Abron v. Black & Decker Mfg. Co.
| Decision Date | 11 October 1977 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. Y-75-539. |
| Citation | 439 F. Supp. 1095 |
| Parties | Sarah L. ABRON v. BLACK AND DECKER MANUFACTURING COMPANY. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Norris C. Ramsey, Karon D. Ramsey, Baltimore, Md., for plaintiff.
Stephen D. Shawe, Arthur M. Brewer, Baltimore, Md., for defendant.
This action, filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, concerns claims of racial discrimination against the Black and Decker Manufacturing Company at its Hampstead, Maryland plant. The plaintiff, Sarah Abron, brought this action on behalf of herself and a class which was certified by this Court, pursuant to Rule 23 F.R.Civ.P., to include all black persons who either have been employed, are currently employed or will be, or will seek to be, employed by the defendant at its Hampstead plant on or after January 31, 1971. By prior Order of November 24, 1975, this Court held that the plaintiff had satisfied the requirements of Title VII for the filing of a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and had timely filed her complaint in federal court upon receipt of a "right-to-sue" letter. Subject matter jurisdiction over this action is therefore proper under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(a) and (e) as well as under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. General jurisdiction is properly invoked under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f) and 28 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 2201 and 2202.
The complaint, as amended, alleged discrimination in employment in the areas of recruitment; job classification; hiring; assignment; promotion; transfer; benefits, compensation, terms, conditions and privileges of employment and in the apprenticeship program conducted by the defendant. Claims concerning layoff, recall, discipline and discharge were abandoned by the plaintiff.
The relief sought is a declaratory judgment that the actions of the defendant have violated the civil rights of the class under the statutes cited above, a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting the defendant from further engaging in discriminatory activities and equitable remedies in the form of back pay and adjustment of class members' positions as employees of the defendant company to reflect their "rightful place" in the absence of discrimination. With the parties in agreement, the Court on March 11, 1977 granted the plaintiff's motion pursuant to Rule 42 F.R.Civ.P. that the issue of liability be severed from that of back pay awards and the latter tried by a Special Master should the Court make a finding of liability.
At the Court's request, the parties made arrangements for notification to potential class members of the pendency of this action, although this was not a requirement under Rule 23 F.R.Civ.P. since the class had been certified as a (b)(2) class. Current employees of the defendant were notified directly and advertisements were placed in a newspaper of general circulation in the Baltimore, Maryland community in advance of trial.
A trial on the merits was held April 1822, 1977 with additional evidence of expert witnesses heard on April 29, 1977 and May 10, 1977. As a preliminary matter, the Court made an oral ruling that the individual plaintiff's request for assessment of punitive damages would be denied in light of such decisions as E.E.O.C. v. Detroit Edison, 515 F.2d 301 (6th Cir. 1975) (), United States v. N. L. Industries, 479 F.2d 354 (8th Cir. 1973), and Pearson v. Western Electric Co., 542 F.2d 1150 (10th Cir. 1976). The Court also considered the motion of the plaintiffs to strike the defendant's supplemental answers to interrogatories and its response to the plaintiffs' request to admit facts. The plaintiffs' motion was made as a result of the defendant's eve-of-trial announcement that facts and figures which it had supplied in prior responses to the plaintiffs' interrogatories were erroneous. Plaintiffs' counsel had, understandably, relied upon the earlier responses to develop statistical exhibits for submission at trial. The earlier answers to interrogatories had also been referred to in the Pre-Trial Order which the parties had submitted to the Court and which had been signed by defendant's and plaintiffs' counsel. This Court made clear at trial its firm disapproval of the manner in which counsel had handled discovery, and considered it within its power to exclude the most recent factual and statistical materials presented by defendant's counsel and to admit only that evidence which had been produced earlier by the defendant, after two motions to compel were filed by the plaintiff and one Rule 37 Order issued by this Court. However, satisfied that the interests of justice and the parties would not be served by consideration of material that might be erroneous, the Court denied the plaintiffs' motion to strike and ruled on admission of certain evidence, throughout the trial, based upon whether the plaintiffs were given information sufficiently in advance to permit their counsel to cope with it. Cf. Tupman Thurlow Co. v. S. S. Cap Castillo, 490 F.2d 302 (2d Cir. 1974).
