Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-00-05280/USCOURTS-caDC-00-05280-0/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 September 10, 2001 Decided November 16, 2001

No. 00-5280

American Telephone and Telegraph Company, et al.,

Appellants

v.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,

Appellee

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 99cv01444)

Charles C. Jackson argued the cause for appellants. With

him on the briefs were Timothy L. Porter, Laura A. Kaster

and Christopher A. Weals.

Robert J. Gregory, Attorney, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, argued the cause for appellee. On the brief

were Philip B. Sklover, Associate General Counsel, and Paula R. Bruner, Attorney.

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Before: Ginsburg, Chief Judge, Edwards and Sentelle,

Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge Ginsburg.

Ginsburg, Chief Judge: AT&T seeks a declaratory judgment against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to the effect that the Company is not required to give

former employees credit for work time they missed due to

pregnancy before passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination

Act of 1979. The district court granted the Commission's

motion to dismiss for want of final agency action. AT&T

contends that the Commission had taken final action because,

although it had not yet sued the Company, it had concluded

that AT&T's policy violates the Act and had taken steps

toward filing a lawsuit on that ground. We hold that course

of conduct does not constitute final agency action and is

therefore unreviewable.

I. Background

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1979 requires an

employer to give an employee who misses work due to

pregnancy the same benefits it gives an employee who misses

work for other reasons, such as a disability. 42 U.S.C.

s 2000e(k). Either an aggrieved employee or the Commission may sue the employer for violating the Act in district

court in the state where the alleged discrimination occurred.

42 U.S.C. s 2000e-5(f)(1), (f)(3).

AT&T employees earn pension benefits based upon how

long they work for the Company, including any time they

miss due to disability. Since passage of the Act in 1979,

AT&T also has given credit for time missed due to pregnancy. AT&T does not, however, give credit for time missed due

to pregnancy before passage of the Act.

The Ninth Circuit has held that AT&T's policy regarding

pre-Act time missed--which policy is followed by other former Bell System companies--violates the Act, Pallas v. Pacific Bell, 940 F.2d 1324 (9th Cir. 1991) (holding claim of preAct pregnancy discrimination both timely and correct on the

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merits), but the Seventh Circuit has held otherwise, Ameritech Benefit Plan Comm. v. Communications Workers of

Am., 220 F.3d 814 (7th Cir. 2000) (holding claim of pre-Act

pregnancy discrimination time-barred). The Commission

agrees with the Ninth Circuit and provides in its Compliance

Manual not only that "a seniority policy that treats leave for

maternity purposes differently from leave for other temporary disabilities ... [is] a violation of Title VII," but also that

denying full work credit for pre-Act pregnancy leave is "past

discrimination" the effect of which constitutes "a present

violation of Title VII." s 616.25. When the Commission

updated the Manual in October, 2000 it specifically endorsed

both the Ninth Circuit's decision in Pallas and a district court

judgment to the same effect, Carter v. AT&T, 870 F. Supp.

1438 (S.D. Ohio 1994), vacated by consent, 1996 WL 656571

(S.D. Ohio).

Pallas and Carter were private actions brought by aggrieved employees. In addition, the Commission itself has

sued two former Bell System companies for failing to give full

work credit for pre-Act pregnancy leave. See EEOC v. Bell

Atl. Corp., 1999 WL 386725 (S.D.N.Y.); EEOC v. Ameritech

Serv., Inc., No. 97 CV 2106 (N.D. Ohio). The Commission

also filed an amicus brief taking that position in the Carter

case, see 870 F. Supp. 1438.

In the mid-1990s two employees of AT&T complained to

the Commission that the Company refused to give them full

credit for the time they had missed due to pregnancy before

passage of the Act. The Commission issued to each a Letter

of Determination stating that in its view AT&T had unlawfully discriminated against her. The Commission then sent

letters to AT&T urging it to conciliate with the two women

and informing the Company that if conciliation failed, then

the Commission would refer the matter to its legal department. In June, 1999 the Commission notified AT&T of its

conclusion that conciliation indeed had failed.

AT&T then filed this suit against the Commission, seeking

a declaratory judgment that the Company's service credit

policy does not violate any federal law. The Commission

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moved to dismiss the case on the ground that the Commission's Letters of Determination are not final orders and are

therefore unreviewable. The district court agreed and AT&T

appealed.

II. Analysis

The district court's authority to review the conduct of an

administrative agency is limited to cases challenging "final

agency action." 5 U.S.C. s 704; Abbott Labs. v. Gardner,

387 U.S. 136, 140 (1967). An agency action is deemed final if

it "mark[s] the 'consummation' of the agency's decisionmaking process" and determines "rights or obligations." Appalachian Power Co. v. E.P.A., 208 F.3d 1015, 1022 (D.C. Cir.

2000). The agency must have made up its mind, and its

decision must have "inflict[ed] an actual, concrete injury"

upon the party seeking judicial review. Williamson County

Regional Planning v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U.S. 172, 193

(1985). Such an injury typically is not caused when an

agency merely expresses its view of what the law requires of

a party, even if that view is adverse to the party. See DRG

Funding Corp. v. HUD, 76 F.3d 1212, 1214 (D.C. Cir. 1996)

("[C]ourts have defined a nonfinal agency order as one, for

instance, that 'does not itself adversely affect complainant but

only affects his rights adversely on the contingency of future

administrative action' ") (quoting Rochester Tel. Corp. v.

