Keller v. Prince George's County

• Decision Date: 26 August 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-3876,86-3876
• Citation: 827 F.2d 952
• Parties: 44 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1065, 44 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 37,329, 56 USLW 2138 Mazie KELLER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY; Prince George's County Department of Social Services, Defendants-Appellees, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Amicus Curiae.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 952

827 F.2d 952

44 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1065,

44 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 37,329, 56 USLW 2138

Mazie KELLER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY; Prince George's County Department of Social Services, Defendants-Appellees Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Amicus Curiae.

No. 86-3876.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued March 5, 1987.

Decided Aug. 26, 1987.

Herbert Vincent McKnight, Jr. (Ashcraft & Gerel, Washington, D.C., on brief), for plaintiff-appellant:

Justine S. Lisser, E.E.O.C. (Johnny J. Butler, Acting General Counsel, Gwendolyn Young Reams, Acting Associate Gen. Counsel, Vella M. Fink, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Washington, D.C., on brief), for amicus curiae E.E.O.C.

Nancy B. Shuger, Mark J. Davis, Asst. Attys. Gen. (Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen. of Baltimore, Md., on brief), for defendants-appellees.

Before WINTER, Chief Judge, WILKINSON, Circuit Judge, and KAUFMAN, Senior United States District Judge for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.

HARRISON L. WINTER, Chief Judge:

Plaintiff Mazie Keller, a black woman, sued her employer, the Prince George's County Department of Social Services (the "Department"), and the State of Maryland alleging discrimination on the basis of race in violation of the fourteenth amendment and 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 2000e et seq. Plaintiff prayed a jury trial of her Sec. 1983 claim. The suit arose from her employer's decision to deny Keller a promotion. The district court awarded summary judgment to defendants on Keller's Sec. 1983 claim on the ground that Title VII provides the exclusive remedy for employment discrimination claims against a state employer. 616 F.Supp. 540 (D.Md.1985). After a bench trial, the district court entered judgment for defendants on the Title VII claim, ruling that the plaintiff had failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the denial of her promotion was due to racial discrimination. Plaintiff appeals. We reverse the judgment for defendants on the Sec. 1983 claim and remand the case for further proceedings.

I.

The Department employed the plaintiff in the classification of Case Worker Associate II when, in September of 1983, she applied for the higher salaried position of Case Worker Associate III. Plaintiff claims that she was denied this promotion due to her race. Keller asserted two causes of action in her suit alleging intentional discrimination arising under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 2000e et seq., and section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, because she had been discriminated against in violation of the fourteenth amendment. The underlying facts which support these actions are identical. Subsequent to filing her complaint, the plaintiff filed a demand for a jury trial.

In August 1985, the district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on plaintiff's Sec. 1983 claim on the ground that Title VII provides the exclusive remedy for employment discrimination claims by a state employee. After dismissing plaintiff's Sec. 1983 claim, the district court denied her request for a jury because there is no right to a jury trial under Title VII. 616 F.Supp. at 544.

In September 1985, plaintiff sought leave to amend her complaint to allege that the denial of her promotion resulted in emotional distress and entitled her to compensatory damages under Sec. 1983. The district court denied the plaintiff's motion based on its earlier ruling that Title VII offered the exclusive remedy for the alleged discrimination.

In June 1986, a trial was held before the district judge on plaintiff's Title VII claim. The district judge ruled at trial that plaintiff had established a prima facie case of racial discrimination by establishing that she was black, that she had applied for an available position for which she was qualified, that she was rejected for this position, and that after her rejection, the position remained open to applicants of the plaintiff's qualifications. Accord McDonnell-Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). The court further ruled that defendants met their burden of articulating a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for the decision to deny plaintiff the promotion by demonstrating that it was given to an applicant who was more qualified for the position than Ms. Keller.

Finally, the district judge ruled that the plaintiff had failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that her employer's stated reason for denying her the promotion was a pretext for racial discrimination. In making this determination, the district court disregarded the testimony of plaintiff's witnesses that her employer's promotion decision was motivated by racial animus because the court found the testimony of these witnesses not credible. As a result of these findings, the district court entered judgment for the defendants. Plaintiff appeals, but her appeal is limited to review of the summary judgment for defendants in her Sec. 1983 claim. ¹

II.

