Equal Employment Opportunity v. West Customer Management Group, et al

Filing

Opinion issued by court as to Appellant Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Decision: Reversed and Remanded. Opinion type: Non-Published. Opinion method: Per Curiam. The opinion is also available through the Court's Opinions page at this link http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions.

Case: 16-15003

Date Filed: 01/31/2017

Page: 1 of 7

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 16-15003
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 3:10-cv-00378-MCR-CJK

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION,
Plaintiff - Appellant,

versus
WEST CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT GROUP, LLC,
Defendant - Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Florida
________________________
(January 31, 2017)
Before TJOFLAT, MARCUS, and WILSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:

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The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a complaint
against West Customer Management Group (West) alleging that West denied
Derrick Roberts employment based on his accent and national origin. A jury found
in favor of West, and the district court awarded West attorney’s fees and costs.
The EEOC appeals the district court’s award of attorney’s fees and costs. After
careful consideration of the record and the parties’ briefs, we reverse.
I
Roberts emigrated from Jamaica to the United States in 1989. 1 In 2008, he
began an accounting operations program, which provided him training in, among
other things, computer skills. Roberts regularly interacted with classmates and a
teacher in the program, and despite Roberts’s Jamaican accent, none of those
individuals had difficulty understanding him. While in the program, Roberts
applied for a customer service position with West. He submitted a resume,
responded to a questionnaire related to his customer service experience, and
completed a “knowledge, skills, and abilities” assessment. Roberts passed the
“knowledge, skills, and abilities” assessment, and West invited him to interview
for the customer service position.

1

When reviewing a district court’s award of attorney’s fees and costs to a prevailing
defendant in a federal civil rights case, we take the evidence in the light most favorable to the
plaintiff. See Cordoba v. Dillard’s, Inc., 419 F.3d 1169, 1179 (11th Cir. 2005). Accordingly, we
have construed the facts in the light most favorable to the EEOC.
2

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At the interview, Roberts took and passed a data-entry test. He then met
with Employment Specialist Steven Henry and Henry’s supervisor, Adriana
Fowler. During Roberts’s meetings with Henry and Fowler, neither Henry nor
Fowler indicated that Roberts’s speech was difficult to understand. Indeed, Fowler
later noted that she understood Roberts.
Henry concluded the interview by rejecting Roberts’s application for
employment. When an applicant is denied a position at West, the applicant is
usually informed that he can reapply after six months. Henry did not afford
Roberts this courtesy. Henry simply explained to Roberts that his computer skills
were inadequate and that his “thick accent” would cause problems with customers.
Henry also wrote “heavy accent” on his interview notes for Roberts. Henry and
West later amended the rationale for rejecting Roberts’s application, asserting that
Roberts was also denied employment because his response to one of Henry’s
customer-service-related interview questions was problematic.
The EEOC filed a complaint alleging that West discriminated against
Roberts under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The EEOC claimed that West
denied Roberts employment based on his accent and national origin. See Akouri v.
Fla. Dep’t of Transp., 408 F.3d 1338, 1347–48 (11th Cir. 2005) (indicating that an
employer’s statement about a Lebanese employee’s accent was evidence of
national-origin discrimination). West moved for summary judgment, but the
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district court denied the motion. The court found that comparator evidence
supported the EEOC’s claim and that, even setting aside such evidence, “the
circumstantial evidence as a whole raises a reasonable inference” that West acted
with “discriminatory intent.” The parties proceeded to a jury trial.
At trial, the EEOC argued that West denied Roberts employment based on
his accent; an applicant’s accent can be considered only to the extent that it affects
the applicant’s ability to communicate; and because Roberts’s accent does not
interfere with his ability to communicate, West’s accent-based decision was
necessarily discriminatory. In support thereof, the EEOC introduced evidence of
Henry’s “thick accent” comment and Henry’s “heavy accent” note. The EEOC
also offered evidence from Roberts, his classmates, and a teacher that Roberts’s
accent does not affect his ability to communicate. Finally, to further corroborate
its claim of discriminatory animus, the EEOC noted West’s changing rationales for
rejecting Roberts’s application and introduced evidence that Henry deviated from
West procedure by not informing Roberts that he could reapply with West.
However, the EEOC did not offer any of the comparator evidence that it presented
at summary judgment.
After the EEOC’s case, West requested judgment as a matter of law. The
district court declined to rule on the request, opting to “send the case to the jury.”

