Green v. United States Steel Corp.

• Citation: 570 F. Supp. 254
• Decision Date: 18 July 1983
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 76-3673.
• Parties: Elbert G. GREEN, Individually and Robert Danley, Individually and as the Representative of Persons Similarly Situated v. UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

570 F. Supp. 254

Elbert G. GREEN, Individually and Robert Danley, Individually and as the Representative of Persons Similarly Situated v. UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION.

Civ. A. No. 76-3673.

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

July 18, 1983.

Richard Z. Freemann, Jr., Creed C. Black, Jr., John P. Pucci, Ballard, Spahr, Andrews & Ingersoll, Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiffs.

Henry Reath, Thomas Preston, George Price, Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM

NEWCOMER, District Judge.

This employment discrimination class action was tried to the Court in December, 1982. The following shall constitute my Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.

Findings of Fact

1. This is a Title VII and § 1981 class action brought on behalf of all black persons who unsuccessfully sought employment at the Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania plant of United States Steel Corporation ("USS") between July 11, 1972 and the present. The class described above was certified by Order dated August 26, 1980.

2. The defendant, USS, is a corporation doing business in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in many other states, and in foreign countries. Throughout the class period, USS owned and operated steel manufacturing and other facilities located in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania and employed from 7,000 to 10,000 persons there. USS is an "employer" within the meaning of Title VII. (Unless otherwise specified, references hereinafter to USS shall be understood to refer specifically to the Fairless Hills facilities of USS.)

3. Named plaintiff Elbert Green is a black male who unsuccessfully sought employment as a laborer in USS's Production & Maintenance department ("P & M") by application dated April 11, 1973. On May 7, 1973, Green filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") a timely charge of race discrimination in employment against USS, and subsequently he received a notice of his right to sue in federal court.

4. Green was an unnamed member of the plaintiff class of unsuccessful black job applicants at USS in Dickerson v. United States Steel Corp., C.A. No. 73-1292, a Title VII and § 1981 race discrimination suit.

5. On November 29, 1976, following the severance of the applicant class from the Dickerson lawsuit, Green filed this action on his own behalf and on behalf of the applicant class.

6. Named plaintiff Robert Danley is a black male who unsuccessfully sought a P & M job by application dated June 4, 1976.

7. Danley was also initially an unnamed class member in Dickerson. Following his receipt of notice of the severance of the applicant class from that action, Danley filed with the EEOC a timely charge of race discrimination in employment against USS and received a notice of his right to sue in federal court.

8. When Green filed this action on behalf of the applicant class, Danley became an unnamed class member. On January 10, 1979, Danley filed a motion to intervene as a named plaintiff. Prior to a ruling by the Court, the parties stipulated that Danley could serve as Green's co-representative of the applicant class.

9. By a Memorandum and Order dated August 29, 1979, I entered partial summary judgment in favor of USS on Green's individual claim. Discovery had established that Green had falsified his employment history on his job application. I held that this evidence satisfied USS's burden of articulating a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its failure to hire Green. I reserved for trial the questions whether plaintiff was qualified for the job for which he applied; whether USS was hiring anyone for those jobs at the time he applied; whether it was hiring for those jobs immediately after his rejection; and whether, if plaintiff could establish a prima facie case, plaintiff could establish that USS's articulated reason for rejecting him was a standard applied equally to all races or was, rather, a mere pretext for racial discrimination.

10. In my August 26, 1980 class certification order, I ruled that Green could not serve as a class representative because his claim, presenting the narrow and atypical issue whether USS had uniformly and nondiscriminatorily rejected applicants who falsified their job applications, was not appropriate for class treatment. Danley thus became the sole class representative, and Green remained a named plaintiff on his individual claim only.

11. At trial, plaintiffs presented no evidence relevant to Green's individual claim.

12. On the first day of trial, plaintiffs narrowed their case to include only those blacks who unsuccessfully sought employment in P & M jobs during the class period. Plaintiffs also indicated that they were not pressing their case as to the years 1975, 1980, and 1981, when very little hiring was done for P & M jobs at Fairless Hills, or as to the years 1976 and 1977, when plaintiff's evidence showed that a moderate amount of hiring was done but that blacks were hired at levels close to or exceeding their representation in the applicant pool. Plaintiff's case therefore focussed on the question whether USS unlawfully discriminated against black P & M applicants at Fairless Hills in the years 1972-74, 1978, and 1979.

