Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-94-05273/USCOURTS-caDC-94-05273-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 3, 1995 Decided March 22, 1996

No. 94-5273

HERBERT K. WILSON,

APPELLANT

v.

FEDERICO F. PEÑA, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 93cv00421)

Tracy L. Hilmer argued the cause for appellant, with whom Irving Kator was on the brief.

Michael J. Ryan, Assistant United States Attorney, argued the cause for appellee, with whom Eric

H. Holder, Jr., United States Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant United States Attorney,

were on the brief. John D. Bates, Assistant United States Attorney, entered an appearance.

Before: EDWARDS, Chief Judge, WALD and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge: Herbert K. Wilson appeals from the dismissal of his Title VII suit

against the Coast Guard. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that the Coast

Guard had discriminated against Wilson when it failed to hire him as an equal employment manager

and ordered the Coast Guard to instate him in a similar position. Wilson eventually sued in district

court, contending that the Coast Guard used an inappropriate performance rating in calculating his

backpay award and incorrectly offset income he had earned during the period when the Coast Guard

had unlawfully denied him the position. The district court ruled that Wilson was too late on the

performance rating issue because he filed his complaint more than 30 days after the EEOC's final

action on the issue, and too early on the offset issue because he had not yet exhausted his

administrative remedies. Because the EEOC's notice of final action advised Wilson that he had 30

days to file his lawsuit, when he actually had 90 days, the limitations period never began to run;

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therefore his claim on the performance rating issue wasfiled in a timely manner. Because the EEOC

also failed to respond to Wilson's petition for enforcement within 180 days after it was filed, Wilson

was entitled to file suit. Accordingly, we reverse.

I.

Section 717 of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16 (1988 & Supp. V 1993), enacted

as part ofthe EqualEmployment OpportunityAct of 1972, Pub. L. No. 92-261,sec. 11, 86 Stat. 103,

111-12, extends Title VII protections to federal government employees. Under § 717(c), a

complainant has the right to file a civil action either "[w]ithin 90 days of receipt of notice of final

action taken by" the employing agency, or if 180 days have passed since the filing of the complaint

and the complainant is aggrieved by the agency'sfailure to take final action. If the complainant elects

instead to appeal the agency's decision to the EEOC, he once again hasthe right to go to court within

90 days of a final decision by the EEOC or, if the EEOC has taken no action, after 180 days have

elapsed. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(c). The limitations period for filing suit was extended from 30 to 90

days by the CivilRights Act of 1991 and became effective November 21, 1991. Pub. L. No. 102-166,

sec. 114, 105 Stat. 1071, 1079.

Whether the statute of limitations ran on the performance rating issue turns on when the

EEOC took "final action." We review the factual background in some detail to determine which of

three possible events started the statutory clock ticking: the EEOC's initial order of October 29,

1990, finding unlawful discrimination and directing remedial action by the Coast Guard; the Coast

Guard's letter of February 14, 1991, informing Wilson of the performance rating that it would use in

calculating his backpay award; or the EEOC's decision of August 6, 1992, denying his petition for

enforcement. This factual background is also relevant to determining whether the offset issue was

premature for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.

In 1984, Wilson applied to the Coast Guard ("the agency") for the position of equal

employment manager, at a GM-15 pay grade. After the agency hired another applicant, Wilson began

the lengthy administrative process of asserting a Title VII discrimination claim. After the agency's

initial decision finding no discrimination was vacated by the Office of Review and Appeals of the

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EEOC, the agency concluded that Wilson had been the victim of race and sex discrimination but

declined to offer Wilson a comparable job because it determined that he would not have been hired

even absent the discrimination. Wilson appealed to the EEOC, which found that the agency had failed

to meet its burden ofshowing that Wilson would not have been selected for the position. On October

29, 1990, the EEOC ordered the agency to

place [Wilson] in the disputed position of Equal Employment Manager, GM-15, or

a substantially equivalent position, within ninety (90) days of the agency's receipt of

this decision. The agency is further directed to award appellant appropriate backpay,

seniority and any other benefitsto which he would have been entitled had he received

the disputed position from the date the selectee assumed the position until the time

appellant is placed in the position or declines an agency offer for placement in the

position. Said backpay shall be computed in the manner prescribed by 5 C.F.R. §

550.805, and shall include any appropriate salary increases based on an assumption

of satisfactory work performance. (emphasis added)

The EEOC order notified Wilson that "[t]his decision is final unless a timely request to reopen is

filed," and that he could file an action in district court within 30 days "unless within that time you

decide to file a request to reopen." Wilson's attorney received the order on November 1, 1990.

The agency offered Wilson a job as Equal Employment Manager, GM-15, which he accepted

and began performing on January 28, 1991. Wilson's attorney asked the agency what performance

ratings it assumed Wilson would have received had he been employed between 1984 and 1990,

because that would determine the amount of merit pay increases he would have accrued and whether

hewould have beenentitled to performance bonuses. The agency's assumption would therefore affect

both his backpay award and his current salary. On February 14, 1991, the agency told the attorney

that it assumed Wilson would have received "fully satisfactory" ratings, which it considered

appropriate under the EEOC's order to assume "satisfactory work performance." By statute,

however, the agency was required to have a five-tier rating system for employees in Wilson's grade,

inwhich the middle tier was denominated "fully successful," 5 U.S.C. § 4302a(b)(1)(1988),repealed

by Pub. L. No. 103-89, sec. 3(b)(1)(B)(I), 107 Stat. 981, 981 (1993), and the agency did not have

a "fully satisfactory" rating. The agency eventually based its salary and backpay calculations on an

assumption that Wilson would have received "fully successful" ratings.

