Carstea v. Technology Applications, Inc., 86-1647

• Citation: 825 F.2d 406
• Decision Date: 23 July 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-1647,86-1647
• Parties: Unpublished Disposition NOTICE: Fourth Circuit I.O.P. 36.6 states that citation of unpublished dispositions is disfavored except for establishing res judicata, estoppel, or the law of the case and requires service of copies of cited unpublished dispositions of the Fourth Circuit. Dumitru D. CARSTEA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

Page 406

825 F.2d 406

Unpublished Disposition

NOTICE: Fourth Circuit I.O.P. 36.6 states that citation of unpublished dispositions is disfavored except for establishing res judicata, estoppel, or the law of the case and requires service of copies of cited unpublished dispositions of the Fourth Circuit.

Dumitru D. CARSTEA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 86-1647

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Submitted March 31, 1987.

Decided July 23, 1987.

Alan Rosenblum, Rosenblum & Rosenblum, John P. McGeehan, McGeehan & Associates, on brief, for appellant.

Douglas McFadden, Thomas L. Jones, Anthony Mark Nicewicz, McFadden, Evans & Sill, on brief, for appellee.

Before RUSSELL, WIDENER and SPROUSE, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Dumitru D. Carstea appeals from a judgment against him in an action alleging that Technology Applications, Inc. ('TAI') discharged him because of his national origin and his age. The district court entered judgment on the merits against Carstea on an employment discrimination claim filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 2000e, et seq. and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ('ADEA'), 29 U.S.C. Secs. 621, et seq. after a nonjury trial.

As an initial matter, Carstea argues that because he presented direct evidence of discrimination, the district court erred in failing to shift the burden to TAI to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have taken the challenged actions even in the absence of age and national origin biases. Carstea cites Lee v. Russell County Board of Education, 684 F.2d 769 (11th Cir. 1982), as authority for the proposition. As noted by another circuit court of appeals, courts adopting this burden of persuasion have adopted it in cases in which the trier of fact accepted the direct testimony of discrimination. Craft v. Metromedia, Inc., 766 F.2d 1205, 1210-11 (8th Cir. 1985) (citing Lee, 684 F.2d at 774-75), cert. denied, ---- U.S. ----, 54 U.S.L.W. 3583 (March 3, 1986). Here, as in Craft, the district court did not believe the direct evidence of discrimination. See Craft, supra, at 1211. Thus, the burden-shifting rule has no application here.

The district court's finding that TAI's employment decision was not the result of improper considerations is a finding of fact that cannot be disturbed unless clearly erroneous. See Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 286-88 & n.16 (1982). If a district court's account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, a court of appeals may not reverse it even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently. Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder's choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous....