E.E.O.C. v. Wiltel, Inc.
| Decision Date | 18 April 1996 |
| Docket Number | 94-5132 and 95-5065,Nos. 94-5131,s. 94-5131 |
| Parties | 70 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1052 EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION and Ellie Jordan, Plaintiffs-Appellants/Cross-Appellees, v. WILTEL, INC., formerly known as Williams Telecommunications Group, Inc. Defendant-Appellee/Cross-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma (D.C. No. 92-C-142-E).
Dori K. Bernstein, Attorney (C. Gregory Stewart, General Counsel, Gwendolyn Young Reams, Associate General Counsel, Carolyn L. Wheeler, Assistant General Counsel, with her on the brief), Washington, DC, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
J. Patrick Cremin (Michelle T. Gehres with him on the brief), of Hall, Estill, Hardwick, Gable, Golden & Nelson, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Defendant-Appellee.
John M. Young, Attorney, on behalf of Ellie Jordan, Plaintiff-Appellant adopted the brief of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Before PORFILIO, McWILLIAMS, and ALARCON, * Circuit Judges.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), and Ellie Jordan as plaintiff-intervenor, appeal from the final judgment entered in favor of WilTel, Inc., ("WilTel") in this Title VII action. The district court found that WilTel refused to hire Jordan for a permanent position as a carrier customer service representative because she is an evangelical Christian. Nevertheless, the district court denied any relief to Jordan because she submitted a forged reference letter from a prior employer in support of her job application. The fact that the letter was fraudulent was not discovered until after the alleged discriminatory conduct and the filing of this action.
The EEOC and Jordan argue that the district court erred in concluding that Jordan was not entitled to money damages, and that the EEOC was not entitled to injunctive relief, as a remedy for WilTel's discriminatory rejection of Jordan's application for employment as a carrier customer service representative. In its cross-appeal, WilTel seeks reversal of the district court's finding that Jordan's employment application was rejected because she is an evangelical Christian and requests that we affirm the district court's judgment.
We affirm because we conclude that the district court clearly erred in finding that Jordan was qualified for the position but was rejected solely because she is an evangelical Christian. Accordingly, we do not consider the merits of the question whether an applicant for employment who is rejected solely on discriminatory grounds is entitled to any relief if the employer subsequently discovers a legitimate business reason to support the hiring decision.
Jordan is a member of the Southern Baptist denomination. She describes herself as In October, 1987, at WilTel's request, Jordan was assigned to work at WilTel as a temporary clerical employee by Hannah's Temporary Agency. Jordan was placed in the Customer Service Department as a temporary secretary. Clarissa Esquivel was her immediate superior.
an "evangelical Christian." WilTel is a telecommunications services company. In 1988, WilTel owned a fiber optic network. It offered network services to inter-exchange carriers, and to commercial end-users for the transmission of business communications and information
Shortly after Jordan began her temporary employment, Esquivel attempted to find a permanent position for her at WilTel. Esquivel asked Gordon Martin and Julie Hackett, her manager, to hire Jordan for the position of department secretary of the Customer Service Department. Jordan was not hired as department secretary because that job position had not been approved at the time of Esquivel's request.
In March, 1988, five job openings in Tulsa, Oklahoma became available for the position of carrier customer service representative. The announcement for the position provided that applicants were required to have two to four years experience in customer service/telephony, 1 plus organizational, communications, and interpersonal skills.
In 1988, WilTel had a written policy that gave preference to applicants who were internal employees. Temporary employees such as Jordan were not considered to be internal applicants.
Jordan applied for the position of carrier customer service representative. In support of her application, Jordan submitted a resume and letters of reference from prior employers. One letter of recommendation was purportedly from Nurit O. Glick, Director of Education at the B'Nai Emunah Religious School where Jordan had worked as a secretary for three months. The letter was highly complimentary. It disclosed a close personal attachment between Glick and Jordan. 2 At her deposition on May 20, 1993, Glick testified that, when Jordan left the B'Nai Emunah Religious School, they were not on speaking terms. Glick testified further that Jordan did not ask Glick to write a reference letter. Glick stated that she never wrote, dictated, or authorized a third party to write a reference letter on Jordan's behalf. When shown the reference letter, Glick denied writing it.
