AND · 42usc2000e-2:motivating-factor
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.
Exact element source
an unlawful employment practice is established when the complaining party demonstrates that race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating factor for any employment practice, even though other factors also motivated the practice.Source:
docroot/ir/usc/title42.jsonl#title42_sec2000e-2; Unicode character offsets [11488:11734] (end exclusive); SHA-256 7b026a9ac957c5491602d868578271db8730b4c98650f1a4007b2e7430194c8b.All variants
| Variant | Description | Merits instance blocks | Distinct cases | Example cases (up to 3 per group) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| circumstantial-evidence/harsher-discipline-than-male-coworker | 0 Satisfied 0; not satisfied 0; excluded context 2 | 0 | No counted merits examples Excluded context examples: /us/539/0090-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2003 — applied/lower-court, rule-announced/merits | |
| mixed-motive | Protected trait was a motivating factor among other lawful factors, proved by direct or circumstantial evidence | 0 Satisfied 0; not satisfied 0; excluded context 0 | 0 | No annotation uses in this snapshot |
| Unspecified variant | No variant assigned in the database. | 0 Satisfied 0; not satisfied 0; excluded context 5 | 0 | No counted merits examples Excluded context examples: /f-supp-2d/832/0539-01 — United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania · 2011 — applied/merits; /f-supp/962/1447-01 — United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama · 1997 — applied/merits; /f3d/527/0358-01 — United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit · 2008 — applied/merits |
How courts decided this element
| Case | Element | Holding and scope | Variant | Exact source quotations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| /f-supp-2d/832/0539-01 — United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania · 2011 | Impermissible motivating factor in mixed-motive cases (§ 2000e-2(m)) | not_reached Excluded from merits counts applied / merits claim: (a)(1) | Unspecified variant | No source quotation recorded for this block. |
| /f-supp/962/1447-01 — United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama · 1997 | Impermissible motivating factor in mixed-motive cases (§ 2000e-2(m)) | not_reached Excluded from merits counts applied / merits claim: (a)(1),(c)(3),(m); 2000e(j); 2000e-3(a) (m) is quoted in the standards and pleaded in the complaint, but the court analyses only single-motive McDonnell Douglas; the 1991 Act claims against APC had been dismissed as pre-enactment conduct. | Unspecified variant | No source quotation recorded for this block. |
| /f3d/527/0358-01 — United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit · 2008 | Impermissible motivating factor in mixed-motive cases (§ 2000e-2(m)) | not_reached Excluded from merits counts applied / merits claim: (a); 2000e(k) The court quotes a "motivating factor" formulation for pregnancy discrimination but analyses the case entirely under McDonnell Douglas pretext, not 2000e-2(m). | Unspecified variant | No source quotation recorded for this block. |
| /f3d/858/1307-01 — United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · 2017 | Impermissible motivating factor in mixed-motive cases (§ 2000e-2(m)) | not_reached Excluded from merits counts applied / merits claim: (a)(1); 2000e-3(a) | 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/557/0557-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2009 | Impermissible motivating factor in mixed-motive cases (§ 2000e-2(m)) | not_reached Excluded from merits counts applied / merits claim: (a)(1),(k),(l),(h),(j) | Unspecified variant | No source quotation recorded for this block. |
Court interpretations
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.
not-required
Direct evidence of discrimination to obtain a mixed-motive instruction under § 2000e-2(m); circumstantial evidence suffices (Desert Palace, Inc. v. Costa, 539 U.S. 90 (2003))
No source quotation recorded.