CACI 2504 Disparate Impact—Rebuttal to Business Necessity/Job Relatedness Defense
California Civil Jury Instructions CACI
2504 Disparate Impact—Rebuttal to Business Necessity/Job Relatedness Defense
If [name of defendant] proves that the [employment practice/ selection policy] is necessary to [his/her/nonbinary pronoun/its] business, then the [employment practice/selection policy] is lawful unless [name of plaintiff] proves both of the following:
1.That there was an alternative [employment practice/ selection policy] that would have accomplished the business purpose equally well; and
2.That the alternative [employment practice/selection policy] would have had less adverse impact on [describe members of protected group—for example, “persons over the age of 40”].
Directions for Use
Federal title VII requires a plaintiff to demonstrate that the employer refused to adopt the alternative employment practice (see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(K)(1)(A)(ii)). There are no published court opinions determining if a similar requirement exists under California law.
This instruction must be given if defendant asserts the defense of business necessity to a disparate impact employment discrimination claim. (See CACI No. 2503, Affirmative Defense—Business Necessity/Job Relatedness.)
Sources and Authority
•Justification for Disparate Impact. Cal. Code Regs., tit. 2, § 11010(b).
•Disparate Impact Under Federal Law. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(k)(1)(A).
•“ ‘The test [of the business necessity defense] is whether there exists an overriding legitimate business purpose such that the practice is necessary to the safe and efficient operation of the business. Thus, the business purpose must be sufficiently compelling to override any [discriminatory] impact; the challenged practice must effectively carry out the business purpose it is alleged to serve; and there must be available no acceptable alternative policies or practices which would better accomplish the business purpose advanced, or accomplish it equally well with a lesser differential [discriminatory] impact.’ ” (City and County of San Francisco v. Fair Employment and Housing Com. (1987) 191 Cal.App.3d 976, 989–990 [236 Cal.Rptr. 716].)
•“[T]he standards established by the FEHC for evaluating a facially neutral selection criterion which has a discriminatory impact on a protected group are identical to federal standards under Title VII.” (City and County of San Francisco, supra, 191 Cal.App.3d at p. 986.)
•“If an employer does then meet the burden of proving that its tests are ‘job related,’ it remains open to the complaining party to show that other tests or selection devices, without a similarly undesirable [discriminatory] effect, would also serve the employer’s legitimate interest in ‘efficient and trustworthy workmanship.’ ” (Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody (1975) 422 U.S. 405, 425 [95 S.Ct. 2362, 45 L.Ed.2d 280], internal citation omitted.)