Wards Cove Packing Company, Inc v. Atonio

• Decision Date: 05 June 1989
• Docket Number: No. 87-1387,87-1387
• Citation: 490 U.S. 642,109 S.Ct. 2115,104 L.Ed.2d 733
• Parties: WARDS COVE PACKING COMPANY, INC., et al., Petitioners, v. Frank ATONIO et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

490 U.S. 642

109 S.Ct. 2115

104 L.Ed.2d 733

WARDS COVE PACKING COMPANY, INC., et al., Petitioners,

v Frank ATONIO et al.

No. 87-1387.

Argued Jan. 18, 1989.

Decided June 5, 1989.

Syllabus

Jobs at petitioners' Alaskan salmon canneries are of two general types: unskilled "cannery jobs" on the cannery lines, which are filled predominantly by nonwhites; and "noncannery jobs," most of which are classified as skilled positions and filled predominantly with white workers, and virtually all of which pay more than cannery positions. Respondents, a class of nonwhite cannery workers at petitioners' facilities, filed suit in the District Court under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, alleging, inter alia, that various of petitioners' hiring/promotion practices were responsible for the work force's racial stratification and had denied them employment as noncannery workers on the basis of race. The District Court rejected respondents' claims, finding, among other things, that nonwhite workers were overrepresented in cannery jobs because many of those jobs were filled under a hiring hall agreement with a predominantly nonwhite union. The Court of Appeals ultimately reversed in pertinent part, holding, inter alia, that respondents had made out a prima facie case of disparate impact in hiring for both skilled and unskilled noncannery jobs, relying solely on respondents' statistics showing a high percentage of nonwhite workers in cannery jobs and a low percentage of such workers in noncannery positions. The court also concluded that once a plaintiff class has shown disparate impact caused by specific, identifiable employment p actices or criteria, the burden shifts to the employer to prove the challenged practice's business necessity.

Held:

1. The Court of Appeals erred in ruling that a comparison of the percentage of cannery workers who are nonwhite and the percentage of noncannery workers who are nonwhite makes out a prima facie disparate-impact case. Rather, the proper comparison is generally between the racial composition of the at-issue jobs and the racial composition of the qualified population in the relevant labor market. Hazelwood School Dist. v. United States, 433 U.S. 299, 308, 97 S.Ct. 2736, 2741, 53 L.Ed.2d 768. With respect to the skilled noncannery jobs at issue, the cannery work force in no way reflected the pool of qualified job applicants or the qualified labor force population. Petitioners' selection methods or employment practices cannot be said to have had a disparate impact on nonwhites if the absence of minorities holding such skilled jobs reflects a dearth of qualified nonwhite applicants for reasons that are not petitioners' fault. With respect to the unskilled noncannery jobs, as long as there are no barriers or practices deterring qualified nonwhites from applying, the employer's selection mechanism probably does not have a disparate impact on minorities if the percentage of selected nonwhite applicants is not significantly less than the percentage of qualified nonwhite applicants. Where this is the case, the percentage of nonwhite workers found in other positions in the employer's labor force is irrelevant to a prima facie statistical disparate-impact case. Moreover, isolating the cannery workers as the potential labor force for unskilled noncannery jobs is both too broad—because the majority of cannery workers did not seek noncannery jobs—and too narrow—because there are many qualified persons in the relevant labor market who are not cannery workers. Under the Court of Appeals' method of comparison, any employer having a racially imbalanced segment of its work force could be haled into court and made to undertake the expensive and time-consuming task of defending the business necessity of its selection methods. For many employers, the only practicable option would be the adoption of racial quotas, which has been rejected by this Court and by Congress in drafting Title VII. The Court of Appeals' theory is also flawed because, if minorities are over-represented in cannery jobs by virtue of petitioners' having contracted with a predominantly nonwhite union to fill those positions, as the District Court found, petitioners could eliminate respondents' prima facie case simply by ceasing to use the union, without making any change whatsoever in their hiring practices for the noncannery positions at issue. Pp. 2120-2123.