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The jury found in favor of West, and thereafter, the district court awarded West
attorney’s fees and costs.
II
We review for abuse of discretion a district court’s award of attorney’s fees
and costs to a prevailing Title VII defendant. See Walker v. NationsBank, 53 F.3d
1548, 1559 (11th Cir. 1995). “It is within the discretion of a district court to award
attorney’s fees to a prevailing defendant in a Title VII action upon a finding that
the action was ‘frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation, even though not
brought in subjective bad faith.’” Id. at 1558 (quoting Christiansburg Garment
Co. v. EEOC, 434 U.S. 412, 421, 98 S. Ct. 694, 700 (1978)) (reversing fee award
to prevailing defendant). This standard is “stringent.” Id. It is not enough for the
prevailing defendant to show that the plaintiff’s case was “markedly weak,” see
Bonner v. Mobile Energy Servs., 246 F.3d 1303, 1305 (11th Cir. 2001) (per
curiam) (reversing fee award to prevailing defendant), or even “exceedingly
weak,” see Cordoba, 419 F.3d at 1181 (reversing fee award to prevailing
defendant). The plaintiff’s case must be “so patently devoid of merit as to be
‘frivolous.’” Sullivan v. Sch. Bd. of Pinellas Cty., 773 F.2d 1182, 1189 (11th Cir.
1985) (reversing fee award to prevailing defendant). A case does not meet this
rigid standard when it is “meritorious enough to receive careful attention and
review.” Walker, 53 F.3d at 1559 (citing Busby v. City of Orlando, 931 F.2d 764,
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787 (11th Cir. 1991) (per curiam) (reversing fee award to prevailing defendant));
see also Jones v. Texas Tech Univ., 656 F.2d 1137, 1146 (5th Cir. Unit A Sep.
1981) (“[T]he careful consideration given to the case by the district court is some
indication that the suit was not frivolous.”) (reversing fee award to prevailing
defendant).2
Here, the district court abused its discretion in awarding West attorney’s fees
and costs. The EEOC’s case was not “so patently devoid of merit” as to justify an
attorney’s fee award—the case “merited careful review.” See Walker, 53 F.3d at
1559 (internal quotation marks omitted). First, the district court denied West’s
motion for summary judgment, illustrating that the EEOC offered sufficient
evidence to create a triable issue of discrimination. See Sullivan, 773 F.2d at 1189
(“Cases where findings of ‘frivolity’ have been sustained typically have been
decided in the defendant’s favor on a motion for summary judgment . . . . In cases
where the plaintiffs introduced evidence sufficient to support their claims, findings
of frivolity typically do not stand.” (citations omitted)). Second, the district court
held “a full-blown trial on the merits.” See id.; Jones, 656 F.2d at 1146. Finally,
although the EEOC’s case at trial may have been weak, it was not frivolous. See
Cordoba, 419 F.3d at 1181. The EEOC offered evidence that (1) Henry did not

2

In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir.1981) (en banc), this court
adopted as binding precedent all decisions of the former Fifth Circuit handed down prior to
October 1, 1981.
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want to hire Roberts because of Roberts’s accent, (2) Roberts’s accent does not
interfere with his ability to communicate, (3) Henry treated Roberts differently
than other applicants by refusing to inform Roberts that he could reapply with
West, and (4) West, over time, revised its rationale for rejecting Roberts’s
application. Taken together, this evidence provides support—albeit weak
support—for a finding that West denied Roberts employment based on his accent
and national origin. See Akouri, 408 F.3d at 1347–48.
Because the EEOC’s case was not “patently devoid of merit,” we must
reverse the district court’s award of attorney’s fees and costs to West. 3 See
Walker, 53 F.3d at 1559 (internal quotation marks omitted).
REVERSED AND REMANDED.

3

In addition to the EEOC’s threshold challenge to the award of attorney’s fees and costs,
the EEOC argues that the amount of fees and costs awarded by the district court is unreasonable.
In light of our reversal of the award, we need not address that argument.
7