Hatton v. Ford Motor Co.

• Decision Date: 29 January 1981
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 77-71649.
• Citation: 508 F. Supp. 620
• Parties: Autry L. HATTON, Plaintiff, v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

508 F. Supp. 620

Autry L. HATTON, Plaintiff, v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Defendant.

Civ. No. 77-71649.

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

January 29, 1981.

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Bruce Blumberg, Bell & Hudson, Detroit, Mich., for plaintiff.

Arnold Shulman, Dearborn, Mich., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ANNA DIGGS TAYLOR, District Judge.

Plaintiff filed his complaint in this lawsuit, alleging race-based employment discrimination, on July 5, 1977. He had filed a complaint with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on October 28, 1976; and obtained a Right-to-Sue letter from that body on June 21, 1977. Thereafter, during August of 1977, he was discharged by the defendant "for the good of the company."

Plaintiff claims this court's jurisdiction pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq., Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. This court finds its jurisdiction appropriate, under both statutes. The claim of plaintiff's complaint was that, during his employment by defendant since November 5, 1973, (which had not yet been terminated on the date the complaint was filed) he was treated disparately from and less favorably than similarly situated white employees in conditions of employment; in ratings by "Performance Reviews;" and in defendant's failure and refusal to promote him or accord him a merit salary increase during the entire period of his employment. Moreover, plaintiff claims that defendant retaliated against him in discriminatorily worsening his conditions of employment after he had filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Trial was held to the court, which struck plaintiff's demands for trial by jury and punitive and compensatory damages on the basis of E.E.O.C. v. Detroit Edison, 515 F.2d 301 (6th Cir. 1975). Trial was held for twelve days, commencing September 10, 1980. A prior trial before another court, sitting with a jury, had terminated in a mistrial in January of 1979. Plaintiff testified on his own behalf and following the court's denial of a motion to dismiss, made pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b), defendant presented fourteen witnesses.

This suit alleges that plaintiff was treated differently and less favorably, or disparately, by defendant, because he was black. At the least, his claim is that race was a factor (and an impermissible factor) in defendant's less favorable treatment of him than of similarly situated white employees. Accordingly, his case is to be measured by the line of employment discrimination cases adjudicating "disparate treatment" claims, as opposed to those of "disparate impact."

In a claim of disparate treatment, a Title VII plaintiff must prove a prima facie case by a preponderance of all of the evidence (quite apart from the Rule 41(b) standard of a prima facie case), which "consists of facts sufficient to sustain the inference that the challenged action of the employer was motivated by impermissible considerations." Mosby v. Webster College, 563 F.2d 901 (8th Cir. 1977). The well-known four part test of McDonnell Douglas Corporation v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973) may be applied. A prima facie case may also be made by "proof of actions taken by the employer from which we infer discriminatory animus because experience has proved that in the absence of any other explanation it is more likely than not that those acts were bottomed on impermissible considerations." Furnco Construction Corp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 98 S.Ct. 2943, 57 L.Ed.2d 957 (1978). The same standard is applicable to a plaintiff's case under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. See Grano v. Department of Development of the City of Columbus, 637 F.2d 1073 (6th Cir. 1980).

As the court stated in International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 97 S.Ct. 1843, 52 L.Ed.2d 396 (1977):

"Disparate treatment" such as is alleged in the present case is the most easily understood type of discrimination. The employer simply treats some people less favorably than others because of their race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Proof of discriminatory motive is critical, although it can in some situations be inferred from the mere fact of differences in treatment.... Claims of disparate treatment may be distinguished from claims that stress "disparate impact." The latter involve employment practices that are facially neutral in their treatment of different groups but that in fact fall more harshly on one group than another and cannot be justified by business necessity. See infra, at 349 97 S.Ct. at 1861. Proof of discriminatory motive, we have held, is not required under a disparate impact theory. Compare, e.g. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 430-434 91 S.Ct. 849, 853-854, 28 L.Ed.2d 158, with McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-806 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824-1826, 36 L.Ed.2d 668. 431 U.S. at 335 n. 15, 97 S.Ct. at 1854 n. 15 (Emphasis added.)

