Enoch v. Alamance County Dep't of Social Services, No. COA03-385 (NC 5/18/2004)
| Decision Date | 18 May 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. COA03-385,COA03-385 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | VALERIE THOMPSON ENOCH, Petitioner, v. ALAMANCE COUNTY DEP'T OF SOCIAL SERVICES, Respondent. |
McSurely & Osment, by Alan McSurely, for petitioner appellant.
Office of the County Attorney of Alamance County, by David I. Smith; and Adams, Kleemeier, Hagan, Hannah & Fouts, by Brian S. Clarke, for respondent appellee.
On 23 February 2001, petitioner appellant, Ms. Valerie Enoch (Ms. Enoch), filed a petition for a contested case hearing pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 126-34.1 (2003) with the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH). Ms. Enoch's petition alleged that in February of 2001 respondent appellee, Alamance County Department of Social Services (DSS), failed to promote her to the position of "Social Work Program Manager" based on her race (African-American), her sex, and was the result of retaliation.
Ms. Enoch's contested case was heard before Administrative Law Judge Melissa Owens Lassiter (ALJ) on 14, 17, and 21 August 2001. The ALJ's recommended decision, based on 110 findings of fact and 86 conclusions of law, held that DSS's decision not to promote Ms. Enoch was made without discrimination. The State Personnel Commission (SPC) reviewed the ALJ's decision, and after rejecting exceptions made by petitioner, recommended the Local AppointingAuthority (LAA) adopt the ALJ's findings of fact and conclusions of law in full. The LAA, Ms. Susan Osborne, Director of Alamance County DSS, followed the recommendation of the SPC. Upon judicial review, the adoption of the ALJ's findings of fact and conclusions of law by the SPC and LAA was sustained, bringing the issue now before this Court.
This litigation is based upon the following facts of record: Ms. Enoch is an African-American woman. In both 1999 and 2001 she was denied promotion to program manager in DSS. For the 1999 position, a white female, Ms. Linda Allison, was hired but did not meet the minimum qualifications for the position. Mr. Edward R. Inman, DSS's director at the time, hired the under-qualified applicant despite being informed by Ms. Dianne Gallimore, DSS's fiscal and personnel director at the time, that Ms. Enoch was the only applicant that met the minimum qualifications for the position.
Ms. Enoch and her husband met with Mr. Inman to discuss his decision. At this meeting, neither Mr. Inman nor Ms. Gallimore disclosed to Ms. Enoch that she was the only qualified applicant for the position. Ms. Enoch alleged that race had something to do with the decision, to which Mr. Inman responded, Though Mr. Enoch pointed out the racist nature of this statement, Mr. Inman made another comment in the same vein before the meeting was ended. Mr. Inman later sentMs. Enoch a letter, dated 21 June, 1999, explaining his decision in greater detail. Petitioner did not further appeal this hiring decision. At the end of 1999, Mr. Inman retired. Ms. Susan Osborne was hired to replace Mr. Inman as Director of DSS.
On or about 12 December 2000, DSS posted an in-house notice for a newly created program management position. Three DSS employees submitted applications for the position: Ms. Enoch, Mr. Phillip Laughlin, and Ms. Alexa Jordan. All three applicants met the minimum qualifications for the position. Ms. Osborne, who conducted the hiring process, considered a number of factors in making her selection: (a) structured interview; (b) previous evaluations; (c) input from her management team regarding interactions with the applicants; (d) input from the subordinates of each applicant; (e) the DISC profile of each applicant; (f) the experience and educational backgrounds of each applicant; and (g) consultation with DSS's human resources contact.
The structured interviews of the three applicants conducted by Ms. Osborne included ten questions based upon the requirements of the program management position. After the interviews, Ms. Osborne ranked each applicant, serving as the basis for her circling of "hire," "hire with reservation," or "would not hire" on her interview evaluation form. Ms. Osborne circled "would not hire" for Ms. Enoch, "hire with reservations" for Mr. Laughlin, and "hire" for Ms. Jordan.
