United States v. Dillon Supply Company, 13975.
| Citation | 429 F.2d 800 |
| Decision Date | 08 July 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 13975.,13975. |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, by Ramsey CLARK Acting Attorney General, Appellant, v. DILLON SUPPLY COMPANY, a corporation, Appellee. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit) |
Joel L. Selig, Atty., Dept. of Justice (Jerris Leonard, Asst. Atty. Gen., and David L. Rose, Atty., Dept. of Justice, on brief) for appellant.
W. P. Sandridge, Winston-Salem, N.C. (Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice, Winston-Salem, N.C., Charles H. Young and Young, Moore & Henderson, Raleigh, N.C., on brief) for appellee.
Before BOREMAN, WINTER and BUTZNER, Circuit Judges.
The Attorney General instituted this action under § 707(a) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. A. § 2000e-6(a), upon a recommendation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission referred to him pursuant to § 705(g) (6) of the Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e-4(f) (6). The government charged that the defendant, the Dillon Supply Company (hereafter "Dillon" or the "company"), was engaged in a pattern or practice of racial discrimination with respect to various employment opportunities in violation of §§ 703(a) (1), 703(a) (2), and 703(d) of the Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e-2(a) (1), (a) (2), (d).
The district court dismissed the action on the ground that the government had failed to establish any present violations of the Act. We conclude that because the district court's dismissal rested upon an erroneous interpretation of the Act, it must be reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings.
Dillon is a North Carolina company engaged in the business of selling, installing and servicing industrial equipment and supplies. At the company's Raleigh plant, upon which this litigation focused, the district judge found that there were on October 18, 1967, 68 white and 20 black employees. The complaint alleged that the black employees had initially been assigned on a racial basis to menial and low-paying jobs without regard to their qualifications and kept in these positions on account of their race by discriminatory promotion, transfer, and reassignment practices. The complaint also alleged that prior to the Act's effective date, the company had managed substantially all of its facilities and operations on a racial basis. In addition, the government claimed that the company had failed to take adequate steps to rectify the present effects of its past policy and practice of racial discrimination.
In support of its allegations the government produced evidence which tended to show that the fabrication shop, fork lift department, steel warehouse and traffic department aspects of the Raleigh plant had long been racially identifiable as white and black. From July, 1965, the effective date of the Civil Rights Act, until January, 1967, there were no black welders or helpers in the fabrication shop. The fabrication shop's cleanup crew, on the other hand, was entirely black throughout this period and remained so on the date of the trial. From May, 1966, to March, 1969, there were never more than three white laborers in the steel warehouse. In December, 1964, there were nine black drivers and a white supervisor in the traffic department, and this situation existed as late as October, 1967. As of the date of the trial, May 23, 1969, the racial composition of the various departments was as follows:
Department White Black
Traffic 1 9
Steel Warehouse Laborers 2 11
Fabrication Shop-Welders & Helpers 30-40 3
Fabrication Shop-Cleanup Crew 0 6
Fork Lift 11 2
Thus, the government's evidence tended to show a pattern of assignments under which blacks were largely assigned to jobs as truck drivers, warehouse laborers or cleanup men while whites enjoyed the opportunity to become welders. Coupled with the statistical data, the government offered proof of a decentralized system of hiring and assignment which vested broad authority on the supervisors of largely segregated departments and which had no uniform or objective standards for hiring or assignment. The government also attempted to show that black employees who had been assigned to the traditional white departments were subjected to continued discrimination. Proof was offered of the lack of a formalized transfer system under which black persons employed or assigned on a racial basis could apply for and obtain more desirable positions in a traditionally white department. In addition, there was also evidence that after passage of the Act the company maintained segregated toilet and cafeteria facilities and had discriminated with respect to travel facilities. Finally, the government sought to demonstrate that the company's decentralized departmental hiring procedures and the absence of objective employment standards perpetuated and reinforced the racial identity of the various departments and thus preserved the effects of the past racial discrimination.
On the basis of these claims and the evidence presented to support them, the government sought a decree which would (1) enjoin future discrimination and the failure to take affirmative steps to correct the present effects of past discrimination; (2) require that new employees be assigned in such a way as to eliminate the racial identities of departments and jobs; (3) require the adoption of uniform, objective criteria and procedures for hiring, assignment, and promotion and disapproving the practice of decentralized hiring in the context of a racially segregated plant; (4) require the establishment of a central office for hiring and assignment, with one officer responsible for filling vacancies in consultation with department heads; and (5) provide present black employees the opportunity to transfer to predominantly white jobs in the fabrication shop as vacancies occur without loss of seniority or other accumulated benefits.
The legal theory under which the district court evaluated the government's case was articulated in its pretrial orders and throughout the trial:
The Court is going to limit * * * questions * * * to violations which now exist. If the violations charged in this suit, which was filed in 1967, have already been eliminated, then there\'s no necessity of this proceedings sic, — the issue has become moot. * * *
Under this theory the district court excluded evidence of events which had not occurred at the time of trial or immediately prior thereto because only present events were considered relevant to a determination of violations which "now exist." Thus, the court excluded evidence of the existence of segregated...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Bilingual Bicultural Coalition on Mass Media, Inc. v. F.C.C.
...Co., 457 F.2d 1377, 1382 (4th Cir.), Cert. denied, 409 U.S. 982, 93 S.Ct. 319, 34 L.Ed.2d 246 (1972), quoting United States v. Dillon Supply Co., 429 F.2d 800, 804 (4th Cir. 1970) ("proof of overt racial discrimination in employment is seldom direct"; "(r)ecognizing this, we have found 'err......
-
Nance v. Union Carbide Corp., Consumer Prod. Div.
...No. 38, 428 F.2d 144, 151 (6th Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 943, 91 S.Ct. 245, 27 L.Ed.2d 248 (1970); United States v. Dillon Supply Co., 429 F.2d 800 (4th Cir. 1970); United States v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co., 471 F.2d 582 (4th Cir. 1972); cert. denied sub nom., Local 268 Broth. of ......
-
US v. Lansdowne Swim Club
...pattern or practice has been alleged, the Club's operations as a whole must be considered. See, e.g., United States v. Dillon Supply Co., 429 F.2d 800, 804 (4th Cir.1970); United States v. Buffalo, 457 F.Supp. 612, 620-21 (W.D.N.Y.1978). Even acts and practices of the Club in existence prio......
-
Swint v. Pullman-Standard
...See United States v. Dillon Supply Co., 429 F.2d 800 (4th Cir. 1970) reversing a lower court's failure to consider evidence of black exclusion from a welding department, albeit for other reasons.25 See, e. g., Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 91 S.Ct. 849, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971); Pett......