Williams v. Trans World Airlines, Inc.

• Decision Date: 02 October 1981
• Docket Number: Nos. 80-2165,81-1004,s. 80-2165
• Parties: 27 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 487, 27 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 32,174 Ava WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. TRANS WORLD AIRLINES, INC., Appellee. Ava WILLIAMS, Appellee, v. TRANS WORLD AIRLINES, INC., Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 1267

660 F.2d 1267

27 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 487,

27 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 32,174

Ava WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. TRANS WORLD AIRLINES, INC., Appellee.

Ava WILLIAMS, Appellee, v. TRANS WORLD AIRLINES, INC., Appellant.

Nos. 80-2165, 81-1004.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted July 21, 1981.

Decided Oct. 2, 1981.

Randall E. Hendricks (argued), Stinson, Mag & Fizzell, Kansas City, Mo., for appellee/cross appellant.

Sandra Weinlood (argued), William H. Pickett, Kansas City, Mo., for appellant/cross-appellee.

Before LAY, Chief Judge, STEPHENSON and McMILLIAN, Circuit Judges.

LAY, Chief Judge.

This is an action under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq., and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Ava Williams, a black, alleges that her discharge from employment with Trans World Airlines, Inc. (TWA) was the result of racial discrimination. TWA defended her discharge for alleged reasons of neglect of duty. The district court, the Honorable Scott O. Wright presiding, found that Williams' discharge was in violation of both civil rights acts and awarded damages of $1,912.90, plus costs and $5,000 attorney's fees. The plaintiff appeals on the inadequacy of damages due to failure of the court to compensate for mental distress and from the attorney's fees award. The defendant cross-appeals on the grounds of insufficiency of evidence to sustain the award. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

Facts.

Williams was employed by TWA on April 25, 1976, as a probationary employee in the job classification of flight attendant. She continued serving the five-month probationary period in Kansas City upon completion of a student hostess training program on May 20, 1976. Throughout the probationary period Williams' written evaluations regarding job appearance, passenger service, and knowledge of safety regulations were favorable, but her encounters with supervisory personnel were less uncensured. On one occasion during the training period Williams' supervisor criticized her for looking bored during a class, but Williams explained that her expression was one of concentration, not of boredom. In June or July 1976, Williams' supervisor observed her in the airport wearing cut-off blue jeans while off duty and on personal business. The supervisor warned that Williams' attire was in violation of company policy, but Williams thought that no such policy existed and that the supervisor was joking. Subsequently, Williams' supervisor again found Williams dressed in cut-off blue jeans at the airport during off-duty hours while on personal business and reprimanded her; at Williams' request, the supervisor showed to her the TWA Front Line Handbook, dated May 1975, which states:

When not in uniform but at the airport conducting business, or deadheading, dress should be tastefully conservative.

Id. at 6.

On July 17, 1976, following a "three-month achievement" seminar, Williams' supervisor and another supervisor conferred with Williams regarding apparent boredom during the seminar and the cut-off blue jeans incidents. The confrontation and discussion of her "attitude problem" angered Williams, and a third supervisor was called in to assist. Although Williams exhibited signs of feeling unduly harassed with the first two supervisors, she was calm and composed with the third. A verbal, and later written, warning ensued, stating that Williams must display exemplary conduct for the remainder of the probationary period and that any future incident indicative of an "attitude problem" might subject her to termination.

Finally, in September 1976, Williams was terminated as a result of a letter received by TWA from a passenger. The letter referred to other attendants by name, but referred to Williams as "the black stewardess," accusing her of "prostituting" with a "black passenger" during a six-hour grounding of an August 1, 1976, flight in Colorado Springs, Colorado, due to bad weather. Although the truth of the allegations was never investigated and substantiated, and the accusation of "prostituting" was not believed, Williams' supervisor and another supervisor, joined by the acting general manager and the head of labor relations for in-flight personnel, decided to terminate Williams based upon the customer letter. Williams' termination letter of September 2, 1976, stated that the reasons for termination were neglect of duty and failure to perform duties in a professional, workmanlike manner. ¹ The proffered reason for termination without investigation was alleged to be based upon insufficient time to investigate before Williams' probationary term ended; if the investigation period extended past the probationary period, there would be union involvement in termination proceedings.

