Furnco Construction Corp. v. Waters

1978-06-29

Headline: Hiring dispute over bricklayer jobs: Court limits when courts can second-guess employer hiring methods, reverses appeals court, and says employers may rebut discrimination claims by showing legitimate business reasons, affecting employers and job applicants.

Holding: The Court held that the black applicants established a prima facie discrimination case, but an employer can rebut that inference by articulating legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons, and courts cannot impose particular hiring methods on businesses.

Real World Impact:

Allows employers to defend hiring choices by showing legitimate business reasons.
Limits courts from forcing employers to use particular hiring methods.
Remands case so appeals court can reconsider impact and other claims.

Topics: employment discrimination, hiring practices, race and jobs, workforce statistics

Summary

Background

Three Black bricklayers tried to get work on a Furnco Construction relining job. Two were never hired and a third got work only much later. Furnco hired a job superintendent, Joseph Dacies, who generally hired people he already knew to be experienced or those recommended to him and did not take applications at the jobsite gate. The District Court found Furnco’s practices justified for safety and efficiency and rejected both a disparate-treatment and disparate-impact claim under the civil-rights hiring law.

Reasoning

The Court agreed the applicants made a basic initial showing (a prima facie case) that could raise an inference of race discrimination. But the Court said that once that initial showing is made, the employer may rebut the inference simply by giving a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its hiring choices. The Court faulted the Court of Appeals for substituting its own view of the best hiring method and for requiring employers to adopt procedures that maximize minority hiring. The Supreme Court held that courts should not force particular hiring methods and that employers can offer business-justified explanations.

Real world impact

The decision sends the case back to the Court of Appeals to apply these principles and consider evidence the employer offered, including the racial mix of the workforce. Employers may more readily defend hiring choices by showing business reasons. Plaintiffs still can try to show those reasons are pretext, and other theories such as disparate impact may be litigated on remand.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Marshall (joined by Justice Brennan) agreed on the prima facie standard but warned the Court should not foreclose further review of the disparate-impact claims and emphasized that hiring practices that exclude groups may still violate the law.