Supreme Court of the United States · 2003-06-09
Case and law context
Role: rule-announced; posture: civil; jury verdict for employee after mixed-motive instruction, reinstated by CA9 en banc; certiorari by employer on whether direct evidence is required for a (m) instruction; result: claimant-won; claim: (a)(1),(m)
Instances and excluded annotation blocks
| Case | Element | Holding and scope | Variant | Exact source quotations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| /us/539/0090-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2003 | Adverse employment action affecting compensation, terms, conditions, privileges, or status | satisfied Excluded from merits counts applied / lower-court basis: proved; claim: (a)(1),(m); party: plaintiff Catharina Costa, warehouse worker (respondent); count: Title VII sex-discrimination claim tried to the jury (discipline and termination); subject: party=plaintiff Catharina Costa, warehouse worker (respondent); count=Title VII sex-discrimination claim tried to the jury (discipline and termination) Not contested in the Supreme Court; jury was instructed it must find she "suffered adverse work conditions" and found for her. | discharge/termination-after-escalating-discipline | Respondent experienced a number of problems with management and her co-workers that led to an escalating series of disciplinary sanctions, including informal rebukes, a denial of privileges, and suspension.Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_539.jsonl#/us/539/0090-01; Unicode character offsets [5337:5543] (end exclusive); SHA-256 9a7e4d9846d799473649658702ae2649d2f44f3694664d7d3e7eb291f31597df.Petitioner finally terminated respondent after she was involved in a physical altercation in a warehouse elevator with fellow Teamsters member Herbert Gerber.Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_539.jsonl#/us/539/0090-01; Unicode character offsets [5544:5702] (end exclusive); SHA-256 9a7e4d9846d799473649658702ae2649d2f44f3694664d7d3e7eb291f31597df. |
| /us/539/0090-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2003 | Discriminatory causation ("because of" protected trait) | not_reached Excluded from merits counts rule-announced / merits claim: (a)(1),(m) Case tried and decided under the (m) motivating-factor route; but-for "because of" under (a)(1) and Price Waterhouse burden-shifting are discussed only as background. | Unspecified variant | No source quotation recorded for this block. |
| /us/539/0090-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2003 | Impermissible motivating factor in mixed-motive cases (§ 2000e-2(m)) | not_reached Excluded from merits counts rule-announced / merits claim: (a)(1),(m); party: plaintiff Catharina Costa, warehouse worker (respondent); count: Title VII sex-discrimination claim tried to the jury (discipline and termination); subject: party=plaintiff Catharina Costa, warehouse worker (respondent); count=Title VII sex-discrimination claim tried to the jury (discipline and termination) Pure construction of (m): "demonstrates" carries no heightened/direct-evidence requirement, so a mixed-motive instruction may rest on circumstantial evidence. The Court approves the instruction and affirms; it does not itself review whether the evidence was sufficient (the en banc CA9 had so held). | circumstantial-evidence/harsher-discipline-than-male-coworker | Section 2000e-2(m) unambiguously states that a plaintiff need only “demonstrate]” that an employer used a forbidden consideration with respect to “any employment practice.”Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_539.jsonl#/us/539/0090-01; Unicode character offsets [11483:11655] (end exclusive); SHA-256 9a7e4d9846d799473649658702ae2649d2f44f3694664d7d3e7eb291f31597df.In order to obtain an instruction under §2000e-2(m), a plaintiff need only present sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude, by a preponderance of the evidence, that “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating factor for any employment practice.”Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_539.jsonl#/us/539/0090-01; Unicode character offsets [17217:17497] (end exclusive); SHA-256 9a7e4d9846d799473649658702ae2649d2f44f3694664d7d3e7eb291f31597df.Because direct evidence of discrimination is not required in mixed-motive cases, the Court of Appeals correctly concluded that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in giving a mixed-motive instruction to the jury.Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_539.jsonl#/us/539/0090-01; Unicode character offsets [17498:17722] (end exclusive); SHA-256 9a7e4d9846d799473649658702ae2649d2f44f3694664d7d3e7eb291f31597df. |
| /us/539/0090-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2003 | Impermissible motivating factor in mixed-motive cases (§ 2000e-2(m)) | satisfied Excluded from merits counts applied / lower-court basis: proved; claim: (a)(1),(m); party: plaintiff Catharina Costa, warehouse worker (respondent); count: Title VII sex-discrimination claim tried to the jury (discipline and termination); subject: party=plaintiff Catharina Costa, warehouse worker (respondent); count=Title VII sex-discrimination claim tried to the jury (discipline and termination) Jury verdict for the employee on comparative-discipline and slur evidence, reinstated by the en banc Court of Appeals; left standing, not re-weighed, by the Supreme Court. | circumstantial-evidence/harsher-discipline-than-male-coworker | Petitioner disciplined both employees because the facts surrounding the incident were in dispute, but Gerber, who had a clean disciplinary record, received only a 5-day suspension.Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_539.jsonl#/us/539/0090-01; Unicode character offsets [5703:5883] (end exclusive); SHA-256 9a7e4d9846d799473649658702ae2649d2f44f3694664d7d3e7eb291f31597df.At trial, respondent presented evidence that (1) she was singled out for “intense ‘stalking’ ” by one- of her supervisors, (2) she received harsher discipline than men for the same conduct, (3) she was treated less favorably than men in the assignment of overtime, and (4) supervisors repeatedly “stack[ed]” her disciplinary record and “frequently used or tolerated” sex-based slurs against her.Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_539.jsonl#/us/539/0090-01; Unicode character offsets [6212:6607] (end exclusive); SHA-256 9a7e4d9846d799473649658702ae2649d2f44f3694664d7d3e7eb291f31597df. |
