Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-06-07207/USCOURTS-caDC-06-07207-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP
Appellee
Harold D. Schuler
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 10, 2007 Decided February 12, 2008 

No. 06-7207 

HAROLD D. SCHULER, ON BEHALF OF HIMSELF AND OTHER 

SIMILARLY SITUATED OLDER EMPLOYEES, 

APPELLANT

v. 

PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS, LLP, 

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 05cv02355) 

David L. Rose argued the cause for appellant. With him 

on the briefs was Dotie Joseph. 

Eric M. Nelson argued the cause for appellee. With him 

on the brief were Stephen L. Sheinfeld and Minoti Patel. Julie 

A. Klusas Gasper entered an appearance. 

Before: ROGERS, TATEL, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit 

Judges. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL. 

USCA Case #06-7207 Document #1098498 Filed: 02/12/2008 Page 1 of 27
TATEL, Circuit Judge: A sixty-three-year-old 

professional who works in his employer’s Washington, D.C. 

branch office filed a charge with the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission’s New York district office alleging 

that his employer, headquartered in Manhattan, is violating 

the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) by 

maintaining a discriminatory partnership policy under which 

the company refuses to promote older qualified employees. 

After the EEOC dismissed the charge and informed the 

employee of his right to sue, the employee filed a class-action 

complaint in federal district court in Washington, D.C., 

alleging violations of the ADEA and the District of Columbia 

Human Rights Act and seeking relief for the company’s 

failures to promote him in July 2004 and July 2005. The 

district court dismissed the complaint, holding that plaintiff 

failed to satisfy the ADEA’s procedural requirements because 

he failed to file (1) his EEOC charge with the D.C. Office of 

Human Rights and (2) a new EEOC charge following the 

company’s allegedly unlawful July 2005 promotion denial. 

We reverse. Plaintiff satisfied the ADEA’s state filing 

requirement by virtue of a worksharing agreement between 

the EEOC and the D.C. Office of Human Rights, as well as 

through the Commission’s referral of his charge to the New 

York State Division of Human Rights. And because plaintiff 

seeks damages flowing from the July 2004 ADEA violation 

alleged in his original EEOC charge through the present, his 

failure to file a new charge after the July 2005 nonpromotion 

decision is of no consequence. 

 

I.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act makes it 

“unlawful for an employer to . . . discriminate against any 

individual with respect to his compensation, terms, 

conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such 

individual’s age.” 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1). Patterned after 

Title VII, the ADEA allows “[a]ny person aggrieved [to] 

USCA Case #06-7207 Document #1098498 Filed: 02/12/2008 Page 2 of 27
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bring a civil action in any court of competent jurisdiction for 

. . . legal or equitable relief.” Id. § 626(c)(1). Before doing 

so, however, plaintiffs must jump through two administrative 

hoops. First, under section 626(d) plaintiffs must file a 

discrimination charge with the EEOC. See id. § 626(d) (“No 

civil action may be commenced by an individual under this 

section until 60 days after a charge alleging unlawful 

discrimination has been filed with the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission.”). Second, section 633(b) requires 

that plaintiffs also file a charge with an appropriate state 

agency: 

[If] an alleged unlawful practice occur[s] in a 

State which has a law prohibiting discrimination 

in employment because of age and establishing or 

authorizing a State authority to grant or seek 

relief from such discriminatory practice, no suit 

may be brought under section 626 of this title 

before the expiration of sixty days after 

proceedings have been commenced under the 

State law, unless such proceedings have been 

earlier terminated. 

 

Id. § 633(b). Under section 633(b), “resort to administrative 

remedies in deferral States by individual claimants is 

mandatory, not optional.” Oscar Mayer & Co. v. Evans, 441 

U.S. 750, 758 (1979). This requirement “is intended to screen 

from the federal courts those discrimination complaints that 

might be settled to the satisfaction of the grievant in state 

proceedings.” Id. at 756. 

 

In this case, appellee PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a 

large accounting and professional services firm headquartered 

in New York City, maintains a “Partners and Principals 

Agreement” providing that each partner’s “association with 

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the Firm shall cease at the end of the fiscal year in which he 

or she attains age 60,” and, as a result, rarely promotes 

employees over the age of forty-five to partner. See Compl. 

¶¶ 17-19; see also Murphy v. PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, 

357 F. Supp. 2d 230, 245 (D.D.C. 2004) (noting, in a related 

case, that “PwC does not dispute that its Partnership 

Agreement requires mandatory retirement for partners or that 

fewer employees are admitted in higher age brackets . . . .”). 

Partners enjoy higher salaries, more generous retirement 

benefits, and greater responsibilities than other professional 

employees. Compl. ¶ 12. 

Appellant Harold Schuler, a managing director in PwC’s 

Washington, D.C. office, alleges that the company refuses to 

promote him “and other qualified older professional 

employees” to partner on the basis of age in violation of the 

ADEA. Id. ¶ 2. Schuler alleges he is the longest serving 

managing director in the firm, having been promoted to that 

position in 1994, and that his education, training, and 

experience qualify him for partnership. 

The case before us is Schuler’s second lawsuit against 

PwC. In May 2002, Schuler, along with a co-worker, C. 

Westbrook Murphy, sued the firm over the same allegedly 

discriminatory partnership policy. See Murphy, 357 F. Supp. 

2d 230. Before initiating that suit, Schuler filed an 

administrative charge with the District of Columbia Office of 

Human Rights (DCOHR) alleging that PwC denied him 

promotion on the basis of age from 1999 to 2001. Id. at 236. 

Schuler “cross-filed” his charge with the EEOC, meaning that 

both the DCOHR and the Commission received a copy. 

