holding that one of the central purposes of Title VII is to make a person whole for injuries suffered as a result of unlawful employment discrimination and district courts have broad equitable discretion, including ordering affirmative action, to effectuate this “make whole” objective
How later courts described this case
- holding that one of the central purposes of Title VII is to make a person whole for injuries suffered as a result of unlawful employment discrimination and district courts have broad equitable discretion, including ordering affirmative action, to effectuate this “make whole” objective
- explaining that “Bowman may attempt to prove that a given individual [class member] was not in fact discriminatorily refused employment as an OTR driver in order to defeat the individual’s claim to seniority relief as well as any other remedy ordered for the class generally”
- holding in class action context that a demonstration by the plaintiff class of the existence of a discriminatory pattern or practice establishes a presumption that the individual class members had been discriminated against on account of race
- holding that the interests of “unnamed members of the class” who are entitled to relief may satisfy the case-or-controversy requirement
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Chief Justice Burger,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree generally with Mr. Justice Powell, but I would stress that although retroactive benefit-type seniority relief may sometimes be appropriate and equitable, competitive-type seniority relief at the expense of wholly *781 innocent employees can rarely, if ever, be equitable if that term retains traditional meaning. More equitable would be a monetary award to the person suffering the discrimination. An award such as “front pay” could replace the need for competitive-type seniority relief. See, ante, at 777 n. 38. Such monetary relief would serve the dual purpose of deterring wrongdoing by the employer or union — or both — as well as protecting the rights of innocent employees. In every respect an innocent employee is comparable to a “holder-in-due-course” of negotiable paper or a bona fide purchaser of property without notice of any defect in the seller’s title. In this setting I cannot join in judicial approval of “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
I would stress that the Court today does not foreclose claims of employees who might be injured by this holding from securing equitable relief on their own behalf.