E.E.O.C. v. United Virginia Bank/Seaboard Nat.
| Decision Date | 10 May 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 76-1472,76-1472 |
| Citation | 555 F.2d 403 |
| Parties | 15 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1257, 14 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 7540 EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Appellant, v. UNITED VIRGINIA BANK/SEABOARD NATIONAL, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Paul Mirengoff, Atty., E. E. O. C., Washington, D. C. (Abner W. Sibal, Gen. Counsel, Joseph T. Eddins, Associate Gen. Counsel, Beatrice Rosenberg, Asst. Gen. Counsel, E. E. O. C., Washington, D. C., on brief), for appellant.
Paul M. Thompson, Richmond, Va. (Thomas J. Manley and A. Neal Barkus, Hunton & Williams, Richmond, Va., on brief), for appellee.
Before BUTZNER, RUSSELL and HALL, Circuit Judges.
This appeal by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is from a judgment for the defendant, after trial, in its discrimination action against the defendant bank.
The record in the proceedings is represented by ten volumes of testimony and exhibits. The testimony and exhibits range generally over the employment practices of the defendant bank during a period of almost ten years. The number of employee applications during such period was in the thousands; the number of applicants singled out by the Commission as evidence of discrimination was proportionally minimal. In 1973 and 1974, alone, the defendant received approximately 4058 employment applications and employed 412 new employees. The charge of discrimination seems to have been based on the treatment of but 34 black employment applications during the entire period. 1
At the conclusion of all testimony, the District Court stated orally its findings of fact and conclusions of law. On these findings and conclusions, the Court granted judgment for the defendant.
The findings of fact, on which the judgment was granted, were phrased in broad conclusory terms and did not include any subsidiary findings which would give appropriate support to the Court's conclusory findings. Thus, in dismissing individual discrimination claims, the Court's finding was that "the Court is of the opinion that the plaintiff has not borne the burden imposed on it in the McDonnell case." 2 Previously in its opinion, the Court had stated the "requirements * * * of the McDonnell case" 3 but it did not indicate at any point in its opinion which requirement, as declared in McDonnell, was not proved by the plaintiff.
On the broader issue of an alleged pattern of discrimination in employment and assignment of blacks, when hired, to inferior positions, 4 the Court found that "the statistics presented by stipulation or by testimony (by the plaintiff) were sufficient to create a prima facie case" 5 but later declared bluntly, as a finding of fact, that the defendant had "borne the burden of rebutting by the greater weight of the evidence the statistical prima facie case presented by the plaintiff * * *." It seems to have based this ultimate factual finding on the bare subsidiary finding "that the evidence preponderates that the defendant has, during the time period involved in this action, affirmatively and aggressively sought out minority candidates for employment in all positions and that far from being neutral, the defendant has taken a leadership position in the community in seeking blacks to fill vacancies at all levels," and "that once having recruited and having hired blacks, the defendant has exercised diligence in its training of those blacks to fill the positions for which they were hired." These subsidiary findings unquestionably were relevant to the "ultimate" issue under consideration but they manifestly were insufficient in themselves, without more, to support a finding that the Commission's prima facie case had been rebutted by a preponderance of the evidence. The Court made no analysis of the statistical information or of the weight to be accorded it under the facts advanced by the bank, if any. 6 It engaged in no inquiry, either into the racial pattern generally of the community population or in the relative proportion racially of those in that community qualified by education or training for employment in any part of defendant's business. 7 Nor did it engage in any review of the employment records of the defendant, such as how many blacks and how many whites applied for employment over a particular period of time, how many in each group were employed, the disproportion, if any, in the employment of applicants from the two groups, or an explication of any fact which could have thrown light on either the justification or the impropriety of the particular denials of employment cited by the Commission in support of its contentions of discrimination. In essence, there is an absence of that critical review of the relevant facts, culminating in a coherent body of factual findings, which is particularly called for in a discrimination case.
When the trial court provides only conclusory findings, illuminated by no subsidiary findings or reasoning on all the relevant facts, as was the case here, there is not that "detail and exactness" on the material issues of fact necessary for an understanding by an appellate court of the factual basis for the trial court's findings and conclusions, and for a rational determination of whether the findings of the trial court are clearly erroneous. It was to assure that "detail and exactness" in the trial court's findings as a predicate for intelligent appellate review that Rule 52(a) was adopted. The failure of the District Court to comply in this case with the basic requirement of the Rule for detailed findings of fact compels us to remand the cause for detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law by...
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