportionately excluded Negroes from employment, and those cases guide our approach here.

Those cases make clear that to establish a prima facie case of discrimination, a plaintiff need only show that the facially neutral standards in question select applicants for hire in a significantly discriminatory pattern. Once it is thus shown that the employment standards are discriminatory in effect, the employer must meet "the burden of showing that any given requirement (has) . . . a manifest relation to the employment in question." Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. at 432 (91 S.Ct. 849, at 854), 97 S.Ct. at 2726 (footnote omitted).

Dothard governs the case at bar. Like the Alabama rule, defendant's no-spouse rule is not gender-based and does not intentionally discriminate against women. But again like the Alabama rule, the no-spouse rule has a substantial discriminatory impact which is demonstrated by the statistic that seventy-one of the last seventy-four people disqualified under it were women. It therefore is invalid under Title VII unless defendant can show that it is job-related. See also United States v. City of Chicago, 549 F.2d 415, 427 (7th Cir. 1977).

We do not find this result to be at odds with General Electric v. Gilbert. The plaintiffs in General Electric challenged the validity of the company's disability plan which excluded disability benefits arising from pregnancies. The Court held that the plan did not violate Title VII for two reasons: first, because it was not gender-based and therefore did not intentionally discriminate against women; and second,...