Adams v. McDougal

• Decision Date: 10 January 1983
• Docket Number: No. 81-3393,81-3393
• Parties: 30 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1123, 30 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 33,275 Willie ADAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Ralph McDOUGAL, Sheriff, Parish of St. Bernard, State of Louisiana, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 104

695 F.2d 104

30 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1123,

30 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 33,275

Willie ADAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Ralph McDOUGAL, Sheriff, Parish of St. Bernard, State of Louisiana, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 81-3393.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Jan. 10, 1983.

Joseph W. Thomas, New Orleans, La., for plaintiff-appellant.

Richard Michalczyk, Metairie, La., for Ralph McDougal.

John F. Rowley, Dist. Atty., pro se.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Before WISDOM, RANDALL and TATE, Circuit Judges.

WISDOM, Circuit Judge.

This appeal involves alleged violations of the Civil Rights Statutes, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981, 1983. ¹ The plaintiff, Willie Adams, appeals from a trial court bench ruling that the Sheriff of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, had not discriminated against Adams in the terms and conditions of his employment or in its failure to rehire him. Although the trial court was not clearly erroneous in its factual finding regarding the terms and conditions of Adams's employment, it used the wrong legal standard in evaluating Adams's claim that the failure to rehire him was discriminatory.

I.

In 1975, Adams applied for the position of deputy sheriff with St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. With substantial help from the parish sheriff, John Rowley, Adams qualified for the position and was hired. In August 1978, Adams quit his job as deputy sheriff to take care of an ill relative in Florida. He returned to St. Bernard Parish in October 1978 and asked Sheriff Rowley to be rehired. Rowley refused and Adams filed this suit against Rowley and the current sheriff, Ralph McDougal.

Adams contends that Rowley and McDougal deprived him of his civil rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981 and 1983. Adams alleges two distinct violations of the Civil Rights Acts. First, Adams argues that Rowley discriminated against him during Adams's tenure as a deputy sheriff in the terms and conditions of his employment. In particular, Adams cites the practice of assigning black deputies to old, second-hand patrol cars, painted white, rather than the new patrol cars, painted green, used by white deputies. Adams also contends that black deputies were assigned to patrol only black areas. Finally, Adams contends that Sheriff Rowley did not allow black deputies to go to the courthouse to receive their day's assignments and that the black deputies were paid lower salaries.

Second, Adams alleges that Rowley and McDougal refused to rehire him upon his return from Florida because he was black. In support of this contention, he points to evidence that a number of white deputies were hired during the period he was trying to get his job back. The defendants respond that, at the time Adams asked for his job back, Sheriff Rowley was a lame-duck sheriff and did not wish to saddle Sheriff-elect McDougal with any last minute appointments. Rowley also maintains that any white deputies appointed while he was a lame-duck sheriff had been "in process" before the election of McDougal.

The trial court held that Adams had failed to show a prima facie case of discrimination in the terms and conditions of his employment. The court relied on evidence Rowley and McDougal presented that any dissimilarities between the jobs of white and black deputies were due to nondiscriminatory factors; "work distribution was the result of numerous factors such as employee preferences, job qualifications, and economic conditions affecting job availability".

Regarding Adams's inability to regain his job, the district court held that Adams did not have a "legal right of action based upon defendant's alleged refusal to rehire him as a parish deputy sheriff when he left the force at his own volition." The court grounded this holding on a finding that Adams was an appointee rather than an employee of the sheriff. Citing Wilson v. Kelley, N.D.Ga., 294 F.Supp. 1005, aff'd per curiam, 1968, 393 U.S. 266, 89 S.Ct. 477, 21 L.Ed.2d 425, and Kyles v. Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Dept., W.D.La.1975, 395 F.Supp. 1307, the district court reasoned that a deputy's relationship to a sheriff is more personal than an ordinary employment relationship. The court concluded that since the deputy's tenure depends almost entirely on the whim of the sheriff and can in no event exceed the term of the appointing sheriff, the deputy has no expectation of continuing employment, and thus no contractual rights. Finding that Adams sought an appointment as a public official rather than an employee under an employment contract, the court held that Sec. 1981 offered no protection, particularly in the absence of any race-based animus.

