Byrnie v. Town of Cromwell

• Decision Date: 01 August 2000
• Docket Number: Docket No. 99-9389
• Citation: 243 F.3d 93
• Parties: (2nd Cir. 2001) ROBERT F. BYRNIE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TOWN OF CROMWELL, BOARD OF EDUCATION, Body Corporate CROMWELL BOARD OF EDUCATION Body Corporate, Defendants-Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 93

243 F.3d 93 (2nd Cir. 2001)

ROBERT F. BYRNIE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TOWN OF CROMWELL, BOARD OF EDUCATION, Body Corporate CROMWELL BOARD OF EDUCATION Body Corporate, Defendants-Appellees.

Docket No. 99-9389

August Term, 2000

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

Argued: September 19, 2000

Decided: March 15, 2001

Appeal from judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Gerard L. Goettel, Judge) dismissing plaintiff's age and sex discrimination claims on summary judgment. Affirmed in part, reversed in part. [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] BEECHER A. LARSON, East Haven, Connecticut, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

SHEILA A. HUDDLESTON, Shipman & Goodwin, Hartford, Connecticut, for Defendants- Appellees.

Before: WALKER, Chief Judge, MINER, and POOLER, Circuit Judges.

POOLER, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff Robert F. Byrnie appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, Gerard L. Goettel, Judge, dismissing his complaint alleging defendants Town of Cromwell Public Schools and Cromwell Board of Education ("Cromwell") failed to hire him for a part time teaching position as an art teacher on the basis of his age, in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq., and on the basis of his gender, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, as amended, 20 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. The district court dismissed Byrnie's disparate treatment claims under both statutes on summary judgment on the grounds that Byrnie had failed to produce sufficient evidence to show that Cromwell's nondiscriminatory reason for hiring another candidate was pretext. The district court also dismissed Byrnie's disparate impact claims under both statutes on summary judgment because the statistical evidence offered by Byrnie of gender and age discrimination was insufficiently linked to any identifiable hiring practice or policy. On appeal, Byrnie contends summary judgment was inappropriate on his disparate treatment claims because unlawful discrimination could be inferred from a number of circumstances, including: the objective superiority of his paper credentials in comparison with the chosen candidate's; the vague and conclusory nature of Cromwell's business reason; and the destruction of documents made in connection with the hiring process. Byrnie also contends that summary judgment was inappropriate on his age-related disparate impact claim because he could allege a specific employment practice as the cause of statistical evidence indicating an age imbalance in Cromwell's teaching hires. Summary judgment on his gender-related disparate impact claim was inappropriate, Byrnie argues, because he was prevented from alleging a cause for the statistical evidence showing gender imbalance among Cromwell's teachers due to Cromwell's destruction of documents. For the reasons below, we affirm the district court's dismissal of Byrnie's disparate impact claims but reverse with regard to Byrnie's disparate treatment claims.

BACKGROUND

We presume familiarity with the district court's thorough decision. See Byrnie v. Town of Cromwell Pub. Schs., 73 F. Supp. 2d 204 (D. Conn. 1999).

In the spring of 1995, the Cromwell Board of Education decided to hire a part-time art teacher for Cromwell High School. Following the steps laid out in the Board of Education's "Recommended Procedures for Hiring," Cromwell advertised for a permanent, part-time art teacher in June, 1995. Applicants were required to submit a letter of application, a resume, transcripts, a letter of reference, and proof of Connecticut certification. Although the posting announcing the opening indicated that the only prerequisite for applicants was current Connecticut teaching certification, Cromwell's job description for the position (which was not itself posted) specified, among other things, that the appropriate candidate have a degree in art education. Byrnie, who was 64 at the time, had a bachelor's and a master's degree in art education and had taught art at the high school level for 21 ½ years. He had been substitute teaching at Cromwell High School for the five years prior to applying for the position and had been serving as the advisor to Cromwell High School's literary magazine. In addition, Byrnie was certified to teach at the high school level in the areas of Art, History, Social Studies, and Adult Education.

