Williams v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co.

• Decision Date: 31 October 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-1638,82-1638
• Parties: 33 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 297, 32 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 33,889 Iva N. WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SOUTHWESTERN BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. Summary Calendar.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 715

718 F.2d 715

33 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 297,

32 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 33,889

Iva N. WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SOUTHWESTERN BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 82-1638

Summary Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Oct. 31, 1983.

Gardere & Wynne, B. Prater Monning, III, Dallas, Tex., for plaintiff-appellant.

Barbara R. Hunt, Keith E. Davis, Dallas, Tex., for defendant-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Before REAVLEY, RANDALL and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

This appeal concerns a case of alleged employment discrimination brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5. The plaintiff, Iva Williams, claimed that she was illegally discharged from her employment with the defendant, Southwestern Bell Telephone Company ("Bell"), as a result of racial discrimination. At the close of a full trial to the bench, the district court granted Bell's motion for involuntary dismissal under Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(b), and the plaintiff timely appealed. We affirm.

Iva Williams, a black woman, was employed by Bell as a teller in Bell's public office. Her primary responsibility consisted of receiving and recording payment of their telephone bills by Bell's customers. In the course of these duties, she was required to perform manually a series of "steps," the end result of which was the proper recordation of customer payments. ¹ A teller error in the performance of most of the steps would be reflected by an imbalance in the bookkeeping records, in the form of an excess or shortage of cash. It is undisputed that errors of this type are unavoidable, and that no employee, black or white, has ever been discharged on this basis. However, if the error is one involving a discrepancy between the amount tendered by the customer and the amount reflected on the customer's receipt, Bell's records would not reflect the error; it would be discovered only when a customer brought the discrepancy to Bell's attention. It was this type of error, made repeatedly over a relatively short period of time, for which Williams was discharged.

On appeal, both parties urge us to evaluate the proceedings below according to the order of proof mandated in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), and Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981). These cases require a three-step analysis of the evidence in Title VII actions. Initially the plaintiff must establish a prima facie case of discrimination, thus creating a rebuttable presumption that Title VII has been violated. The defendant must then counter the plaintiff's prima facie case by producing evidence that the defendant's action was not motivated by discriminatory intent. Finally, the plaintiff may then attack the defendant's rebuttal as pretextual. See McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 804, 93 S.Ct. at 1825. The plaintiff retains the burden of persuasion throughout the case. See Burdine, 450 U.S. at 256, 101 S.Ct. at 1095.

The three-fold analysis contemplated by McDonnell Douglas and Burdine, however, is not the proper vehicle for evaluating a case that has been fully tried on the merits. In such a case, as the Supreme Court recently pointed out in United States Postal Service Board of Governors v. Aikens, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 1478, 75 L.Ed.2d 403 (1983), for the litigants or the courts to frame the issues in terms of whether the plaintiff established a prima facie case "unecessarily evade[s] the ultimate question of discrimination vel non." Id. at 1481. Thus, although the parties maintain that our function is to evaluate the sufficiency of Williams' prima facie case and Bell's rebuttal, it is clear that this analysis would be inappropriate.

When a trial court denies a defendant's motion to dismiss at the close of the plaintiff's case, and the defendant goes on to present its rebuttal, "the McDonnell-Burdine presumption 'drops from the case,' and the factual inquiry proceeds to a new level of specificity." Id. at 1482. At that point, the function of the district court is to decide the ultimate factual issue in the case: whether or not there was intentional discrimination against the plaintiff in violation of Title VII. On this issue, the plaintiff has the burden of persuasion, which she may meet "either directly by persuading the court that a discriminatory reason more likely motivated the employer or indirectly by showing that the employer's proffered explanation is unworthy of credence." Burdine, 450 U.S. at 256, 101 S.Ct. at 1095; Aikens, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. at 1483 (Blackmun, J., concurring). In either case, the trier of fact must then determine which explanation, employer's or employee's, is the more persuasive. To focus this determination on the question of the prima facie case would be to ignore the teachings of McDonnell Douglas, Burdine, and Aikens. As the Court noted in Aikens:

Where the defendant has done everything that would be required of him if the plaintiff had properly made out a prima facie case, whether the plaintiff really did so is irrelevant. The district court has before it all the evidence it needs to decide whether "the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff."

103 S.Ct. at 1482 (quoting Burdine, 450 U.S. at 256, 101 S.Ct. at 1095). See also Elliott v. Group Medical & Surgical Service, 714 F.2d 556, 564 (5th Cir.1983) ("Where, as here, the case has been fully tried on the merits, the adequacy of a party's showing at any particular stage of the McDonnell Douglas ritual is of no consequence. We are simply to determine whether the record contains evidence upon the basis of which a reasonable trier of fact could have concluded as the jury did." (footnote omitted)). ²

The scope of our inquiry on appeal is likewise guided by the Burdine-Aikens rationale. Because the ultimate issue, that of discrimination vel non, is to be treated by district and appellate courts in the same manner as any other issue of fact, see Aikens, 103 S.Ct. at 1482, our review is subject to the "clearly erroneous" standard of Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a). See Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 287, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 1789, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982); Carroll v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 708 F.2d 183 (5th Cir.1983); Everitt v. City of Marshall, 703 F.2d 207 (5th Cir.1983). As articulated in United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 541, 99 L.Ed. 746 (1948), that standard provides that "[a] finding is 'clearly erroneous' when although there is evidence...