Justices Rule Fired Workers Must Prove Bias

The Supreme Court revised the rules for deciding job discrimination claims Friday and made it harder for employees to prove that they are victims of illegal bias.

On a 5-4 vote, the court overturned a ruling in favor of a fired black prison supervisor, declaring that an alleged victim of discrimination bears the “ultimate burden” of proving he was dismissed because of his race.

In the past, a more liberal court said if an employer failed to show that it had legitimate reasons for firing the employee, the worker would automatically win the case.

But on Friday, the more conservative court majority tilted the matter the other way. It said an employer should not be liable unless a jury has considered all of the evidence and concluded that race was the true reason for the employee’s dismissal.

In this case, a trial judge concluded that a white prison official in Missouri had fired the black supervisor because of a personality conflict, not because of his race. But a U.S. appeals court later ruled in favor of the black supervisor because prison officials had not offered an alternative explanation that was convincing.

Some job bias experts called Friday’s decision a clarification of the rules, while other civil rights advocates branded it a major change in the law. Both sides agreed, however, that it will have a significant impact in thousands of job-discrimination cases.

Two years ago, in a clear slap at the high court, Congress enacted a Civil Rights Act overturning several earlier decisions that had made it harder for employees to win in large class-action cases of discrimination.

Friday’s ruling dealt with individual cases of alleged intentional discrimination and the standards set by the court are likely to be applied broadly in other cases of intentional discrimination, including those involving claims of bias based on age or disability.

The 1991 Civil Rights Act was seen as encouraging more court claims against employers because plaintiffs were given the right to seek jury trials and the prospect of winning damages if they could show that they suffered discrimination because of their race, religion, gender or national origin.

But Friday’s ruling may force employees and their lawyers to think twice.

“This is going to make it next to impossible for discrimination complainants to win,” said Isabelle Katz Pinzler, director of the women’s rights project for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York.

That is so, she said, because employees rarely can prove that their supervisors were motivated by racist or sexist reasons.

In typical cases, “you don’t have any affirmative evidence to show the employer’s motivation,” said Lester G. Ostrov, a union lawyer in Los Angeles.

Before, the worker could win the case by showing that the employer’s stated reasons for the firing were phony. Under the new rules, “you have to know what’s in their (employers’) heads, which is a very, very, tough burden in some cases,” Ostrov said.

Management lawyers, not surprisingly, were pleased with the outcome.

“It is a terrific decision and it will have an important impact,” said Mona C. Zeiberg, an attorney for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In many past cases, employers were reluctant to criticize a “problem employee” and they lost discrimination cases because their explanations for a firing were judged not to be the “true reasons.”

Under the court’s new approach, she said, juries will be instructed to consider all the evidence and to remember that the plaintiff must prove he or she was fired for illegal reasons.

Beginning in 1973, the high court had constructed a set of back-and-forth rules for deciding job discrimination cases.

At the first stage, for example, a black employee would be required to prove that he was doing satisfactory work when he was fired and then was replaced by a white person.

This suggests he was a victim of illegal discrimination. At the second stage, the employer had to show a “legitimate, non-discriminatory reason” for the employee’s firing.

At a third stage, the employee could then attack these reasons as phony.

Before, the court had suggested that the employee was the winner once he had shown that the employer’s justifications were “not the true reason” for the firing.

But writing for the court, Justice Antonin Scalia rejected this approach and said that the final decision still belongs to the jury. “It is not enough to dis believe the employer; the (jury) must believe the plaintiff’s explanation of intentional discrimination,” he wrote.

His opinion in the case (St. Mary’s Honor Center vs. Hicks, 92-602), was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

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