United States, 307 U.S. 125, 130 (1939)).

AT&T acknowledges that a Letter of Determination issued

by the Commission is not final agency action but argues that

the entire course of the Commission's actions with respect to

the Company's service credit policy, including the Letters of

Determination, in the aggregate shows the agency has

reached a final conclusion concerning its legal position.

AT&T suggests that if even that is not enough, the Commission does not actually have to sue the Company to take final

and reviewable action: Making the decision to sue is surely

sufficient. In either case, the Company also maintains that it

suffers actual injury from the attendant uncertainty about its

ultimate legal obligation while waiting for the Commission to

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file suit: AT&T cannot know whether to fund its pension

accounts to pay for pre-Act pregnancy leave until this legal

issue is resolved.

Under the circumstances of this case, there clearly would

be final agency action if the Commission filed a lawsuit

against AT&T. (Of course, the Company could not challenge

that decision as final agency action under the APA; it would

instead simply defend itself against the suit.) At that point

the agency would have decided not only how it views AT&T's

legal obligations, but also how it plans to act upon that view.

How then can AT&T show that the Commission has, if not

formally then at least as a practical matter, taken final action

when the agency has not sued, and might not ever sue, the

Company?

AT&T argues that the Commission takes final action when

it embraces one view of the law and rejects another, or at the

latest when, after formulating its legal position, the agency

decides to sue a particular company. The former argument is

too broad insofar as it would reach a case such as this, in

which the agency's taking a position on the law does not

affect any other party. Although there are, as AT&T points

out, particular circumstances in which an agency's taking a

legal position itself inflicts injury or forces a party to change

its behavior, such that taking that position may be deemed

final agency action, see Appalachian Power, 208 F.3d at 1022

(holding that "a Guidance" issued by the Environmental

Protection Agency is final because it represents a settled

position that the agency "plans to follow in reviewing Stateissued permits, a position it will insist State and local authorities comply with in setting the terms and conditions of

permits issued to petitioners, [and] a position EPA officials in

the field are bound to apply"), this is not such a case. The

Commission has not inflicted any injury upon AT&T merely

by expressing its view of the law--a view that has force only

to the extent the agency can persuade a court to the same

conclusion. Unlike the EPA Guidance at issue in Appalachian Power, the EEOC Compliance Manual does not affect

the regulated community. Whereas "EPA officials in the

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field [were] bound to apply" the EPA Guidance, id., as

discussed below the EEOC is not bound to sue AT&T.

We turn therefore to AT&T's latter point. We shall assume, without deciding, that the finality requirement would

be satisfied if the Commission decided to enforce the Act

against an employer but then delayed the filing of a complaint. That assumption leads us to the question: Did the

Commission decide to sue AT&T?

AT&T points out that the Commission has sued two other

similarly situated employers, that is, former components of

the Bell System with the same policy regarding pre-Act

pregnancy leave. Still, it does not follow that the agency will

use its limited resources to sue them all; law enforcement

agencies rarely have the ability, or for that matter the need,

to bring a case against each violator. Nor does the Compliance Manual shed light upon the Commission's intentions. It

does state the Commission's view that the policy followed by

AT&T violates the Act, but it does not say whether, how,

against which companies, or under what circumstances the

Commission will act upon that view. The Commission came

nearer to taking final action when it sent Letters of Determination to AT&T, but such letters themselves clearly fall short

of final agency action. See Georator Corp. v. EEOC, 592 F.2d

765, 768 (4th Cir. 1979) (so holding); see also Atlantic Ritchfield Co. v. U.S. Dep't of Energy, 769 F.2d 771, 787 n.107

(D.C. Cir. 1984). True, the Commission later referred to its

legal department one of the matters subject to a Letter of

Determination, but that was after AT&T had filed the complaint in this case and therefore is not cognizable in this

litigation. See Federal Express Corp. v. Air Line Pilots

Ass'n, 67 F.3d 961, 965 n.5 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (holding that only

"the facts in existence at the time the suit was filed" matter)

(emphasis in original); cf., e.g., Doss v. F.C.C., No. 00-1124,

2000 WL 1946577, at *1 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 7, 2000) ("Petitions

[for review] filed while a request for reconsideration is pending before the agency are deemed to be 'incurably premature' "). In sum, considering everything the Commission did

before AT&T filed its complaint, we do not know whether it

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had decided to take the final step of bringing suit against

AT&T.

In these circumstances, to allow AT&T to institute litigation with the Commission over the lawfulness of its policy

would be to preempt the Commission's discretion to allocate

its resources as between this issue and this employer, as

opposed to other issues and other employers, as well as its

ability to choose the venue for its litigation, as the statute

contemplates. See 42 U.S.C. s 2000e-5(f)(1), (f)(3). For the

court to find here final agency action subject to judicial

review, therefore, would disrupt the administrative process in

a manner clearly at odds with the contemplation of the

Congress.

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district

court is

Affirmed.

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