Schuler and Murphy alleged violations of the ADEA, as well 

as the New York Human Rights Law (NYHRL) and the 

District of Columbia Human Rights Act (DCHRA), both of 

which also prohibit age discrimination. See D.C. Code § 2-

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1401.01 et seq.; N.Y. Exec. Law § 290 et seq. The district 

court dismissed most of the ADEA claims for failure to file 

timely administrative charges with the EEOC. See Murphy, 

357 F. Supp. 2d at 239-40. And of significance to the case 

now before us, the district court dismissed the NYHRL claims 

because, in its view, New York law requires plaintiffs to 

“allege that the actual impact of the discriminatory act was 

felt in New York.” Id. at 244. The court allowed the 

plaintiffs’ DCHRA claim and ADEA “disparate treatment” 

claim to go forward, however, and that case remains pending 

in the district court. See id. at 245, 249. 

On February 23, 2005, Schuler, laying the groundwork 

for the case now before us, filed another EEOC charge 

alleging that PwC’s promotion policy violates the ADEA. In 

particular, the class-action charge, which Schuler’s counsel 

mailed overnight from his office in Washington, D.C. to the 

EEOC’s New York district office, alleged that “PwC has 

followed and continues to follow age discriminatory practices 

for promotion to partnership that favor employees younger 

than 40 years old and harm me and other older employees.” 

EEOC Charge of Discrimination, No. 160-2005-01264 

(February 2005). Schuler’s charge also alleged that “PwC has 

promoted more than 1,500 of its professional employees to 

partnership on and after July 1, 1998 through at least July 1, 

2004, and not one (0) of those promoted was over the age of 

60 when promoted.” Id. In a five-page declaration attached 

to the charge, Schuler asserted that he and other employees 

had failed to make partner because of “policies and 

procedures adopted and maintained by [PwC]’s Senior 

Partner and Chief Executive Officer Dennis Nally and the 14 

other members of its Board of Partners and Principals,” and 

alleged that the “Board decides each year which employees 

shall be promoted to partnership.” Decl. of Harold Schuler 1, 

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4. Schuler stated that he resides in Virginia and alleged that 

PwC maintains its headquarters in New York City. 

 Schuler addressed his charge to the “New York City 

(NY) Commission Human Rights [sic], and New York State 

Div. of Human Rights, and EEOC.” He included the 

following instruction: “I want this Class Action Charge filed 

with both the EEOC and the State and local Agency, if any.” 

EEOC Charge of Discrimination. At the end of his 

supporting declaration, Schuler typed, mostly in capital 

letters, “This complaint should be CROSS FILED WITH 

THE HUMAN RIGHTS AGENCIES OF NEW YORK 

CITY, THE STATE OF NEW YORK, AND 

WASHINGTON, D.C.” Decl. of Harold Schuler 5. 

 

Three weeks later, the EEOC informed Schuler by letter 

that it had received his ADEA charge and would file it with 

the New York State Division of Human Rights (NYSDHR), 

assuring him, “You need do nothing further at this time.” 

Letter from Patricia M. Araujo, Investigator, EEOC, to 

Harold Schuler (Mar. 14, 2005). The letter made no mention 

of the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights, 

however, and nothing in the record indicates whether either 

the EEOC or Schuler ever referred the charge to that local 

agency. 

On April 28, 2005, the EEOC, acting again through its 

New York district office, dismissed Schuler’s charge with the 

cryptic explanation, “Case in Court/District of Columbia,” 

EEOC Dismissal and Notice of Rights (Apr. 28, 2005)—an 

apparent reference to the still pending Murphy litigation. See 

Schuler v. PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, 457 F. Supp. 2d 1, 

3 n.2 (D.D.C. 2006). The notice informed Schuler that he 

could file suit in federal district court within ninety days, a 

time limit the parties tolled as they attempted to settle the 

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case. When negotiations failed, Schuler, seeking relief for 

PwC’s failure to promote him to partner in July 2004 and 

again in July 2005, filed the present action in the U.S. District 

Court for the District of Columbia. 

Schuler’s complaint includes two claims: one federal, 

one state. First, pointing to PwC’s mandatory partner 

retirement policy, Schuler alleged that “PwC has engaged in a 

pattern and practice of age discrimination in making decisions 

regarding assignments and promotions in violation of Section 

4 of the ADEA.” Compl. ¶ 50. Second, asking the court to 

invoke its supplemental jurisdiction, Schuler brought a claim 

under the DCHRA. D.C. Code § 2-1401.01 et seq. PwC filed 

an answer and, arguing that Schuler had failed properly to 

exhaust his administrative remedies before filing suit, moved 

to dismiss the case on the pleadings. See FED. R. CIV. P. 

12(c). 

The district court granted PwC’s motion and dismissed 

the complaint. Explaining that under National Railroad 

Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101 (2002), “each 

incident of discrimination and each retaliatory adverse 

employment decision constitutes a separate actionable 

unlawful employment practice for which an administrative 

charge must be filed,” the court considered PwC’s two 

allegedly improper failures to promote Schuler as discrete 

incidents and analyzed each independently. Schuler, 457 F. 

Supp. 2d at 4 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). 

Beginning with PwC’s July 2004 decision not to promote 

Schuler to partner, the district court found that Schuler had 

failed to file his charge with the DCOHR. According to the 

court, because the District of Columbia is a “deferral state” 

under the ADEA, i.e., it provides an administrative remedy 

for employment discrimination, the statute required Schuler to 

file with the state agency there—the site of his alleged 

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injury—before seeking redress in federal court. Id. The court 

found it irrelevant that Schuler’s charge had been cross-filed 

with the New York State Division of Human Rights. See id.

at 5. Turning next to the July 2005 nonpromotion decision, 

the court found that Schuler had failed to file an EEOC 

charge arising out of the July 2005 promotion denial within 

the ADEA’s 300-day statute of limitations period. Id. 

Schuler had filed his only charge in February 2005—four 

months before PwC’s second allegedly discriminatory failure 

to promote him. Having thus disposed of Schuler’s federal 

claims, the district court declined to exercise supplemental 

jurisdiction over Schuler’s state-law DCHRA claim. Id. 

