Kline v. Tennessee Valley Authority
(6^th Cir. (Tenn.) Nov. 4, 1997)

The Plaintiff, Kline, worked for TVA as a personnel officer until a reorganization eliminated his position. Before his termination, Kline applied for the position of Personnel Officer at TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant. Kline contacted Keith Leamon to inquire about the position. Unbeknownst to Kline, Leamon had already prepared a list of candidates for the job. Leamon advised Kline to give his resume to Kingston’s plant manager, Fred Clayton. Clayton gave the resume to one of his subordinates, Johnnie Brown, who put the resume in a drawer where it remained for the rest of the selection process. Randy Cole succeeded Clayton as plant manager and made the final selection. He gave the job to a young woman named Beckler.

Kline filed an age discrimination claim with the TVA’s Equal Opportunity office. That office issued a final agency decision that Kline was discriminated against on the basis of age when he was not considered for the job. The EO office ordered TVA to take corrective action by placing Kline in the position with back pay, if, after comparison, he was determined to be better qualified than the young woman who had been selected. The TVA did the comparison and reselected Beckler.

Kline sued in federal district court seeking to be placed in the position immediately and to receive back pay. Kline also challenged the reselection of Beckler. The district court granted summary judgment for the Defendant.

Kline appealed to the Sixth Circuit. The Court of Appeals found that summary judgment was inappropriate under the circumstances and remanded the case to the district court for a trial to determine whether TVA, in fact, made a good-faith determination that Ms. Beckler was better qualified for the job.

On remand, the district court found that Kline had made a prima facie case of age discrimination. The Court also found, however, that TVA had then produced a non-discriminatory reason for the selection when it argued that Beckler was more qualified for the job. The district court held that Kline failed to show that the stated reason was a pretext for discrimination. The Plaintiff appealed.

Kline argued that the Sixth Circuit, when remanding the case after the first appeal, had framed the ultimate issue as whether the TVA in fact made a good-faith determination that Ms. Beckler was better qualified for the job. Kline contended that the district court impermissibly redefined the issue so as to turn on whether age or race was a factor in TVA’s reselection for the Kingston position. Kline argued that the issue should simply have been whether TVA did, in fact, make a good faith determination that Ms. Beckler was better qualified for the job.

The Court of Appeals said that the reason it had felt that summary judgment was not appropriate in this case was because a jury could disbelieve the proffered reasons that TVA gave for the choice. That meant that the issue at the second trial should have been whether the process was discriminatory. This determination would include an examination of whether Kline’s age negatively impacted TVA’s decision. Thus, the district court’s framing of the issue on remand was consistent with the Sixth Circuit’s instructions.

Kline’s second assignment of error was that the district court erred in requiring him to prove "pretext plus" in order to prevail on his employment discrimination claim. He argued that the "pretext plus" approach to employment discrimination cases, which requires a direct showing of discrimination plus proof of pretext, was rejected by the Supreme Court in St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502 (1993).

The Sixth Circuit found this argument to be meritorious. St. Mary’s clearly states that, if a fact finder rejects as unbelievable the defendant’s proffered reasons for the termination, then the factfinder is permitted, but not required, to enter a judgment in the plaintiff’s favor with no additional evidence of discrimination. The import of this decision is that once a plaintiff has disproved the reasons offered by the defendant, the factfinder is permitted to infer discrimination. The Court of Appeals went on to say that by requiring him to show pretext and additional direct proof of discrimination the district court placed a nearly impossible burden on Kline.

Kline next argued that there was conflicting testimony at trial that the district court ignored that could have enabled a jury to have found pretext. The Court of Appeals noted conflicting testimony concerning the draft job description used in the reselection. TVA, through its representatives, testified that the selection criteria used in the 1991 reselection process were taken from a September 1988 job description. The Appellate record, however, stated that the 1988 job description was destroyed in 1989. Furthermore, the job description that was given to Beckler at the time she took the position at Kingston only contained six points, whereas the job description used by the TVA during the trial contained seven.

The Court of Appeals went on to say that the lack of an interview for Kline was another basis for finding a pretext of discrimination and that the district court mistakenly discounted that evidence. Kline was never given the opportunity to demonstrate any qualities which qualified him for the human resource officer position which could not be ascertained from his paper credentials. Beckler was given this opportunity before she was first hired, and the testimony in the record showed that her hiring was based in a large part on that interview.

The Court of Appeals noted that under St. Mary’s a factfinder is permitted to infer discrimination from a finding that the reasons given by the defendant were pretextual. The court noted that there was sufficient evidence in the record from which the district court could have inferred pretext. The Court of Appeals found that the evidence offered by Kline was legally sufficient to rebut the nondiscriminatory reasons offered by the TVA. The court ultimately held that the district court’s findings of fact had to be reversed because they were based on contradictory and evasive testimony. The Court of Appeals said it was unnecessary to remand the case for findings of fact on the issue of discrimination because its finding was based on historic facts contained in the record.

Having found that the district court erred in requiring that Kline prove "pretext plus," and in ruling that Kline had failed to prove pretext, the Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded the case back to that court for a finding of appropriate relief.

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