When a court concludes that a Title VII (or 42 U.S.C. § 1981) plaintiff has proven a prima facie case of either disparate treatment or impact, then the court must consider the defendant's explanation or justification for the presumptively discriminatory action or practice. The type of defense that the defendant must then articulate depends upon the type of claim asserted by the plaintiff. In a disparate treatment case, the defendant must articulate "a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason" for his action. McDonnell Douglas, supra. In a disparate impact case, the defendant must present evidence that the challenged test, procedure, or requirement, bears "a manifest relation to the employment in question." Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U.S. 321, 329, 97 S.Ct. 2720, 2726, 53 L.Ed.2d 1786 (1977), quoting Griggs, supra; unless the procedure in question is encompassed within a statutory exception. See Teamsters, supra. In either case, the burden of going forward is then placed upon the defendant to articulate a nondiscriminatory rationale. Thereafter, the plaintiff may still prevail if he can, finally, establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the apparently nondiscriminatory rationale which was articulated by the defendant served only as a pretext for the in fact discriminatory acts or practices in question. See Board of Trustees of Keene St. College v. Sweeney, 439 U.S. 24, 99 S.Ct. 295, 58 L.Ed.2d 216 (1978).

This plaintiff has presented no disparate impact evidence, as such. He was the only black engineer employed by defendant at the Michigan Casting Center from 1973 to 1977. Accordingly, the court's examination of the facts of record is narrowed to the question of whether he was treated disparately and less favorably than similarly situated whites by defendant and its agents because of his race. Also, Pettway v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co., 411 F.2d 998 (5th Cir. 1969), reh. den. 415 F.2d 1376 (1969), contains a full discussion of the proscription of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a) against discrimination against any employee who has opposed, made a charge of, or participated in an investigation of, any practice which is an unlawful employment practice under Title VII. Also see Ayon v. Sampson, 547 F.2d 446 (9th Cir., 1976). Again, in Brown v. Rollins, Inc., 397 F.Supp. 571 (W.D.N.C., 1974) an employer was held liable under Title VII, where plaintiff was discharged in whole or in part because she had filed charges with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The Brown opinion refers us to Pettway, supra; Barela v. United Nuclear Corp., 462 F.2d 149 (10th Cir., 1972), and Smith v. Sol D. Adler Realty Co., 436 F.2d 344 (7th Cir., 1970), all for the proposition that race need not be the sole reason for a defendant's activity for it to be unlawful.

On the basis of the settled law outlined above, and the findings of fact set out below, this court finds that plaintiff has made a prima facie case on the preponderance of all of the evidence that defendant unlawfully discriminated against him on the basis of his race; that defendant has failed to articulate any legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons for its disparate treatment of plaintiff; and that such reasons as defendant has suggested for its conduct are in fact pretextual for unlawful race discrimination. The court further finds that the defendant unlawfully retaliated against plaintiff by worsening its discriminatory conduct toward him after the filing of a charge of discrimination and by finally discharging him one month after his filing of this lawsuit. All of the above constitute egregious violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and 42 U.S.C. § 1981.

Plaintiff was hired by defendant on November 5, 1973, after being interviewed by its agents at Ford World Headquarters. He had applied for employment in response to an advertisement for process engineers. Although he had no university degree, he had three years of college education and prior experience in California as a supervisory process engineer for a defense industry plant which had become defunct. Defendant assigned him to work at its new Michigan Casting Center facility (hereafter MCC) in Flat Rock, Michigan, as a salaried process engineer, Grade 6, at the rate of $1,100 per month. It was at this same salary that plaintiff departed MCC, in 1977. Supervisor of Salaried Personnel, Tony Burke, testified that the only occasion in those seven years on which he considered plaintiff's race was in his decision to hire plaintiff. Burke felt at the time that hiring plaintiff would improve the MCC Equal Opportunity report, inasmuch as all of the twenty seven process engineers then in the plant were white and he also anticipated that Mr. Hatton would "relate" well to the numerous hourly employees at MCC inasmuch as they, too, were black. Mr. Burke had been impressed by plaintiff's "intelligence", as well. When plaintiff was discharged in 1977, he was still the only black engineer at the facility.

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