Schuler now appeals. We review a district court’s 

decision to grant a motion for dismissal on the pleadings de 

novo. See Peters v. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp., 966 F.2d 

1483, 1485 (D.C. Cir. 1992). “We will affirm the district 

court if the moving party demonstrates that no material fact is 

in dispute and that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of 

law.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 

Moreover, “the factual allegations of the complaint must be 

taken as true, and any ambiguities or doubts concerning the 

sufficiency of the claim must be resolved in favor of the 

pleader.” Doe v. DOJ, 753 F.2d 1092, 1102 (D.C. Cir. 1985). 

 

II.

Before determining whether Schuler has satisfied the 

ADEA’s administrative prerequisites, we must resolve a 

dispute between the parties over the precise nature of 

Schuler’s claims. Schuler argues that contrary to the way the 

district court characterized his complaint, he has alleged a 

“pattern and practice” of age discrimination in violation of the 

ADEA, which is rooted in PwC’s mandatory retirement and 

partnership promotion policies. See Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters v. 

United States, 431 U.S. 324, 336 (1977) (explaining that in a 

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Title VII “pattern or practice” case, “discrimination [is] the 

company’s standard operating procedure—the regular rather 

than the unusual practice”). According to Schuler, these 

policies led PwC’s board to deny him and other older 

employees admission to the firm’s partnership in July 2004 

and July 2005. PwC, echoing the district court’s opinion, 

refers to the 2004 and 2005 nonpromotion decisions as 

separate claims to be analyzed and disposed of independently. 

We need not dwell long on this dispute, for the complaint 

answers the question in Schuler’s favor. Schuler did raise 

two claims, but not the ones the district court thought. As 

noted above, Schuler’s first claim, raised under the subject 

heading “Claim One,” alleges the following ADEA violation: 

PwC has discriminated against Schuler and against 

other professional employees of PwC over the age of 

45 by denying them promotions to partnership on the 

basis of their age. . . . PwC’s discriminatory 

promotional practices are guided by an underlying 

discriminatory policy that requires all partners to 

leave their employment with PwC when they attain 

age 60. 

Compl. ¶ 48. Put simply, Schuler’s first claim is this: “PwC 

has engaged in a pattern and practice of age discrimination in 

making decisions regarding assignments and promotions in 

violation of section 4 of the ADEA, 29 U.S.C. § 623(a).” Id. 

¶ 50. The dates July 1, 2004 and July 1, 2005 appear nowhere 

in claim one. Schuler’s second claim, styled “Claim Two,” 

alleges similar violations of the DCHRA. Like Schuler’s 

federal claim, this state law claim makes no reference to 

individual nonpromotion decisions, but rather incorporates 

the rest of the complaint by reference. Only in the 

complaint’s jurisdiction and fact sections does Schuler 

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mention the “two discrete incidents of discrimination” around 

which the district court framed its opinion. Schuler, 457 F. 

Supp. 2d at 4. The jurisdiction section explains that the 

“action seeks . . . relief for PwC’s refusal to promote Schuler 

and other qualified older professional employees on July 1, 

2004 and July 1, 2005,” Compl. ¶ 2, and the fact section 

relates a string of statistics demonstrating how PwC’s 

allegedly discriminatory promotion policies have injured 

older employees over the years, including him. Id. ¶¶ 22-23, 

39. Indeed, Schuler claims that PwC’s policy has consistently 

and unlawfully operated to his disadvantage since the year 

2000. Id. ¶ 39. In short, Schuler alleges that PwC’s 

discriminatory retirement policy, which begets a 

discriminatory promotion policy, violates the ADEA to his 

detriment and to the detriment of the class of older workers he 

seeks to represent. That Schuler now seeks relief for the 

policy’s continued application in 2004 and 2005 is neither 

here nor there. We therefore read Schuler’s complaint as he 

wrote it—alleging one ADEA claim based on PwC’s “pattern 

and practice” of discriminatory promotion decisions and one 

state law claim under the DCHRA challenging the same 

policy. 

Having thus identified Schuler’s claims, we turn to the 

first question before us: has Schuler satisfied the ADEA’s 

administrative preconditions for filing suit in federal court? 

By filing his February 2005 charge with the EEOC’s New 

York district office, Schuler plainly satisfied section 626(d)’s 

requirement that he file a complaint with the EEOC. The 

district court, however, dismissed the case, concluding that 

Schuler had failed to satisfy section 633(b)’s requirement that 

he also file his charge with a state agency authorized to “grant 

or seek relief from [the alleged] discriminatory practice.” 29 

U.S.C. § 633(b). Challenging this decision, Schuler argues 

that he fulfilled this administrative prerequisite in two ways: 

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(1) through the operation of a “worksharing agreement” 

between the EEOC and the DCOHR under which his charge 

was “deemed filed” with the District of Columbia agency; 

and (2) by virtue of the EEOC’s cross-filing his charge with 

the NYSDHR in New York. We address each argument in 

turn. 

The D.C. Worksharing Agreement 

EEOC regulations, specifically 29 C.F.R. § 1626.10, 

allow the Commission to “enter into agreements with State or 

local fair employment practices agencies to cooperate in 

enforcement, technical assistance, research, or public 

informational activities, and [to] engage the services of such 

agencies in processing charges assuring the safeguard of the 

federal rights of aggrieved persons.” Id. § 1626.10(a). The 

regulations further provide that these agreements may 

“authorize such agencies to receive charges and complaints 

pursuant to § 1626.5 and in accordance with the specifications 

contained in §§ 1626.7 and 1626.8.” Id. § 1626.10(b). The 

first of these provisions allows aggrieved employees to 

submit EEOC charges “to any office of the Commission or to 

any designated representative of the Commission,” id. § 

1626.5, the second establishes timeliness requirements, id. § 

1626.7, and the third prescribes the necessary substantive 

contents of charges, id. § 1626.8. Critically for this case, the 

regulation’s final subsection provides: 

When a worksharing agreement with a State 

agency is in effect, the State agency will act on 

certain charges and the Commission will promptly 

process charges which the State agency does not 

pursue. Charges received by one agency under 

the agreement shall be deemed received by the 

other agency for purposes of § 1626.7. 

