Barber v. International Broth. of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers, Dist. Lodge No. 57
| Decision Date | 23 December 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-7461,84-7461 |
| Citation | 778 F.2d 750 |
| Parties | 39 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1092, 39 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 35,825 Charles R. BARBER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF BOILERMAKERS, IRON SHIP BUILDERS, BLACKSMITHS, FORGERS AND HELPERS, DISTRICT LODGE NO. 57, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Carol Ann Rasmussen, Birmingham, Ala., for plaintiff-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Before HENDERSON and CLARK, Circuit Judges, and HOFFMAN *, District Judge.
In this Title VII case, the district court found that the defendant union had intentionally discriminated against the black plaintiff in its referral practices. The court awarded the plaintiff $8,500 in damages, plus prejudgment interest, and enjoined the defendant from further discrimination. We vacate the judgment of the district court, and remand for further proceedings and findings within the suitable evidentiary framework.
The defendant is a construction union that negotiates with employers regarding the working rules and conditions of employment in the boilermaking trade. The fruits of the negotiation are embodied in a collective bargaining agreement entitled the Southeastern States Articles of Agreement ("the Articles"). By the terms of this agreement, local chapters of the union maintain an "out-of-work list" from which boilermakers with varying qualifications are referred to a job when an employer makes a request. As one might expect, boilermakers are paid at different wage rates when referred to a job.
The rate at which boilermakers are paid for referrals depends on their status in the union. Full-fledged boilermakers are referred at the rate established in the Articles, which typically is called the 100% rate. Those who are not fully qualified boilermakers are paid at lesser rates. This group generally includes apprentice boilermakers or members of the union's trainee program. The trainee program, as it is set out in the Articles, provides an 8,000-hour program through which boilermakers who lack formal qualifications for full-fledged status can attain that status. For the first 2,000 hours of the program, the trainee receives 70% of the full-fledged boilermaker rate. The trainee then receives 80% of the rate during the remaining 6,000 hours of the program.
The wage limitations of the trainee program are not ironclad. Even a trainee can receive the 100% rate in four situations: (1) having done ASME code welding 1 during a The plaintiff, Charles Barber, first applied in July 1977, to Local 455 of the defendant union, located in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. He had some prior experience, primarily as a laborer, but he did not inform the union of any experience. Consequently, he was placed in the trainee program, becoming the only black in that local chapter. In 1980, Barber joined the union's National Transient Division 2 for which he received a book indicating that he was a full-fledged boilermaker under the terms of the Division's separate collective bargaining agreement. On representing this fact to a Local 455 official, Barber was advised that it did not alter his trainee status.
period when the wage rate for a trainee doing this work had been elevated to the 100% level; (2) having been mistakenly paid by an employer at the 100% rate; (3) having received credit for prior experience; or (4) having been exempted from the wage limits by a grandfather provision. In addition, the 8,000-hour threshold to qualification for the 100% rate can be reduced to a 6,000-hour threshold during periods of manpower shortage.
After Barber began to receive referrals, the 8,000-hour threshold was reduced temporarily to the 6,000-hour threshold, but the parties agreed that he never reached this reduced threshold during the period in which it was effective. Sometime in this general period ASME code welders qualified for 100% wage treatment, although it is unclear whether Barber worked as a code welder during this period. 3 In 1979, furthermore, a group of trainees qualified for the 100% wage rate through the operation of a grandfather provision, while others such as Barber continued to receive wages at the lower rate. At the time of trial, Barber consistently had been referred to employers at the 80% rate and had not completed his 8,000 hours in the trainee program.
Barber has sued the defendant union twice. He brought an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") claim in 1978 that led to the commencement of a suit in 1979. That suit ended on June 30, 1980, with a court-approved settlement by which Barber released "in full compromise settlement and satisfaction of any and all claims and causes of action raised or for which could have been raised." Barber filed the present suit in December 1980, within three months of having filed and had dismissed a second EEOC claim. He alleges disparate treatment in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 2000e to 2000e-17 (1982).
The case was tried on November 28, 1983; the court rendered its decision the next day. Accepting the plaintiff's position, the court found that the defendant did violate Title VII by referring Barber at a wage rate lower than that at which some whites were referred. The court acknowledged
that the consent decree in the first suit barred a finding of discrimination based on acts occurring before June 30, 1980. The finding of discrimination therefore rested on the difference between Barber's 80% referrals and the 100% rates that the court found to have been paid after June 30, 1980, to certain white trainees. The court awarded Barber $8,500 in damages, plus prejudgment interest, and enjoined the defendant from further discrimination. After the entry of final judgment, the defendant moved for a new trial on December 6, 1983; the motion was overruled on June 20, 1984. The defendant then appealed the final judgment.
A succession of United States Supreme Court opinions has refined the scope of an employment discrimination suit. Although a series of evidentiary burdens now forms the skeleton of any Title VII case, the backbone of a disparate treatment suit is a showing that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff. 4 Accordingly, the Supreme Court has warned that, when such a case has been fully tried, the district court should turn its attention directly to the factual issue of discriminatory intent. See United States Postal Service v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 103 S.Ct. 1478, 75 L.Ed.2d 403 (1983). Because the issue is a factual one, this Court can reverse a district court's finding of intentional discrimination only if the finding is clearly erroneous, is based on clearly erroneous subsidiary findings of fact, or is based on an erroneous view of the law. Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982); Carmichael v. Birmingham Saw Works, 738 F.2d 1126, 1129 (11th Cir.1984). Remand generally is necessary when a finding is clearly erroneous unless the record permits only one resolution of the case. Pullman-Standard, 456 U.S. at 291-92, 102 S.Ct. at 1791-92.
Our task, therefore, is to determine whether the district court's finding of intentional discrimination is clearly erroneous. We must note at the outset that our job has been made more difficult by the form of the district court's findings. The judge dictated findings of fact and conclusions of law for the record and, while we do not condemn oral findings outright, 5 we do feel that in this instance the process contributed to the lack of clarity in the trial court's decision. The difficulty with the district court's decision is not a lack of specificity in the findings. The factual findings are reasonably specific. The difficulty is with the court's failure to arrange the findings clearly within the evidentiary framework constructed by the line of cases following McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973).
In the framework developed by McDonnell Douglas and its progeny, the district court must analyze the proof at trial in three steps. See Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981). First, the court must consider whether the plaintiff has established a prima facie case of discrimination. Second, assuming a valid prima facie case, the Although the district court neither cited McDonnell Douglas and its progeny nor used the terminology derived from these cases, both the nature and the sequence of the findings indicate that the district court made its decision within the proper evidentiary framework. The findings progress from consideration of the difference between treatment of the plaintiff and treatment of white workers (prima facie case), to consideration both of what it termed "company records" and of testimony for the union (rebuttal of the prima facie case), to evidence contradicting the rebuttal evidence (pretext evidence). Consequently, we believe that the mandate of Rule 52(a) 7 has been satisfied and that the district court stated its factual findings and legal conclusions sufficiently to make our review meaningful. See Ramirez v. Hofheinz, 619 F.2d 442, 445 (5th Cir.1980) (). 8
court then considers whether the defendant has rebutted the plaintiff's case. And third, the court considers whether the plaintiff has carried its ultimate burden of proof by showing that the defendant's rebuttal is, in fact, a pretext for true discriminatory intent. 6
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