Warren v. City of Carlsbad, 93-55749

• Decision Date: 09 June 1995
• Docket Number: No. 93-55749,93-55749
• Parties: William Earl WARREN III, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF CARLSBAD; Brian Watson; James Thompson; Frank Mannen; Raymond Patchett; Stewart Gary; Ann Jansen, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 439

58 F.3d 439

32 Fed.R.Serv.3d 835

William Earl WARREN III, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF CARLSBAD; Brian Watson; James Thompson; Frank

Mannen; Raymond Patchett; Stewart Gary; Ann

Jansen, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 93-55749.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Submitted June 9, 1995. ^*

Decided June 22, 1995.

Thomas R. Gill, San Diego, CA, for plaintiff-appellant.

Cynthia O'Neill, Whitmore, Johnson & Bolanos, Mountain View, CA, for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.

Before: PREGERSON, POOLE, and D.W. NELSON, Circuit Judges.

PREGERSON, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff William Earl Warren III appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants, the City of Carlsbad and city employees (collectively "the City"), and the district court's grant of Fed.R.Civ.P. 11 sanctions against him and Thomas Gill, an attorney (not of record) who helped him with the case. Warren alleges that the defendants violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 2000e et seq., by not promoting him to the position

of fire captain because of his national origin. We reverse.

FACTS

Warren worked for the City of Carlsbad as a fire fighter from January 29, 1973 until his discharge on May 4, 1990. In October 1988, Warren took a promotional test for the position of fire captain. He scored 8th highest out of the twenty applicants who took the test. An outside consulting firm conducted the test which included a fire simulation, an "in-basket" exercise, and an evaluation of certain record-keeping and communication skills. Besides Warren, who is of Mexican descent, all the other applicants for the position of fire captain were white.

The twenty applicants, ranked in order by their performance on the test, became the "employment list" from which Fire Chief James Thompson made promotions. In January and May 1989, the Fire Chief appointed six of the applicants to the position of fire captain. Four of those appointed scored higher than Warren on the exam and ranked 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 7th. Two others appointed scored lower and were ranked 9th and 11th.

On December 19, 1989, Warren's psychiatrist notified the Fire Chief that Warren suffered from depression and that he had "intense homicidal ideas" about the Fire Chief. Warren attributes his depression to being passed over for a promotion because of his national origin. The City immediately placed Warren on administrative leave. After he was examined by two other doctors, the City placed Warren on disability leave starting on May 5, 1990. Warren did not challenge the City's determination that he was not able to carry out the duties of a fire fighter. Once his disability leave began, Warren was no longer eligible for a promotion to fire captain and was taken off the list.

On December 17, 1990, Warren filed a charge of employment discrimination against the City with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging inter alia that the City had denied him a promotion to fire captain in January and May 1989 because of his Mexican national origin. On December 9, 1991, the EEOC issued Warren a right-to-sue letter at his request. On March 9, 1992, Warren filed this suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.

Throughout the proceedings before the district court, Warren was assisted by Thomas Gill, a lawyer, who helped him draft his complaint but did not sign it. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the City, finding that the City had not discriminated against Warren. The district court also imposed Fed.R.Civ.P. 11 sanctions of $5,000 each against Warren and Gill for filing a "frivolous" claim. Warren now appeals.

ANALYSIS

A. Standard of Review.

We review a grant of summary judgment de novo. Jesinger v. Nevada Fed. Credit Union, 24 F.3d 1127, 1130 (9th Cir.1994). We must determine whether the evidence, viewed in a light most favorable to the non-moving party, presents any genuine issues of material fact and whether the district court correctly applied the law. Id. Summary judgment is only proper if no material factual issues exist for trial. Lindahl v. Air France, 930 F.2d 1434, 1436 (9th Cir.1991).

We review the imposition of Rule 11 sanctions for an abuse of discretion. Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 405, 110 S.Ct. 2447, 2460-61, 110 L.Ed.2d 359 (1990); Newton v. Thomason, 22 F.3d 1455, 1463 (9th Cir.1994).

