Moore v. City of Charlotte, N.C.

• Decision Date: 28 January 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-1430,84-1430
• Parties: 36 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1582, 36 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 34,945 Jack K. MOORE, Appellee, v. CITY OF CHARLOTTE, NC, Appellant, and Charlotte Police Department, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 1100

754 F.2d 1100

36 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1582,

36 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 34,945

Jack K. MOORE, Appellee, v. CITY OF CHARLOTTE, NC, Appellant, and Charlotte Police Department, Defendant.

No. 84-1430.

United States Court of Appeals,

Fourth Circuit.

Argued Oct. 29, 1984.

Decided Jan. 28, 1985.

F. Douglas Canty, Asst. City Atty., Charlotte, N.C., for appellant.

Louis L. Lesesne, Jr., Charlotte, N.C. (Gillespie & Lesesne, Charlotte, N.C., on brief), for appellee.

Before WIDENER, PHILLIPS and WILKINSON, Circuit Judges.

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

The city of Charlotte, North Carolina suspended police officer Jack K. Moore and demoted him in rank from a sergeant to a patrolman. According to city officials, the action was a legitimate exercise of disciplinary authority. According to Moore, the action was an unlawful exercise in racial discrimination. On this appeal, we examine the means by which Moore may prove his claim and we review the conclusion of the district court that Moore in fact did prove his claim. Because we find that conclusion to be clearly erroneous, we reverse.

In this case the district court erred in its evaluation of disciplinary violations within the department of police. It equated greater and lesser offenses in a manner that would discourage a department from acting on the reasonable belief of corruption in its midst. In addition, the district court ignored the department's own classification of disciplinary offenses in its assessments of comparable seriousness. These failures together rendered meaningless the requirement of dissimilar sanctions for similar offenses that constitutes a prima facie case of racial discrimination in a Title VII disciplinary case. See McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 427 U.S. 273,

283, n. 11, 96 S.Ct. 2574, 2580 n. 11, 49 L.Ed.2d 493 (1976)

I

On September 11, 1977, Officers D.L. Grose and C.C. Leebrick of the Charlotte Police Department arrested Eddie Winfield Drakeford for driving while under the influence of alcohol. Before the scheduled date of Drakeford's trial, December 9, 1977, Sergeant Jack Moore asked Officer Grose and Officer Ronald Cureton to "help" Drakeford with his case. Cureton subsequently spoke to two witnesses who were essential to the prosecution of Drakeford, attempting to dissuade them from testifying. When neither of the witnesses appeared for trial, Cureton requested the assistant district attorney to drop the charge because the state could not prove its case. The action against Drakeford was accordingly dismissed.

The conduct of Moore and Cureton came quickly to the attention of Major Samuel H. Killman, then commander of the Internal Affairs Division of the Charlotte Police Department, and Killman began to investigate the dismissal of the Drakeford case. When Killman first interviewed Moore on December 16, 1977, Moore admitted that he had contacted the two officers and acknowledged that his actions violated department regulations. The fact of Moore's improper interference was not at that time, and has never been, a disputed issue. The motivation for Moore's improper interference, however, was a less clear question during Killman's investigation. Moore maintained that he had acted solely because of his longtime personal friendship with Drakeford. But Buddy Patterson, a mutual acquaintance of Moore and Drakeford, stated to Major Killman and two other police officers that Drakeford had paid Patterson $450 to help with the ticket, that Patterson had enlisted the aid of Moore, and that Patterson had given the money to Moore when the charge against Drakeford was dismissed.

Allegations of bribery added a new dimension to the case of the Drakeford traffic ticket, expanding the investigation from an internal disciplinary matter to a possible criminal prosecution. This criminal component culminated with trial of Patterson, Cureton and Moore. In the joint trial of Patterson and Cureton in February 1978, the judge of the Superior Court of Mecklenburg County granted a non-suit motion for both defendants on the charge of bribery, and the jury acquitted both defendants on charges of conspiracy to commit bribery. In the trial of Moore in May 1978, the prosecution voluntarily dismissed its case with prejudice when Patterson disavowed the allegations of bribery that he had made to the police investigators.

