Prima Facie Case

Even though plaintiffs must be able to establish their prima facie case before employers need to show anything, plaintiffs will often be able to meet this relatively light burden and employers will then be required to produce sufficiently clear and specific statements of the lawful motive(s) behind challenged decisions. In order to be able to do so, and to help fend off claims that the asserted motive is a pretext for a discriminatory motive, it is important to have contemporaneously produced written document. The actors who made the decisions might no longer be employed or their memory of the relevant events might be vague