Miller v. Jones Truck Lines, Inc., LR-76-C-284.
| Decision Date | 28 September 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. LR-76-C-284.,LR-76-C-284. |
| Citation | 476 F. Supp. 1048 |
| Parties | Virgil MILLER, Plaintiff, v. JONES TRUCK LINES, INC., International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, and Helpers, and Local 878, Teamsters, Chauffeurs, and Helpers, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas |
John W. Walker, Little Rock, Ark., for plaintiff.
R. F. Beagle, Jr., Paul Scott Kelly, Jr., Richard B. McKelvey, Kansas City, Mo., for Jones Truck Lines, Inc.
John P. Lavey, Little Rock, Ark., for Intern. Broth. of Teamsters, Chauffeurs & Helpers and Local 878.
Melva H. Kozinsky, Little Rock, Ark., for Teamster, Local Union 878.
This is a Title VII case tried to the Court on September 4, 5, 6, and 7, 1979. Although the complaint originally contained class-action allegations, they were abandoned before trial, and the case was tried as an individual claim.
The defendant Jones Truck Lines, Inc., is a common carrier engaged in interstate commerce. Its headquarters is at Springdale, Arkansas. It has 20 branches or terminals located throughout the South and Midwest. One of these terminals is at Little Rock, Arkansas, and Little Rock is the location of most of the events in issue. All of the corporate officers and managerial employees of defendant are white, and they always have been. Specifically, there has never been a black terminal manager, nor has there ever been a black supervisor or foreman, with the exception of one man in St. Louis. Defendant's employees at Little Rock fall into several categories: over-the-road drivers, city employees, including dock men and truck drivers who make local deliveries; sales people; shop employees, who service and maintain equipment; office employees; and supervisors, including a branch manager, an assistant branch manager, and three or four foremen. No over-the-road employees have ever been black, and, as already noted, no supervisors at Little Rock have ever been black. In 1975, when the events specifically at issue here took place, there were ten black employees out of a total of 63 in the "city" category. That number has since expanded to 23 out of a total of 95.
The company is a government contractor and therefore must have an affirmative action plan. The company also has an equal employment opportunity coordinator, Milton R. Lindley, who is a vice-president and lives in Springdale. Mr. Lindley's principal responsibility is labor relations, and the company's affirmative-action efforts have been abysmally inadequate. Records are not properly kept. Numerical errors have been made in those records which do exist. Mr. Lindley has never had any particular training in equal employment opportunity matters, and he himself testified that the company's affirmative-action program, at one time, was "weak." The company has no specific goals for promoting blacks into management jobs, and no time table for achieving black representation among foremen. There are 170 over-the-road drivers in Arkansas, of whom none has ever been black. No blacks are presently employed as office workers in Little Rock, and no date has been set for attaining any degree of integration in this portion of the defendant's workforce.
The company is subject to a consent decree in a case styled United States v. Trucking Employees, Inc., et al., Civil Action No. 74-453, United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The decree provides, in part, that the defendant must adopt a goal of hiring at least 33 1/3 % black and Spanish-surnamed persons in each of several job classifications. This goal appears to have been met with respect to city employees in Little Rock, but it has not been met with respect to office employees or over-the-road drivers. The consent decree has not been posted for the inspection of employees, and defendant's equal employment opportunity coordinator was not very familiar with its contents.1 Very little effort was made to communicate either the provisions of the consent decree or general equal-employment principles to defendant's executives, managers, and foremen.
There have been racial incidents at defendant's Little Rock terminal. As Jimmy E. Greene, one of defendant's city employees, put it, there was "an undercurrent" at the terminal. There was an atmosphere, at least partly created by defendant, that caused black employees to believe that they had to work harder than whites to get ahead. Charles Cummings, one of the supervisors, cursed Robert Dibbins, a black employee, and gave him assignments more onerous than those given to whites. This sort of incident occurred several times. The picture, on the other hand, was not unrelieved. Some of the supervisors, including Michael Pettus, were fair to all of the employees, both blacks and whites, as Mr. Greene testified.
Virgil Miller, the plaintiff in this suit, is black. He was first hired by the defendant on September 19, 1975, and he was qualified to do the job—dock man—for which he was hired. He was discharged on October 30, 1975, and after that time defendant continued to receive applications and hire employees to do the same kind of work that Mr. Miller had been doing.
All of these facts, taken together, persuade the Court that the plaintiff has made a prima facie case of discrimination as against the employer defendant.2 With this background in mind, we now turn to an examination of the specific facts surrounding the plaintiff's discharge. The ultimate question is whether he was discharged, in whole or in part, because he was black. The general evidence that has previously been outlined can do no more than set the stage for this inquiry.
Has the company articulated a legitimate and nondiscriminatory reason for Mr. Miller's discharge? The plaintiff first applied for a job on September 19, 1975. Jimmy Greene, a driver for Jones whose testimony has been referred to earlier in this opinion, suggested that plaintiff apply. He was interviewed by John Chaney, who was at that time Branch Manager. Mr. Chaney was impressed with the plaintiff and gave his application preference over many others already on file with the defendant. Mr. Chaney remarked that the plaintiff had management possibilities (plaintiff has a college degree from Arkansas Polytechnic Institute in Russellville) and that he had a strong chance to get to be a supervisor, perhaps some day even becoming Branch Manager. He directed the plaintiff to report for work at 6:00 o'clock on the morning of Saturday, September 20, 1975, and plaintiff did so. At that time he functioned...
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R.T. French Co. v. Springfield Mayor's Com'n on Human Rights and Community Relations
...issue with sufficient clarity to provide the plaintiff with a full and fair opportunity to demonstrate pretext. Miller v. Jones Truck Lines, Inc., 476 F.Supp. 1048 (E.D.Ark.1979). See also, Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, supra, 450 U.S. at 251, 101 S.Ct. at 1092, 67 L.Ed.......