Mine Safety Appliances Co. v. Berry

• Decision Date: 23 February 1993
• Docket Number: No. 91-482-M,91-482-M
• Citation: 620 A.2d 1255
• Parties: 61 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 494 MINE SAFETY APPLIANCES CO. v. Eula Mae BERRY et al. P.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 1255

620 A.2d 1255

61 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 494

MINE SAFETY APPLIANCES CO. v. Eula Mae BERRY et al.

No. 91-482-M.P.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Feb. 23, 1993.

Andrew B. Prescott, Tillinghast, Collins & Graham, Providence, David J. McAllister, Scott Zimmerman, Pittsburgh, PA, for plaintiff.

William Y. Chaika, Cranston, Cynthia Hiatt, R.I. Com'n on Human Rights, Providence, for defendant.

OPINION

MURRAY, Justice.

This case came before us on a petition for certiorari filed by the employee, Eula Mae Berry (Berry), seeking review of a judgment entered in the Superior Court vacating an order of the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights (the commission). In an order entered below, the trial justice determined that the commission was clearly erroneous in finding that the employer, Mine Safety Appliances Co. (MSA), discriminated against the employee because of her race. After careful review of the record we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.

On May 1, 1989, Berry filed a charge with the commission, alleging that M.S.A. had discriminated against her with respect to terms and conditions of employment and promotion because of her race and color, in violation of the Rhode Island Fair Employment Practices Act, G.L.1956 (1986 Reenactment) chapter 5 of title 28. After the commission completed a preliminary investigation, a complaint was issued against M.S.A. on January 29, 1990. A hearing on this matter was thereafter held at the commission on June 27, 1990. The following facts were adduced at that hearing.

Berry, who is black, had been employed by M.S.A. since December 1978 in its Esmond, Rhode Island division, where gas masks are produced for commercial use as well as for the armed forces. This facility is organized into numerous departments, each of which is responsible for manufacturing certain products and is supervised by a group leader. According to the general supervisor of the Esmond division, Ralph Cole (Cole), the duties of a group leader include coordinating productivity on a daily basis, planning and organizing the work force in that area, monitoring performance, enforcing company policies and procedures, maintaining weekly schedules, and identifying M.S.A. products by a six-digit part number.

In 1983 M.S.A. used an informal process by means of which an employee could express his or her interest in being considered for a group-leader position. Once the supervisors had compiled a list of names of all interested employees, the candidates were interviewed and tested by an independent counseling firm. Through this appraisal process M.S.A. was able to appoint group leaders for approximately three years. The employer's productivity, however, greatly declined in 1986 largely as a result of the reduced workload required under its government contracts. Consequently M.S.A. downsized from 1,000 employees to 500 employees, which in turn eliminated the need for more group leaders. The informal appraisal process for promoting employees to group leaders thus was set aside until 1989 when productivity rose again. It was events that occurred during the interim years that underlie Berry's allegations of discrimination.

A group-leader position was due to become vacant in Department 221 in December 1988, at which time Cole had only three weeks to fill the post. After consulting with the division manager and the production supervisor in that area, Cole was informed that that position was to be considered only temporary because it was expected that Department 221 would no longer be located within MSA's Esmond division. Cole proceeded to identify candidates for this group-leader position in three different categories: employees with work experience in that department, existing group leaders whose present job assignments would be "phased out" in the future, and employees from throughout the plant who had heard of the vacancy and who came forth and identified themselves to Cole as interested applicants. Because of the temporary nature of the vacant position, Cole and the division manager determined that it would be a disservice to the employees in the second and third groups to take any employee away from his or her stable position within the work force. Consequently only four candidates from within Department 221 were seriously considered for this promotion, each of whom had experience, knowledge, and job skills in the processes employed in that department. Of these four candidates two were white females and two were white males.

On or about December 19, 1988, Carol Radican (Radican) was chosen as the new group leader in Department 221. Cole testified that Radican was a very conscientious and dedicated employee. He also stated that she had a thorough working knowledge of the operation of that department's manufacturing system and its quality standards and that, through other jobs she had held within that department, she had gained familiarity with the various part numbers, the billing material system, and the routing system.

Conversely Cole testified that Berry was never considered for this group-leader position because she did not have the job knowledge or the working experience within Department 221. Additionally she had never advised Cole prior to this action that she wished to be considered to fill this group-leader vacancy or any other. The only testimony at the hearing that suggested that Berry was interested in changing her position at M.S.A. at all was presented by employee herself. She stated that on a previous occasion she had applied to be transferred to the quality-control department, a department within M.S.A. in which only white people were working. That transfer request was denied because she was not the most senior employee seeking that position at that time. In any case the position Berry sought within quality control was not as a group leader.

Soon after Radican was promoted to group leader, Berry contacted MSA's personnel manager, Lorrie Foehr (Foehr), to determine why no minorities were serving as group leaders or supervisors in the company. As Foehr had just returned to her position at M.S.A. two months earlier after a two-year hiatus, she could not explain why minorities were not holding such positions. Berry then questioned what the qualifications were for becoming a group leader. According to Berry, Foehr responded that one must "get along with people."

Throughout the hearing before the commission, Berry contended that she is more qualified to be a group leader than Radican for a variety of reasons. Berry had been employed by M.S.A. since 1978 while Radican had been with the company only since 1982 and in Department 221 only since 1986. According to Berry, being a group leader entailed nothing more than simple paperwork, which made her more qualified than Radican because she had experience in managing her own jewelry business and maintaining the books herself. Furthermore, Berry's educational background included a high school degree as well as some college courses; Radican attended high school only. Berry also stated that when she was asked to work at one particular job within Department 221 for a short period to help that department complete a project by a given date, she had the opportunity to see the work that that group leader did. In her opinion anyone could perform such tasks because of their simplicity in comparison with the demands of her job, which involved much tedium and required skill.

On May 1, 1991, the commission entered its decision and order in favor of Berry. In that decision the commission found that in January 1990 M.S.A. employed approximately 425 employees, 52 of whom were minorities but only 2 of whom had appointments as group leaders from 1967 to 1988. The commission also found that M.S.A. instituted a different system of selecting group leaders after Berry had filed her charge with the commission. ¹ The commission thereafter analyzed the issue of race discrimination in accordance with federal cases interpreting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. See United States Postal Service Board of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 103 S.Ct. 1478, 75 L.Ed.2d 403 (1983); Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981); Domingo v. New England Fish Co., 727 F.2d 1429 (9th Cir.1984); Rowe v. General Motors Corp., 457 F.2d 348 (5th Cir.1972).

In Burdine the Supreme Court reiterated the standards it had enunciated in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), for evaluating evidence of racial discrimination in the workplace.

"First, the plaintiff has the burden of proving by the preponderance of the evidence a prima facie case of discrimination. Second, if the plaintiff succeeds in proving a prima facie case, the burden shifts to the defendant 'to articulate some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the employee's rejection.' * * * Third, should the defendant carry this burden, the plaintiff must then have an opportunity to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the legitimate reasons offered by the defendant were not its true reasons, but were a pretext for discrimination." Burdine, 450 U.S. at 252-53, 101 S.Ct. at 1093, 67 L.Ed.2d at 215.

To aid the factfinder in determining whether an employee has satisfied his or her initial burden of proof, the Supreme Court presented a model outline for establishing a prima facie case of discrimination. Although...