Chrisner v. Complete Auto Transit, Inc.

• Decision Date: 19 March 1981
• Docket Number: No. 78-1337,78-1337
• Citation: 645 F.2d 1251
• Parties: 25 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 484, 25 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 31,669 Mary R. CHRISNER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. COMPLETE AUTO TRANSIT, INC., Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 1251

645 F.2d 1251

25 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 484,

25 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 31,669

Mary R. CHRISNER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. COMPLETE AUTO TRANSIT, INC., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 78-1337.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued June 19, 1980.

Decided March 19, 1981.

A. Read Cone, Matheson, Bieneman, Parr, Schuler & Ewald, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Frank H. Stewart, Roger A. Weber, John Campion, Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, Cincinnati, Ohio, for defendant-appellant.

Ronald Egnor, Egnor, Hamilton & Muth, Ypsilanti, Mich., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before KEITH and MERRITT, Circuit Judges, and CELEBREZZE, Senior Circuit Judge.

CELEBREZZE, Senior Circuit Judge.

Complete Auto Transit appeals from a judgment finding it in violation of Sec. 703(a)(2) of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et seq. The district court held Complete Auto responsible for illegal sex discrimination against plaintiff Mary Chrisner when it failed to hire her for a position as yard employee. It ruled that Complete Auto's hiring policies concerning truck-driving yard employees were violative of Title VII.

The action was brought against Complete Auto Transit by Ms. Mary Chrisner in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Complete Auto is a Michigan corporation engaged in the business of transporting new automobiles by tractor-trailer combinations from the point of manufacture to dealers across the country. To facilitate the transfer of the new automobiles, Complete Auto operates terminals throughout the nation. Only its Willow Run terminal in Ypsilanti, Michigan is involved in the present case.

The Willow Run Terminal is adjacent to a General Motors automobile manufacturing plant. As new cars come off the G.M. assembly lines, the vehicles are driven to Complete Auto's terminal, where yard employees working on the "release gate crew" receive and inspect the vehicles, assign them special identification numbers, and transport them to a yard marshalling area. The new vehicles are subsequently taken to a dock area and loaded onto large tractor-trailer combinations. These trucks then deliver the automobiles, and after completing delivery, the standard operating procedure is for the driver to deposit his empty tractor-trailer in the terminal yard for reloading. The volume is sufficiently great that as many as eight empty trucks can accumulate before the beginning of the first shift. In order for loading operations to commence in an orderly fashion, the trucks must be jockeyed about the yard and, when necessary, driven to an overflow lot. Rearranging the trucks in the yard and driving them to the overflow lot is an important, albeit minor, responsibility of the yard employees.

In 1973, General Motors increased production at the plants served by the Willow Run terminal to an extent that Complete Auto's existent facilities were unable to accommodate the stepped-up production. In an attempt to handle the overflow, Complete Auto acquired space at the Willow Run Airport, which is, using the public highways, about one mile from the terminal. The acquisition of space at the airport meant that yard employees would have to transport the tractor-trailers from the terminal to the overflow lot using public highways. When operations were confined to the terminal the driving of the large trucks by yard employees was also restricted to that area.

In response to this change in operating procedure, as well as union pressure regarding periodic layoffs of yard employees who could not be transferred to a truck driving position because they were not qualified Complete Auto implemented a new hiring requirement for yard employees: to merit consideration a prospective yard employee needed to have two years of truck driving experience or have completed a course of study at a truck driving school. These prerequisites were not retroactively imposed on employees working in the yard in 1973 because provisions in the collective bargaining agreement would not allow such a change.

On February 11, 1976, Mary Chrisner applied for a position as a yard employee at the Willow Run terminal. She had not attended or completed truck driving school and did not have the requisite two years of truck driving experience. Complete Auto rejected Chrisner's application because she failed to meet either job requirement. ¹

In August, 1976, the Willow Run terminal experienced a wildcat strike by an estimated 80 or 90 employees. Economic pressures generated by this wildcat strike forced Complete Auto to abandon temporarily its policy of requiring applicants to possess either two years experience or appropriate schooling in order to gain employment as a yard employee. The company decided that it would, during the duration of the strike, train the employees in the operation of tractor-trailers. Nine new persons, including Ms. Chrisner, were hired to work in the yard during the strike. Ms. Chrisner's employment, together with that of seven other temporary employees, was terminated at the end of the strike. The remaining temporary employee was released one week later.

