Brown v. Gaston County Dyeing Machine Company
| Decision Date | 28 March 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 71-1268.,71-1268. |
| Citation | 457 F.2d 1377 |
| Parties | Marvin W. BROWN, Appellant, v. GASTON COUNTY DYEING MACHINE COMPANY, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Robert Belton, Charlotte, N. C., (J. LeVonne Chambers, Charlotte, N. C., Conrad O. Pearson, Durham, N. C., Jack Greenberg, William L. Robinson, New York City, and Chambers, Stein, Ferguson, & Lanning, Charlotte N. C., on brief), for appellant.
Brown Hill Boswell, Charlotte, N. C. (J. W. Alexander, Jr., Blakeney, Alexander, & Machen, Charlottte, N. C., on brief), for appellee.
Before CRAVEN and BUTZNER, Circuit Judges, and DUPREE, District Judge.
Rehearing En Banc Denied May 22, 1972.
This is an appeal from the district court's dismissal of an individual claim and class action alleging racial discrimination in hiring, promotion, pay, and other terms and conditions of employment.1 The suit is founded on Title VII, § 703(a) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,2 and 42 U.S.C. § 1981, derived from the Civil Rights Act of 1866.3 We modify the judgment concerning the individual claim, vacate the judgment dismissing the action brought on behalf of the class, and remand the case for further proceedings.
The defendant, Gaston County Dyeing Machine Co., manufactures and installs custom-made machines for dyeing textile yarns or threads under high pressure. The machines, essentially large vessels weighing several tons with numerous fittings and connections, are assembled by welder-fabricators who must be able to read blueprints and weld to exacting tolerances. Welder-fabricators are among the company's best paid employees.
Marvin Brown, the individual plaintiff, claims that he was denied promotion to higher paying welder-fabricator classifications because he is black. The company counters that Brown was offered unfettered opportunity to advance, but that he lacked the ability and temperament to do the work required of him. Resolution of these conflicting claims depended largely upon the credibility of witnesses, and since the district judge's findings are supported by the evidence, they are binding upon us. Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a).
The president's directions were followed and Brown was promoted to welder-trainee. He then progressed through various steps to welder-fabricator, class B.
The district judge's findings establish that the company violated 42 U.S.C. § 1981 by denying Brown a welding job because of his race from the time he applied in 1960 until he was employed as a welder-trainee in 1961. Brown, therefore, is entitled to back pay measured by the difference between the wages he would have earned had he been initially employed as a welder-trainee and his actual wages. Boudreaux v. Baton Rouge Marine Contracting Co., 437 F.2d 1011 (5th Cir. 1971); Sanders v. Dobbs Houses, Inc., 431 F.2d 1097 (5th Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 401 U.S. 948, 91 S.Ct. 935, 28 L.Ed.2d 231 (1971); Waters v. Wisconsin Steel Works, 427 F.2d 476 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, United Order of Am. Bricklayers and Stone Masons, Local 21 v. Waters, 400 U.S. 911, 91 S.Ct. 137, 27 L.Ed.2d 151 (1970).
The district judge, for reasons fully stated in his opinion, found that Brown was not a victim of racial discrimination after he was employed as a welder-trainee. This finding also depended largely upon the credibility of witnesses. It, too, is supported by the record and is binding upon us. Since this finding covers the period Brown worked for the company after the effective date of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he is not entitled individually to the relief he seeks under Title VII of the Act, and his remedy is limited to § 1981 for the earlier period.
While Brown has not proved his own Title VII claim, the class of employees he represents is not for this reason deprived of a remedy. Parham v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 433 F. 2d 421, 428 (8th Cir. 1970); cf. Jenkins v. United Gas Corp., 400 F.2d 28, 31 (5th Cir. 1968). The district court, cognizant of this rule, considered the class action on its merits. Rejecting the company's claim that the evidence demonstrates no discrimination against minorities, the district court said, "At least in prior years, welding and high pay in the defendant's shop were not for black men." 325 F.Supp. at 543. However, it found that the company, possibly spurred by this suit, had recently undertaken a number of measures to eliminate the racial discrimination it practiced in the past. Consequently, the court dismissed the action for lack of evidence to support relief for the class.
Although the company has employed black workers for many years in low paying jobs, it was not until 1961, when Brown was promoted to welder-trainee, that any had been assigned to welding. From 1958 to 1968, the company offered an after-hours training program for welding, blueprint reading, and shop math. Only one black employee was admitted to the program in that decade. For at least six years, it has employed three black leadmen, but these three are paid less than other leadmen who are white. The company advertises that it is an "equal opportunity employer," but it has no objective, formal guidelines for hiring, promotion, and transfer, or for giving notice of vacancies within the plant except by word of mouth.
Starting in the late 1950's, the company integrated its facilities, sports, and social functions. Since 1965 it has made affirmative efforts to recruit black workers as a part of its routine employment procedure, and it has provided opportunities for black employees to transfer into welder-fabricator or machine shop classifications. Some have accepted the transfers; others, after initially accepting, returned at their own request to lower paying jobs.
The district court found that Gaston County where the defendant's plant is located, has a black population of approximately 13 percent. In September 1969, black employees constituted less than ten percent of the defendant's total work force. As of the same date they comprised approximately 13 percent of the hourly rate production employees, but this percentage had slipped to less than 11 percent by the time of the trial in October 1970. The following table shows employment by race in each of the company's job classifications of hourly rate production employees as of September 1969:
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