St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks

Background

A black employee of a halfway house operated by the Missouri department of corrections and human resources brought, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, an action under 703(a)(1) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 USCS 2000e-2(a)(1)) alleging that the halfway house had violated 703(a)(1) by demoting and then discharging the employee because of his race.

The facility was located at 1536 Papin Street in St. Louis, Missouri (Google Maps has it at 1526 Papin Street). "St. Mary’s consist[ed] of five brick hospital buildings built between 1887 and 1946." It remained a hospital until 1966. Here is a picture of hospital around the time of the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918 - Link (from a St. Louis Post Dispatch story on it condemnation). According to one website dedicated to St. Louis landmarks, "After a long history including use as a hospital, half-way house, detoxification center, quasi-legal nursing home, and rehab center." At some point, "the building [was] abandoned, boarded up, and suffer[ed] a partial wall collapse on the south side and a rotting roof." See pictures - here and here. As a result of the deterioration, the "city’s building commissioner issued an emergency demolition order" in May 2016, and the mayor's office declared that the "building [would] be razed to protect public safety unless a buyer comes forward with the ability to stabilize and redevelop the structure." The building was destroyed between July and August 2016.

Procedural history

The District Court (Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr.), acting as trier of fact in a full bench trial,

(1) found that (a) the employee had established a prima facie case of racial discrimination, and (b) the reasons that the employer gave for the demotion and discharge were not the real reasons for the demotion and discharge, but (2) ruled for the employer on the basis that the employee had failed to carry his ultimate burden of proving that his race was the determining factor in the employer's allegedly discriminatory actions (756 F Supp 1244).

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed and remanded, expressing the view that, once the employee had proved all of the employer's proffered reasons for the adverse employment actions to be pretextual, the employee was entitled to judgment as a matter of law (970 F2d 487).

Opinion of the court

Reversed and remanded. Justice Scalia held that the District Court's rejection of the employer's asserted reasons for its actions did not mandate a finding for the employee, because

(1) under Rule 301 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, a presumption did not shift the burden of proof; (2) the Supreme Court had repeatedly stated that a Title VII plaintiff at all times bore the ultimate burden of persuasion; (3) the Supreme Court had no authority to impose liability upon an employer for alleged discriminatory employment practices, unless an appropriate factfinder determined, according to proper procedures, that the employer had unlawfully discriminated; (4) a holding that a finding for the employee as a matter of law was not mandated did not give special favor to employers whose evidence rebutting charges of racial discrimination was disbelieved; (5) that an employer's proffered reason was unpersuasive, or even obviously contrived, did not necessarily establish that an employee's proffered reason of race was correct; and (6) courts should not (a) treat discrimination differently from other ultimate questions of fact, or (b) make ultimate factual determinations on the basis of legal rules which were devised to govern the basic allocation of burdens and order of presentation of proof.

Dissent

Justice Souter dissented, arguing that in Title VII employment discrimination cases, proof of a prima facie case not only raised an inference of discrimination, but also, in the absence of further evidence, created a mandatory presumption in favor of the plaintiff.