Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company The New York Times
June 10, 2003, Tuesday, Late Edition -
Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 22; Column
1; National Desk
LENGTH: 1300
words
HEADLINE: Supreme Court Roundup; Justices Unanimously Provide a Victory to One Category of Job-Bias
Plaintiffs
BYLINE: By LINDA
GREENHOUSE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, June
9
BODY: A unanimous Supreme Court
made it significantly easier today for workers to win discrimination suits
against their employers in cases where race, sex, religion or national origin is
one factor among others in a dismissal or other adverse job action.
Such cases of "mixed motive" -- a legitimate reason
combined with an improper, discriminatory one -- are so common as to be the norm
in the world of employment discrimination litigation. Congress addressed this
category of cases, among others, in 1991 when it amended Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, the basic federal employment discrimination law, to counter
a series of pro-employer Supreme Court decisions.
A
1989 Supreme Court ruling had made it difficult for plaintiffs to qualify for
the favorable jury instructions that come with a mixed-motive case, under which
the employer has the burden of proving that it would have made the same decision
even in the absence of the improper factor. The court said then that the
plaintiff must prove by direct, not circumstantial, evidence that discrimination
had been "a motivating factor" in the employer's action.
Direct evidence requires the equivalent of a smoking gun. While it is
sometimes available to aggrieved employees, it often is not, particularly in the
nuanced and complex situations reflected in many mixed-motive cases.
In its 1991 legislation, Congress provided that an
"unlawful employment practice is established" when the plaintiff "demonstrates"
that race or any of the other prohibited categories "was a motivating factor for
any employment practice, even though other factors also motivated the
practice."
Although Congress made no mention of a need
for direct evidence, the lower federal courts continued to require it, with the
exception of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San
Francisco. In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court said
today that the Ninth Circuit was correct.
"On its
face," Justice Thomas said, "the statute does not mention, much less require,
that a plaintiff make a heightened showing through direct evidence."
"Our precedents make clear," he added, "that the starting
point for our analysis is the statutory text. And where, as here, the words of
the statute are unambiguous, the judicial inquiry is complete."
Beyond the decision's impact on civil rights litigation, an effect that
could be substantial, the case was notable for the court's unanimous rejection
of the position argued by the Bush administration. The administration had urged
the court to adhere to its direct-evidence requirement, arguing that Congress in
1991 intended to overturn other aspects of the 1989 decision, Price Waterhouse
v. Hopkins, but not the evidentiary standard.
Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor, who formulated the direct-evidence standard in her separate
opinion in the 1989 case, wrote a concurring opinion today. She said that while
she still believed that her original view accurately reflected what was then the
state of the law, the result today correctly reflected the change that Congress
made in 1991.
The case, Desert Palace v. Costa, No.
02-679, began as a suit against the management of Caesars Palace Hotel and
Casino in Las Vegas by Catharina Costa, who worked there as a truck driver and
heavy-equipment operator. Ms. Costa was the only woman to work in the hotel's
warehouse. After she was dismissed, following a fight with another employee that
management stated as a cause, she sued for sex discrimination and sexual
harassment. The case was tried as a mixed-motive case, and Ms. Costa won a jury
award of $364,000 for back pay and damages.
The hotel
then appealed on the ground that in the absence of direct evidence, Ms. Costa
was not entitled to the favorable mixed-motive jury instructions. Instead, the
hotel said, she should have been required to meet a higher burden of proof by
showing that the stated reason for her dismissal was a pretext for
discrimination. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit initially agreed, but a
panel of 11 judges reheard the case and, departing from the uniform view of the
other appeals courts, held that direct evidence was not necessary.
The unanimity of the ruling today, along with the fact
that the appeals courts other than the Ninth Circuit were still requiring direct
evidence, "illustrates how much more conservative the lower courts are these
days than the Supreme Court," Eric Schnapper, a law professor at the University
of Washington who helped represent Ms. Costa, said in an interview. He said that
there were hundreds of similar cases in the pipeline and that plaintiffs would
benefit from the lowered threshold the court set today.
There were also these actions at the court today:
Emissions Control
The court
agreed to hear an automobile industry challenge to the Southern California
"fleet rules," regulations that require operators of 15 or more vehicles like
buses, taxis, trucks and limousines to choose replacement vehicles from among
those designed for low emissions or alternative fuels.
The industry is arguing that the regulations, issued in 2000 by the Air
Quality Management District for the Los Angeles area in an effort to bring the
region's air quality up to the requirements of the Clean Air Act, exceeded the
discretion that the act gives to state and local governments to regulate
emissions from new vehicles. The Federal District Court in Los Angeles, in a
decision affirmed by the Ninth Circuit, rejected the argument by the Engine
Manufacturers Association and other industry groups that the regulations were
pre-empted by the Clean Air Act.
Because of its complex
air quality issues, California has a special status under the Clean Air Act. It
can set certain emissions standards that other states cannot, but the other
states are then free to choose between federal standards and those of
California. So while this case, Engine Manufacturers Association v. South Coast
Air Quality Management District, No. 02-1343, concerns a California regulation,
the outcome could have a nationwide effect.
Given the
complex interplay between the state regulations and the federal law, it was
surprising that the justices did not seek the federal government's views, as
they often do in similar circumstances, before deciding whether to accept the
case.
Agent Orange
A 4-to-4 tie had the effect of affirming, without opinion, a decision
by the federal appeals court in New York that Vietnam veterans who were exposed
to the toxic herbicide Agent Orange and who became ill after 1994 were free to
pursue lawsuits against the manufacturers.
The appeals
court ruled in 2001 that because the legal interests of this group, perhaps
numbering in the thousands, were not properly represented when the settlement of
an earlier class action was reached, these veterans could not be bound by the
agreement, which excluded anyone who became ill after 1994.
The case, Dow Chemical v. Stephenson, No. 02-271, was an appeal by a
dozen companies that had manufactured Agent Orange. Exposure to the chemical has
been linked to cancer, diabetes and neurological disorders. The link to chronic
lymphocytic leukemia, a particularly serious form of the disease, is so strong
that the Department of Veterans Affairs announced this year that veterans with
that diagnosis would automatically be entitled to benefits, with as many as
1,000 new patients a year expected.
The tie vote was
made possible because Justice John Paul Stevens did not participate in the case.
Justice Stevens never gives public reasons for his recusals. The court had no
comment on a report by The Associated Press that his son, John Joseph, who died
of cancer in 1996, was a Vietnam veteran.
Document 6 of 8. 