On February 20, 1991, Wilson's attorney wrote to the agency that his salary and backpay

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should be calculated on the basis of "excellent" or "outstanding" performance ratings because the

majority of agency employees in Wilson's grade had received one of those two ratings during the

period in question. The record does not contain a response from the agency. On April 4, 1991,

Wilson's attorney again wrote to the agency, contending that Wilson could be made whole only by

receiving the same salary and benefits that other GM-15 employees had received, which would

require his receiving presumptive performance ratings on a par with theirs. If the agency refused to

calculate the backpay award on the assumption of an "outstanding" rating, Wilson would "need to

bring this enforcement issue to the EEOC." On April 19, 1991, the agency reaffirmed its intention

to assume only fully successful performance ratings.

Wilson accepted from the agency $165,467.33 in backpay and $32,983.03 in attorney's fees

in May 1991. On May 30, 1991, his attorney acknowledged receipt of the check and requested that

the agency explain how it had computed the backpay award, including whether the agency had taken

any offsets against the award for income that Wilson had earned from other sources between 1984

and 1990. Shortly after the EEOC order, Wilson had provided a description of his "moonlighting"

employment and copies of his state and federal tax returns for the backpay period at the agency's

request to enable it to calculate offsets. The agency did not respond to the May 30 letter.

On November 1, 1991, Wilson petitioned the EEOC for enforcement of its initial order. He

complained that the agency had failed to comply with the order by assuming only "fully successful"

performance ratings and deducting fromthe backpay award income that he would have received even

if he had been employed by the agency during the period in question. Although the agency opposed

the petition regarding the performance rating issue, it agreed to recalculate his backpay on the basis

of a fully-successful performance rating if he would provide certain documentation. Accordingly, the

agency told Wilson's attorney that:

it is necessary for Mr. Wilson to furnish to the Coast Guard a notarized affidavit,

signed under penalties of perjury, indicating all grossincome he earned for each ofthe

years covered by the backpay award. The affidavit must further indicate the sources

of allincome and identify and describe those positionsthat Mr. Wilson held during the

period of time covered by the backpay award in which he earned either salaries or

wages. In addition, the affidavit should identify each position as being either full-time

or part-time, and whether the position involved night or weekend work.

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On August 6, 1992, the EEOC denied Wilson's petition, but remanded to the agency to

recalculate the offsets against the backpay award. The EEOC ordered that the agency obtain all

documentation necessary, Wilson provide the requested information to the agency within 30 days,

and the agency submit its recalculation of the award to a compliance officer within 90 days. The

EEOC decision further stated that "[c]ompliance with the Commission's corrective action is

mandatory." The EEOC decision also notified Wilson that:

[t]his decision of the Commission is final, and there is no further right of

administrative appeal from the Commission's decision. You have the right to file a

civil action in an appropriate United States District Court WITHIN THIRTY (30)

CALENDAR DAYS of the date that you receive this decision. (emphasis in original)

The agency received the decision on August 12, 1992, and Wilson's attorney received it on August

11, 1992.

Thirty days after receiving the EEOC's order, Wilson's attorney mailed two documents. The

first, to the agency, was an affidavit signed by Wilson specifying the income that he contended he

would have earned even if he had been employed by the agency, totaling $32,553.31. The affidavit

essentially reformatted the information that Wilson had earlier provided to the agency. Wilson

declared, under penalty of perjury, that his statement of outside income for 1984-1990 "completely

and accurately sets forth the sources, gross amounts, and types of income that I received during the

period 1984-1990 and would have received even if I had been employed as the Equal Employment

Manager for the United States Coast Guard during that period." He further averred that none of the

listed items "represent[ed] income from daytime work that I could not have performed had I been

employed as the Equal Employment Manager for the United States Coast Guard during the period

1984-1990." In a covering letter signed by his attorney, Wilson reminded the agency that he had

previously submitted his income tax returns and W-2 forms. The other item mailed that day was

Wilson's request to the EEOC to reopen the enforcement petition, pursuant to 29 C.F.R. §

1613.235(b)(2) (1995),recodified as amended at 29C.F.R. § 1614.407(c)(2)(1995). On September

15, 1992, the EEOC informed Wilson's attorney that the request had been docketed.

On September 30, 1992, the agency acknowledged receiving Wilson's affidavit and requested

new information, by notarized affidavit, regarding his gross income for three years preceding the

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backpay period, when he had had a full-time position with the Department of Health and Human

Services "so that our records will clearly demonstrate that the income earned by Mr. Wilson outside

of regular work hours for the period 1984-1990 resulted from a continuance of supplemental or

moonlight employment of a permanent nature." Also, the agency noted, apparently forgetting its

earlier receipt of Wilson's income tax returns for the backpay period, that Wilson's affidavit covered

only his allegedly excludable income, while the agency'srequest and the EEOC's order had asked for

a listing of allsources of gross income. There is no response from Wilson in the record; nor is there

any evidence that the agency took further action towards recalculating the backpay award.

Meanwhile, the request for reopening languished in the EEOC. The agency sent a letter to

the EEOC, with a copy to Wilson's attorney, maintaining that the request was "an improper vehicle

for appealing a decision ofthe [EEOC] on a petition for enforcement." Two months later, on January

22, 1993, the EEOC informed Wilson's attorney that the request for reconsideration had been

"erroneously docketed" because "[t]he [EEOC's] regulations ... do not provide for reopening of a

decision in a petition for enforcement." The EEOC therefore closed the record of the request for

reopening. On February 26, 1993, Wilson filed his court complaint, challenging both the "fully

successful" rating and the offset of the alleged "moonlighting" income.