13. Plaintiff Danley did not testify at trial, and plaintiffs presented no proof directly relating to him as an individual, other than his application for employment and a stipulation relating to his satisfaction of the jurisdictional prerequisites. His application date of June, 1976 places him among those class members who applied to USS at a time when plaintiff's statistical evidence shows that USS was hiring blacks at rates equalling or exceeding their representation in the applicant pool.

14. Plaintiffs presented the testimony of two unnamed class members, Christine Davidson and Frederick Wright. Ms. Davidson, a black woman, submitted an application for a P & M job on August 24, 1976. She had a GED degree, vocational training, and a record of steady employment. Mr. Wright, a black man, submitted an application for a P & M job on June 8, 1977. He had several years of college education, prior work experience as a laborer, and a record of steady employment before, during, and after college. Although both Ms. Davidson and Mr. Wright possessed the qualifications necessary to be considered for employment in an entry-level P & M job, neither was hired by USS. Thereafter, USS continued to hire persons for entry-level P & M jobs.

15. The P & M job category is the largest at USS. Approximately 95% of new hires (that is, people hired from outside the company rather than promoted or transferred from within) in P & M during the class period were hired for the position of laborer, an entry-level unskilled job. About 4% of new hires were for skilled jobs in the trade and craft category, although USS usually filled these positions through its internal apprenticeship programs. P & M jobs other than those in the laborer or trade and craft categories were customarily filled from within the plant, by a posting and bidding system, although in rare instances individuals were hired from outside to fill such jobs.

16. Approximately 15% of new P & M hires during the class period were hired for summer jobs. Virtually all of these jobs were in the laborer category.

17. USS's minimum hiring criteria for all P & M positions remained constant throughout the class period. Anyone hired had to be at least 18 years old, pass a physical examination, and be able to read safety signs (a requirement so minimal that defendant's witnesses could recall no one ever having failed to meet it). Additional minimum requirements applied to those seeking skilled trade and craft jobs. However, as long as an applicant met the three minimum requirements described above, there was no single quality or trait which would make an applicant ineligible per se for a laborer job. Cf. P-55¹ (USS policy restricting employment of relatives within a single supervisory unit); P-56 (USS policy stating that USS would "usually" not consider applicants who had been convicted of arson, malicious destruction of property, or acts of sexual perversion); P-57 (USS policy stating that alien applicants should be required to produce appropriate documentation).

18. In its newspaper advertisements for laborers, USS stated that there was "no experience necessary," and that USS required only "common sense and a desire to work" (P-114). In fact, many of those hired into P & M laborer jobs during the class period had no prior work experience. USS expected new hires for P & M jobs other than those in the trade and craft category to learn any skills necessary to perform their jobs, or other jobs they might be promoted into, through on-the-job training or classroom instruction provided by USS.

19. Throughout the class period, USS's official policies relative to hiring new employees were set forth in the following documents: Exhibits P-43, P-53, P-54, P-55, P-56, P-57, P-58, P-59, and P-64. Exhibit P-43, entitled Procedure for Uniform Employment Practices, set forth USS's official policy of nondiscriminatory hiring of the best qualified candidates.

20. USS did not conduct any training sessions to indoctrinate the many individuals responsible for implementing its hiring policies as to their meaning and application.

21. During the class period, USS received written employment applications on a variety of different forms, all of which requested the applicant to list basic background information concerning schooling, prior employment, military record, age, physical condition, and whether the applicant had any relatives in USS's current or past work force. Such applications were received by mail or hand-delivery, or might be filled out in USS's personnel office by individuals who stopped by to inquire about employment. USS accepted new applications from persons who had previously applied but had not been hired.

22. Upon receiving a job application, USS's practice was to record it in a business...