Based upon the testimony and the documentary evidence, the Court makes the following findings of fact and determinations of law:
The defendant, the Black and Decker Manufacturing Company B & D, operates a large industrial plant in Hampstead, Maryland where it engages in the manufacture of power hand tools and parts. It has conducted this operation in Hampstead since the early 1950's, and has increased the size and output of the plant considerably since it was opened. In the mid-1960's, the defendant centralized all of its manufacturing operations in the Hampstead plant and the Towson branch of the company is now reserved for administrative functions. There are approximately thirty departments within the Hampstead plant, most of which are concerned with the various processes of designing and assembling and packing the tools. There are in addition, warehouse, distribution and personnel departments, the latter of which contains the cafeteria operations, a finance division, an "off-load" department, various engineering services and "shops", maintenance services, a quality control department or division and a plant services department. Plaintiffs' exhibits 11(a)-(d); Testimony of Samuel H. Patterson, personnel manager at the Hampstead plant 1969-1973. B & D assigns its employees to job classifications, of which there are approximately 300. Testimony of James A. Cornelison, manager of personnel services B & D Hampstead plant. These job classifications have assigned labor grades which designate the pay rate ranges. Utilizing the groupings employed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission EEOC, B & D considers its labor grades 2 and 3 to be Laborers, its labor grades 4-6 to be Operatives, its labor grades 7-14 to be Craftsmen and its labor grades S24-12 (the lower number indicating the higher grade) to be Technicians and Office and Clerical staff. Plaintiffs' exhibit 7a; testimony of Cornelison. B & D hires almost all of its employees at entry job grades 3 or 5. Absent promotion or transfer, it is possible, with satisfactory or better job performance reviews (see below), to move only one or two steps up from entry level job grade, that is, to no higher than levels five or seven. Deposition of Cornelison, 69-71.
In response to the plaintiffs' requests for discovery, the defendant supplied three separate sets of data indicating the racial composition of B & D's work force on various dates. The first set of data, consisting of the EEO-1 forms submitted by B & D to the EEOC for various employment years is contained and summarized in plaintiffs' exhibits 1, 2a, 2b, 3 (column A), 11g, 11h & i (column A) and 11j (Chart I). The second set of data appears in the First Supplemental Answers to plaintiffs' interrogatories and is contained and summarized in plaintiffs' exhibits 3 (column B), 8, 9, 11a-f, 11h-i (column B) and 11j (Chart III). The third set of data appeared in the attachments I-VIII to the defendant's Second Supplemental Answers to plaintiffs' interrogatories and is the material which the defendant's counsel indicated at the beginning of trial was erroneous. Although it has been admitted into evidence, it has not served as the factual basis of the Court's determinations here. In addition to the data mentioned above, there was a stipulation by the parties at trial that the following were accurate figures for the total work force employed and the percentage of black employees for the given dates:
DATE NO. OF EMPLOYEES NO. BLACK % BLACK
March '69 3,021 62 1.9
May '70 3,014 62 2.1
May '71 2,757 57 2.1
April '72 2,693 62 2.3
April '73 2,915 74 2.5
April '74 3,038 105 3.5
April '75 2,886 101 3.5
Jan. '76 2,336 60 2.5
March '77 2,485 74 3.0
Examination of plaintiffs' exhibits 1, 2a and 3 reveals the following statistical picture:
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Ste. Marie v. Eastern R. Ass'n
...and the class representative need not establish that she was personally victimized by discrimination, Abron v. Black & Decker Mfg. Co., 439 F.Supp. 1095 (D.Md. 1977). Indeed, even though the claim of the class representative may fail, that does not mean that the class is necessarily deprive......
-
EEOC (USA) v. Pacific Press Pub. Ass'n
...See, e. g., Scofield v. Bolts & Bolts Retail Stores, Inc., 20 EPD ? 30,242 at 12,302 (S.D.N.Y.1979); Abron v. Black & Decker Manufacturing Co., 439 F.Supp. 1095, 1115 (D.Md.1977); Inda v. United Airlines, Inc., supra, 405 F.Supp. at 435. On the other hand, the Court of Appeals for the Secon......
-
Walker v. Robbins Hose Co. No. 1, Inc.
...Co., 518 F.2d 543, 549 (C.A.4, 1975); Parham v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 433 F.2d 421 (C.A.8, 1970); Abron v. Black & Decker Mfg. Co., 439 F.Supp. 1095, 1108 (D.Md.1977). 35 In subsequent opinions the Court has stressed both subjective and objective evidence in reaching its conclusi......
-
Abron v. Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc.
...It concluded by awarding attorney's fees to plaintiff's counsel. In its final order at this stage of the proceeding, the district court, 439 F.Supp. 1095, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), granted leave to either of the parties to apply to this Court "for leave to appeal" any of the several ......