The district court granted the Secretary's motion to dismiss the complaint. The court ruled

that Wilson should have filed suit regarding the performance rating issue within 30 days of receiving

the agency's February 14, 1991, letter, in which the agency advised that it was going to use "fully

satisfactory" ratings in calculating the backpay award. Alternatively, the court ruled that Wilson

should have filed suit within 30 days of receiving the EEOC's decision on the enforcement petition,

which was "expressly final and included a 30-day notice provision." As to the offsets for interim

income, the district court concluded that Wilson had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies.

The agency had not yet finished its recalculation of the backpay award when he filed suit; nor had

Wilson filed another petition for enforcement with the EEOC to force the agency to comply.

Alternatively, the court ruled that the complaint was time-barred because it should have been filed

within 30 days of Wilson's receipt of the backpay award in May 1991.

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1Both parties submitted, and the district court considered, documents not referred to in the

complaint. We will therefore treat the dismissal under the standards of Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 56, which governs summary judgment. McKinney v. Dole, 765 F.2d 1129, 1134 (D.C.

Cir. 1985); Gordon v. National Youth Work Alliance, 675 F.2d 356, 360 (D.C. Cir. 1982). Our

standard of review under Federal Rules 12(b)(6) and 56 is the same: de novo. Moore v. Valder,

65 F.3d 189, 192 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (dismissal); Tao v. Freeh, 27 F.3d 635, 638 (D.C. Cir. 1994)

(summary judgment). 

II.

Wilson contends that the district court improperly created an artificial impediment to the

"make whole" relief to which he is entitled under Title VII, see Lander v. Lujan, 888 F.2d 153, 156

(D.C. Cir. 1989) (citing Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 418-19 (1975)), by imposing

time limits and administrative exhaustion rules of its own devising. He relies on Nordell v. Heckler,

749 F.2d 47, 48 (D.C. Cir. 1984), for the proposition that his claim on the performance rating issue

was filed in a timely manner because his petition to reopen altered the timetable for filing suit. He

also maintains that because the request for relief on the offset issue had been pending before the

agency for more than 180 days, he was entitled to file suit without further pursuing administrative

remedies. We review the dismissal de novo.1 We first determine the correct date from which

Wilson's time to file his lawsuit on the performance rating issue began to run. We then address the

significance of the error in the EEOC's notice of final action. Finally, we address whether Wilson's

offset claim was premature for failure to exhaust his administrative remedies.

A.

Commencement of limitations period. The Secretary maintains that the limitations period

started to run when Wilson's attorney received the EEOC's initial order on November 1, 1990. See

Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 93 (1990). Because the EEOC ordered the

agency to assume "satisfactory work performance" when calculating backpay, the Secretary argues,

it plainly intended Wilson to receive an award commensurate with "fully successful" ratings.

Therefore, in the Secretary's view, Wilson's contention that he is entitled to higher assumed

performance ratings challenges the EEOC order itself, and Wilson had to file suit within 30 days

(under then-prevailing law) if he wanted to challenge the EEOC's order in court. Wilson maintains

that he challenges only the agency's compliance with the EEOC's order; he interprets that order as

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requiring "outstanding" or "excellent" ratings and believesthat he had no reason to challenge an order

that was wholly favorable to him.

If the EEOC's order were favorable to Wilson, and he challenged only the adequacy of the

agency's compliance, then the limitations period would not start with his receipt of the order. Loe

v. Heckler, 768 F.2d 409, 421 (D.C. Cir. 1985); Nealon v. Stone, 958 F.2d 584, 592-93 (4th Cir.

1992). If, on the other hand, the EEOC order had clearly imposed an assumption of "fully successful"

ratings, then the time for Wilson to file a judicial challenge would have begun to run when he received

the order.

We agree with the district court that the EEOC's order is ambiguous. "Satisfactory work

performance" does not obviously correlate with any ofthe agency'sfive performance ratings. Wilson

contended that the vast majority of employees at his pay grade had received higher ratings, and

consequently he was entitled to at least an "exceptional" rating under the "career path" theory of

Brown v. Marsh, 713 F. Supp. 20, 22 (D.D.C. 1989), aff'd sub nom. Brown v. Secretary of the Army,

918 F.2d 214 (D.C. Cir. 1990), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 810 (1991). Wilson presented documents to

the EEOC that he asserted showed that 98% of the agency's GM-15 employees received

"outstanding" or "exceptional" ratings in 1988, 100% received such ratings in 1989, and 87%

received such ratings in 1990. Under the circumstances, Wilson might reasonably have understood

that an employee who performed satisfactorily would receive one of the higher ratings. In light of

the need to construe Title VII's procedural rules in a way that allows legally unsophisticated

employeesto negotiate the process, Loe, 768 F.2d at 417, it would be inappropriate to start the clock

when Wilson received an order that he reasonably believed to be entirely in hisfavor, simply because

the agency later disagreed with his interpretation.

The next plausible date for commencement of the limitations period is when Wilson received

the agency's February 14, 1991, letter informing him that the agency planned to calculate his backpay

on an assumption of "fully satisfactory" ratings. But the February 14 letter was not a final agency

action. The EEOC regulations provide:

An employee or applicant is authorized by [Title VII] to file a civil action in an

appropriate United States district court ... [w]ithin thirty (30) calendar days after

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receipt of notice of final action taken by the agency on a complaint.... For purposes

of this part, the decision of an agency shall be final only when the agency makes a

determination on all of the issues in the complaint....

