Bailey v. Binyon

• Decision Date: 30 March 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83 C 3312.,83 C 3312.
• Citation: 583 F. Supp. 923
• Parties: James BAILEY, Plaintiff, v. John E. BINYON and Binyon's Incorporated, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

583 F. Supp. 923

James BAILEY, Plaintiff, v. John E. BINYON and Binyon's Incorporated, Defendants.

No. 83 C 3312.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, E.D.

March 30, 1984.

Robert M. Hodge, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.

Charles V. Kralovec and Nancy Jo Arnold, Kralovec, Marquard, Doyle & Gibbons, Chartered, Chicago, Ill., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

PLUNKETT, District Judge.

James Bailey ("Plaintiff") brought this action, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. ("Title VII"), and the Civil Rights Act of 1870, 42 U.S.C. § 1981 ("§ 1981"), against John E. Binyon ("Binyon") and Binyon's Incorporated (collectively "Defendants"), seeking various forms of relief for Defendants' alleged racial discrimination against Plaintiff.¹ Jurisdiction is based on 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343, and is not contested. Presently before the court is Defendants' motion, under Fed.R.Civ.P. Rule 12(b)(6), to dismiss Plaintiff's first amended complaint ("complaint") for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. For the reasons set forth below, Defendants' motion is denied.

Factual Background

For purposes of Defendants' motion, we must, of course, accept as true the well-pleaded factual allegations of Plaintiff's complaint. E.g., Reichenberger v. Pritchard, 660 F.2d 280, 282 (7th Cir.1981). Further, we must view the reasonable inferences to be drawn from those allegations in the light most favorable to Plaintiff. E.g., Powe v. City of Chicago, 664 F.2d 639, 642 (7th Cir.1981). The complaint discloses that Plaintiff, who is black, was employed as a cook by Binyon's Incorporated, which owns and operates a restaurant in Chicago. Binyon is an officer of Binyon's Incorporated.

When Plaintiff arrived for work in the early morning of November 16, 1982, Binyon and four other people (apparently other employees) were in the restaurant. As Plaintiff entered the main room of the restaurant, Binyon approached him and told him that he was dissatisfied with the soups and sauces which had been made the preceding day. When Plaintiff responded that he was not responsible for preparing the soups and sauces, Binyon stated that "all you niggers are alike." Plaintiff then walked into the kitchen, and Binyon followed him and called Plaintiff a "nigger."

Plaintiff told Binyon that he objected to the racial epithets and that he wanted to be treated "like a human being," to which Binyon replied, "You're not a human being, you're a nigger." At that point, Plaintiff put down his keys to the restaurant and prepared to leave. Binyon suggested to Plaintiff that, if Plaintiff did not like the manner in which he was being treated, he could file a complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights. As Plaintiff left the restaurant, Binyon said to him, "You'd stay if you weren't a sissy. If you were a man, you'd stay." As a result of Binyon's harassment of him, Plaintiff did not return to work at the restaurant. Plaintiff immediately reported the incident to the Illinois Department of Human Rights, and, after exhausting his administrative remedies, Plaintiff filed suit in this court.

Discussion

Title VII provides, in part, as follows:

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer —

(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a).² Section 1981 states that:

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.

Clearly, § 1981 "affords a federal remedy against discrimination in private employment on the basis of race." Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U.S. 454, 460, 95 S.Ct. 1716, 1720, 44 L.Ed.2d 295 (1975). For present purposes, Defendants' liability, if any, under Title VII is coextensive with their liability under § 1981. See Flowers v. Crouch-Walker Corporation, 552 F.2d 1277 (7th Cir.1977); Johnson v. Olin Corporation, 484 F.Supp. 577 (S.D.Tex.1980). See also T & S Service Associates, Inc. v. Crenson, 666 F.2d 722, 724 (1st Cir.1981).³ Accordingly, the discussion of Plaintiff's Title VII claim which follows is equally applicable to his § 1981 claim.

The rule is well established, of course, "that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 101-102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957) (footnote omitted). With that principle in mind, we consider the legal sufficiency of Plaintiff's complaint.