Upon exhaustion of her administrative remedies, Williams brought this action in the district court under title VII and section 1981, alleging termination of employment due to racial discrimination. The district court found that, although Williams failed to prove a case of disparate treatment, she had, nevertheless, proven sufficient facts to establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination. The district court found that the direct evidence which served as the nexus between Williams' termination and her race was the grossly exaggerated "passenger complaint letter written with strong racial overtones" which prompted the discharge without verification of the facts. The court held TWA liable for the actions that it took in reliance upon the unverified accusations. The court also held that TWA failed to rebut Williams' prima facie case and that the discrimination was intentional under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. See Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976). The court awarded Williams reinstatement, back wages, lost fringe benefits, costs, and reasonable attorney's fees. In doing so it denied damages for mental distress, however, finding Williams' testimony "entirely credible" but "inadequate to base an award of damages upon." In addition, the court reduced plaintiff's claim for attorney's fees on the basis that plaintiff's counsel had failed to properly prepare his case. Williams appeals on the attorney's fees and mental distress issues; TWA cross-appeals on the grounds that Williams' proof of racial discrimination cannot be founded upon a theory other than disparate treatment or disparate impact; additionally, TWA urges that the district court misapplied the burden of proof under Texas Dep't of Community Affairs v. Burdine, --- U.S. ----, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981).

The Prima Facie Case.

We discuss TWA's cross-appeal first.

The plaintiff in a title VII case possesses the ultimate burden of persuasion and the intermediate burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence a prima facie case of discrimination. Texas Dep't of Community Affairs v. Burdine, --- U.S. ----, ----, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1093, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981). A prima facie case of discrimination based upon a theory of disparate treatment is succinctly set forth in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). ² In a disparate treatment case the plaintiff's initial burden is basically to show actions "taken by the employer from which one can infer, if such actions remain unexplained, that it is more likely than not that such actions were 'based on a discriminatory criterion illegal under the Act.' " Furnco Constr. Corp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 575-76, 98 S.Ct. 2943, 2948-49, 57 L.Ed.2d 957 (1978); accord, International Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 358, 97 S.Ct. 1843, 1866, 52 L.Ed.2d 396 (1977); McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 & n.13, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824 & n.13, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973).

The McDonnell Douglas test can be made applicable to discharge cases as well as hiring cases. See Henry v. Ford Motor Co., 553 F.2d 46, 48 n.3 (8th Cir. 1977); see also Texas Dep't of Community Affairs v. Burdine, --- U.S. ----, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1094 nn.6 & 7, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981); Mosby v. Webster College, 563 F.2d 901, 902 & n.2 (8th Cir. 1977). Although this court has held that, to proceed under a disparate treatment theory, a plaintiff must prove differences in treatment and discriminatory motive, it has also recognized that what constitutes a prima facie case of employment discrimination necessarily varies according to the facts. Meyer v. Missouri State Highway Comm'n, 567 F.2d 804, 807-08 (8th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 1013, 98 S.Ct. 1888, 56 L.Ed.2d 395 (1978).

In the present case, the district court found that there was a violation of title VII in that plaintiff was discharged for racial reasons. Nonetheless, the court found that the plaintiff had not successfully proven a case of disparate treatment since she had failed to show a different standard of treatment for black employees and similarly situated white employees. An interpretive analysis of the district court's opinion does not, however, compel us to accept TWA's argument that, since the court found plaintiff had failed to prove disparate treatment, it is entitled to a judgment for the defendant. It appears to us that the trial court's rejection of plaintiff's theory of disparate treatment is based on the limited reasoning that documentary proof obtained from TWA did not show that black employees were treated any differently than whites. ³ However, proof of a prima facie case of disparate treatment is not so confined. If a black person is discharged with discriminatory intent by reason of his race, this establishes proof of disparate treatment. See Furnco Constr. Co. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 577, 98 S.Ct. 2943, 2949, 57 L.Ed.2d 957 (1978); International Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 358, 97 S.Ct. 1843, 1866, 52 L.Ed.2d 396 (1977). We cannot accept that the district court's semantical error requires a different result. The question before us is...