29 C.F.R. § 1613.281(c) (1995), recodified as amended at 29 C.F.R. § 1614.408 (1995). When the

agency sent the February 14 letter, it had yet to compute a backpay award; its decision to base the

backpay on "fully satisfactory" ratings was not "a determination on all of the issuesin the complaint."

The district court ruled that, even though the letter did not itself constitute final agency action by the

Coast Guard, the letter clarified the meaning ofthe EEOC's ambiguous order, therebystarting the 30-

day clock from the date of the letter. The Coast Guard, however, was bound by the EEOC's order,

and its construction of the order was not authoritative. See 29 C.F.R. §§ 1613.237(a),

1613.238(b)-(c) (1995),recodified at 29C.F.R. §§ 1614.502(a), 1614.503(b)-(c) (1995); cf. Girard

v. Rubin, 62 F.3d 1244, 1247 (9th Cir. 1995). The Coast Guard's non-binding interpretation of the

EEOC order cannot retroactively convert the EEOC order into a "final action" adverse to Wilson.

Nor did the limitations period begin to run when the agency completed its calculations and

sent a backpay check to Wilson in May 1991. The agency did not disclose when it sent the check

how the amount had been calculated. Although it had made clear its position on the performance

rating issue, the agency had never identified the offsetsit made for Wilson's outside income between

1984 and 1990. Wilson promptly requested those details, and the agency never responded until

Wilson filed his petition for enforcement. For that reason alone, the limitations period would have

been tolled as Wilson sought to discover facts that could give rise to claims he later raised in the

enforcement petition. See Loe, 768 F.2d at 418-19; see generally Irwin, 498 U.S. at 95-96.

Further, there is no evidence that the agency notified Wilson when sending the award check that the

check constituted final action from which administrative appeal or judicial review could be sought.

Without such notice, the award could not trigger the limitations period. See Williams v. Hidalgo,

663 F.2d 183, 186-87 (D.C. Cir. 1980).

The next significant event was the EEOC's August 1992 decision on the petition for

enforcement, rejecting Wilson's performance rating claim and remanding the offset claim. As an

alternative holding, the district court ruled that the limitations period would have commenced no later

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2The Secretary's suggestion that the petition itself was untimely is unpersuasive. Conceding

that neither the statute nor the regulations fixes a time limit for enforcement petitions, the

Secretary suggests that the period should be the same as the time for filing a civil complaint. See

42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(c) (1988). Thus, Wilson should have filed a petition for enforcement of the

EEOC's October 29, 1990, order within 30 days. The Secretary relies on Nordell, 749 F.2d at

49-50, which held that a request to reopen an EEOC decision on a merits appeal must be made

during the limitations period in order to toll the period for filing suit in district court.

However, because a request to reopen seeks to alter the original decision, the Nordell

court held, in the absence of an EEOC regulation, that a request to reopen should be made in the

same time in which judicial review could be sought. Otherwise, a complainant could revive a stale

claim at any time by filing a request to reopen. Id. at 49 (distinguishing Hofer v. Campbell, 581

F.2d 975, 978 (D.C. Cir. 1978)); see also 29 C.F.R. § 1613.234(b)(1) (1995), recodified at 29

C.F.R. § 1614.405(b)(1) (1995). By contrast, a petition for enforcement challenges not the order

being enforced, but the actions taken by the agency in response to the order. Those actions will

not necessarily occur, or be discovered by the complainant, within 30 days (now 90 days) of the

order; the need to file an enforcement petition may not arise until long after the Commission

issues the remedial order. Even without a time limit on enforcement petitions, agencies and the

EEOC will not face stale claims because a complainant cannot attack the original order through a

petition for enforcement. 29 C.F.R. § 1613.238(c) (1995), recodified at 29 C.F.R. § 1614.503(c)

(1995). What Wilson sought from the EEOC and the district court was a determination whether

the agency had properly carried out the remedy ordered, not a review of the remedy itself. 

than Wilson's receipt of this decision.2 We conclude, however, that the period never began to run

because the decision gave Wilson incorrect notice of his right to sue.

B.

Defective notice. Until 1991, federal employees had to file Title VII lawsuits "[w]ithin thirty

days ofreceipt of notice of final action taken by [the employing agency] or by the EqualEmployment

OpportunityCommission." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(c) (1988). The Civil Rights Act of 1991 changed

the limitations period to 90 days, effective November 21, 1991. Id. (Supp. V 1993). Although the

events underlying Wilson's complaint predate the 1991 amendment, application of the 90-day period

to Wilson's case would not be retroactive. By applying the 90-day period to Wilson's claim, we do

not "attach[] new legal consequencesto events completed before [the] enactment" oftheCivilRights

Act of 1991. Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 114 S. Ct. 1483, 1499 (1994). The extended limitations

period does not alter the legal effect of any pre-amendment event, nor does it change the remedies

available for pre-amendment violations. See id. at 1502. It attaches legal consequences only to

actionstaken after the effective date of the amendment, namely to Wilson'sfiling or failing to file suit

within a certain number of days after his attorney received on August 11, 1992, the EEOC remand

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3When a waiver of sovereign immunity is involved, the court is less likely to find that Congress

intended retroactive application. Brown v. Secretary of the Army, ___ F.3d ___ (D.C. Cir. 1996)

(construing Civil Rights Act of 1991). As noted, however, application of the 90-day limit in the

instant case is not retroactive at all, but merely the prospective application of a waiver of

sovereign immunity to a case clearly within the scope of the waiver. 

decision of August 6, 1992, in response to his petition for enforcement.3

The EEOC's notice, however, advised Wilson that he could file suit "WITHIN THIRTY (30)

CALENDAR DAYS of the date that you receive this decision." Although the EEOC had adopted

new regulations reflecting the 1991 amendment, 29 C.F.R. § 1614.408 (1995), those regulations

would not become effective until October 1, 1992, almost two months later. 57 Fed. Reg. 12,634,

12,646 (1992). Thus, Wilson's petition for enforcement was governed by the old regulations,

including 29C.F.R. § 1613.281 (1995), which stillreflected the old 30-daylimitations period. Wilson

was given incorrect notice because the EEOC's boilerplate language in its August 6, 1992, decision

on the petition had not caught up with the law.