USCA Case #06-7207 Document #1098498 Filed: 02/12/2008 Page 11 of 27
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Id. § 1626.10(c) (emphasis added). Pursuant to these 

regulations, the EEOC has entered into worksharing 

agreements with both the NYSDHR and the DCOHR. Thus, 

Schuler argues, when he filed his charge with the EEOC’s 

New York district office, it should have been “deemed 

received” by the DCOHR, id., thereby satisfying ADEA 

section 633(b) and clearing the way for his federal suit. 

PwC counters that these worksharing agreements bind 

only individual EEOC field offices to individual state 

agencies, meaning that the New York agreement allows the 

NYSDHR and the Commission’s New York office to refer 

charges to one another while the D.C. agreement does the 

same for the DCOHR and the EEOC’s District of Columbia 

field office. But because the EEOC’s New York office—

where Schuler filed his charge—has no contractual 

relationship with the DCOHR, PwC argues that the charge 

cannot be “deemed received” by that agency, id., which, 

according to PwC, is the only state agency “authoriz[ed] . . . 

to grant or seek relief from [the alleged] discriminatory 

practice.” 29 U.S.C. § 633(b). And because nothing in the 

record indicates the DCOHR ever actually received a copy of 

Schuler’s charge, either from the Commission or from 

Schuler himself, PwC insists that the district court correctly 

dismissed the action for failure to satisfy ADEA section 

633(b). 

 Resolving this dispute requires an analysis of the 

worksharing agreement, which the EEOC, acting in 

accordance with 29 C.F.R. § 1626.10, has signed with the 

DCOHR. Because that “worksharing agreement . . . is in 

effect, . . . [c]harges received by one agency under the 

agreement shall be deemed received by the other agency.” Id.

§ 1626.10(c) (emphasis added). The D.C. worksharing 

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agreement’s first operative provision expressly implements 

this regulation, stating, “[i]n order to facilitate the assertion of 

employment rights, the EEOC and the [DCOHR] each 

designate the other as its agent for the purpose of receiving 

and drafting charges.” D.C. Worksharing Agreement ¶ II.A. 

Read together, the regulation and agreement thus make clear 

that for all intents and purposes, the DCOHR receives charges 

filed with the EEOC. 

Even if this arrangement alone fails to refute PwC’s 

argument, it bears mentioning that the DCOHR has waived its 

right to process age discrimination claims initially filed with 

the EEOC. The worksharing agreement provides that “[t]he 

EEOC and the [DCOHR] will process all Title VII, ADA, and 

ADEA charges that they originally receive.” Id. ¶ III.A. 

Deferral state filing requirements are designed to “give state 

agencies a prior opportunity to consider discrimination 

complaints,” Love v. Pullman Co., 404 U.S. 522, 526 (1972), 

and states may voluntarily waive that right if they wish, see 

EEOC v. Commercial Office Prods. Co., 486 U.S. 107, 117 

(1988) (holding that states may “waive the [Title VII] 60-day 

deferral period but retain jurisdiction over discrimination 

charges by entering into worksharing agreements with the 

EEOC”). Here, the District of Columbia has preemptively 

declined its opportunity, effectively telling the EEOC that it 

wants nothing to do with ADEA claims the Commission 

receives first. Had the D.C. agency physically received 

Schuler’s charge, it would have taken no action on it. 

 

Accordingly, absent any indication to the contrary, we 

hold that the D.C. worksharing agreement alone sufficed to 

“commence[]” proceedings under state law as ADEA section 

633(b) requires. In Griffin v. City of Dallas, 26 F.3d 610 (5th 

Cir. 1994), the Fifth Circuit reached an identical conclusion 

while interpreting a similar worksharing agreement in the 

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Title VII context. There, the court held that “upon the 

EEOC’s receipt of the complaint, the [state agency], for all 

legal and practical purposes, received the complaint,” 

meaning that “once the [state agency] received [the] 

complaint, even if only nominally, proceedings were 

instituted within the meaning of [the statute].” Id. at 612-13. 

The Seventh Circuit similarly allowed an ADEA claim to 

proceed in light of a worksharing agreement. See Kaimowitz 

v. Bd. of Trustees of the Univ. of Ill., 951 F.2d 765, 767 (7th 

Cir. 1992) (“Because the workshar[ing] agreement provides 

for direct filing with the EEOC and both initiation and 

termination of the state’s interests pursuant to a prearranged 

waiver, [the plaintiff] was not required to physically file his 

complaint with the [state agency].”). Nothing in the record 

before us provides any reason to reach a more restrictive 

result here. We therefore conclude that Schuler, having 

waited more than “sixty days after proceedings ha[d] been 

commenced under . . . State law” to file his complaint in 

federal court, has satisfied ADEA section 633(b)’s procedural 

requirements. 29 U.S.C. § 633(b). 

 PwC nonetheless insists that Schuler’s EEOC filing 

was insufficient, but its arguments are unpersuasive. In 

support of its contention that EEOC worksharing agreements 

bind individual EEOC field offices rather than the 

Commission in general, PwC points out that both the D.C. 

and New York agreements were signed by the EEOC’s 

regional directors on behalf of each local office. But so what? 

