MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter comes before the Court on a portion of the Motion for Summary Judgment filed by Defendant Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (“Wal-Mart”) on Plaintiff Lois Dare’s racial discrimination claims. Previously, the Court stayed in part the Motion pending a ruling by the Supreme Court in a case on appeal from the Ninth Circuit,
Costa v. Desert Palace, Inc.,
The facts of this case were sufficiently laid out in this Court’s prior Order,
Dare v. Mal-Mart Stores, Inc.,
No. 02-0001,
DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
Wal-Mart moves for summary judgment pursuant to Rule 56(c), which provides that such a motion shall be granted only if “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and ... thе moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). When considering a motion for summary judgment, the Court must view the evidence and the inferences that may be reasonably drawn from the
*989
evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party.
Enter. Bank v. Magna Bank,
B. The Consequences of Desert Palace
1. The Pre-Desert Palace Landscape
Prior to the decision in
Desert Palace,
plaintiffs in discrimination cases could proceed under one of two different paradigms: the ubiquitous
McDonnell Douglas
burden-shifting scheme,
see McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green,
Before the Supreme Court decision in
Desert Palace,
courts nationwide followed Justice O’Connor’s distinction in her concurring opinion in
Price Waterhouse,
The framework for evaluating a Title VII discrimination claim depends on the type of evidence presented in support of the claim. Where the plaintiff relies primarily on circumstantial evidence, courts apply a tripartite analysis as set forth in [McDonnell Douglas ]....
In some situations, however, a plaintiff can produce direct evidence that an illegal criterion was a motivating factor in the disputed employment decision .... In those cases, the plaintiff is relieved of the ultimate burden of persuasion and the so-called “mixed motive” analysis is applied.
Mohr v. Dustrol, Inc.
In this case, as stated in the prior Order, the Court finds no direct evidence of discriminatory motive in the record.
*990
Dare,
2. The Holding in Desert Palace
In
Desert Palace,
the Supreme Court considered the appeal of a Ninth Circuit decision holding that the Civil Rights Act of 1991 overruled the direct/indirect evidence distinction made in Justice O’Con-nor’s concurring opinion in
Price Water-house.
The Circuit Court of Appeals carefully explained how the Civil Rights Act of 1991 differed from the
McDonnell Douglas
burden-shifting scheme and concluded that Congrеss intended to replace the allocation of burdens under
McDonnell Douglas
with an alternative analysis.
Costa,
The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the Ninth Circuit, holding that, a plaintiff need not offer direct evidence of discriminatory motive to proceed under a mixed-motive analysis.
Desert Palace,
The Supreme Court based its decision on the fact that “the words of the statute are unambiguous” and that “the statute does not mention, much less require, that a plaintiff make a heightened showing through direct evidence.”
Desert Palace,
3. Applicability of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 to Single-Motive Claims
In this case, Dare apparently pleads a single motive case. She contends that Wal-mart refused to hire her because of her race. Although the Supreme Court did not address these types of claims, based on the statutory analysis in Desert Palace, this Court finds that the holding in Desert Palace applies to Dare’s claims. “[T]he words of the statute are unambiguous” and nothing in the plain meaning of § 2000e-2(m) and § 2000e-5(g)(2)(B) ex *991 pressly restricts the Civil Rights Act of 1991 to mixed-motive eases. Instead, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 states that “an unlawful employment practice is established when the complaining party demonstrates that race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was a motivating fаctor for any employment practice, even though other factors also motivated the practice.” While the final phrase may imply multiple motives, nothing in the statute’s language restricts its applicability to single-motive cases. Rather, the plain language of the statute allows a plaintiff to prevail if he or she can prove by a preponderance of the evidence that a single, illegitimate motive was a motivating factor in an employment decision, without having to allege that other factors also motivated the decision. The Court finds that in enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Congress sought to penalize employers for considering the race, color, religion, sex, or national origin of its employees when making employment decisions, whether the employees’ membership in one or more of these protected classes was the single motive for the employment decision or was only one of multiple motives for the employment decision. Therefore, because the Civil Rights Act of 1991 unambiguously prohibits any degree of consideration of a plaintiffs race, gender or other enumerated classification in making an employment dеcision, it must also extend to single-motive claims.