Persons seeking monetary damages under Sec. 1983 have a right to a jury trial under the seventh amendment. Segarra v. McDade, 706 F.2d 1301, 1304 & n. 6 (4 Cir.1983). Accordingly, the denial of the plaintiff's demand for a jury trial of her Sec. 1983 cause of action violated her seventh amendment right to a jury trial, and the judgment of the district court is void, unless she had no Sec. 1983 cause of action as a matter of law. In re N-500L Cases, 691 F.2d 15, 19 (1 Cir.1982); Gnossos Music v. Mitken Inc., 653 F.2d 117 (4 Cir.1981). The denial of the plaintiff's right to a jury trial is harmless error, however, if the trial judge would have directed a verdict in favor of the defendants. In re N-500L Cases, supra, 691 F.2d at 25. The standard of review regarding a directed verdict is whether the evidence is such, without weighing the credibility of the witnesses, that there is only one conclusion that reasonable jurors could have reached. Wheatley v. Gladden, 660 F.2d 1024, 1027 (4 Cir.1981).

The defendants' argument that a directed verdict would be warranted in this case lacks merit. The plaintiff offered substantial evidence on the issue of whether her employer's decision to deny her the promotion was a pretext for racial discrimination which the district court weighed and decided was insufficiently credible to warrant a verdict of intentional discrimination. The district court did not conclude that the defendants' evidence was so convincing that it merited a directed verdict. Critically, the district court also disregarded direct evidence that the defendants were motivated by racial animus because the court found that the statements of plaintiff's witnesses were not credible. If this credibility finding had not been made, the evidence would have demonstrated that the plaintiff's supervisor denied the plaintiff the promotion due to racial animus because, according to plaintiff's witnesses, the supervisor had stated that the plaintiff was "so black that I can hardly stand to look at her." While we see no indication that the district judge's findings were clearly erroneous, they do not establish that the defendants were entitled to a directed verdict so as to deprive plaintiff of her right to a jury trial if she was entitled to one. Thus we are brought to the basic question of the correctness of the district court's ruling that plaintiff's Sec. 1983 cause of action was superseded by the enactment of Title VII.

III.

In 1972, Congress adopted the Equal Employment Opportunity Act (the Act), Sec. 2 of which extended the coverage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to allow suits against state and local government employers under the same conditions as private employers. P.L. No. 92-261, 86 Stat. 103 (1972). At the time this Act was adopted, Sec. 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 already provided a federal cause of action against any person who, acting under color of state law, deprived another person of any federal constitutional or statutory right. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. These two statutory provisions differ in several respects. Title VII claimants must follow a detailed administrative process which persons seeking relief under Sec. 1983 may avoid. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5; 29 C.F.R. Sec. 1613. A Title VII claimant must also exhaust her state and federal administrative remedies before being allowed to proceed to federal court; Sec. 1983 has no similar exhaustion requirement. Id. In addition, the limitation period for a Sec. 1983 claim is also generally longer than the 180-day limitation period for a Title VII claim. ²

Title VII and Sec. 1983 also differ in the relief which they offer to aggrieved parties. Section 1983 provides for equitable and legal relief, including awards of compensatory or punitive damages, while Title VII grants authority only for equitable relief. Monetary relief available to a Title VII claimant is typically limited to an award of back pay. While a jury trial is available for a plaintiff's legal claim under Sec. 1983, Title VII's limitation to equitable relief means that there is no right to a jury trial in Title VII actions. Lehman v. Nakshian, 453 U.S. 156, 164, 101 S.Ct. 2698, 2703, 69 L.Ed.2d 548 (1981). A jury trial is similarly unavailable in a Sec. 1983 action if only equitable relief is sought. See infra, part III B.

A.

Relying on Great American Federal Savings & Loan Association v. Novotny, 442 U.S. 366, 99 S.Ct. 2345, 60 L.Ed.2d 957 (1979) and Brown v. General Services Administration, 425 U.S. 820, 96 S.Ct. 1961, 48 L.Ed.2d 402 (1976), the district court held in this case that Title VII provides the exclusive remedy for a plaintiff seeking relief for intentional discrimination in employment decisions by a state government. 616 F.Supp. 543-44. ³ The district court reasoned that allowing the plaintiff to proceed under Sec. 1983 would circumvent the detailed...