That the Commission conducts its affairs through local offices 

and officers goes without saying. Indeed, the EEOC’s annual 

report, which lays out the agency’s organizational structure, 

explains that “through the [Headquarters-based] Office of 

Field Program’s State and Local Programs, the EEOC 

maintains worksharing agreements . . . with 96 state and local 

Fair Employment Practices Agencies (FEPAs) for the purpose 

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of coordinating the investigation of charges dual-filed under 

State and local law and Federal law, as appropriate.” EEOC,

FISCAL YEAR 2007 PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY 

REPORT appx. A (2007), available at http://www.eeoc.gov/ 

abouteeoc/plan/par/2007/appendixes.html#a. Accordingly, 

the agreements refer to the “EEOC” as the relevant party 

throughout their substantive provisions, not to its constituent 

field offices. In that sense, the worksharing agreements echo 

their authorizing regulation, which states that “the 

Commission may enter into agreements with state or local fair 

employment practices agencies.” 29 C.F.R. § 1626.10(a) 

(emphasis added). Furthermore, it would make little sense to 

allow aggrieved employees to satisfy ADEA section 626(d) 

by submitting their EEOC charges in “any office of the 

Commission or to any designated representative of the 

Commission” across the country, id. § 1626.5, while 

simultaneously saddling them with the burden of divining 

which other EEOC offices must also receive their charges to 

satisfy section 633(b). These worksharing agreements are 

meant to ease charges through the remedial system, not to 

erect hurdles claimants must decipher and overcome. As the 

Sixth Circuit put it while discussing Title VII’s analogous 

deferral state provision, “[a]lthough . . . state worksharing 

agreements are designed to allow states a ‘first bite’ at 

resolving [discrimination] cases, mechanisms created to give 

states such [an] opportunity must not stand in the way of the 

necessarily simple claims-making procedure.” Nichols v. 

Muskingum College, 318 F.3d 674, 678-79 (6th Cir. 2003). 

Next, PwC argues that section 1626.10(c) comes into 

play only after the EEOC actually sends a charge to the 

relevant state agency—something PwC says never happened 

here. For support, it points to Petrelle v. Weirton Steel Corp., 

953 F.2d 148 (4th Cir. 1991), in which the Fourth Circuit, 

interpreting a West Virginia EEOC worksharing agreement, 

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found similar “deemed received” language insufficient to 

satisfy section 633(b) because the charge had never actually 

been referred to the state agency. Id. at 152-53. In Petrelle, 

however, the Fourth Circuit heard the case on appeal from a 

decision granting a motion for a judgment notwithstanding 

the verdict, id. at 149, not from a motion to dismiss on the 

pleadings, as we do. Therefore, the Petrelle court could go 

beyond the pleadings and consider the trial record, which 

included testimony by the West Virginia Human Rights 

Commission’s assistant director explaining that “despite the 

agreement’s language of agency, the [state agency] requires 

physical receipt by it of the EEOC’s referral in order to deem 

charges filed with . . . it.” Id. at 152. Here, by contrast, we 

have no evidence outside the pleadings, and nothing in those 

documents implies that the DCOHR maintains a similar 

requirement. Nor do we see any reason to read one into the 

agreement; indeed, given that “any ambiguities or doubts 

concerning the sufficiency of the claim must be resolved in 

favor of the pleader,” Doe, 753 F.2d at 1102, we must assume 

its absence. Moreover, the agreement at issue in Petrelle

“contain[ed] no automatic waiver language which [could] be 

interpreted as an unconditional waiver by the state of its 

deferral rights under § 633(b).” 953 F.2d at 153. As 

discussed above, the D.C. worksharing agreement contains 

precisely such language. 

Even if the DCOHR had to receive an actual copy of the 

complaint to commence proceedings, it bears repeating that 

Schuler explicitly told the EEOC that his “complaint should 

be CROSS FILED WITH THE HUMAN RIGHTS 

AGENCIES OF NEW YORK CITY, THE STATE OF NEW 

YORK, AND WASHINGTON, D.C.” Decl. of Harold Schuler 

5 (emphasis added). PwC reads this statement as an abstract 

acknowledgment that the charge ought to be filed in 

Washington, D.C. rather than as a specific request that the 

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17 

EEOC refer the charge to the DCOHR, but this is absurd. As 

Schuler’s counsel explained at oral argument, he filed his 

charge in New York to ensure that PwC managers 

“understood what was being argued in the case” and “thought 

that was all right [be]cause the reg[ulation]s say you can file 

your charge with [the] EEOC anywhere.” Oral Arg. Tr. 13. 

Counsel nonetheless sought to protect his client by asking the 

EEOC to cross-file his charge with all relevant state agencies, 

including the DCOHR—a request that made sense given 

Commission regulations empowering it to “refer all charges 

to any appropriate State agency . . . in order to assure that the 

prerequisites for private law suits, as set out in section 

[633(b)], are met.” 29 C.F.R. § 1626.9. “It is well settled 

law that if the EEOC fails to refer a charge to the state 

charging agency, the EEOC’s misfeasance is not held against 

the plaintiff.” Nichols, 318 F.3d at 678; see also Mitchell v. 

Mid-Continent Spring Co. of Ky., 466 F.2d 24, 27 (6th Cir. 

1972) (“It is clear that [plaintiff] should not lose her cause of 

action because of the failure of EEOC to refer her complaint 

to a State agency.”). Thus, even if the DCOHR required 

physical receipt of Schuler’s charge—and we have no reason 

to believe that it does—in order to initiate proceedings over a 

complaint the agency has already disclaimed any intention of 

acting upon, Schuler cannot be held responsible for the 

EEOC’s failure to forward the charge as he explicitly 

requested. This assumes, of course, that the EEOC’s decision 

not to forward Schuler’s charge to the DCOHR amounted to a 

bureaucratic failure in the first place. For reasons we explain 

below, however, we find perfectly reasonable the EEOC’s 

decision to refer Schuler’s charge only to the New York State 

Division of Human Rights. 

PwC raises a final question about the D.C. worksharing 

agreement. Immediately following paragraph II.A’s language 

designating the EEOC as the DCOHR’s agent for purposes of 

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18 

receiving charges (and vice versa), the agreement says: 

“EEOC’s receipt of charges on the [DCOHR]’s behalf will 

automatically initiate the proceedings of both the EEOC and 

the [DCOHR] for the purposes of . . . Title VII.” D.C. 

