## Facts

- A multiemployer collective-bargaining agreement (CBA) in the California brewery industry divided employees into “temporary” and “permanent” categories and allocated hiring and layoff benefits more favorably to permanent employees.
- The CBA required a temporary employee to work at least 45 weeks in a single calendar year to become a permanent employee.
- John Bryant, a Black employee who worked intermittently as a temporary brewery worker beginning in 1968, sued on behalf of a class of similarly situated employees under Title VII.
- The complaint alleged that Black workers were concentrated in the temporary category and that the 45-week rule made attaining permanent status highly unlikely, perpetuating effects of prior discrimination.
- The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim.
- The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding the 45-week requirement was not a “seniority system” under Title VII § 703(h), and remanded to allow proof of discriminatory impact.

## Issues

1. Whether the CBA’s 45-week requirement for attaining permanent employee status is a component of a “seniority system” within the meaning of Title VII § 703(h).
2. If the requirement is part of a seniority system, whether § 703(h) limits Title VII liability based solely on disparate impact absent proof of discriminatory intent in adopting or maintaining the system.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s judgment and remanded.
- The Court held the Ninth Circuit erred in concluding the 45-week requirement was not part of a “seniority system” under § 703(h).
- The Court characterized the CBA as establishing two parallel seniority tracks (temporary and permanent), with the 45-week rule functioning as the entry threshold into the permanent seniority track.
- Because the threshold rule is tied to length of employment (weeks worked), it fits the seniority concept addressed by § 703(h).
- On remand, further proceedings could address matters left open under the correct characterization, including whether the system was bona fide and whether any discriminatory intent was involved.

## Legal Principles

- Title VII generally prohibits practices that perpetuate prior discrimination, but § 703(h) exempts application of different employment terms under a bona fide seniority system when differences are not the result of intentional race discrimination.
- A rule focused on length of employment, including a threshold for entering a more favorable seniority status, can be part of a “seniority system” under § 703(h).
- The existence of multiple seniority tracks (e.g., temporary and permanent ladders) does not, by itself, prevent the arrangement from qualifying as a seniority system.
- When § 703(h) applies, disparate impact alone is insufficient to invalidate a covered seniority-based rule; the key question becomes whether the system is bona fide and free of discriminatory intent.

## Conclusion

The Court treated the CBA’s 45-week requirement as a seniority-based threshold covered by Title VII § 703(h), vacated the appellate ruling that had excluded it from the seniority-system exemption, and remanded for further proceedings under the proper § 703(h) framework.


Cal. Brewers Ass'n v. Bryant, 444 U.S. 598 (1980)