The court confronted a similar situation in Coles v. Penny, 531 F.2d 609 (D.C. Cir. 1976).

Until 1972, Title VII did not protect federal employees. Coles filed a civil service complaint alleging

discrimination in 1970. By the time the Civil Service Commission heard his appeal, Title VII had

been amended to permit federal employees to seek district court review of final Commission action

on such complaints. Seven months after the effective date of the amendment, the Commission

promulgated regulations, similar to those previously adopted by the EEOC for private complainants,

requiring that federal complainants be given notice of their right to sue and the applicable time limit.

Id. at 613. However, because Coles' appeal fell into the seven-month period between the effective

date of the statutory amendment and the regulatory response, he was not informed of hisright to sue

when the Civil Service Commission denied his appeal. Id. at 611. The court declined to interpret the

limitations period so strictly asto bar the lawsuit that Colesfiled more than one year later. Id. at 614.

The court concluded that the statute required that the Commission give the complainant notice of his

or her right to sue because "Congress could hardly have been unaware of [the] EEOC regulation"

requiring suchnotice to private-sector complainants, and thus intended to incorporate this interpretive

gloss in adopting an analogous statute protecting federal employees. Id. Observing that "[s]uch an

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4For similar reasons to those noted in Coles, there is no reason to think that the district court

will henceforth be deluged with stale Title VII actions. Our holding applies only to a limited class

of complainants, namely federal employees who received defective notices of final action between

November 21, 1991, and the EEOC's revision of its boilerplate language to conform with the new

law on October 1, 1992. See Coles, 531 F.2d at 614. Further, even where the notice is defective,

complainants still must file suit within a reasonable time or may be defeated by a laches defense. 

Williams, 663 F.2d at 188. 

understanding is consistent with the broad structure and purposes of Title VII," the court noted that

"[t]he scheme established by Congress relies upon laymen, operating without legal assistance, to

initiate both administrative complaints and lawsuits, and "[procedural] technicalities are particularly

inappropriate in [such] a statutory scheme.' " Id. at 614-15 (quoting Love v. Pullman Co., 404 U.S.

522, 527 (1972)) (alterations in Coles) (citations omitted).

The court followed Coles in Williams v. Hidalgo, 663 F.2d 183 (D.C. Cir. 1980). In

Williams, the complainant, who was represented by counsel, had entered into a written settlement

of her complaint. More than thirty days later, she sued in the district court to recover attorney's fees

incurred during the administrative process. Id. at 185. The court held that her complaint should not

have been dismissed as untimely because the agency had not given her notice of her right to sue and

the 30-day time limit. Id. at 187.

We conclude from the structure of section 2000e-16(c) that an aggrieved employee

can bring an action in court after the department or agency has finally acted on his or

her complaint, subject to the department or agency's power to cut that right off after

thirty days by issuing proper notice. When an agency or department has taken final

action but hasfailed to issue a proper notice, we determine that an employee can bring

an action in district court within a reasonable time.

Id. at 188. The court was clear that "proper notice" under the statute required notice of both the

right to sue and the time limit. Id. at 187.

Under these authorities, the EEOC'sfailure to apprise Wilson ofthe correct limitations period

means that the period never began to run.4 Obviously, to be effective, the notice of Title VII rights

must be accurate. Moreover, it would be perverse to deprive Wilson of the benefit of the new

limitations period simplybecause he isrepresented bycounsel, whose assistance he sought in an effort

to protect hisrights under Title VII. "[T]he fact that many Title VII complainants act pro se is a valid

reason for requiring notice of the limitation in all notices of final agency action since one can never

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determine in advance whether an employeemaythereafter proceed pro se." Id. (emphasisin original);

cf. Copeland v. Brennan, 414 F. Supp. 644 (D.D.C. 1975), cited in Coles, 531 F.2d at 616 n.18.

Consequently, it does not matter whether Wilson'srequest to reopen the enforcement petition

under 29 C.F.R. § 1613.235(b) was proper, nor whether the January 22, 1993, letter from the EEOC

advising Wilson that it had closed the request to reopen constituted "final action" by the EEOC. It

is one thing for the EEOC to promulgate regulations limiting a party's right to seek reconsideration

and quite another for it to misinform a party about the time available to file a lawsuit. The court has

previously concluded that "the term "notice,' no less than the phrase "may file a civil action,' requires

an interpretation animated by the broad humanitarian and remedial purposes underlying the federal

proscription of employment discrimination." Coles, 513 F.2d at 616.

For these reasons, we reverse the dismissal of the performance rating issue in the first count

of the complaint.

C.

