Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine

Status

15,584 later cases cite Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine; 488 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Treatments

Limited

• The court declined to extend Burdine's preponderance language to proof of pretext under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, requiring clear and convincing evidence instead.

  Graham v. Renbrook School · District of Connecticut · filed July 21, 1988

  The application of the preponderance standard to ADEA plaintiffs’ alleged proof of pretext probably stems from unelaborated dicta in a Supreme Court case decided under Title VII. See, e.g., Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253, 101 S.Ct. at 1093 ("plaintiff must ... have an opportunity to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the legitimate reasons offered by the defendant were not its true reasons, but were a pretext for discrimination.”). However, no case has been found in which either the Supreme Court or any lower court applying Supreme Court precedent has directly considered or discussed the question of the standard of proof required to prove pretext under Title VII or the ADEA. It must therefore be concluded that passing references to the preponderance standard do not represent a reasoned conclusion that it is the standard sufficient for proving a contention of pretext.

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Questioned

• The Fifth Circuit noted doubt about the continuing validity of Burdine's finding on whether a mistaken assessment of applicants' qualifications can indicate pretext after Hicks, but left the issue unresolved.

  Odom v. Frank · Fifth Circuit · filed September 23, 1993

  See Texas Dep't of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 259 (1981) ("The fact that a court may think that the employer misjudged the qualifications of the applicants does not in itself expose him to Title VII liability, although this may be probative of whether the employer's reasons are pretexts for discrimination.") Recently, doubt has been cast on the continuing validity of this Burdine finding in light of St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks, ___ U.S. ___, 61 U.S.L.W. 4782, 4786-87 (June 25, 1993). As the result we reach in the instant case does not require a full analysis of the Hicks decision, we decline the opportunity to discuss its possible ramifications in that regard.

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