E.E.O.C. v. Our Lady of Resurrection Medical Center
| Decision Date | 20 February 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 95-2302,95-2302 |
| Parties | 70 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 104, 67 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 43,938 EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. OUR LADY OF THE RESURRECTION MEDICAL CENTER, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division; No. 94 C 4378--Harry D. Leinenweber, Judge.
Mary L. Clark (argued), E.E.O.C. Office of General Counsel, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
James D. Fiffer (argued), Shanthi V. Gaur, Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee.
Before H. WOOD, Jr., COFFEY, and MANION, Circuit Judges.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, on behalf of Lyvonne Braddy, claims that Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center discriminated against Braddy because she is black when her employment as a social worker at the Center ended in October 1991. Because the EEOC proffered insufficient evidence that the Center discriminated against Braddy, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment to the Center.
Braddy was the only black person to apply for a job as a social worker at Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. Leah Boettcher, the Center's director of social work, interviewed and hired Braddy over a number of white applicants in January 1991.
When Boettcher interviewed Braddy, Boettcher told her she needed to be licensed by the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation ("the Department") to practice social work in Illinois and at the Center. Around 1989 the Department began offering an examination and issuing licenses to social workers. Individuals with a bachelor's degree can sit for the exam if they complete three years of supervised clinical experience. These were called clinical social workers. Social workers with a master's degree in social work are eligible to take the exam at any time.
After Braddy was hired the Center found out she needed six more months of supervised counseling experience before she could take the social work licensure exam. Boettcher offered to provide Braddy the additional clinical supervision but in return asked Braddy to ready the paperwork such that when the six-month supervision period ended Braddy could take the exam. Braddy agreed to this arrangement.
Braddy received the exam packet from the Department and sent forms to a former employer, University Hospital of Jacksonville, to confirm her employment there as a social worker. At the time Braddy began this process the next exam was in October 1991. In September 1991 the Department informed Braddy it had not received the information necessary to process her application, including the information from University Hospital. Braddy told Boettcher of this problem. Braddy called University Hospital, confirmed she could send them another form, and told Boettcher the hospital had agreed to complete the resubmitted form. Braddy did not tell University Hospital the form should be completed quickly due to the upcoming test. Nor did she follow up on her request by calling the hospital to confirm it had submitted the necessary materials. The form was the only outstanding information needed to render Braddy eligible to sit for the October 1991 licensure exam.
When Braddy ran into this paperwork problem she believed she would not be allowed to take the October 1991 test. But Braddy did not share this concern with Boettcher. Boettcher learned only the day before the exam that Braddy would not be sitting for the test. When Boettcher asked Braddy why, she told her that because she had not submitted the necessary paperwork, she was ineligible to sit. This upset Boettcher. Here the parties' versions of the facts diverge.
According to Braddy, when Boettcher found out Braddy would not be taking the exam, Boettcher told her: "You can't work at the hospital as a social worker in the State of Illinois without being licensed." Braddy says Boettcher then left the office, returned with an "exit form," and suggested that Braddy sign the form to reflect she was leaving the Center voluntarily. Braddy says she refused to sign the form because she was not leaving voluntarily and because if she did so she would not have been eligible to receive unemployment compensation.
Boettcher's version of the facts differs. Boettcher testified that when she found out Braddy would not be sitting for the exam, Boettcher went back to her office to call University Hospital to see why the necessary paperwork had not been completed. Boettcher wondered at this point if Braddy had ever actually worked at University Hospital, and she was upset that after 10 months Braddy was still not eligible to sit for the exam. Boettcher says when she reached her office she realized she did not know the dates Braddy worked at University Hospital. Boettcher returned to Braddy's office to get those dates. Boettcher says Braddy at this time told her not to bother because she had checked with the Department and had been told she could not practice without a license. Boettcher says Braddy then told her she was leaving the Center, at which time Boettcher told Braddy she must complete an "exit form."
Boettcher asserts she wanted the exit form to indicate that Braddy's employment ended voluntarily. Boettcher testified Braddy asked her to complete the exit form in a manner that would be consistent with receipt of unemployment compensation. Boettcher did so. But because the exit form did not accurately reflect the circumstances of Braddy's departure, the next day Boettcher drafted a memorandum to the file describing her version of the events of October 11, 1991. Boettcher denies telling Braddy she could not work at the Center without a license. Boettcher said she could have continued to work at the hospital without taking the October 1991 exam.
The parties agree Boettcher wrote on the exit form "Employee did not complete papers necessary for licensure & cannot practice social work in the State of Ill without a license." Boettcher also wrote: "At time of employment, employee was informed of need to take licensure exam." Written next to this latter statement is the phrase "NO TIME REQT." This phrase appears to have been added after the exit form was signed.
