A group of nonwhite cannery workers including Frank Atonio filed suit in District Court citing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 complaining that the Wards Cove Packing Company, a company that operated several Alaskan salmon canneries, was using discriminatory hiring practices that resulted in a large number of the skilled permanent jobs that mostly did not involve working in a cannery (referred to as "noncannery" positions) to be filled by white workers, and a large number of the unskilled seasonal cannery jobs to be filled by local nonwhite workers.

In this case the nonwhite workers were predominantly native Alaskans and Filipinos (Alaskeros).

The workers appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which reversed the District Court decision, stating the workers had made a prima facie case of disparate impact.

Further if, on remand, the Respondents did establish a prima facie disparate-impact case, the Petitioners would then need to "produce evidence of a legitimate business justification" for the hiring practices that created the disparity.

Soon after the decision, Congress amended Title VII with the Civil Rights Act of 1991 to counter the Supreme Court's holding in Ward's Cove, thereby nullifying the case's precedent.