I. Basic Requirements

A claim of racial discrimination in employment may be based either on a theory of "disparate treatment" or on a theory of "disparate impact." See, e.g., International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 335 n. 15, 97 S.Ct. 1843, 1854 n. 15, 52 L.Ed.2d 396 (1977). In a disparate treatment case, such as the present one, unlike a disparate impact case, the plaintiff must prove discriminatory intent or motive on the part of the defendants.⁴ See, e.g., Bryant v. International Schools Services, Inc., 675 F.2d 562, 576 (3d Cir.1982). In McDonnell Douglas Corporation v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-805, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824-1825, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), the Supreme Court explicitly delineated the burdens and order of presentation of proof in a disparate treatment case. The Court later summarized the McDonnell Douglas standards as follows:

First, the plaintiff has the burden of proving by the preponderance of the evidence a prima facie case of discrimination. Second, if the plaintiff succeeds in proving the prima facie case, the burden shifts to the defendant "to articulate some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the employee's rejection." 411 U.S. at 802 93 S.Ct. at 1824. Third, should the defendant carry this burden, the plaintiff must then have an opportunity to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the legitimate reasons offered by the defendant were not its true reasons, but were a pretext for discrimination. Id., at 804, 93 S.Ct. at 1825.

Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 252-253, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1093, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981). Although McDonnell Douglas involved an employer's hiring decision, the principles established in McDonnell Douglas are equally applicable to discharge cases. See Flowers v. Crouch-Walker Corporation, 552 F.2d at 1281 & n. 3.

The Court in McDonnell Douglas also set out a procedure through which a plaintiff can make a prima facie showing of racial discrimination in hiring using circumstantial evidence. 411 U.S. at 802, 93 S.Ct. at 1824. That procedure has been adapted to discharge cases, in which a plaintiff may satisfy his initial burden by establishing: "(1) that the plaintiff was a member of a racial minority; (2) that he was qualified for the job he was performing; (3) that he was satisfying the normal requirements in his work; (4) that he was discharged; and (5) that after his discharge the employer assigned white employees to perform the same work." Flowers v. Crouch-Walker Corporation, 552 F.2d at 1282. In the present case, Plaintiff contends that he was constructively discharged by Defendants. Defendants do not dispute the proposition that a constructive discharge is as much a "discharge" for purposes of Title VII as is an actual discharge. See, e.g., Meyer v. Brown & Root Construction Co., 661 F.2d 369, 371-372 (5th Cir.1981).

We begin by considering Defendants' argument that Plaintiff has failed to state a claim because he has not alleged that he was qualified for his job, that he was satisfying the normal requirements of his job, or that he was replaced by a white person. At the outset, we note that the first two propositions, while not explicitly alleged, are clearly implied by Plaintiff's complaint; we thus would not dismiss that complaint on those grounds. The complaint does not even suggest, however, that Plaintiff's job was filled by a white person after Plaintiff left. Nonetheless, because we disagree with the premise of Defendants' argument, we find that that lacuna does not render the complaint legally insufficient.

Defendants err in "seizing upon the McDonnell Douglas pattern as the only means of establishing a prima facie case of individual discrimination." International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. at 358, 97 S.Ct. at 1866. In rejecting that argument in the Teamsters case, the Supreme Court stated that:

Our decision in McDonnell Douglas ... did not purport to create an inflexible formulation. We expressly noted that "the facts necessarily will vary in Title VII cases, and the specification ... of the prima facie proof required from a plaintiff is not necessarily applicable in every respect to differing factual situations." 411 U.S. at 802 n. 13 93 S.Ct. at 1824 n. 13. The importance of McDonnell Douglas lies, not in its specification of the discrete elements of proof there required, but in its recognition of the general principle that any Title VII plaintiff must carry the initial burden of offering evidence adequate to create an inference that an employment decision was based on a discriminatory criterion illegal under Title VII.

431 U.S. at 358, 97 S.Ct. at 1866 (footnote omitted). See also Donnell v. General Motors Corporation, 576 F.2d 1292, 1296 (8th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 844, ...