UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

SOUTHERN DIVISION

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

COMMISSION, Case Number 14-cv-13710

Plaintiff, Hon. Sean F. Cox

DONNA STEPHENS, as TRUSTEE OF THE REPLY BRIEF IN 

AIMEE A. AND DONNA STEPHENS TRUST, SUPPORT OF MOTION

TO INTERVENE

Proposed Plaintiff-Intervenor,

v.

R.G. & G.R. HARRIS FUNERAL HOMES,

INC.,

Defendant.

________________________________________/

John A. Knight

American Civil Liberties Union 

 Foundation

150 N. Michigan Ave., Ste. 600

Chicago, IL 60601

(312) 201-9740

jaknight@aclu.org

James D. Esseks

American Civil Liberties Union 

 Foundation

125 Broad St., 18th Floor

New York, NY 10004

(212) 549-2623

jesseks@aclu.org

Daniel S. Korobkin (P72842)

Jay D. Kaplan (P38197)

American Civil Liberties Union

 Fund of Michigan

2966 Woodward Ave.

Detroit, MI 48201

(313) 578-6800

dkorobkin@aclumich.org

jkaplan@aclumich.org

Counsel for Proposed Plaintiff-Intervenor

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REPLY BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO INTERVENE

Proposed Plaintiff-Intervenor, Donna Stephens, as Trustee of the Aimee A. 

and Donna Stephens Trust (Ms. Stephens), by her attorneys from the American 

Civil Liberties Union Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union Fund of 

Michigan, files this reply brief in support of her Motion to Intervene, in response to 

the Response (ECF No. 108) filed by Defendant R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral 

Homes, Inc. (the “Funeral Home”) to Proposed Plaintiff-Intervenor’s Motion to 

Intervene.

The Funeral Home suggests in its Response that the Court deny the Motion 

to Intervene because the Funeral Home and the EEOC have “reached an agreement 

in principle” on resolving the EEOC’s claims against the Funeral Home, while the 

Funeral Home has not yet reached a settlement of Ms. Stephens’s claims against it. 

Far from providing a reason to deny the Motion to Intervene, the situation 

the Funeral Home describes illustrates why the motion should be granted. 

The Civil Rights Act gives the EEOC the power to bring a lawsuit to enforce 

Title VII in its own name. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1). In such cases, the EEOC 

does not represent the charging party – the employee about whose employment 

situation the EEOC brings suit – but instead represents its own enforcement 

interests. See Adler v. United States, 2012 WL 75951, at *4 (D. Nev. Jan. 10, 

2012) (noting that “the EEOC does not represent [the aggrieved] person’s interest”

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but instead “represent[s] the public interest”). So even in run-of-the-mill cases that 

the EEOC brings in its own name, there can be some distance between the EEOC’s 

interests and those of the charging party. Indeed, that is likely a key reason that 

Congress gave charging parties a statutory right to intervene in these cases. See id.

(“In recognizing that the public interest may conflict with an aggrieved person's 

interest, Congress gave the aggrieved person the right to intervene in order to 

protect his or her own interests.”).

But this case is far from run-of-the-mill. Here, the gap between the interests 

of the EEOC and the interests of the employee, Ms. Stephens, may well be the 

largest in any case where the EEOC has ever brought suit in its own name, since 

here the EEOC actually abandoned Ms. Stephens when the case reached the United 

States Supreme Court and argued that Title VII allowed the Funeral Home to fire 

her for being transgender. 

The disconnect between how the EEOC views Ms. Stephens’s claims and 

how Ms. Stephens herself views those claims did not disappear when the case was 

remanded to this Court. Ms. Stephens values her claims – both for damages and 

for attorneys’ fees – differently than the EEOC does. It would be unreasonable in 

the extreme to require Ms. Stephens to rely on the EEOC to represent her interests 

in the damages phase of this litigation when the EEOC argued against her on the 

liability question. 

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In light of these realities, the Funeral Home’s suggestion that it should be 

allowed to settle the EEOC’s claims while Ms. Stephens is left out of the case 

entirely simply illustrates why her motion to intervene should be granted. It is not 

surprising that the Funeral Home would prefer to continue dealing only with the 

EEOC, which was its partner in urging the Supreme Court to rule against Ms. 

Stephens. But Ms. Stephens submits that both the text of Title VII and equity 

demand a different result. 

Dated: September 21, 2020

John A. Knight

American Civil Liberties Union 

 Foundation

150 N. Michigan Ave., Ste. 600

Chicago, IL 60601

(312) 201-9740

jaknight@aclu.org

James Esseks

American Civil Liberties Union 

 Foundation

125 Broad St., 18th Floor

New York, NY 10004

(212) 549-2623

jesseks@aclu.org

Respectfully submitted,

By: /s/ Daniel S. Korobkin

Daniel S. Korobkin (P72842)

Jay D. Kaplan (P38197)

American Civil Liberties Union

 Fund of Michigan

2966 Woodward Ave.

Detroit, MI 48201

(313) 578-6800

jkaplan@aclumich.org

dkorobkin@aclumich.org

Counsel for Proposed Plaintiff-Intervenor

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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I hereby certify that on September 21, 2020, I electronically filed this 

document with the Clerk of the Court using the ECF system which will send 

notification of such filing to all counsel of record.

/s/ Daniel S. Korobkin

Daniel S. Korobkin (P72842)

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