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American Legion Post 12 v. Susa11/30/2005
tment "burden-shifting framework" initially set forth by the United States Supreme Court in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-04 (1973). See DeCamp, 875 A.2d at 21 (citations omitted). Under this analysis, the plaintiff must first set forth sufficient facts to make a prima facie case of discrimination. DeCamp, 875 A.2d at 21. In order to do so, a plaintiff must establish the following:
"(1) he or she belongs to a protected class, (2) he or she was qualified for the position, (3) despite the requisite qualifications, he or she was discharged from the position, and (4) the position remained open and was ultimately filled by someone with roughly equivalent qualifications to perform substantially the same work." Barros, 710 A.2d at 685 (citations omitted).
The burden of presenting the prima facie case "is not especially onerous." Id.
Once the plaintiff has set forth sufficient facts to make out a prima facie case, the next step requires that the employer "offer a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment action." Id. After that is accomplished, the employee must ultimately "convince the fact-finder that the legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason was pretext for unlawful discriminatory animus." Id. at 21-22 (citing Casey v. Town of Portsmouth, 861 A.2d 1032, 1037-38 (R.I. 2004)). It is the plaintiff who has the "ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against [him or her]." St. Mary's Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 507 (1993) (citing Texas Dep't of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253 (1981)).
In light of the burden-shifting framework described above, this Court finds that there is substantial evidence on the record to support the Commission's decision that the women were discriminated against on the basis of their Italian heritage. The record reflects that Ms. Cote and Ms. Pacheco submitted evidence to meet the burden of presenting their prima facie cases: (1) they both testified that they are of Italian descent, (2) there was no evidence that either woman had received any warnings about inadequate job performance, in fact, they both testified that they had received positive feedback from management, (3) they were terminated, and (4) the position was ultimately filled by another bartender not of Italian descent.
Although the Legion alleged a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for the terminations, that "business was down that month," the Commission, as fact-finder, found that this reason was a pretext for unlawful discrimination. In its decision, the Commission stated:
"The respondent did not specify how much business went down nor did it submit any records on the purported loss. Mr. Kettelle's explanation of the loss in business was as follows: 'It's already been on the floor here three or four times that people would walk out when they came into work, or they would walk in, and if they were there, that they would just get up and leave. We have legionnaires that just -- [His testimony was stopped by a question from counsel.]' [Tr. 2 at 109.] The previous testimony about people avoiding service from complainant Cote and complainant Pacheco was that several members would leave to avoid being served by them or refuse to be served by them because they were Italians. [Tr. 1 at 32, 36, 47, 182; Tr. 2 at 8, 11.] The refusal of a number of members to be served by people of Italian ancestry is a discriminatory reason for termination. An employer cannot use its customers' discriminatory preferences as a justification for its employment decisions. See Diaz v. Pan American Airways, Inc., 442 F.2d 385 (5th Cir. 1971), cert. denied 404 U.S. 950, 92 S.
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