The offset issue. Wilson also contends that the district court improperly dismissed his

challenge to the amount of income that the agency offset against the backpay award. The district

court ruled alternatively that Wilson was barred either by the statute oflimitations because he did not

file suit within 30 days of accepting the backpay check or by his failure to exhaust administrative

remedies because he did not fully comply with the EEOC's August 1992 order remanding the offset

issue to the agency. Concluding that the district court erred on both points, we reverse this portion

of its judgment as well. While issuance of the backpay check did constitute final agency action that

normally would have triggered the limitations period, there is no indication in the record that the

agency provided adequate notice of Wilson's right to contest the award, and in any event the

limitations period would have been equitably tolled by the agency's unresponsiveness to Wilson's

request for an explanation of the award. Also, because more than 180 days had elapsed between

Wilson's petition for enforcement and the EEOC's remand order, Wilson had an immediate right to

sue under Title VII without further recourse to administrative remedies; thus, it does not matter how

fully he complied with the remand order.

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5Other cases involving a complainant's non-cooperation are distinguishable from Wilson's case. 

In Jordan v. United States, 522 F.2d 1128, 1129-30 (8th Cir. 1975), the plaintiff did not wait for

final action or for 180 days, but filed suit less than two months after seeking administrative relief,

professing to have lost confidence in the agency's appeals process. In Beale v. Blount, 461 F.2d

1133, 1140 (5th Cir. 1972), the court found that the plaintiff "deliberately bypass[ed]" the

administrative procedures by refusing to present to the agency the discrimination claim underlying

his lawsuit. 

In 1990, when the EEOC originally ordered the agency to hire Wilson and award him

backpay, the agency requested that Wilson "submit copies of his Federal or state tax returns for the

period and a sworn statement certifying his interim earnings." His attorney sent a letter describing

Wilson's past sources of income and the various "moonlighting" jobs that he had held during the

backpay period, identifying them by name and nature (part time, night, weekend). The letter

explained that the accompanying financial information (tax returns) showed "earnings that fall into

two categories," earnings both in-lieu-of and not in-lieu-of Coast Guard income. The letter also

stated that Wilson would be providing the requested statement. In a subsequent letter, Wilson's

counsel attached another W-2 form (referred to in the earlier letter) and repeated a willingness to

cooperate, suggesting counsel be called if the agency needed additional information. Although

Wilson, at that point, had not provided the sworn statement it had asked for, the agency calculated

a backpay award and issued a check in May 1991.

Because the agency was able to take final action on the merits of Wilson's complaint, his suit

cannot be barred solely for any default in responding to the agency's request for information. If a

complainant forces an agency to dismiss or cancel the complaint by failing to provide sufficient

information to enable the agency to investigate the claim, he may not file a judicialsuit. Even though

the dismissal is "final action," which would normally trigger the right to sue under § 717(c), the suit

will be barred for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Woodard v. Lehman, 717 F.2d 909,

912, 914 (4th Cir. 1983); Johnson v. Bergland, 614 F.2d 415, 417 (5th Cir. 1980) (per curiam).5

The purpose ofthe doctrine isto afford the agency an opportunity to resolve the matter internally and

to avoid unnecessarily burdening the courts. See Brown v. Marsh, 777 F.2d 8, 14 (D.C. Cir. 1985);

see also Park v. Howard Univ., 71 F.3d 904, 907 (D.C. Cir. 1995). Thus, even if the plaintiff fails

to make a good-faith attempt to comply with reasonable agency requests for information, the policy

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6The older cases cite former 5 C.F.R. § 713.215, the precursor of the current regulation. 

7This does not mean that the agency will lose on the merits; it simply means that the

complainant is entitled under the statute to his day in court. For example, although Wilson's

arguable failure to provide all of the requested information does not bar him from seeking judicial

relief, he will not get any such relief if he cannot substantiate his claim at trial. 

8There is some authority to the effect that a claimant in Wilson's position must first file a

petition for enforcement before judicially challenging an agency's compliance with an EEOC

order. Curtis v. Mosbacher, 52 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1141, 1143 (D.D.C. 1990). We

need not decide this question because of our holding that Wilson not only filed such a petition but

also adequately exhausted the remedies available under the petition procedure. 

underlying the doctrine is not served unlessthe default preventsthe agency fromacting on the merits

of the complaint. This conclusion is borne out by the facts of the cases that have invoked the

doctrine, in which the complainantsrest on vague allegations of discrimination and refuse to provide

any details or dates, thus completely frustrating the agencies' ability to investigate complaints. E.g.,

Woodard, 717 F.2d at 912; Johnson, 614 F.2d at 415. The regulation on which the agencies relied

in those cases also suggests this result:

The agency may cancel an allegation or a complaint for failure to prosecute only after

it has provided the complainant with a written request, that includes a notice of the

proposed cancellation, to provide certain information or otherwise proceed with the

complaint, and the complainant has failed to satisfy the request within 15 calendar

days of its receipt. However, instead of canceling for failure to prosecute, the

complaint may be adjudicated if sufficient information for that purpose is available.

29 C.F.R. § 1613.215(a)(6) (1995), codified as amended at 29 C.F.R. § 1614.107(g) (1995).6If the

agency concludesthat it hassufficient information to take final action on the merits, there is no reason

to impose additional requirements on the complainant. The exhaustion requirement is a "practical

and pragmatic" one and should not be invoked when it serves no practical purpose. Brown, 777 F.2d

at 14, 16-17 (quoting President v. Vance, 627 F.2d 353, 363 (D.C. Cir. 1980)). Where the agency

has taken final action based on an evaluation of the merits, it cannot later contend that the

complainant failed to exhaust his remedies.7

The district court was therefore correct in concluding that Wilson could have sued in May

1991.8 The agency had taken final action on his complaint following an EEOC appeal, rendering

irrelevant any purported shortcomingsin the information provided to that point by Wilson. Nor was