During Braddy's stint as a social worker at the Center Boettcher also hired Mark Sinz, a white male. At the time of hire Sinz did not have an Illinois social worker's license. But, unlike Braddy, he did have a master's degree in social work and thus was immediately eligible to take Illinois' social work licensing exam. Sinz sought and received permission not to take the first exam offered after his hiring because it conflicted with his wedding. Sinz did not suffer any adverse employment action for his delay in taking the exam, and eventually took and passed the October 1991 test. Braddy now compares her situation to Sinz's and claims it indicates the Center's racial bias.
The EEOC sued the Center alleging it engaged in racial discrimination in violation of § 703(a) of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a), when it terminated Braddy's employment as a social worker. Braddy intervened in the action, but is not a party to this appeal. 1 Because the EEOC did not claim any direct proof of racial discrimination against Braddy, the district court considered the case under the "indirect, burden-shifting method of proof" as described in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), and Texas Dep't. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981).
The district court first found the EEOC had stated a prima facie case of race discrimination Braddy is black and there was no evidence her performance displeased the Center. Perhaps because there was only one possible instance of disparate treatment (Sinz) instead of a pattern of discrimination, the EEOC chose to argue strongly that Braddy was discharged. Although the Center disputed this fact, it also realized that this disputed issue of material fact must be resolved in favor of Braddy for purposes of the Center's summary judgment motion. Accordingly, the Center acknowledged the discharge for purposes of summary judgment, and the district court so found. Using the presumption that Braddy was discharged, the district court also found the Center treated Braddy worse than Sinz, a similarly situated employee outside the protected class.
Once the district court accepted the EEOC's formula for establishing a prima facie case, it also found the Center had satisfied its burden of articulating a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for its actions: Boettcher testified Braddy was terminated because of her failure to complete the necessary paperwork and take the October 1991 licensure exam. The EEOC had argued the Center could not meet this burden because the Center asserted it never terminated Braddy in the first place. In the district court's words: "[T]he EEOC maintains that the Center cannot present a legitimate reason for doing something that it claims it never did." The lower court rejected this contention. It recognized that under the EEOC's reasoning an employer could only dispute whether or not an employee was fired at the peril of automatically losing the case if the employee established a prima facie case. This would be an inaccurate construction of the McDonnell Douglas/ Burdine test and a distortion of its purpose of using indirect proof when insufficient direct evidence exists.
Once the district court found the Center had set forth a legitimate reason for its conduct, the prima facie case dropped out, and the EEOC was left with its ultimate burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence that the Center's proffered explanation was pretextual and that Braddy was...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Campana v. City of Greenfield
...more favorable treatment toward similarly situated employees not sharing the protected characteristic.'" EEOC v. Our Lady of the Resurrection Med. Ctr., 77 F.3d 145, 151 (7th Cir.1996) (quoting Loyd, 25 F.3d at Campana offers the testimony of an expert witness, Steven Weigert, a vocational ......
-
Wieland v. Department of Transp., State of Ind.
...prima facie case and instead decide to dismiss the claim because there is no showing of pretext. See E.E.O.C. v. Our Lady of the Resurrection Med. Ctr., 77 F.3d 145, 149-50 (7th Cir.1996). INDOT has provided a non-discriminatory reason for its failure to promote Garza. Accordingly the Court......
-
Johnson v. City of Fort Wayne, Ind.
...of McDonnell Douglas Corporation v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973); e.g., EEOC v. Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Ctr., 77 F.3d 145, 148-49 (7th Cir.1996). In order to establish a prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas, Mr. Johnson must prove: (1) that he b......
-
Buchanan v. Tower Automotive, Inc.
...need to decide that issue and go directly to the issue of pretext. This is not inappropriate. See, EEOC v. Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center, 77 F.3d 145, 149-50 (7th Cir.1996) (Advancing to dispositive issue of pretext without deciding if plaintiff established prima facie case an......
-
Bad Briefs, Bad Law, Bad Markets: Documenting the Poor Quality of Plaintiffs' Briefs, Its Impact on the Law, and the Market Failure it Reflects
...at 658; Evans v. Techs. Applications & Serv. Co., 80 F.3d 954, 959-61 (4th Cir. 1996); EEOC v. Our Lady of the Resurrection Med. Ctr., 77 F.3d 145, 152 (7th Cir. 1996); Proud, 945 F.2d at 797-98.16. See, e.g., Blasi v. N.Y.C. Bd. of Educ., Nos. 00-CV-5320 (RRM)(MDG), 03-CV-3836 (RRM)(MDG), ......