Ms. Osborne reviewed previous evaluations of Ms. Enoch in her position as Social Worker Supervisor III. These annual evaluations were all similar in form, with areas of performance rated as "exceeds expectations," "meets expectations," or "partially meets expectations." Ms. Osborne herself supervised Ms. Enoch from 1996-1998. In the 1996 evaluation, Ms. Osborne gave Ms. Enoch only a "partially meets expectations" in the area of initiative. In the 1997 evaluation, Ms. Enoch was given "partially meets expectations" in categories of productivity and initiative. Additionally, in the managerial/supervisor supplement to the 1997 evaluation, Ms. Osborne stated, In her last evaluation by Ms. Osborne, Ms. Enoch was again given a "partially meets expectations" in the area of initiative, stating this area "continues to need improvement." Again, in the managerial/supervisor supplement to the 1998 evaluation, Ms. Enoch was given a "partially meets expectations" in the area of supervision direction. Ms. Osborne stated, "more of a leadership role in terms of outcomes, case plans and case resolutions is needed of a supervisor at this level."
The evaluations of Ms. Enoch for 1999, 2000, and 2001 were not conducted by Ms. Osborne, but by Mr. Inman and Ms. Allison. Their evaluations rated her as "meeting" or "exceeding" expectations in all areas. Ms. Osborne testified before the ALJ that Mr. Laughlin's prior evaluations had less "partially meets expectations" than theratings for either Ms. Enoch or Ms. Jordan. Ms. Enoch put on no evidence to dispute this.
Using DSS's new county-wide evaluation form, on 24 October 2000 Ms. Enoch received an overall rating percentage of 68.75%, meaning she out-performed that percent of Alamance County employees. Mr. Laughlin received a rating of 57.60%.
Also used as criteria in the selection process was input Ms. Osborne gathered from her management team. The team was composed of Ms. Osborne, Ms. Gallimore, Marianne Putnam, Caroline Davis, Rebecca Grindstaff, and Betty Joyce. These women all had individual working relationships with the applicants.
In Ms. Davis's testimony before the ALJ, she stated that in her working relationship with Ms. Enoch, she would need to coordinate with Ms. Enoch or her team about every six weeks. Ms. Davis testified that there was difficulty in getting required information from Ms. Enoch or her team:
[M]y staff would come to me and say, And then at that point, I would become involved trying to contact Ms. Enoch and — and say, you know, "we need this information so that we can work this case."
She testified further, referring to Mr. Laughlin and Ms. Jordan, "Generally, the other two would have — would provide me with what I needed."
On cross-examination, Program Manager Ms. Allison (who took the position in 1999 for which Ms. Enoch also applied) testifiedfrom her memory as to what her concerns were about Ms. Enoch for the position:
I had concerns that perhaps she did not get outside of the office enough, outside of her own team enough, outside of Children's Services enough and had concerns about her overall ability perhaps to see the big picture of the Agency, knowing that we were working on some collaborative initiatives that required all the units to mesh and to interact and that type thing.
Ms. Allison's positive input pertaining to Mr. Laughlin was as follows:
I felt that Mr. Laughlin was very strong in the Agency, in his relations with people from all different departments. He had a strength for being able to get to know folks and work with other people in a collaborative way. He also had strengths outside of the Agency, and was just very personable.
Also used as criteria in the selection process was input Ms. Osborne received from the applicants' subordinates. Adrian Daye, an African-American woman and a social worker who had been supervised by both Ms. Jordan and Ms. Enoch, testified before the ALJ. Ms. Enoch supervised Ms. Daye during two different times, at first for nine months, and again for approximately a year. When asked about Ms. Enoch's drawbacks, she opined:
I stated that—and—and I don't know if—I guess it depends on who's looking if there are drawbacks. I stated that the second time I had her, that my supervision was kind of me going to her when I needed her. It was me—if I had a question, you know, I went to her.
I talked about how if you—I guess if you look at Ms. Jordan, who was out there in the community, she—you know, she was on different committees and righting [sic] grants. You know, those — those were thingsthat Ms. — I didn't see Ms. Enoch doing as well.
F. DISC Profile
Ms. Osborne considered the DISC profile of each of the three applicants. The DISC stands for Dominance Influence Steadiness Conscientiousness, and it describes behavioral patterns in terms of these four tendencies when implicated in work-related scenarios. Ms. Osborne...
To continue reading
Request your trial