Wilson's suit time-barred because more than 30 days elapsed between his receipt of the backpay

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9This discussion is not meant to foreclose the possibility that the EEOC could permit discovery

in matters pending before it. Before the EEOC remand order, however, Wilson was not under

any order from the EEOC to comply with the agency's request; nor did the EEOC regulations

require compliance with such requests generally. 

award and his filing suit. There is no record of Wilson's receiving notice of his right to sue when the

check wasissued. As we explained in Part II B supra, the lack ofsuch notice preventsthe limitations

period from commencing. Furthermore, after receiving the check, Wilson promptly requested the

details underlying the offsets from the agency's backpay award. Even if the limitations period had

begun to run in May 1991, it would have been equitably tolled by the agency's withholding of

information vital to Wilson's claim. See Loe, 768 F.2d at 419 & n.21; Irwin, 498 U.S. at 95-96.

After the agency issued the backpay award, its next request for information from Wilson was

its letter of April 20, 1992. By that time, more than five months had passed since Wilson had filed

his petition for enforcement, and Wilson had no obligation to respond further to agency requests for

information. The EEOC's original remedial order was binding on the agency, which had no choice

but to carry out the "ministerial" function of calculating the amount of the award. 29 C.F.R. §

1613.237(a), recodified as amended at 29 C.F.R. § 1614.502(a) (1995); see also 51 Fed. Reg.

29,482, 29,484 (1986). The agency had a period in which to comply and had the right to make

reasonable requestsfor necessaryinformationfromWilson. Once the agency made its calculation and

issued the check, Wilson was entitled by the regulations to petition for EEOC review. 29 C.F.R. §

1613.238(a) (1995), recodified at 29 C.F.R. § 1614.503(a) (1995). The petition for enforcement

challenged whether the agency had fulfilled its obligations with regard to both the performance rating

and the backpay award under the original EEOC remedial order, and 29 C.F.R. § 1613.238

committed the resolution of that dispute not to the agency but to the EEOC. See also 29 C.F.R. §

1613.239(c) (1995). Nothing in the statute or the regulations required Wilson to afford the agency

an opportunity to recalculate the backpay award. It necessarily follows that he was not required to

provide the agency information that it requested in order to make such a recalculation. Certainly

Wilson could have voluntarily responded to the agency's request, but he was also entitled to await

the EEOC's decision on both of his challenges.9

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10Even if the EEOC's remand decision could have constituted final action for purposes of §

717(c), its failure to give accurate notice of the time limit in which Wilson could bring suit would

have prevented the 90-day limitations period from commencing. See supra Part II B. 

Ultimately, the EEOC did order Wilson to provide the backpay period information to the

agency, specifically, to reformat the information in affidavit form. By that time, however, more than

nine months had passed since Wilson had filed his petition for enforcement. Section 717(c) provides

that a complainant may file a judicial suit "after one hundred and eighty days from the filing of the

initial charge with the ... agency... or with the EqualEmployment OpportunityCommission on appeal

from a decision or order of such ... agency ... until such time as final action may be taken by a[n] ...

agency...." Once a complainant files a complaint or appeal and cooperates with the agency or EEOC

for 180 days, he is not required to take any further action to exhaust his administrative remedies. See

Grubbs v. Butz, 514 F.2d 1323, 1327-28 (D.C. Cir. 1975); Clark v. Chasen, 619 F.2d 1330, 1332-37

(9th Cir. 1980). After Wilson filed the petition for enforcement with the EEOC, the EEOC did not

request any information from him during the 180-day period, so Wilson cannot be faulted for failing

to cooperate. Nor was final action "taken by [the] agency" within that time; when the 180-day limit

was reached, the petition was still pending and the propriety of the original award had not been

evaluated. Once the 180 days ran, the only thing that could have terminated Wilson's right to sue was

if the agency had belatedly taken final action, at which point the 90-day statute of limitations would

have started to run. That never happened. Although the EEOC eventually rendered a decision on

the petition, § 717(c) requires that the agency take final action, and the agency in this case never

completed the recalculation of Wilson's award.10

The only remaining question is whether the 180-day limit applies to a petition for

enforcement. Considering the statutory scheme and its remedial purposes, we conclude that such a

petition is an "appeal from a decision" of an agency within the meaning of § 717(c), and that a

petitioner can therefore proceed to court after 180 days have passed without final agency action. The

statute confines agencies and the EEOC to a tight schedule and gives great weight to the

complainant's interest in obtaining speedy resolution of the complaint. This court observed in

Grubbs:

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11In his briefs, Wilson maintains that his suit was properly filed because more than 180 days

elapsed between the remand order and the commencement of the lawsuit. The Secretary

responds that Wilson is barred from suing because he failed to exhaust his remedies during that

180-day period. We do not reach the question whether another 180-day statutory period started

when the EEOC issued its remand order, because we hold that the failure of the agency to act

within 180 days of the petition satisfies the exhaustion requirement. 

The 180 day provision represents a Congressional determination that providing

prompt access to the courts in discrimination disputes is so important that the

administrative process will be given only a finite time to deal alone with a given

dispute. Indeed, the Act is in part a response to Congressional realization that "the

doctrine of exhaustion of remedies ... had become [a] barrier to meaningful court

review." Requiring a complainant to further pursue administrative remedies after

fulfilling all the prerequisites to suit specified by the EEOA, and most importantly,

after 180 days have elapsed without final administrative action, would frustrate that

response.

