MLB Umpire Ángel Hernández Loses Appeal of Discrimination Suit

MLB defeated Cuban-born umpire Ángel Hernández’s bid to revive his race and national origin discrimination lawsuit challenging promotions to crew chief.

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Tuesday agreed with Major League Baseball that Hernández couldn’t prove its promotion process had a disparate impact on him and other minority umpires just by pointing to the fact that only White umpires were elevated to crew chief between 2011 and 2017. More than “bottom-line numbers” are needed to prove disparate impact bias, the court said.

The circuit recognized the concept of the “inexorable zero"—that no one in the protected class was ever selected—in a prior disparate impact decision, but in that case the hiring policy at issue “unquestionably served to perpetuate” past discriminatory practices, the unpublished opinion said. Expert evidence presented by the MLB showed that the bottom-line imbalance between White and minority crew chief promotions in the years in question weren’t statistically unlikely, the opinion said.

Hernández offered “no explanation as to why” the MLB’s statistical evidence was unreliable, the court said.

The court rejected Hernández’s contention that bias was evident because the league vested sole decision-making authority for crew chief promotions in a non-minority. Joe Torre was the MLB’s executive vice president of baseball operations at the time, and he relied on subjective criteria, Hernández said.

But Hernández failed to show any reliance by Torre on subjective criteria caused the promotion disparity, the court said. He also “made no showing that Torre harbors a bias against racial minorities,” it said.

Summary judgment was likewise proper on Hernández’s claim that the league subjected him to intentional bias because of his race and national origin, the court said.

A lower court didn’t engage in impermissible fact finding in concluding that Hernández was unable to rebut the MLB’s reasons for not promoting him, the Second Circuit said. The lower court simply found that Hernández failed to create a fact question for trial on the issue, it said.

The MLB’s stated reasons for not promoting Hernández included his failing to acknowledge a blown call he made during the ninth inning of a game in 2013 and his seeking autographs from a pitcher who had just thrown a no-hitter in a game Hernández worked, the court said. Torre also provided examples of the umpire’s “overly confrontational style,” which Torre believed to be counterproductive, the court said.

Judges Susan L. Carney and Steven J. Menashi joined the unsigned opinion. Judge Rosemary S. Pooler participated in the case, but passed away on Aug. 10 and didn’t participate in the decision.

Murphy Landen Jones PLLC and Peckar & Abramson PC represented Hernández. Proskauer Rose LLP represented the MLB.

The case is Hernandez v. Office of Comm’r of Baseball, 2d Cir., No. 22-00343, unpublished 8/15/23.