Three WilTel employees, Gordon Martin, Supervisor of Compensation and Benefits and the Tulsa Supervisor of Human Resources, Julie Hackett, Manager of Customer Services, and Clarissa Esquivel, Supervisor of Customer Services interviewed the applicants and recommended five for employment. The record shows that Karen Miller and Roni Baker, who were customer service representatives, also interviewed Jordan for the position. Esquivel testified in her deposition taken on February 4, 1994, that neither Miller nor Baker recommended hiring Jordan. 3 Miller testified at trial that she told Esquivel that Jordan was not qualified for the position.
The record shows that Esquivel requested that Martin permit Jordan to be considered Nancy Smith, the Director of Customer Services, testified that "[f]airly early on and soon after Claire became a supervisor Claire was pretty consistent in her lobbying efforts to bring Ellie Jordan on board full time." Smith stated that she had "[p]retty low" confidence in Esquivel's ability to make a hiring decision and "[t]he fact that she consistently lobbied for Ellie over a course of several months was of concern." Despite these concerns, both Hackett and Smith agreed to allow Jordan to interview for the position "[b]ased on the fact that Julie wanted to work well with Claire."
for the position of carrier customer service representative without going through the resume screening process ordinarily conducted by WilTel's Human Resources department. Martin informed Esquivel that he had not intended to include Jordan in the list of qualified applicants because her skills were primarily secretarial and clerical. Martin testified that Jordan was granted an interview solely because of Esquivel's request
Esquivel gave Jordan special training in the duties of a carrier customer service representative after the work day was completed. In addition, Esquivel assigned Jordan to fill in for absent carrier customer service representatives. Esquivel testified that Jordan "was fully qualified to take on a [carrier customer service representative] position with little or no additional training." Esquivel did not schedule a formal interview with Jordan.
After reviewing Jordan's resume, and interviewing her, Martin concluded that she lacked the qualifications and experience necessary for the position of carrier customer service representative. Martin decided that she was not qualified, notwithstanding her work in the Customer Services Department because her experience was limited to typing customer correspondence and contracts.
Hackett testified that she concluded that Jordan was unqualified for the position because she had no specific customer service, telecommunication experience, or the skills necessary to perform the duties of carrier customer service representative. Hackett also stated that she found the Glick reference letter unusual because it described the relationship between the supervisor and employee as "close as any two friends can be."
After the interviews were completed, Martin, Hackett, and Esquivel discussed the candidates. Only Esquivel was of the view that Jordan should be hired. Hackett and Martin voted against offering Jordan a position. In her discussions with Martin and Esquivel, Hackett never stated she was opposed to hiring Jordan because of her religious views.
Hackett initially opposed the selection of Barbara Smith. After hearing Esquivel's reasons for supporting Smith, Hackett agreed to recommend her. Smith was an evangelical Christian. The group ultimately recommended five persons, four of whom were unanimously supported for the position of carrier customer service representative.
The five names were submitted to Nancy Smith. Smith was responsible for approving or rejecting the applicants submitted by the interview team. After reviewing the five applicants' resumes, Smith authorized their hiring.
Hackett and Smith discussed Jordan's application for a carrier customer service representative position after Hackett interviewed Jordan. Hackett told Smith of her frustration regarding her inability to "get good answers from Ellie in the interview process."
Jordan characterized her interview with Hackett as follows: "I didn't feel my answers were offensive and they were honest answers and even though I was a little bit ill at ease expressing these things I felt it was an acceptably fine interview." Jordan testified further that in response to a question regarding her "goal in life," she stated that her "purpose in life is to please the Lord and to serve my employer and the people that I work with with (sic) the gifts and talents and the abilities and the education that I have wherever I am or whatever I am doing." 4 When Hackett asked Jordan how she dealt with frustration,...
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