Atonio

This appeal is the final chapter in a long saga of trial, appeal, review on certiorari, and remands and again appeals. In a sense the case made new law — Congress disapproving the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Title VII in this case changed the law — but explicitly made it inapplicable to further proceedings in this case.

Justice White’s summary in Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, 490 U.S. 642 , 109 S.Ct. 2115 , 104 L.Ed.2d 733 (1989) for the Court of the factual setting that gave rise to this litigation is succinct. We quote it here:

Id. at 646-648 , 109 S.Ct. 2115 (footnotes omitted).

On remand from the Supreme Court a panel of this court confirmed that despite the change in the statute, our court remains bound by the Supreme Court’s ruling. Atonio v. Wards Cove Packing Co., 10 F.3d 1485 (9th Cir.1993). In essence the Supreme Court held that although our court had determined that the plaintiffs had made out a prima facie case of disparate impact disfavoring minorities in hiring both in the skilled and unskilled non-cannery positions, that it erred in relying on plaintiffs’ statistics to reach that result.

Our court had relied solely on a showing that a high…