After the strike had ended the company did not revert to the more stringent qualifications for yard employees. Instead, Complete Auto required only a chauffeur's license and a physical examination. If necessary, new yard employees received on-the-job training from the company to drive the tractor-trailers.

In April, 1977, Ms. Chrisner filed the present action alleging that Complete Auto's initial refusal to hire her for the job of yard employee was a decision based solely on her gender. After a trial before a United States Magistrate, the District Court examined the record and concluded that the plaintiff had established a prima facie case of disparate impact discrimination and that the defendant had not successfully rebutted that case by establishing a business necessity defense. Specifically, the district court found that the two year experience requirement acted as a "grandfather clause" in perpetuating the exclusion of females from the trucking industry. The court also concluded that alternatives were available to Complete Auto which would have accomplished Complete Auto's stated goals while minimizing the discriminatory impact of its job requirements. In its final judgment order, the court ordered Complete Auto to pay Ms. Chrisner $35,742.18 in back pay, $6,000.00 in attorneys' fees and costs of $417.62; Complete Auto was also ordered to cease discriminatory action against Ms. Chrisner, to offer her a job as a yard employee with retroactive seniority and all fringe benefits according to a seniority date of April 28, 1976.

I.

The ultimate goal of Title VII is the elimination of "discriminatory practices and devices which have fostered racially stratified job environments to the disadvantage of minority citizens." McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 800, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1823, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). The same goal is equally applicable to sex discrimination. Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U.S. 321, 97 S.Ct. 2720, 53 L.Ed.2d 786 (1977). In enacting Title VII, Congress required "the removal of artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barriers to employment when the barriers operate invidiously to discriminate on the basis of racial or other impermissible classification." Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 431, 91 S.Ct. 849, 853, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971).

Title VII cases comprise a tripartite life cycle. The initial burden on a Title VII plaintiff is to establish a prima facie case of employment discrimination. The burden then shifts to the defendant to prove or demonstrate a defense to the apparent discrimination. If the defendant successfully rebuts the prima facie case, the burden then shifts back to the plaintiff to show that there are alternative available selection devices without similar discriminatory effect which would also serve the employer's legitimate interest in efficient and trustworthy workmanship.

Under the current law surrounding Title VII, two separate but related theories are available to prove a prima facie case of employment discrimination: disparate impact and disparate treatment. "Disparate treatment is the most easily understood type of discrimination. The employer simply treats some people less favorably than others because of their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Proof of discriminatory motive is critical, although it can in some situations be inferred from the mere fact of differences in treatment. Undoubtedly, disparate treatment was the most obvious evil Congress had in mind when it enacted Title VII." Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 335 n. 15, 97 S.Ct. 1843, 1854 n. 15, 52 L.Ed.2d 396. Claims of disparate treatment may be distinguished from claims that stress disparate impact. Disparate impact cases involve employment practices that are facially neutral in their treatment of different groups but that in fact fall more harshly on one group than another and cannot be justified by business necessity. Proof of discriminatory motive, the Supreme Court has held, is not required under a disparate impact theory. Compare Griggs, supra, 401 U.S. at 430-32, 91 S.Ct. at 853-54 with McDonnell Douglas, supra, 411 U.S. at 802-806, 93 S.Ct. at 1824-1826. Either theory may, of course, be applied to a particular set of facts. Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. at 335-36, n. 15, 97 S.Ct. at 1854-55 n. 15.

Central to both theories of liability where sex discrimination is alleged is the existence of an identifiable employment practice or policy that demonstrably affects all members of a class in a substantially similar, if not an identical manner. In disparate treatment cases, this is the pattern or practice followed as an employer's regular or standard operating procedure which treats women in relatively unfavorable ways so that it justifies a rebuttable inference that it proceeds from an intention to treat...