## Facts

- Joe’s Stone Crab, Inc. operated a seasonal Miami Beach restaurant where food-server positions were highly sought and lucrative.
- From 1986 to 1990, Joe’s hired 108 male food servers and no female food servers.
- In June 1991, an EEOC Commissioner filed a charge alleging discrimination against women in recruitment, hiring, and job assignments.
- After the charge, Joe’s hired 88 food servers between 1991 and 1995, 19 of whom were women (about 21.7%).
- The EEOC attributed the pre-charge exclusion of women to informal, subjective recruitment and hiring practices, including word-of-mouth referrals influenced by gender stereotypes and a male “core group” of servers and managers.
- Following a bench trial, the district court found Joe’s used subjective, informal methods that operated as a “closed system” until after the EEOC charge.

## Issues

1. Whether the EEOC proved a Title VII disparate impact claim by identifying a specific, facially neutral employment practice that caused the statistical gender disparity in hiring food servers.
2. Whether the case should be remanded for reconsideration of the EEOC’s intentional discrimination (disparate treatment) claim in light of the district court’s subsidiary factual findings.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit vacated the judgment imposing disparate-impact liability.
- The court held the record did not support disparate impact because neither the EEOC nor the district court identified a specific facially neutral practice causally responsible for the disparity.
- The court remanded for reconsideration of the EEOC’s intentional discrimination claim, concluding the district court’s subsidiary findings could be read to indicate facially discriminatory conduct, and the district court had rejected intent “in summary fashion.”
- The court declined to decide intentional-discrimination liability itself because the record contained conflicting testimony and required further factual resolution by the trial court.

## Legal Principles

- A Title VII disparate impact claim requires identification of a specific employment practice that is facially neutral and proof that the practice caused the challenged statistical disparity.
- Statistical disparity, standing alone, does not establish disparate impact liability; Title VII disparate impact analysis targets practices, not outcomes in the abstract.
- Where the evidence suggests facially discriminatory preferences or sex-based exclusion, the appropriate framework is disparate treatment (intentional discrimination), not disparate impact.
- An appellate court may vacate a misapplied disparate-impact judgment and remand when trial-court findings potentially support intentional discrimination but are not reconciled with the court’s ultimate liability conclusions.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit ruled that stark sex-based hiring statistics could not sustain disparate-impact liability absent identification of a specific neutral practice causing the disparity, vacated the disparate-impact judgment against the restaurant, and remanded for renewed consideration of whether the facts supported intentional discrimination under Title VII.


Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm’n v. Joe’s Stone Crab, Inc., 220 F.3d 1263 (11th Cir. 2000)