In addition to the plain meaning of the statute, the interests of clarity and accuracy support the Court’s decision to allow plaintiffs to bring single-motive claims according to the allocations of burdens articulated in Civil Rights Act of 1991. Moreover, evaluating single-motive claims under the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting scheme inevitably and paradoxically leads to a clаssic mixed-motive scenario. Finally, the process dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1991 is more useful than the analysis required by McDonnell Douglas.
Under
McDonnell Douglas,
and assuming that a plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, or at least creates questions of fact on each of the elements of that prima facie case, the defendant then must present a legitimate, nondiseriminatory reason for the employment actiоn. In a single-motive case, the dichotomy is complete: either the plaintiff is correct in alleging that an illegitimate factor alone motivated the defendant or the defendant’s legitimate nondiseriminatory reason was the only reason for the decision. The Court must decide which factor was the sole basis for the employment decision. To do so,
McDonnell Douglas
requires that the plaintiff challenge the defendant’s proffered reason. A plaintiff must show that the proffered reason is false, and that it is a pretext for the discriminatory motive proposed by the plaintiff.
Hutson v. McDonnell Douglas Corp.,
The dichotomy produced by the McDonnell Douglas framework is a false one. In practice, few employment decisions are made solely on basis of one rationale to the exclusion of all others. Instеad, most employment decisions are the result of the interaction of various factors, legitimate and at times illegitimate, objective and subjective, rational and irrational. The *992 Court does not see the efficacy in perpetuating this legal fiction implicitly exposed by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Desert Palace. When possible, this Court seeks to avoid those machinations of jurisprudence that do not comport with common sense and basic understandings of human interaction.
Even putting the concerns of reality aside, however, a plaintiffs unsuccessful challenge to the defendant’s non-discriminatory rationale should not automatically allow the defendant to escape liability. Instead, it should merely subject the defendant to the mixed-motive analysis dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1991. The pretext phasе of the McDonnell Douglas scheme sets one allegedly illegitimate rationale against a second, allegedly legitimate reason for the employment action. However, a defendant could have illegitimately considered a plaintiffs race, gender, or other enumerated classification in making its employment decision and, at the same time, legitimately considered other factors, one of which it proffered to the court in satisfaction of its productive burden. Similarly, a plaintiff can fail to prove that the defendant’s proffered reason is false without automatically or necessarily failing to prove that another motivating factor was illegitimate. In other words, when a defendant prevails under the McDonnell Douglas scheme, the court is left with a classic mixed-motive scenario, in whiсh both alleged motives could have factored into the defendant’s ultimate employment decision. This is clearly impermissible under the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which holds an employer liable for considering a discriminatory motive, even when other, legitimate and sufficient motives were also considered.
The “same decision test” that the Civil Rights Act requires defendants to pass as part of a limited affirmative defеnse functions just as effectively when applied to single-motive claims as it does when applied to mixed-motive claims. In fact, the same decision test functions better than the alternative McDonnell Douglas pretext analysis. The pretext analysis functions by first presuming the mutual exclusivity of two competing rationales. Then it focuses on the validity or falsity of one of the two rationales: the defendant’s proffеred legitimate reason for the employment decision. In contrast, the same decision test functions by comparing all of the alleged factors together. In that way, it isolates the main motivation for the employer’s decision. The same decision test offers courts a method with which to compare two or more motivating factors and to determine which of the two or more factors acted as the “but for” cause or causes of the employment decision. Thus, Defendants may severely limit a plaintiffs relief if it can pass the same decision test, thereby proving that a legitimate but-for cause existed for its employment decision. However, the defendant is still liable for considering the illegitimate factor. The usefulness of the same decision test further supports the application of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 to single-motive claims.
Finally, the Court observes that while plaintiffs alleging a single-motive violation of Title VII may avail themselves of the protections afforded by the Civil Rights Act of 1991 in the same way that plaintiffs are permitted to do in mixed-motive cases, courts must continue to follow the burden shifting scheme articulated in
McDonnell Douglas
for actions brought under the MHRA. This is because, to this date, Minnesоta law has not incorporated the holding in
Price Waterhouse
or the relevant provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1991.
