Smith v. Fletcher, 75-3948

• Decision Date: 23 September 1977
• Docket Number: No. 75-3948,75-3948
• Citation: 559 F.2d 1014
• Parties: 15 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1351, 15 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 7844 Charlotte R. SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellee Cross-Appellant, v. James C. FLETCHER, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, et al., Defendants-Appellants Cross-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1014

559 F.2d 1014

15 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1351, 15 Empl. Prac.

Dec. P 7844

Charlotte R. SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellee Cross-Appellant, v. James C. FLETCHER, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, et al Defendants-Appellants Cross-Appellees.

No. 75-3948.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Sept. 23, 1977.

Edward B. McDonough, Jr., U. S. Atty., James R. Gough, Anna E. Stool, Wm. L. Bowers, Jr., Asst. U. S. Attys., Houston, Tex., for James C. Fletcher et al.

David T. Lopez, Houston, Tex., for Charlotte R. Smith.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before THORNBERRY, AINSWORTH and RONEY, Circuit Judges.

THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge:

Although plaintiff, Charlotte R. Smith, has been paraplegic since she caught polio as a small child, she nevertheless has obtained a Master's Degree in Physiology and an airline pilot's license. She is an employee of defendant, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), at the Lyndon B. Johnson Spacecraft Center near Houston, Texas. While plaintiff remained at the GS-7 employment level, NASA hired at least two male employees with similar qualifications at the GS-9 level, and later promoted them to GS-13. Meanwhile, plaintiff suffered a reduction in grade to GS-5, allegedly because of a general reduction in force. After exhausting administrative remedies, plaintiff brought this suit under the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16, as well as 28 U.S.C. § 1361, ¹ 5 U.S.C. §§ 702, ² and 7153, ³ claiming sex and physical handicap discrimination. The trial court agreed, finding both sex and physical handicap discrimination, and ordering retroactive promotion, back pay, and attorney's fees. We affirm.

NASA originally hired Smith at its Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, Spacecraft Center, in February, 1962, at the Civil Service grade or level of GS-7. Within a few months, NASA moved most operations to Houston, and Smith accompanied the transfer. In June of the following year, NASA hired a male employee at a grade of GS-9, although he had no better qualifications than plaintiff, and indeed had received his Master's Degree from the same institution and under the same graduate advisor as plaintiff. ⁴ Later that same year, NASA employed another male at the GS-9 level, promoting him three months later to the GS-11 level because of credit for research work related to the Space Program similar to work Smith had accomplished. In November of 1963, Smith received a promotion to GS-9, but NASA reduced this to GS-5 in 1971 because of a reduction in force. Meanwhile, the two male employees obtained steady promotions up to the GS-13 level by 1969.

In December, 1971, plaintiff filed a formal complaint of discrimination resulting from her status as a physically-handicapped female. A Civil Service Commission examiner found that NASA had "severely mistreated" Smith, but declined to find sex discrimination. The examiner noted that tasks assigned to plaintiff had steadily deteriorated to menial clerical tasks. NASA and the plaintiff could not agree on appropriate relief, so plaintiff returned to the Board of Appeals and Review of the Civil Service Commission. The Review Board affirmed the hearing examiner in all respects, but likewise refused to grant any affirmative relief, noting instead that NASA had accepted responsibility for making the plaintiff whole. It was this failure to grant relief that caused plaintiff to file the instant suit. Meanwhile, she has received promotions to GS-9. She demands promotion to the GS-13 level that her two male colleagues, both arriving after she did, attained in 1968 and 1969.

NASA brings forward three points on appeal. It argues first that the district court erred in holding that Smith suffered sex discrimination. ⁵ Second, appellant argues that the district court erred in awarding a retroactive promotion, ⁶ back pay, and attorney's fees to plaintiff. Finally, NASA maintains that the district court erred in requiring it to follow the same administrative procedure for 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16 (sex discrimination) and 5 U.S.C. § 7153 (physical handicap discrimination) complaints, and in granting injunctive relief. The first issue is the crux of the appeal because the second and third, for various reasons, are moot.