II.

In evaluating Adams's Sec. 1983 challenge to the terms and conditions of his employment as a deputy sheriff, the trial court stated that the burden of showing purposeful discrimination by a preponderance of the evidence rested on Adams. The court held that the evidence presented at trial did not make out a prima facie case of intent to discriminate between black and white deputies on the part of the defendants. In particular, the court pointed to evidence that black deputies did, in fact, patrol mixed neighborhoods, that many second-hand patrol cars were driven by whites, that black deputies were allowed to report to the courthouse if they chose to do so, and that the same criteria governed the pay of all deputies. ² On appeal, Adams does not contend that the trial court used the wrong legal principles; only that the court's evaluation of the evidence was incorrect.

We must evaluate the trial court's holding of no intent to discriminate under a clearly erroneous standard. Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 1982, --- U.S. ----, ----, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 1790, 72 L.Ed.2d 66, 82; Lerma v. Bolger, 5 Cir.1982, 689 F.2d 589, 592. Under the clearly erroneous standard, we do not reject the district court's findings unless we are left with the definite and firm impression that a mistake has been made. Wright v. Western Electric Co., 5 Cir.1981, 664 F.2d 959, 963. Clearly, the evidence the trial court considered conflicted regarding the possible existence of discriminatory intent. For each discriminatory condition of employment alleged by Adams, the defendants produced contradictory evidence showing no discrimination. ³ We shall not try to second guess the trial court on this purely evidentiary conflict. See Thomas v. New Orleans, 5 Cir.1982, 687 F.2d 80, 83.

III.

Regarding his inability to regain his job, Adams contends that the trial court used the wrong legal analysis to evaluate his civil rights claim. The trial court held that Adams's status as an "appointee" disqualified him for Sec. 1981 protection and negated any need for the trial court to determine whether Adams had made out a prima facie case of discrimination. Adams argues that his status as an appointee is irrelevant. Further, he contends that he has shown prima facie discrimination under the test set out in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 1973, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 and as clarified in Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 1981, 450 U.S. 248, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207.

The origin of the appointor/appointee distinction relied on by the trial court is the dictum in a footnote in Wilson v. Kelley, N.D.Ga., 294 F.Supp. 1005, aff'd per curiam, 1968, 393 U.S. 266, 89 S.Ct. 477, 21 L.Ed.2d 425. In Wilson, a three-judge panel, with Judge Tuttle dissenting, held that prisoners in the Georgia prison system did not have standing to challenge the process by which the Georgia Board of Corrections made appointments. Although it did not need to address the subject and stated that the "situation is not clear", the court made the observation that elected officials should have freedom to choose their subordinates. ⁴ Relying on this dictum, in Kyles v. Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Dept., W.D.La.1975, 395 F.Supp. 1307, the district court held that 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1981 offered no protection to a Louisiana deputy sheriff. The Kyles court reasoned that Sec. 1981 provides a remedy for interference with employment contracts, but the plaintiff first must show some contractual employment relationship. Because the hiring of a deputy sheriff is the appointment of a public official, the court concluded that no "contract" existed and the plaintiff had no cause of action under Sec. 1981. Id. at 1310-11. The trial court here found the reasoning of the Kyles court dispositive of Adams's Sec. 1981 claim.

The Supreme Court dispelled any illusions regarding the powers of elected officials over appointments in Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547. In Elrod, the Court held that the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and association protected political appointees from dismissal solely on the grounds of party affiliation. Id. at 372-73, 96 S.Ct. at 2689, 49 L.Ed.2d at 565. The Fourteenth Amendment similarly protects an appointee from discrimination on the basis of race. "[A]ny contribution of patronage dismissals to the democratic process does not suffice to override their severe encroachment on First Amendment freedoms. We hold, therefore, that the practice of patronage dismissals is unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments..." Id. at 373, 96 S.Ct. at 2689, 49 L.Ed.2d at 565.

To the extent that the Kyles court felt constrained by a strict reading of Louisiana law regarding the status of deputy sheriffs, ⁵ that decision is incorrect. Section 1981 provides:

All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind and to no other.

Section 1981...