Carson v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 95-2111
| Citation | 82 F.3d 157 |
| Decision Date | 22 April 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 95-2111,95-2111 |
| Parties | 70 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 921, 68 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 44,009, 64 USLW 2682 Cathy CARSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BETHLEHEM STEEL CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit) |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Hammond Division. No. 2:93 cv 290 JM--James T. Moody, Judge.
Charmaine E. Dwyer (argued), Chicago, IL, for plaintiff-appellant.
Larry G. Evans (argued), Lauren K. Kroeger, Hoeppner, Wagner & Evans, Valparaiso, IN, for defendant-appellee.
Before EASTERBROOK, KANNE, and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges.
Cathy Carson was discharged by Bethlehem Steel Corporation before the end of her probationary period. Carson, who is white, was fired by a white supervisor and replaced by another white employee; nonetheless, she contends that the reason for the adverse action was her race, and that Bethlehem therefore violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The district court remarked that Carson's replacement by a white employee prevented her from establishing a prima facie case of discrimination. O'Connor v. Consolidated Coin Caterers Corp., --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 1307, 134 L.Ed.2d 433, (1996), shows that this understanding of a prima facie case is erroneous. The Court held in O'Connor that the plaintiff in an age discrimination suit need not show that he was replaced by a person outside the protected class. Laws against discrimination protect persons, not classes, the Court remarked, an observation with equal force in a case under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. An illustration shows why. Suppose an employer evaluates its staff yearly and retains black workers who are in the top quarter of its labor force, but keeps any white in the top half. A black employee ranked in the 60th percentile of the staff according to supervisors' evaluations is let go, while all white employees similarly situated are retained. This is race discrimination, which the employer cannot purge by hiring another person of the same race later. Cf. Connecticut v. Teal, 457 U.S. 440, 102 S.Ct. 2525, 73 L.Ed.2d 130 (1982).
The central question in any employment-discrimination case is whether the employer would have taken the same action had the employee been of a different race (age, sex, religion, national origin, etc.) and everything else had remained the same. See Gehring v. Case Corp., 43 F.3d 340, 344-45 (7th Cir.1994). An employee may be able to show that his race or another characteristic that the law places off limits tipped the scales against him, without regard to the demographic characteristics of his replacement. After O'Connor, statements in decisions such as Sample v. Aldi, Inc., 61 F.3d 544, 548 (7th Cir.1995), and Hill v. Burrell Communications Group, Inc., 67 F.3d 665, 668 (7th Cir.1995), to the effect that the plaintiff must show that his replacement is of a different race (sex, etc.), cannot be considered authoritative. The question instead is whether the plaintiff has established a logical reason to believe that the decision rests on a legally forbidden ground. That one's replacement is of another race, sex, or age may help to raise an inference of discrimination, but it is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition. See generally Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981); see also McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 427 U.S. 273, 279 & n. 6, 96 S.Ct. 2574, 2578 & n. 6, 49 L.Ed.2d 493 (1976). Any demonstration strong enough to support a judgment in the plaintiff's favor if the employer remains silent will do, even if the proof does not fit into a set of pigeonholes.
Carson does not benefit from this conclusion, however, and not only because there are reasons to doubt that she has established a claim even under the...
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