Worksharing Agreement ¶ II.A (emphasis added). According 

to PwC, this language unambiguously demonstrates that the 

agreement commences proceedings only for Title VII claims, 

not ADEA claims. Disagreeing, Schuler points to the 

agreement’s waiver provision, which draws no such 

distinction and expressly mentions the ADEA. Id. ¶ III.A. 

The record contains no evidence at all of the contracting 

parties’ intent because PwC chose to move for judgment on 

the pleadings rather than summary judgment. Absent any 

evidence to the contrary, it seems to us that the agreement 

may have singled out Title VII claims because that statute 

requires grievants to file with state agencies before filing with 

the EEOC while the ADEA allows for “concurrent rather than 

sequential state and federal administrative jurisdiction.” 

Oscar Mayer, 441 U.S. at 757. Accordingly, the EEOC and 

the DCOHR may have wished to make it clear that the D.C. 

agency intended to waive its statutory right to proceed first. 

That the worksharing agreement addresses this statutory 

peculiarity neither limits nor otherwise affects the rest of the 

agreement’s clear application to ADEA claims. 

We reject PwC’s construction of the worksharing 

agreement for another reason: it would effectively rewrite the 

ADEA’s administrative prerequisites, making them traps for 

the unwary, poised to spring into action and deny those who 

may have suffered employment discrimination their right to 

seek redress in federal court. Indeed, the Supreme Court has 

announced “a guiding principle for construing the provisions 

of Title VII,” Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 455 U.S. 

385, 397 (1982), which applies with equal force to the 

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ADEA: a technical reading of the statute’s filing requirements 

is “particularly inappropriate in a statutory scheme in which 

laymen, unassisted by trained lawyers, initiate the process.” 

Love, 404 U.S. at 527 (holding that a Title VII claimant need 

not re-file a charge after termination of state proceedings); see 

also Oscar Mayer, 441 U.S. at 755 (interpreting the ADEA’s 

state filing requirement in light of Title VII’s because the two 

provisions are “virtually in haec verba”). To be sure, Schuler 

had a lawyer, but we interpret the statute not just for his 

benefit, but for all aggrieved employees. We must therefore 

avoid construing the statute in a way that imposes extratextual burdens “serv[ing] no purpose other than the creation 

of an additional procedural technicality.” Love, 404 U.S. at 

526. 

The EEOC filing requirement “is intended to promote the 

speedy, informal, non-judicial resolution of discrimination 

claims, . . . to preserve evidence and records relating to the 

alleged discriminatory action,” McClinton v. Ala. By-Prods. 

Corp., 743 F.2d 1483, 1485 (11th Cir. 1984), and “to give 

prompt notice to the employer,” Zipes, 455 U.S. at 398. Like 

its Title VII analog, the ADEA’s deferral state filing 

requirement “is intended to give state agencies a limited 

opportunity to resolve problems of employment 

discrimination and thereby to make unnecessary, resort to 

federal relief by victims of the discrimination.” Oscar Mayer, 

441 U.S. at 755. Because Schuler’s actual filing with the 

EEOC and his nominal filing with the DCOHR served each of 

these purposes, the ADEA requires nothing more. 

In sum, Schuler properly and timely filed an EEOC 

charge and asked the Commission to cross-file it with the 

DCOHR, which has entered into a contractual arrangement 

with the EEOC designed to “facilitate the assertion of 

employment rights.” D.C. Worksharing Agreement ¶ II.A. 

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20 

Nothing in either the agreement’s text or the record before us 

reveals that the EEOC or the DCOHR intended to exclude a 

claim like Schuler’s from coverage. Under these 

circumstances, we conclude that Schuler satisfied ADEA 

section 633(b)’s deferral state filing requirement. 

The New York State Division of Human Rights 

Schuler argues that even if we were to find the D.C. 

worksharing agreement ambiguous or otherwise inadequate, 

his suit may proceed on an alternate ground. Specifically, 

Schuler argues that he satisfied ADEA section 633(b)’s 

deferral state filing requirement when the EEOC cross-filed 

his charge with the NYSDHR, assuring him that he “need do 

nothing further at this time.” Letter from Araujo to Schuler. 

PwC disagrees, pointing out that in Murphy—Schuler’s 

previous and still pending case—the district court held that 

New York’s Human Rights Law requires plaintiffs to “allege 

that the actual impact of the discriminatory act was felt in 

New York.” Murphy, 357 F. Supp. 2d at 244. Because 

Schuler’s alleged injury occurred in Washington, D.C., PwC 

argues, the NYSDHR lacks authority to “grant or seek relief 

from [the alleged] discriminatory practice,” rendering it an 

inappropriate deferral state. 29 U.S.C. § 633(b). We 

disagree. Relying on a plain reading of both the state law and 

Schuler’s EEOC charge, we hold that New York’s Human 

Rights Law covers this case, thereby granting the NYSDHR 

jurisdiction over Schuler’s charge. 

Like his complaint in the district court, see supra at 9-10, 

Schuler’s February 2005 EEOC charge clearly alleges a 

pattern and practice of discrimination resulting from PwC’s 

mandatory retirement and promotion policies. On the 

charge’s cover page, Schuler wrote, “The Employer, PwC, 

has followed and continues to follow age discriminatory 

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21 

practices for promotion to partnership that favor employees 

younger than 40 years old and harm me and other older 

employees.” EEOC Charge of Discrimination. In the 

declaration attached to the charge, Schuler stated that he lives 

in Virginia, that PwC is headquartered in New York City, and 

that he and other employees have failed to make partner 

because of “policies and procedures adopted and maintained 

by [PwC]’s Senior Partner and Chief Executive Officer 

Dennis Nally and the 14 other members of its Board of 

Partners and Principals.” Decl. of Schuler 1. Schuler further 

asserted that PwC has promoted over 200 older employees to 

“Managing Director” while younger employees have become 

partners. Id. at 3. 