| /us/539/0090-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2003 | Pretext for discrimination (McDonnell Douglas step 3) | not_reached Excluded from merits counts rule-announced / merits claim: (a)(1),(m) | Unspecified variant | No source quotation recorded for this block. |
| /us/539/0090-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2003 | Protected trait: race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy/abortion), or national origin | satisfied Counted merits instance applied / merits basis: conceded; claim: (a)(1),(m); party: plaintiff Catharina Costa, warehouse worker (respondent); subject: party=plaintiff Catharina Costa, warehouse worker (respondent) | sex/only-woman-in-job-classification | Respondent was the only woman in this job and in her local Teamsters bargaining unit.Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_539.jsonl#/us/539/0090-01; Unicode character offsets [5251:5336] (end exclusive); SHA-256 9a7e4d9846d799473649658702ae2649d2f44f3694664d7d3e7eb291f31597df. |
| /us/539/0090-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2003 | Mixed-motive same-decision partial affirmative defense (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(g)(2)(B)) | not_reached Excluded from merits counts rule-announced / merits claim: (a)(1),(m); party: defendant Desert Palace, Inc., dba Caesars Palace (petitioner); count: Title VII sex-discrimination claim tried to the jury (discipline and termination); subject: party=defendant Desert Palace, Inc., dba Caesars Palace (petitioner); count=Title VII sex-discrimination claim tried to the jury (discipline and termination) 2000e-5(g)(2)(B) limited-remedies defense (law side: `effect limits-remedy`): jury was instructed on it and awarded damages, but the Court only describes the defense and uses its wording as a textual argument. | Unspecified variant | No source quotation recorded for this block. |
Court interpretations recorded from this case
interpretation
Section 2000e-2(m) unambiguously states that a plaintiff need only “demonstrate]” that an employer used a forbidden consideration with respect to “any employment practice.”
/us/539/0090-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2003
Section 2000e-2(m) unambiguously states that a plaintiff need only “demonstrate]” that an employer used a forbidden consideration with respect to “any employment practice.”Source:
docroot/ir/caselaw/us_539.jsonl#/us/539/0090-01; Unicode character offsets [11483:11655] (end exclusive); SHA-256 9a7e4d9846d799473649658702ae2649d2f44f3694664d7d3e7eb291f31597df.Added by the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (§ 107(a)): establishes an unlawful employment practice whenever a protected trait was a motivating factor, even if lawful factors also motivated the practice.
interpretation
In order to obtain an instruction under §2000e-2(m), a plaintiff need only present sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude, by a preponderance of the evidence, that “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating factor for any employment practice.”
/us/539/0090-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2003
In order to obtain an instruction under §2000e-2(m), a plaintiff need only present sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude, by a preponderance of the evidence, that “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating factor for any employment practice.”Source:
docroot/ir/caselaw/us_539.jsonl#/us/539/0090-01; Unicode character offsets [17217:17497] (end exclusive); SHA-256 9a7e4d9846d799473649658702ae2649d2f44f3694664d7d3e7eb291f31597df.Added by the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (§ 107(a)): establishes an unlawful employment practice whenever a protected trait was a motivating factor, even if lawful factors also motivated the practice.
interpretation
In order to avail itself of the affirmative defense, the employer must “demonstrate] that [it] would have taken the same action in the absence of the impermissible motivating factor.”
/us/539/0090-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2003
In order to avail itself of the affirmative defense, the employer must “demonstrate] that [it] would have taken the same action in the absence of the impermissible motivating factor.”Source:
docroot/ir/caselaw/us_539.jsonl#/us/539/0090-01; Unicode character offsets [4084:4267] (end exclusive); SHA-256 9a7e4d9846d799473649658702ae2649d2f44f3694664d7d3e7eb291f31597df.Partial affirmative defense under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(g)(2)(B) to a § 2000e-2(m) mixed-motive violation: restricts remedies to declaratory/injunctive relief and attorney's fees, barring damages and reinstatement.
interpretation
In order to avail itself of the affirmative defense, the employer must “demonstrate] that [it] would have taken the same action in the absence of the impermissible motivating factor.”
/us/539/0090-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2003
In order to avail itself of the affirmative defense, the employer must “demonstrate] that [it] would have taken the same action in the absence of the impermissible motivating factor.”Source:
docroot/ir/caselaw/us_539.jsonl#/us/539/0090-01; Unicode character offsets [4084:4267] (end exclusive); SHA-256 9a7e4d9846d799473649658702ae2649d2f44f3694664d7d3e7eb291f31597df.Establishing `motivating-factor` under § 2000e-2(m) establishes liability; `x-same-decision` under § 2000e-5(g)(2)(B) does not defeat liability, but restricts the available remedies to declaratory/injunctive relief and attorney's fees.