Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust

Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust 108 S.Ct. 2777 (1988) Relevant Case Facts: After being rejected four times for promotion to a supervisory position at Fort Worth Bank & Trust, an African-American employee (P, the Plaintiff) at Fort Worth Bank & Trust brought a claim under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act against the bank (D, the defendant). The basis of P's suit was that in assessing P's qualifications for promotion, D used subjective criteria to determine her performance.

These included interviews, rating scales and experiential requirements that had not been subjected to scientific validation procedures. D asserted that interviews and rating scales should not be subjected to the validation procedures required in disparate impact cases. D believed it should not be required to show that the criteria used to determine employee qualifications were strictly are job-related under the law, so long as they had not been designed to have an intentionally discriminatory effect.

History: Historically, the using of unnecessary qualifications have been employed to bar African-Americans from their civil rights, including the use of quizzes and interviews for those attempting to vote. The use of subjective and unnecessary qualifications have also included requiring individuals to have extraneous educational qualifications to work in particular occupations to reduce the likelihood of minorities fulfilling particular positions, such as having a high school diploma to perform manual labor, for instance.

However, this particular case was not as clear-cut as these instances that civil rights laws attempted to address. The use of interviews, rating scales, and experience requirements were not strictly job related at Fort Worth Bank & Trust, but it was unclear if D's intention was to discriminate, even if the result may have been discriminator and disadvantageous to P. As a minority female.

Issue: In this case, the court had to decide if Fort Worth Bank & Trust's method of measuring qualifications of employees was discriminatory because it was disparate, i.e. because it was subjective and not strictly related to job performance. The court had to first decide if disparate impact theory or disparate treatment theory was applicable instead. Answer: In favor of D. And against the use of disparate treatment theory, in favor of using disparate impact theory instead.

Reasoning: The district court disallowed P's claim under the disparate impact theory of Title VII. Instead, the court analyzed her claim under disparate treatment theory. The court ruled that P. had made a prima facie case of discrimination but D. had a legitimate nondiscriminatory basis for not promoting her. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the holding and the Supreme Court granted certiorari. Result: This case was extremely helpful in terms of determining Title VII law regarding subjective promotion policies, that is policies.