514 F.2d at 1328 (quoting Hackley v. Johnson, 360 F. Supp. 1247, 1251 (D.D.C. 1973), rev'd on

other grounds sub nom. Hackley v. Roudebush, 520 F.2d 108 (D.C. Cir. 1975)) (alterations in

Grubbs) (footnote omitted); see also Bethel v. Jefferson, 589 F.2d 631, 643-44 (D.C. Cir. 1978).

We see no reason why a similar policy should not prevail at the petition for enforcement stage,

especially since any complainant who reaches that stage has necessarily already waited through at

least the original agency complaint and one EEOC appeal.

The statutory language imposing the obligation to take final action within 180 days performs

a similar function when applied to a petition for enforcement as it does when applied to the first

appeal to the EEOC on the merits of the underlying claim. See Grubbs, 514 F.2d at 1328; see also

Hackley v. Roudebush, 520 F.2d 108, 118-21, 136 (D.C. Cir. 1975). In both instances the EEOC

is accorded a limited period of time to decide the appeal, while the complainant is assured of having

reasonably prompt access to the courts. This approach is consistent with the balance that Congress

has struck. See Brown v. General Servs. Admin., 425 U.S. 820, 832-33 (1976). It also avoids

creation of "a massive procedural roadblock to access to the courts." McRae v. Librarian of

Congress, 843 F.2d 1494, 1496 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (per curiam) (quoting President v. Vance, 627 F.2d

353, 362 (D.C. Cir. 1980)). We conclude that Wilson obtained a right to sue 180 days after he filed

the petition for enforcement, at which time there had been no final action.11

Because Wilson did all that was required of him for 180 days after filing the petition for

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12Wilson was "aggrieved" within the meaning of § 717(c) by the failure of the agency to take

final action within 180 days of the filing of the petition for enforcement, notwithstanding the

agency's contention that Wilson's alleged failure to comply with the EEOC's belated remand order

prevented such action. As discussed, circuit precedent precludes an interpretation of the term

"aggrieved" that would require a complainant to pursue administrative remedies not mentioned in

the statute beyond the 180-day period. The legislative history supports that interpretation. See S.

Rep. No. 415, 92d Cong., 1st Sess. 16-17, 45-46 (1971), cited in Clark, 619 F.2d at 1334. 

13In its request for additional information concerning Wilson's employment history before he

applied for the position with the Coast Guard, the agency suggested that the employee must show

that his "moonlighting" employment was "permanent" in the sense that the employee held such

employment before the backpay period. The agency relied on Bing v. Roadway Express, Inc.,

485 F.2d 411, 454 (5th Cir. 1973). However, the Fifth Circuit did not impose a literal

"permanency" requirement on "moonlighting" employment in calculating backpay awards. 

Rather, the court stated that:

if an [employee] can hold his supplemental job and his desired full time job

simultaneously and there is reason to believe he will do so, the supplemental job

assumes a permanent rather than an interim nature. Those earnings would be

independent of the position sought and should not be taken into account in back

pay calculations.

Bing, 485 F.2d at 454. The court's discussion of permanency was descriptive, not prescriptive. 

"Interim earnings" are deducted from Title VII backpay awards. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-5(g)(1),

2000e-16(d) (1988 & Supp. V 1993). The Fifth Circuit therefore described non-deductible

earnings as "permanent" to contrast with the statutory term "interim." As the quoted language

makes clear, the court did not require the employee actually to hold the "moonlighting" job

permanently, but only to show that he could hold the supplemental job and his full-time job

simultaneously and that there was reason to believe that he would. Thus, where it would be

literally impossible for the employee to hold both jobs, the Fifth Circuit concluded that the

"moonlighting" earnings were correctly deducted from the backpay award. 485 F.2d at 454. 

Because Wilson's submissions reflected "supplemental" employment of a non-interim nature under

the Bing analysis, the relevancy of the pre-backpay period under 5 C.F.R. § 550.805 (1995) is

unclear on the record before this court. 

enforcement, any defectsin the information subsequently provided by Wilson have no bearing on the

question whether he had a right to proceed in court.12 The belated EEOC remand order set up a

schedule for compliance, under which Wilson would provide further information to the agency and

the agency would recalculate the backpay award and report back to the EEOC within 90 days. The

agency never did recalculate the award; it blames Wilson because, in the agency's view, he did not

provide all of the information required by the remand order.13 On this basis, the district court

dismissed the complaint. It does not matter, however, whether Wilson provided the requested

information. Because Wilson had waited for more than 180 days for the EEOC to decide his petition

for review, the statute gave him the right to come to court. Neither the agency nor the EEOC could

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14The government also appears to contend that Wilson's suit was untimely because the EEOC

granted the agency an extension of time to recalculate the backpay award, and Wilson filed suit

before the extension expired. While the record is unclear as to when and how the purported

extension was authorized or whether Wilson was given any notice of it, the EEOC has no

authority to prevent a complainant from proceeding to court after 180 days have passed without

agency action. Not only did the extension run beyond 180 days from the enforcement petition,

but, as we have made clear, the 180 days had already run before the matter was even remanded to

the agency. 

require himto jump through any further administrative hoops. The court reached a similar conclusion

in McRae, where the complainant, having sought relief from the agency for almost two years, was

held not to have failed to have exhausted her administrative remedies when she went to court and

declined to go forward with an administrative hearing. 843 F.2d at 1496. Wilson, like McRae, could

have chosen to continue to try to resolve the matter administratively. In many instances, it may be

faster and less burdensome to avoid recourse to the courts. But whether Wilson would finally have

obtained what he sought from the agency is irrelevant here.14 The only things that matter are that his

right to sue under Title VII had been perfected, and that he chose to exercise that right.

Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the district court.

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