I.

Chandler v. Roudebush, 425 U.S. 840, 96 S.Ct. 1949, 48 L.Ed.2d 416 (1976) forced appellant to admit in its Supplemental Brief that a de novo trial was both proper and necessary. ⁷ This Circuit's decisions have also held that federal employees possess the same right to a trial de novo of employment discrimination claims under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16, that private sector employees have. See, e. g., Eastland v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 553 F.2d 364 (5 Cir. 1977). On review of the de novo trial, we must give great deference to the trial court's findings, overturning them only if we can find them "clearly erroneous." United States v. U. S. Gypsum Co.,333 U.S. 364, 68 S.Ct. 525, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1947). We find that plaintiff demonstrated a prima facie case of sex discrimination, and that NASA has not shown by "clear and convincing evidence" that even absent the sex discrimination, plaintiff still would not have been promoted.

The primary difficulty is that sex and physical handicap discrimination occur in the instant case not separately, but inextricably intertwined. For example, Smith elicited one of the key statements demonstrating discrimination from one of her supervisors, Mr. Edward L. Michel, who stated that, "I know it would be very difficult for a young woman to travel all over the country, getting in cabs, airplanes, with a wheelchair." (II R. at 84). In fact, Smith is a licensed airline pilot. A review of the record indicates that a problem for Ms. Smith throughout her tenure with NASA is that she is a "handicapped female." It is the combination of being a young woman in a wheelchair that proves so damaging to Smith. Yet the combination of the two makes it difficult to discern separate evidence of sex discrimination.

Difficult, but not impossible to discern, for the testimony of one of NASA's own witnesses, Dr. Carolyn Huntoon of NASA, assists in establishing sex discrimination. While Dr. Huntoon stated that she did not feel sex discrimination had hindered her career with NASA, she admitted that officials' refusal to allow her to accompany the aircraft carrier sent to retrieve some astronauts was on the basis of sex. ⁸ Huntoon also agreed that her knowledge that there were only two females at grades GS-14 and GS-15 out of all the employees at the space center indicated "certainly" the "possibility" of sex discrimination. I App. at 189.

One of Dr. Huntoon's stated goals when she became responsible for supervising Smith was to "help her get back to a technical level work," Id. at 181. Perhaps the most regrettable aspect of the discrimination Ms. Smith suffered was that her supervisors assigned her increasingly menial tasks; chores generally considered secretarial and "typically female": answering the telephone, typing, filing, opening and logging the incoming mail. Mr. William L. Tomkins, a supervisor, admitted to the Civil Service Examiner that he had assigned menial tasks compared to what the job called for: ". . . yes. Initially yes. I hoped that it would grow into something much better, but it didn't . . . ,". He also remarked that, "I'd probably have been tougher on a male. I don't know." I App. at 84.

We gain some understanding of Ms. Smith's troubles from the testimony of another supervisor, Mr. Halley M. Bishop. He stated that for some reason, Smith never wrote the reports that are an integral part of her job. When pressed for a reason, he admitted, "Well, I don't know why. She wasn't asked to I suppose." Id. at 85. In other words, Smith fell victim to the proverbial vicious cycle. She began receiving secretarial tasks because she was female. Then supervisors began to wonder why she seemed to spurn writing technical reports and never asked her. Ultimately, Smith was working essentially as a secretary at a GS-5 level, while male colleagues had risen to GS-13. The trial court's finding of sex discrimination is not clearly erroneous.

II.

Appellant's second point has become moot in light of our holding that the finding of sex discrimination was not clearly erroneous. Appellant insists that the trial court could not use the provisions of § 2000e-16 to grant retroactive promotion, back pay, and attorney's fees, since the finding of sex discrimination "is totally unsupported." Plaintiff bases her complaint of handicap discrimination on the provisions of 5 U.S.C. § 7153, which, unlike § 2000e-16, do not ordain suits for retroactive promotion, back pay, and attorney's fees. Having agreed to the ruling of sex discrimination, however, we observe that it was appropriate to afford the relief § 2000e-16 allows. ⁹ Thu...