Meanwhile, in the departmental investigation, the authority to act on Killman's findings lay initially with J.C. Goodman, then chief of the Charlotte Police Department. Under the Charlotte city charter, Goodman could act in three ways: he could end all disciplinary proceedings without punishing Moore, he could order punishment for Moore to the extent of a thirty-day suspension without pay, or he could cite Moore to the Charlotte Civil Service Commission. If Goodman cited Moore to the Commission, that board would hold a hearing, make factual findings, and decide the punishment of Moore, which could include any suspension, demotion, or dismissal.

On March 29, 1978, Goodman suspended Moore without pay and referred his case to the Commission for final disposition. In his citation, Goodman charged Moore with four violations of Civil Service rules and regulations: conspiracy to dismiss the Drakeford case in return for a bribe, influencing of a government official in a matter relating purely to personal advantage, conduct unbecoming an officer, and interference with the proceedings of a trial. On June 21, 1978, the Commission found Moore to be not guilty of the first charge but guilty of the other three charges. The suspension without pay that had begun on March 29 was made effective through June 21, and Moore was demoted from a sergeant to a patrolman.

After appealing the decision of the Commission in North Carolina state court, Moore--who is a black man--complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that the actions of Chief Goodman and of the Charlotte Civil Service Commission were motivated by unlawful racial discrimination. The EEOC notified Moore of his right to sue on May 28, 1982, and Moore filed the present action in the District Court for the Western District of North Carolina on August 25, 1982. The District Court held a bench trial on March 29 and March 30, 1983. In addition to a number of documentary exhibits, the evidence included the testimony of Moore, Cureton, Killman, and Mr. George Hager, to whom we shall return shortly. The court entered its memorandum of decision on July 29, 1983. Finding that "defendant intentionally discriminated against plaintiff on the basis of his race," the court ordered the City of Charlotte to reinstate Moore as a sergeant and to repay his lost wages with prejudgment interest. The city appealed to this court. ¹

II

The decisive issue in this trial, a Title VII suit claiming racially disparate treatment, was the question of whether the defendant's disciplinary actions were motivated by Moore's race. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-2(a). The district court's resolution of this issue was a finding of fact, Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 285-90, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 1788-91, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982), and may be reversed by this court only if the determination was "clearly erroneous" within the meaning of Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a). Id. at 290, 102 S.Ct. at 1791. The "clearly erroneous" standard of review, as we recently noted in discussing the import of Rule 52(a) for motivational issues in Title VII litigation

may properly be based upon a conclusion that, without regard to what the 'actual' facts may be, the findings under review were induced by an erroneous view of the controlling legal standard; or are not supported by substantial evidence; or were made without properly taking into account substantial evidence to the contrary or are against the clear weight of the evidence considered as a whole. In sum, these establish that 'clearly erroneous' review is properly focused upon fact-finding processes rather than fact-finding results. The appellate function is to insure that the process shall have been principled; the function is not authoritatively to find the 'facts' first instance, or to affirm or deny that the facts 'found' by the trial court are the 'actual' facts of the case.

Miller v. Mercy Hospital, 720 F.2d 356, 361 (4th Cir.1983) (references omitted).

Applying this mandate, we are convinced that the fact-finding process in the court below was not properly principled. The appropriate fact-finding process in a Title VII suit for racially disparate treatment has been addressed by the Supreme Court many times. See especially McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973); Texas Department of Community

Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981); United States Postal Service Board of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 103 S.Ct. 1478, 75 L.Ed.2d 403 (1983). These cases suggest several different ways in which a plaintiff may show, and a court may find, liability under Title VII. A plaintiff may prove the discriminatory intent of the defendant through direct evidence, by introducing statements of the defendant. Aikens, 460 U.S. at 714 n. 3, 103 S.Ct. at 1481 n. 3. Alternatively, a plaintiff may prove the discriminatory intent through circumstantial evidence. The Court has provided explicit guidance for the order of proof and the allocation of burdens in such cases

First, the plaintiff has the burden of proving by the preponderance of the evidence a prima facie case of discrimination. Second, if the plaintiff succeeds in proving the prima facie case, the burden shifts to the defendant to articulate some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the employee's rejection. Third, should the defendant carry this burden, the plaintiff must then have an opportunity to prove by the preponderance of the evidence that the legitimate reasons offered by the defendant were not its true reasons, but were a pretext for discrimination.

Burdine...