The Prima Facie Case Approach to Employment Discrimination

Employment discrimination litigation has increased dramatically during the past decade. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—Congress' sweeping prohibition of discrimination in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin –older federal civil rights statutes and state counterparts to Title VII, courts have developed discrete, cognizable theories of discrimination. An analytical framework has also developed by which to evaluate the facts, innuendoes, and statistics that constitute the claims and defenses in a discrimination case. Within the generally accepted approach to the evidence, however, there is no consensus about the weight each element of proof deserves, or about which hurdles should be placed before each litigant. As a result, courts show varying blends of favoritism towards plaintiffs, skepticism of defendants' justifications, and resistance toward certain forms of proof. In Maine Human Rights Commission v. City of Auburn, a sex discrimination case, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court (the Law Court) detailed its conception of the analytical framework applicable under the fair employment provisions of the Maine Human Rights Act. The court also discussed extensively the substantive evidence that is appropriate under the three principal theories of employment discrimination: disparate treatment, pattern-or-practice, and disparate impact. In doing so, the court relied on federal case law developed under Title VII in an attempt to provide for courts and future litigants a comprehensive overview of the proper approach to the evidence in discrimination cases. Thus, City of Auburn may be divided into two basic parts. The first is a discussion of the three-stage analytic approach to the evidence, known as "prima facie case" analysis. The second part provides an analysis of how prima facie case methodology applies to the three discrimination theories, including a survey of the evidentiary showings required from plaintiff and defendant for each. This Note will analyze City of Auburn to assess how accurately the Maine court has expressed the generally accepted tenets of federal discrimination law, to discover where the Law Court's views of unresolved issues place it on the spectrum of plaintiff-oriented/defense-oriented courts, and to scrutinize the application of those views to the facts of the case.