B. Employment Discrimination Claims.

A plaintiff can establish a prima facie case of race discrimination under Title VII by establishing that (1) he or she belongs to a racial minority; (2) he or she applied and was qualified for a job for which the employer was seeking applicants; (3) he or she was rejected for the position despite his or her qualifications; and (4) the position remained open after his or her rejection and the employer continued to seek applications from other people with similar qualifications to the plaintiff. McDonnell Douglas v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824, 36 L.Ed.2d After the plaintiff has established a prima facie case, the burden of production shifts to the employer to articulate a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the plaintiff's rejection. Id. If the employer sustains the burden, the plaintiff then has the opportunity to present evidence showing that the employer's stated reason for the rejection was merely pretextual. Id.; see also McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 807, 93 S.Ct. at 1826-27; Lindahl, 930 F.2d at 1437 ("The defendant's articulation of a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason serves ... to shift the burden back to the plaintiff to raise a genuine factual question as to whether the proffered reason is pretextual.") (quoting Lowe, 775 F.2d at 1008).

                668 (1973). 1  In Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1093-94, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981), the Supreme Court stated that "[t]he burden of establishing a prima facie case of disparate treatment is not onerous."
                

The district court found that Warren failed to establish a prima facie case. The district court's analysis was flawed. First, the district court recited the McDonnell Douglas four-part test incorrectly. The third step does not require that a plaintiff prove that "he was rejected because of his protected status." The plaintiff must only show in step three that "despite his qualifications, he was rejected." McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802, 93 S.Ct. at 1824. The two standards are quite different. The McDonnell Douglas test merely requires that a plaintiff raise an inference of disparate treatment to establish a prima facie case, not actual proof of such treatment. The district court incorrectly transformed a single threshold factor into the ultimate question to be decided.

Having started with this incorrect legal standard, the district court found that "the plaintiff cannot establish the elements of a prima facie case because he cannot establish that the reason for his rejection was his national origin." But under McDonnell Douglas, to establish his prima facie case, Warren need not prove that discrimination was the motivating factor in his dismissal. All he must do is raise an inference that such misconduct occurred. Under the correct legal standard, Warren did allege facts sufficient to establish a prima facie case.

First, Warren belongs to a protected class because he is of Mexican descent. Second, he was found to be "substantially qualified" for the position of fire captain through testing. Third, he was turned down for the promotion despite his high rank on the promotion list. And fourth, several positions of fire captain remained open after Warren was passed over for the promotion. The district court erred when it found that Warren failed to present a prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas.

The district court found that even if Warren had met his burden of establishing a prima facie case, the defendants rebutted that case by offering legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for not promoting him. The district court also concluded that Warren had not raised a genuine issue of fact as to whether those reasons were pretextual.

Initially, the district court found that the defendants did not know that Warren was of Mexican descent. Warren refutes this finding convincingly, pointing to his own and other affidavits that show that at least certain members of the department, including Warren's supervisor, knew of his national origin. Warren claims that Fire Chief Thompson knew of his ethnicity both because it came up in conversations Warren had with him and because the fire fighters were a tight-knit group that share personal information about one another among themselves.

The district court found that even if the Fire Chief had known of Warren's Mexican heritage, there was no evidence to suggest that Warren's national origin was the reason the Fire Chief did not promote him. The City claimed that it did not promote Warren because others were more qualified. The district court found this reason to be legitimate, pointing to affidavits of co-workers that suggested that Warren was not promoted because he was inflexible and lacked interpersonal skills. The district court concluded that Warren had not raised a genuine issue as to whether the City's proferred reason for his rejection were pretextual.

Although "the mere existence of a prima facie case, based on the minimum evidence necessary to raise a McDonnell Douglas presumption, does not preclude summary judgment," Wallis v. J.R. Simplot Co., 26 F.3d 885, 890 (9th Cir.1994), "the plaintiff [who has established a prima facie case] need produce very little evidence of discriminatory motive to raise a genuine issue of fact" as to pretext. Lindahl, 930 F.2d at 1437. In fact,

any indication of discriminatory motive ... may suffice to raise a question that can only be resolved by a...