''Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine'', 450 U.S. 248 (1981), is a

United States labor law United States labor law sets the rights and duties for employees, labor unions, and employers in the United States. Labor law's basic aim is to remedy the "inequality of bargaining power" between employees and employers, especially employers "org ...

case of the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

Facts

Ms Burdine, a female employee, alleged that the defendant's failure to promote her and subsequent decision to terminate her were premised on illegal gender discrimination.

Judgment

Court of Appeals

The Court of Appeals held that the defendant carried the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that he had legitimate reasons for the employment decision, and that others promoted and hired were better qualified than the plaintiff.

Supreme Court

In holding that the circuit court misconstrued the defendant's evidentiary burden, the Supreme Court attempted to set out the proper approach. The Court concluded that the ultimate burden of persuasion remained with the plaintiff throughout the trial. The Court explained that the defendant's burden was merely an intermediate evidentiary burden requiring the defendant to sustain only the burden of production, never the burden of persuasion. The burden of proof, therefore, never actually shifted from the plaintiff to the defendant but remained with the plaintiff.''Burdine'', 450 U.S. at 253. Furthermore, the Court specified that to rebut the plaintiff's prima facie case, the defendant must simply set forth the reasons for the plaintiff's rejection. Specifically, the employer must create a genuine issue as to whether he intended to discriminate.

Significance

In limiting the defendant's burden merely to producing evidence and placing the entire burden of persuasion on the plaintiff, the Court made it more difficult for the plaintiff to succeed with a disparate treatment claim. A defendant could sustain his or her duty to produce evidence simply by articulating a nondiscriminatory justification for the employment decision. Because this burden is so easily met, the plaintiff will almost always be forced to persuade a court that the defendant's reasons are pretexts and not the true reasons for the employment decision. The plaintiff's burden, therefore, is magnified because he will have to proffer convincing evidence analyzing the employer's intent. Consequently, this higher evidentiary burden has created an increased incentive for plaintiffs to allege discrimination under the disparate impact theory where the employer's intent is not at issue.See Comment, Disparate Impact and Subjective Employment Criteria Under Title VII, 54 U. CHI. L. REV. 957, 960-62 (1987) (discussing growing importance of disparate impact theory).

References

*38 Am. U.L. Rev. 919, 929-930

External links

*{{caselaw source , case=''Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine'', {{ussc, 450, 248, 1981, el=no , courtlistener =https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110424/texas-dept-of-community-affairs-v-burdine/ , googlescholar = https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9738202235877523837 , justia =https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/450/248/ United States Supreme Court cases United States employment discrimination case law 1981 in United States case law United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court United States gender discrimination case law History of women in Texas