EEOC v. Atlas Paper Box Co., CIV-1-83-251.

• Decision Date: 30 January 1987
• Docket Number: No. CIV-1-83-251.,CIV-1-83-251.
• Citation: 680 F. Supp. 1184
• Parties: EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION v. ATLAS PAPER BOX COMPANY.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Tennessee

680 F. Supp. 1184

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION v. ATLAS PAPER BOX COMPANY.

No. CIV-1-83-251.

United States District Court, E.D. Tennessee, S.D.

January 30, 1987.

David L. Slate, Gen. Counsel, Jeff Bannon, Michael A. Middleton, Asso. Gen. Counsel, Office of Gen. Counsel, E.E.O.C., Washington, D.C., Lawrence J. Kamenetzky, Supervisory Trial Atty., Calvin C. Williams, Jr., Katharine W. Kores, Sr. Trial Attys., E.E.O.C., Memphis, Tenn., for plaintiffs.

Frank P. Pinchak, Humphreys, Hutcheson & Moseley, William E. Godbold, III, Gregory M. Leitner, Leitner, Warner, Moffitt, Williams, Dooley, Carpenter & Napolitan, Chattanooga, Tenn., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

HULL, Chief Judge.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) brought this action against the Atlas Paper Box Company (Atlas) alleging racial discrimination in the hiring of office and clerical workers, over the period from 1969 through 1984, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Section 2000e et seq. This action focused on the fact that Atlas uses the Wonderlic Personnel Test, a cognitive ability test, in the screening of job applicants. The EEOC contends that Atlas uses this test in order to eliminate black applicants as part of a policy and practice of keeping a racially homogeneous, white office staff. The action came to trial, without intervention of a jury, on November 3, 1986. The following memorandum presents this Court's findings of fact and conclusions of law.

Atlas makes boxes, school paper, commercial envelopes, and related items. It has two payrolls — plant workers paid on an hourly basis and office workers who are salaried. Although there are many blacks employed in the plant, Atlas has never had a black person working in its office. Atlas' clerical staff numbers from 25 to 30 workers. None of these people have job descriptions defining their tasks and they are expected to be able to move around and cover different assignments. Atlas rarely advertises clerical positions or uses employment agencies. As a rule, when extra help is needed, it brings in temporary help and offers them permanent positions if they work out well. Each applicant for a permanent position is expected to fill out a questionnaire and provide the typical information about education, past work experience, etc. Applicants are also given a typing or keypunch test, the Wonderlic test, and an interview. However, the record from the many years at issue indicates that, from time to time, a quick judgment is made either to hire or reject and the tests or interviews may be omitted. There is no question that the complete hiring procedure has been truncated from time to time for both black and white applicants. Some people have even been hired first and tested later. When Atlas decides it needs to hire somebody, it usually selects from those who have applied in the very recent past and does not review the earlier applications kept on file. It is evident that many qualified white applicants and an occasional qualified black were not hired simply because they applied at a time when Atlas had no opening.

Trial testimony indicated that Atlas management decided to use the Wonderlic Personnel Test as part of its job application process back in 1969. The company did some unsystematic experimentation with the test, trying it out on management, family members and employees in the clerical staff whose relative performance was already known. No formal attempt was ever made to verify the validity of the Wonderlic test as a predictor of job performance at Atlas. Although the Wonderlic manual suggests a hiring score of 25 for secretarial help, 21 for typists, 19 for file clerks, and 18 for telephone operators, the Atlas management decided that it would try to hire people who scored 25 or better for all of its office positions. The reasons given were that this would ensure a highly qualified staff of people capable of covering each other's jobs and suitable for advancement within the company. In addition, the company was impressed with information that money could be saved and production and job satisfaction increased by having a highly intelligent work force. There was no evidence that this initial decision was racially motivated.

There was some evidence that the test was administered in a biased fashion. Atlas apparently ignored the recommendation in the Wonderlic manual that a score adjustment be made on the basis of race to eliminate possible cultural bias in test results. Atlas also apparently failed to give the score adjustment suggested for age to black applicants although the age adjustment was made on occasion for white applicants. However, there is no indication that any black applicant would have qualified if these adjustments had been made.

In this lawsuit, the EEOC attempted to prove that the Wonderlic test had an impermissibly adverse impact on black applicants and that the test was not a valid instrument for predicting successful job performance for Atlas. Much of the trial was a battle of the experts.

Dr. John E. Hunter, Professor of Psychology at Michigan State University, testified that the Wonderlic test is a good measure of cognitive ability — mathematical reasoning, verbal skills, and spatial aptitude. He testified that the test is fair to minority applicants and better than any other predictor of success on the job such as level of training, previous work record, or the impression made in the interview. He testified that validation studies made at other companies and on other groups of workers have indicated that the Wonderlic is a valid test for all types of clerical work. The more complex the clerical task, the higher the correlation was between a good score on the Wonderlic and successful performance on the job.

Although this testimony was not actually contradicted, Dr. Richard S. Barrett, an industrial psychologist, questioned the appropriateness of generalizing between other validation studies and the work situation at Atlas. In addition, he pointed out that Atlas suffered from a relatively high employee turnover rate possibly because it was selecting overqualified employees who found their jobs boring.

In addition, Dr. Donald J. Schwartz of the EEOC testified that the use of the Wonderlic test had had a statistically significant adverse impact on black applicants at Atlas during the 1969-1979 period although apparently not during the 1980-1984 years.

Thomas E. Geraghty, an expert on management policy from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga found no statistically significant adverse impact on black applicants after 1978.

It is extremely difficult to make any sense out of the evidence on the issue of adverse impact. This is partly because Atlas had so many more white applicants than black applicants over the 16-year period at issue and partly because, for reasons unknown, not all applicants of either race were tested. We do know that, over the period in question, 828 whites applied for clerical positions with Atlas and only 63 blacks applied for these same jobs. We also know that 551 whites scored less than 25 on the Wonderlic and 49 blacks scored less. No black scored higher than 25 and only one achieved a 25. Seven black applicants scored 20 or better over the 16-year period. Of the whites tested, 148 scored a 25 or better although not all of them were hired. During the 16 year period, 121 clerical workers were hired and of these, 29 had scores less than 25 on the Wonderlic — 4 had scores of less than 20. One of these four was the daughter of a corporate manager. Another retook the test and...