091131P.pdf   06/01/2011  David Torgerson  v.  City of Rochester
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  09-1131
   U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota - Minneapolis   
   [PUBLISHED] [Benton, Author, for the Court En Banc]
   Civil case - Employment Discrimination. Summary judgment is not
   disfavored and is designed for "every action," and panel decisions to the
   contrary are unauthorized and should not be followed; there is no
   "employment discrimination case exception" to the application of
   summary judgment, which is a useful pretrial tool to determine whether
   any case, including one alleging discrimination, merits a trial; neither of
   the statements plaintiffs point to in the record were direct evidence of
   gender or national-origin based discrimination in violation of Title VII;
   plaintiffs made a prima facie case of discrimination, but the City advanced
   nondiscriminatory grounds for its hiring decisions, and plaintiffs failed to
   show the grounds were pretexts for discrimination; fact that plaintiffs and
   the hired candidates had "relatively similar qualifications" does not create
   a material issue of fact as to pretext; plaintiff Torgerson alleged he was
   discriminated against on the basis of national origin, not race, and his
   Section 1981 claim fails. Judge Colloton, concurring. Smith, with whom
   Murphy, Bye Melloy and Shepherd join, concurring in part and dissenting
   in part.
  
091131P.pdf   05/21/2010  David Torgerson  v.  City of Rochester
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  09-1131
   U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota - Minneapolis   
   [PUBLISHED] [Smith, Author, with Murphy and Benton, Circuit
   Judges]
   Civil case - civil rights. Plaintiffs, unsuccessful candidates for the
   position of firefighter, created the requisite inference of unlawful national
   origin or gender discrimination under a McDonnell Douglas analysis,
   including sufficient evidence that defendant's stated reason for the hiring
   decisions were pretexts, and the district court erred in granting the
   defendant's motion for summary judgment on plaintiffs' Title VII claims;
   district court did not err in granting defendants summary judgment on
   plaintiff Torgerson's Section 1981 claim as he did not allege a race
   discrimination claim. Judge Benton, dissenting in part and concurring in
   part.