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Keywords

trialsummary judgmentdiscriminationclass action

plaintiffdiscriminationcivil rights

Related Cases

Smith v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 569 F.2d 325, 17 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 28, 16 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 8178

Facts

Bennie E. Smith, a black male, applied for a position at Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. but was rejected by the mail room supervisor, Nathaniel Nash, who believed Smith was effeminate. Smith filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC, alleging refusal to hire based on race and later amended it to include sex discrimination. After exhausting EEOC procedures, Smith filed a class action suit in District Court, where the court granted summary judgment in favor of Liberty Mutual on the sex discrimination claim and dismissed the case after a trial where Smith did not appear.

Bennie E. Smith, a black male, filed an application for employment with Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. on February 11, 1969, for an “administrative (general)” position as a mail room clerk. He was interviewed by Liberty Mutual's personnel manager and by the mail room supervisor, Nathaniel Nash. Nash, a black male, did not recommend that the company hire Smith because, in Nash's opinion, Smith was effeminate. Smith's application for employment was rejected.

Issue

Did Liberty Mutual's refusal to hire Smith based on his perceived effeminacy constitute discrimination under Title VII, and did Smith establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination?

Smith argues that the law forbids an employer to reject a job applicant based on his or her affectional or sexual preference.

Rule

Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. However, the court held that discrimination based on affectional or sexual preference is not covered under Title VII.

In considering this claim, the District Court held that the Civil Rights Act does not forbid discrimination based on affectional or sexual preference.

Analysis

The court analyzed the evidence presented and determined that Smith's rejection was solely based on the interviewer's perception of him as effeminate, which does not fall under the protections of Title VII. The court also noted that while Smith met the criteria for a prima facie case of racial discrimination, the District Court found that he did not establish sufficient evidence to support his claims.

The record is replete with the Court's efforts to achieve an understandable idea of just what Smith was claiming as the reason for his not being hired. Here, the Court did not end its analysis with the simple conclusion that Smith did not meet his prima facie burden. The Court went further in exploring the reason for the denial. Smith's own case established that Liberty Mutual failed to hire him because he was classified as effeminate by the company interviewer.

Conclusion

The court affirmed the dismissal of Smith's claims, concluding that Title VII does not protect against discrimination based on perceived effeminacy and that Smith failed to prove racial discrimination.

The court first finds difficulty in accepting the notion that plaintiff's claims are typical of the purported class.

Who won?

Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. prevailed in the case because the court found that the reasons for not hiring Smith were not in violation of Title VII, as they were based on perceptions of his effeminacy rather than his race.

Liberty Mutual concedes that Smith's application for employment was rejected because the interviewer considered Smith effeminate.

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