PwC argues that Schuler never explicitly alleged that 

PwC’s board and CEO meet in New York, or that the 

allegedly discriminatory policy was adopted there, but we 

think that a reasonable inference given Schuler’s assertion 

that the company is headquartered in New York City. See 

Shehadeh v. Chesapeake & Potomac Tel. Co. of Md., 595 

F.2d 711, 727 (D.C. Cir. 1978) (noting that EEOC complaints 

“are to be construed liberally”). Thus, the precise question 

we face is this: does the NYHRL apply to a New York-based 

company’s decision to adopt, maintain, and implement an 

allegedly discriminatory promotion policy that injures an outof-state resident? 

We begin, as we must, with the statute’s text. See 

Hughes Aircraft Co. v. Jacobson, 525 U.S. 432, 438 (1999) 

(“[I]n any case of statutory construction, our analysis begins 

with ‘the language of the statute.’ And where the statutory 

language provides a clear answer, it ends there as well.” 

(quoting Estate of Cowart v. Nicklos Drilling Co., 505 U.S. 

469, 475 (1992))). NYHRL section 296 lays out the law’s 

substantive provisions, making it “an unlawful discriminatory 

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22 

practice” for employers, licensing agencies, employment 

agencies, or labor organizations to discriminate against “any 

individual” on the basis of “age, race, creed, color, national 

origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex, disability, 

predisposing genetic characteristics, or marital status.” N.Y. 

Exec. Law § 296. As PwC’s counsel conceded at oral 

argument, this provision contains no requirement that the 

unlawful discriminatory impact occur in New York. See Oral 

Arg. Tr. 26 (agreeing with the Court that “there’s no 

exception in the statute for discriminatory acts committed 

inside the state that affect non-residents”). Rather, the law 

forbids all employers in the state from engaging in 

discriminatory acts. Thus, absent some exception or 

limitation, section 296, on its face, applies to PwC’s adoption, 

maintenance, and implementation of an allegedly 

discriminatory promotion policy. 

Significantly, the NYHRL does include a section 

extending the law “to certain acts committed outside the state 

of New York,” N.Y. Exec. Law § 298-a, but, as PwC’s 

counsel again conceded at oral argument, neither of that 

provision’s two subsections has any bearing on this case. The 

first, subsection 298-a(1), applies the law with equal force “to 

an act committed outside [New York] against a resident of 

[New York]” or against a New York corporation. Id. § 298-

a(1). That isn’t this case. The other, subsection 298-a(2) 

applies the law to New York residents who violate the law 

outside the state. Id. § 298-a(2). That isn’t this case either. 

Here, Schuler alleges that a New York company has 

committed a discriminatory act in New York, namely 

adopting, maintaining, and implementing a retirement and 

promotion policy that disadvantages a class of employees on 

the basis of age. Thus, nothing in the statute’s plain text 

removes Schuler’s charge from the NYHRL’s reach or the 

NYSDHR’s jurisdiction. 

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PwC nonetheless urges us to set the plain terms of the 

statute aside and follow a string of New York federal district 

court cases construing the NYHRL to include an in-state 

impact requirement. See, e.g., Pearce v. Manhattan Ensemble 

Theater, Inc., No. 06 Civ. 1535 (KMW), 2007 WL 707068, at 

*7 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 6, 2007) (recognizing a split of authority 

regarding whether the NYHRL, like the New York City 

Human Rights Law, includes an in-state “impact 

requirement” and holding that it does); Lucas v. Pathfinder’s 

Personnel, Inc., No. 01 Civ. 2252 (BSJ), 2002 WL 986641, 

at *2 (S.D.N.Y. May 13, 2002) (“[T]he fact that the decision 

to terminate Plaintiff was made in New York State is not 

sufficient to establish a violation of the NYSHRL.”); Duffy v. 

Drake Beam Morin, No. 96 Civ. 5606 (MBM), 1998 WL 

252063, at *12 (S.D.N.Y. May 19, 1998) (“[T]he State 

Human Rights Law affords no remedy to a non-New York 

resident who suffers discrimination outside New York 

State.”). For his part, Schuler responds with his own list of 

Southern District of New York cases holding “there is no 

New York authority to suggest that the impact of a 

discriminatory act must be felt within New York for the 

NYHRL to apply.” Hart v. Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein 

Sec., LLC, No. 06 Civ. 0134 (DAB), 2006 WL 2356157, at *8 

(S.D.N.Y. Aug. 9, 2006); see also, e.g., Tebbenhoff v. Elec. 

Data Sys. Corp., No. 02 Civ. 2932 (TPG), 2005 WL 3182952, 

at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 29, 2005) (“The fact that a decision to 

discriminatorily terminate a non-resident was made in New 

York can alone suffice to state a claim under NY[]HRL.”); 

Torrico v. IBM Corp., 319 F. Supp. 2d 390, 399 n.5 

(S.D.N.Y. 2004) (disagreeing with Lucas, 2002 WL 986641, 

and rejecting an in-state impact requirement). 

Although none of these federal district court decisions 

binds us, we think it worth noting that the decisions PwC cites 

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24 

are unpersuasive. Take for example Duffy v. Drake Beam 

Morin, the case cited by most of the other decisions on PwC’s 

side of the ledger. There, the court held that “the State 

Human Rights Law affords no remedy to a non-New York 

resident who suffers discrimination outside New York State.” 

1998 WL 252063, at *12 (emphasis added). In reaching this 

conclusion, the court cites two cases, neither of which 

supports its holding. 

The first case, Iwankow v. Mobil Corp., 541 N.Y.S.2d 

428 (App. Div. 1989), is the only New York state court 

decision addressing the NYHRL’s extraterritorial scope. 

