Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Joe’s Stone Crab
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
220 F.3d 1263 (2000)
- Written by Darius Dehghan, JD
Facts
Joe’s Stone Crab, Inc. (Joe’s) (defendant) was a seafood restaurant in Miami Beach. From 1986 to 1990, Joe’s hired no female food servers. From 1991 to 1995, females comprised 21.7 percent of the food servers hired by Joe’s. The qualified labor pool in Miami Beach was 31.9 percent female. Joe’s adhered to a so-called Old World tradition, in which food service was typically performed by men. Thus, Joe’s had a public reputation for not hiring women as food servers. Due to this reputation, very few women applied for food-server positions at Joe’s. Although Joe’s recruited food servers through a word-of-mouth system, there was no evidence that the system prevented women from learning about open positions at Joe’s. Further, Joe’s used subjective criteria to assess applicants for food-server positions. Yet there was no evidence that these subjective hiring criteria prevented women from being hired. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) (plaintiff) brought suit, contending that Joe’s violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). The EEOC alleged that Joe’s engaged in intentional discrimination and disparate-impact discrimination. The district court found that Joe’s was not liable for intentional discrimination but found that Joe’s was liable for disparate-impact discrimination. Joe’s appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Marcus, J.)
Concurrence/Dissent (Hull, J.)
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