2. On remand for a determination whether the record will support a prima facie disparate-impact case on some basis other than the racial disparity between cannery and noncannery workers, a mere showing that nonwhites are underrepresented in the at-issue jobs in a manner that is acceptable under the standards set forth herein will not alone suffice. Rather, the courts below must also require, as part of respondents' prima facie case, a demonstration that the statistical disparity complained of is the result of one or more of the employment practices respondents are attacking here, specifically showing that each challenged practice has a significantly disparate impact on employment opportunities for whites and nonwhites. This specific causation requirement is not unduly burdensome, since liberal discovery rules give plaintiffs broad access to employers' records, and since employers falling within the scope of the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures must maintain records disclosing the impact of tests and selection proce- dures on employment opportunities of persons by identifiable race, sex, or ethnic group. Pp. 656-658.

3. If, on remand, respondents establish a prima facie disparate-impact case ith respect to any of petitioners' practices, the burden of producing evidence of a legitimate business justification for those practices will shift to petitioners, but the burden of persuasion will remain with respondents at all times. This rule conforms with the usual method for allocating persuasion and production burdens in the federal courts and with the rule in disparate-treatment cases that the plaintiff bears the burden of disproving an employer's assertion that the adverse employment practice was based solely on a legitimate, neutral consideration. See Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 256-258, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1095-1096, 67 L.Ed.2d 207. To the extent that some of this Court's decisions speak of an employer's "burden of proof" with respect to the business justification defense, they should be understood to mean an employer's burden of production, not persuasion. Even if respondents cannot persuade the trier of fact on the business necessity question, they may still prevail by coming forward with alternatives that reduce the disparate impact of petitioners' current practices, provided such alternatives are equally effective in achieving petitioners' legitimate employment goals in light of the alternatives' costs and other burdens. Pp. 658-661.

827 F.2d 439 (CA9 1987) reversed and remanded.

WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and O'CONNOR, SCALIA, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. BLACKMUN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN and MARSHALL, JJ., joined, post, p. 661. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN, MARSHALL, and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined, post, p. 662.

Douglas M. Fryer, Seattle, Wash., for petitioner.

Abraham A. Arditi, Seattle, Wash., for respondents.

Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., makes it an unfair employment practice for an employer to discriminate against any individual with respect to hiring or the terms and condition of employment because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or to limit, segregate, or classify his employees in ways that would adversely affect any employee because of the employee's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.¹ § 2000e-2(a). Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 431, 91 S.Ct. 849, 853, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971), construed Title VII to proscribe "not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form but discriminatory in practice." Under this basis for liability, which is known as the "disparate-impact" theory and which is involved in this case, a facially neutral employment practice may be deemed violative of Title VII without evidence of the employer's subjective intent to discriminate that is required in a "disparate-treatment" case.

I

The claims before us are disparate-impact claims, involving the employment practices of petitioners, two companies that operate salmon canneries in remote and widely separated areas of Alaska. The canneries operate only during the salmon runs in the summer months. They are inoperative and vacant for the rest of the year. In May or June of each year, a few weeks befo e the salmon runs begin, workers arrive and prepare the equipment and facilities for the canning operation. Most of these workers possess a variety of skills. When salmon runs are about to begin, the workers who will operate the cannery lines arrive, remain as long as there are fish to can, and then depart. The canneries are then closed down, winterized, and left vacant until the next spring. During the off-season, the companies employ only a small number of individuals at their headquarters in Seattle and Astoria, Oregon, plus some employees at the winter shipyard in Seattle.

The length and size of salmon runs vary from year to year, and hence the number of employees needed at each cannery also varies. Estimates are made as early in the winter as possible; the necessary employees are hired, and when the time comes, they are transported to the canneries. Salmon must be processed soon after they are caught, and the work during the canning season is therefore intense.² For this reason, and because the canneries are located in remote regions, all workers are housed at the...