Week 1

Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins (1989)

Procedural History:

The petitioner sued in federal district court and won, the original respondent appealed to the court of appeals and lost, at which point the supreme court granted certiorari to the petitioners seeking to reverse the original decision. The supreme court reversed the judgement and remanded the case back to the court of appeals.

Facts of the case:

Hopkins worked in management at an office when she was proposed for partnership in 1982, but the company decided to shelve her promotion until the next year for reconsideration. The subsequent year the partners in her office refused to re-propose her for the promotion. The decision-making process occurs nationwide at different branches of the company, and she entered a large (80+) pool of candidates in which she was the only woman. During the selection process, the decision to hold and then drop the candidacy was due to mixed factors. On Hopkins’ employment record, there were “legitimate” grievances recorded towards her interpersonal communication style throughout her tenure (before any consideration for the promotion), but they were contrasted by the comments received from other partners during the partner commenting period (which was integral to the selection process). According to a professor who testified, some of the negative comments were rooted in “sex stereotyping”; some of the comments were overtly sexist and preferential towards the competence of men in the same position over women. When the news came to Hopkins, she was told she could improve her chances by behaving in a more “feminine” manner.

Legal Issues:

Here are the two issues I identified. The overarching issue is whether or not Hopkins was discriminated against on the basis of her sex when it came to an employment decision reached by her company when she was due for a promotion. The second issue apparent to me is what the majority opinion decided to remand the case on, which was whether the standard of scrutiny employed by the lower courts in Title VII cases (such as in Price Waterhouse) was appropriate.

Legal Rules Applied

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Analysis or Rationale: 

Original defendants (Price Waterhouse) interpreted the words “because” in Title VII to directly imply an employment outcome caused by differences in biological sex (for example, an employment decision reached based on a difference of sex that Title VII explicitly outlines would be illegal), and considered themselves to be within the bounds of the law because they didn’t only use sex as cause for not hiring Hopkins. Rather, the decision to not hire Hopkins came from mixed factors, only some of which emerge from differences in sex (the recommendations present in the fact pattern that were arguably inherently sexist). The court rationalized that any hiring considerations where there is present a mix of legitimate and illegitimate factors that discriminate on sex would be illegal under Title VII as well. SCOTUS affirmed an aspect of the appellate court’s ruling where they outlined that if an employer could prove that it would have come to the same hiring decision had the illegitimate factor been omitted from the process, the employer could theoretically be free of any liability. The burden of proof is initially placed on Hopkins (initial plaintiff) per the case’s civil nature, but the arguments made by the Price Waterhouse functionally required the plaintiff to present substantial evidence in a mixed motive case where the illegitimate motive itself was the “true reason” the employment decision was reached. Sex stereotyping played a role in the consideration process, and despite the defense’s attempt to minimalize its legal scope and cast doubt on the actual likelihood of the stereotyping, the court legitimized the new legal scope of the term. SCOTUS also decided that the company’s inclusion and consideration of the (often sexist) comments reviewed from the commenting process was critical to the discriminatory nature underlying the promotion practice encountered by Hopkins and amounted to more than just “discrimination in the air”, further violating Title VII. The court clarified the applicability of their argument to the context, adding that Price Waterhouse’s ability to justify their decision under the circumstances does not equate to proving that the same decision would have been reached without the inclusion of illegitimate factors. SCOTUS disagreed with the lower courts on an issue of evidence; the Court ruled that the standard of evidence placed on the plaintiff should have been “preponderance of evidence”, rather than “clear and convincing evidence” standard required.

Conclusion:

The court remanded the case to the Court of Appeals in order to give Price Waterhouse an opportunity to present evidence that meets the lower standard of evidence.

Concurrences:

White’s concurring opinion agrees with the plurality but believes that the burden of evidence that falls on an employer does not need to be “objective” if the evidence of a legitimate motive is “ample” evidence to prove the employer made a reasonable choice. 

O’Connor’s concurrence asserts that if the evidence provided was substantial, then courts should refer to the Price Waterhouse case as a model and disregard persuasive arguments on the facts of evidence. However, if the evidence is not as substantial as in price, but is more akin to cases McDonnell Douglas and Burdine, then courts should place the burden of persuasion on evidence to the plaintiff.

Dissents:

The Dissent (written by Kennedy and joined by Scalia and Rehnquist) rests its argument on a distinction made by the opinion of the court, in that the “because” as it appears in the law does in fact imply liability by direct cause of any factor that should be evident in the evidence. The evidence as collected and decided upon by the district was scrutinized and criticized in the dissent because expert testimony and sex stereotyping do not apparently meet the requirements for cause of the issue under title VII for the judges on the dissent panel. According to them, title VII does not require a “duty to sensitize”, or discredit, the sexist recommendations for Hopkins within the context of a serious consideration for employment.