There, the Appellate Division held, “absent an allegation that 

a discriminatory act was committed in New York or that a 

New York State resident was discriminated against, New 

York’s courts have no subject matter jurisdiction over the 

alleged wrong.” Id. at 429. Thus, contrary to the Duffy

court’s interpretation, Iwankow says nothing about where 

plaintiffs may “suffer[] discrimination,” Duffy, 1998 WL 

252063, at *12; it merely requires them to allege an in-state 

discriminatory act. In Iwankow, “[t]he only jurisdictional 

nexus asserted in the complaint, apart from the fact that 

defendants [we]re domestic corporations, [was] that 

plaintiff’s termination was part of a world-wide reduction in 

force which was decided upon at corporate headquarters in 

New York.” 541 N.Y.S.2d at 429. The court dismissed that 

claim because the plaintiff had failed to “allege that the 

decision to implement this reduction in an age-discriminatory 

manner originated at corporate headquarters.” Id. Schuler, of 

course, alleges just that regarding PwC’s promotion policy. 

Like Iwankow, the second case Duffy cites, Beckett v. 

Prudential Insurance Co. of America, 893 F. Supp. 234 

(S.D.N.Y. 1995), holds that “[t]he NYHRL does not provide a 

non-resident with a private cause of action for discriminatory 

conduct committed outside of New York by a New York

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25 

corporation.” Id. at 238. And also like Iwankow, Beckett

provides no support for Duffy’s broad holding that “a nonNew York resident who suffers discrimination outside New 

York State” may find no recourse in the NYHRL. Duffy, 

1998 WL 252063, at *12 (emphasis added); see also Rice v. 

Wartsila NSD Power Dev., Inc., 183 Fed. App’x. 147, 148 

(2d Cir. 2006) (unpublished summary order) (finding the 

NYHRL inapplicable when plaintiff failed to allege a 

discriminatory act occurring in New York), aff’g Rice v. 

Scudder Kemper Invs., Inc., No. 01 Civ. 7078 (RLC), 2003 

WL 21961010 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 14, 2003). More to the point, 

given that Schuler has alleged discriminatory conduct 

committed in New York, neither Iwankow nor Beckett has any 

bearing on this case. 

In sum, the New York Human Rights Law, by its terms, 

applies to this case, and “no New York authority . . . 

suggest[s] that the impact of a discriminatory act must be felt 

within New York for the NYHRL to apply.” Hart, 2006 WL 

2356157, at *8. Absent a contrary interpretation by the New 

York Court of Appeals or the Second Circuit, we conclude 

that in addition to satisfying ADEA section 633(b)’s deferral 

state filing requirement via the D.C. worksharing agreement, 

Schuler adequately sought a state administrative remedy in 

New York by having his charge cross-filed with the 

NYSDHR. 

III. 

A final question remains: did Schuler have to file a new 

EEOC charge after PwC’s failure to promote him in July 

2005, or was his February 2005 charge sufficient? Schuler’s 

complaint alleges that PwC’s board declined to elevate him to 

partner on two occasions—July 2004 and July 2005—and he 

seeks damages flowing from each decision. Schuler’s 

February 2005 EEOC charge, however, made no mention of 

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26 

the July 2005 nonpromotion for an obvious reason: Schuler 

filed it four months before that decision occurred. Finding 

the two alleged failures to promote to be “discrete incidents of 

discrimination,” Schuler, 457 F. Supp. 2d at 4, the district 

court dismissed the July 2005 “claim” as untimely because 

Schuler failed to file a new charge based on the July 2005 

decision. Id. at 5; see also 29 U.S.C. § 626(d)(2) (requiring a 

plaintiff to file an EEOC charge “within 300 days after the 

alleged unlawful practice occurred” if section 633(b) applies). 

According to PwC, this failure provides a separate ground for 

affirming the district court’s dismissal of Schuler’s July 2005 

“claim.” Schuler disagrees, contending that his pattern and 

practice claim “necessarily contemplates continued annual 

violations of the ADEA,” Appellant’s Opening Br. 22, 

making it pointless to require him to file a new EEOC charge 

with each predictable application of the same discriminatory 

policy. 

Interesting as this question may be, we need not decide it 

because, given the posture of this case, it is of no practical 

significance. As described above, Schuler brought a single 

federal claim—a class-action pattern or practice ADEA claim 

arising out of PwC’s mandatory retirement and promotion 

policy—not two discrete nonpromotion charges. See supra at 

9-10. Schuler seeks damages flowing from the first 

application of PwC’s allegedly discriminatory policy through 

to the present. See Compl. 16 (seeking an “[a]ward of 

damages in an amount to be determined by the jury, for each 

year commencing on July 1, 1999, and each year thereafter”). 

As Schuler’s counsel explained at oral argument, should 

Schuler ultimately prevail on his federal claim, he will be 

entitled to compensation dating back to the original injury. 

See Oral Arg. Tr. 14-15; see also 29 U.S.C. § 626(c)(2) 

(allowing ADEA plaintiffs to bring “action[s] for recovery of 

amounts owing as a result of a violation of” the statute). 

USCA Case #06-7207 Document #1098498 Filed: 02/12/2008 Page 26 of 27
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Accordingly, because Schuler filed a timely and procedurally 

adequate EEOC charge before initiating his federal suit, see 

supra Part II, and because his complaint seeks damages 

flowing from the alleged violation onward, we see no reason 

to consider whether an additional EEOC charge was required 

to support the effectively irrelevant July 2005 nonpromotion 

decision. 

IV. 

Because it is quite possible that Schuler can prove a “set 

of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to 

relief,” Gilvin v. Fire, 259 F.3d 749, 756 (D.C. Cir. 2001), we 

reverse the dismissal of his ADEA claim for failure to satisfy 

the statute’s administrative prerequisites and remand the case 

for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We 

leave it to the district court to decide whether to exercise 

supplemental jurisdiction over Schuler’s DCHRA claim 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a). 

So ordered. 

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