Forty-one people applied for the position. A Search Committee, consisting of Cromwell High School Principal Mark Nappi and two members of the Board of Education, pre-screened the applications, narrowing the pool down to 21 applicants. Of the original 41, three applicants were male; two, including Byrnie, survived the pre-screening. At this point the Search Committee was enlarged to include a total of six teachers, administrators and board members. On July 3, 1995, four of the committee members met (two were unable to attend the meeting) to review and rate the 21 applications on a scale of 1-5 on ballot forms provided by Nappi. Interviews were granted to the five applicants receiving the highest cumulative scores. Esther Mancarella, the person eventually chosen for the position, received the highest cumulative score with eighteen points out of a possible twenty. Byrnie came in fourth with sixteen points. Of the five applicants chosen for interviews, only four were actually available so a lower scoring alternate was also chosen for an interview. All the candidates chosen for interviews, excluding Byrnie, were female-although the large majority of applicants had also been female. Two of the women were over age 40. At the same meeting, the committee agreed upon a set of interview questions to be asked at each interview. On July 12, 1995, five members of the Search Committee met to interview the candidates. The candidates were all asked the same questions in the same order by the same interviewer. At the conclusion of the interviews, the committee unanimously eliminated the alternative interviewee, and then each committee member wrote down his or her top three choices for the job in the order of preference. Based on those rankings, three of the four candidates were selected to proceed to the next round of interviews. Mancarella ranked first, having been selected by four committee members as their first choice and as the second choice of the fifth committee member. Byrnie ranked fourth, having only been chosen as the second choice of one committee member and the third choice of another member. Nevertheless, the committee unanimously decided to allow Byrnie to proceed to the next round of interviews in light of his service to Cromwell High School.

The second round of interviews were conducted by Nappi and Cromwell High School's Assistant Principal, Joseph Cassella, who each individually interviewed the candidates on July 18, 1995. Each interviewee was asked the same questions by the same interviewer in the same order. After the interviews, Cassella and Nappi conferred and agreed that Mancarella was the best candidate for the position. Nappi telephoned Mancarella, informing her that she was being recommended for the position and telling her to set up an appointment to meet with Superintendent James Gere. After the meeting, Gere submitted Mancarella's name to the Board of Education which approved her appointment on August 8, 1995. Mancarella was a 42 year old with a bachelor's degree in fine arts as well as some graduate course work. Although Mancarella had no experience teaching art at the high school level, she had four years experience teaching art at the middle school level and had been teaching art on a part-time basis at a treatment center for children identified as Socially Emotionally Maladjusted. In 1994, she had received a teaching award.

Meanwhile, on July 24, 1995, Byrnie received a letter informing him that he had not been selected for the position. Convinced of his superior qualifications, Byrnie contacted Gere and was told that he had been considered the least qualified of the four candidates considered for a second round of interviews and, in fact, he participated in the second round only as courtesy because of his service to the school system. At that time, Gere explained the hiring procedures followed by the search committee. Byrnie followed up on his concerns by meeting with Gere on July 27, 1995 and meeting with Nappi and Casella on August 8, 1995. At the August 8 meeting, Byrnie was denied a copy of the interview questions, but was permitted to examine them. In spite of Byrnie's repeated requests, he was denied copies of the interview questions and Mancarella's application materials until he filed a complaint under the Connecticut Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA").

Byrnie filed a complaint with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities ("CCHRO"), and on January 8, 1996, Cromwell responded with a verified answer ("CCHRO Answer"). The CCHRO Answer was prepared by Cromwell's attorneys based on a memorandum prepared by Nappi, which was in turn based on notes and records in Nappi's possession at that time but were later lost or destroyed. In the CCHRO Answer, Cromwell explained that Byrnie had not been selected for the position because he performed poorly in the interviews and seemed unfamiliar with the teaching methods set forth in the Connecticut Competency Instrument ("CCI"), an assessment tool developed by the Connecticut State Department of Education in 1992. According to the CCHRO Answer, Byrnie was focused on his teaching portfolio and the history of art during the first interview. During his second interview, he exhibited a lack of familiarity with the CCI, and "Nappi had to explain the three major cluster areas set forth in the CCI." Besides failing to...