See McGrath v. TCF Bank Sav., FSB,
C. Title VII Claim
To establish a prima facie case of race discrimination for a failure-to-hire claim, a plaintiff must show the following four elements:
1. That she is a member of the protected class;
2. That she applied and was qualified for a job for which the employer was seeking applicants;
3. That she was rejected; and
4. That after rejecting plaintiff, the employer continued to seek applicants with plaintiffs qualifications.
Caviness v. Nucor-Yamato Steel Co.,
The Court sua sponte reconsiders its holding concerning the lab technician position. In its Motion for Summary Judgment, Wal-Mart exclusively relied on after-acquired evidence to prove the qualifications of Dare and of the employee who was hired for the lab technician in place of Dare. Because the Court found this reliance misplaced, it concluded that questions of fact remained. However, even though Wal-Mart did not raise this argument, the Court now concludes that Dare has failed to create a question of fаct on the second element of her prima facie case. Specifically, the record shows that while Wal-Mart accepted applications for the lab technician position, it did so conditionally. Wal-Mart expected that an employee from another store would transfer to the Elk River store to fill the lab technician position. Thus, the applications for this рosition were accepted only in the event that the current Wal-Mart employee did not transfer to the Elk River store. She did not transfer and therefore, there is no question of fact on whether Wal-Mart was seeking applicants for the lab technician position.
The Court does not reconsider its decision that questions of fact remain on each of the elements of Dare’s prima facie case regarding the other open positions at the vision center and the other open positions at the Elk River store. Accordingly, this portion of Dare’s title VII claim may proceed to trial. In light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Desert Palace, Wal-Mart shall have an opportunity to file a motion for summary judgment on its affirmative defense to damages according to 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5 (2)(B).
D. MHRA Claim
In its previous Order, the Court held that questions of fact remained on the disputed elements of Dare’s MHRA claim for unlawful refusal to hire. Specifically, Dare claims that Wal-Mart refused to hire her for the lab technician position at the Elk River store and that Wal-Mart refused to hire her for all other open positions at the Elk River store. The Court reconsiders this holding sua sponte. Just as with her Title VII claim, Dare has failed tо create a question of fact on whether Wal-Mart was seeking applicants for the *994 lab technician position. However, the Court does not reconsider its holding that questions of fact remain with respect to other open positions at the Elk River store.
Claims under the MHRA are evaluated according to the burden-shifting scheme articulated in
McDonnell Douglas,
and are not affected by the Supreme Court’s holding in
Desert Palace. See McGrath,
CONCLUSION
The unambiguous language of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 directly conflicts with the practice of following the direct/indirect evidence distinction to determine whether to evaluate a discrimination claim under the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting pаradigm or the allocations of burdens set forth in the Civil Rights Act of 1991. In addition, the plain meaning of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the false dichotomy produced by the McDonnell Douglas framework, the fact that when a defendant prevails under the McDonnell Douglas paradigm the Court is left with a classic mixed-motive scenario, and the usefulness of the same decision test all support this Court’s decision to apply the Civil Rights Act of 1991 to single-motive claims.
Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that:
1. Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment on Plaintiffs Title VII and MHRA claims (Clerk Doc. No. 35) is GRANTED with respect to the lab technician position;
2. Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment on Plaintiffs Title VII and MHRA claims (Clerk Doc No. 35) is DENIED with respect to all other open positions at the Elk River store;
3. To the extent that this Court’s previous Order holds otherwise, it is VACATED; and
4. In light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Desert Palace, Defendant has until June 19, 2003, to file a motion for summary judgment on its affirmative defense to damages under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(2)(B); if filed, Plaintiff has until June 26, 2003 to respond to the motion; Defendant *995 has until July 2, 2003 to reply to Plaintiffs response.
Notes
. The Ninth Circuit concluded that "the legislative history evinces a clear intent to overrule
Price Waterhouse." Costa,