RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION 

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) 

File Name: 17a0121p.06 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

UNITED PARCEL SERVICE, INC., 

Defendant-Appellant. 

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No. 16-2132 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit. 

No. 2:16-mc-50588—Arthur J. Tarnow, District Judge. 

Decided and Filed: June 9, 2017 

 Before: NORRIS, MOORE, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges. 

_________________ 

COUNSEL 

ON BRIEF: Bonnie Mayfield, DYKEMA GOSSETT, PLLC, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Jill 

M. Wheaton, DYKEMA GOSSETT, PLLC, Ann Arbor, Michigan, for Appellant. Julie L. 

Gantz, EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Washington, D.C., for 

Appellee. 

_________________ 

OPINION 

_________________ 

 KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge. This case concerns the scope of evidence 

that Plaintiff-Appellee Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) may obtain in 

investigating charges of discrimination. Sinisa Matovski, an operations manager for DefendantAppellant United Parcel Service, Inc. (“UPS”) who has a disability, filed an EEOC charge 

>
No. 16-2132 EEOC v. UPS Page 2

claiming that UPS discriminated and retaliated against him in violation of the Americans with 

Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”). In particular, Matovski claims that UPS published 

confidential medical information about him and other employees on its intranet page. The 

EEOC began an investigation into Matovski’s claims, which resulted in a subpoena that 

requested information about how UPS stored and disclosed employee medical information. UPS 

opposed the subpoena, claiming that the requested information was irrelevant to Matovski’s 

charge. This resulted in the EEOC filing an application to enforce the subpoena. The district 

court granted the application, and UPS has appealed. Because the information that the EEOC 

requests “relates to unlawful employment practices” covered by the ADA, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e8(a) (2012), we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

I. BACKGROUND 

 The origin of this appeal is an EEOC charge that Matovski filed on March 25, 2014. R. 1 

(Mar. 25, 2014 Charge) (Page ID #30). The first portion of Matovski’s charge claims that UPS 

violated 42 U.S.C. § 12112(d), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of “medical 

examinations and inquiries.” 42 U.S.C. § 12112(d)(1). Of particular concern was a September 

2013 request for medical leave that UPS published on its Health and Safety intranet site. R. 1 

(Mar. 25, 2014 Charge) (Page ID #30). Matovski requested that his information, which included 

his “condition and symptoms and basis for [his] leave,” be removed from the site. Id. However, 

“it remain[ed] accessible to other UPS employees as of” February 16, 2015. Id.; R. 1 (Feb. 16, 

2015 Charge) (Page ID #32). Matovski filed an amended EEOC charge on February 16, 2015, 

which stated in addition, “I am aware that all other employees subject to Health and Safety 

incident action/reports have had their confidentiality breached in the same manner as me.” R. 1 

(Feb. 16, 2015 Charge) (Page ID #32). 

 Matovski also claimed that, since he disclosed his disability and complained of 

discrimination, he had “been subjected to heightened scrutiny of [his] performance and subjected 

to negative treatment that [his] peers who do not have disabilities do not face.” R. 1 (Mar. 25, 

2014 Charge) (Page ID #30). Specifically, he claimed that “[i]n the spring of 2013 and again in 

October of 2013, [he] complained to Human Resources about what [he] believed to be 
No. 16-2132 EEOC v. UPS Page 3

discriminatory treatment based on [his] disability and need for accommodation, and since [he] 

raised these concerns, the negative treatment of [him] has accelerated.” Id.

 As part of its investigation into these charges, the EEOC issued a subpoena for five 

pieces of evidence, three of which are at issue in this appeal.1 The first request was for “a copy, 

in Excel, or Comma Separated Values Format (CSV), of the year end ‘SCS-CSI H & S’ report 

for the years 2013 to the present.” R. 1 (Subpoena) (Page ID #35). This report contains 

information about employee injuries and accidents, including “the nature and location of the 

injury and accident, the injury type, whether the injury or accident is an OSHA type event, the 

District of the employee, business unit of the employee, and when not identified as a privacy 

case, information such as the employee’s name, and employee identification number.” R. 1 

(UPS’s Pet. at 1–2) (Page ID #41–42). The EEOC estimates that “there could be six, seven 

hundred people just on . . . one worksheet within this Excel file that contains multiple 

worksheets.” R. 11 (Mot. Hr’g Tr. at 8) (Page ID #124). The second request was for “a copy of 

the ‘privacy case’ criteria and all documents regarding its implementation and creation.” R. 1 

(Subpoena) (Page ID #35). The EEOC explained that it seeks this information “to understand 

how UPS is determining what is a privacy case. Are they acknowledging theoretically that some 

of this is confidential information that shouldn’t be shared with all managerial employees 

throughout the country[?]” R. 11 (Mot. Hr’g Tr. at 16) (Page ID #132). The third request was 

for “a copy of the ‘RiskConsul’ Oracle Database in Ecel [sic] or CVS [sic] format that replaced 

the ‘SCS-CSI H & S’ report, from the date of implementation to the present.” R. 1 (Subpoena) 

(Page ID #35). 

UPS petitioned the EEOC to modify the subpoena, arguing that some of the requested 

information was irrelevant and burdensome, R. 1 (UPS’s Pet. at 4) (Page ID #44), but the EEOC 

denied UPS’s petition, R. 1 (EEOC’s Determination on UPS’s Pet. at 1) (Page ID #56). The 

EEOC then filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan its 

application for an order to show cause why an administrative subpoena should not be enforced. 

R. 1 (Appl.) (Page ID #1–24). After holding a hearing on the EEOC’s application, R. 11 (Mot. 

 1

The EEOC withdrew the fourth and fifth requests after “UPS admitted that all managers in the country 

have access to [the report of its employees’ injuries].” R. 5 (Pl.’s Reply to Resp’t’s Resp. to the Appl. at 4) (Page ID 

#107). 
No. 16-2132 EEOC v. UPS Page 4

Hr’g Tr.) (Page ID #117–36); R. 14 (Nov. 3, 2016 Order) (Page ID #148–49), the district court 

ordered UPS to comply with the first three requests in the EEOC’s subpoena, R. 7 (July 21, 2016 

Order) (Page ID #111–12), “for the reasons that the EEOC has put on the record and in their 

brief,” R. 11 (Mot. Hr’g Tr. at 19) (Page ID #135). This appeal follows. R. 8 (Notice of Appeal) 

(Page ID #113–14). The district court had jurisdiction pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 161(2), and we 

have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 

II. DISCUSSION 

A. Standard of Review 

“A subpoena enforcement proceeding is a summary process designed to decide 

expeditiously whether a subpoena should be enforced.” EEOC v. Roadway Express, Inc.

(Roadway Express I), 750 F.2d 40, 42 (6th Cir. 1984). Generally speaking, the purpose is not to 

decide the merits of the underlying claim. Id. We review “a district court’s decision to enforce 

an EEOC subpoena . . . for abuse of discretion.” McLane Co. v. EEOC, 581 U.S. ——, 137 S. 

Ct. 1159, 1170 (2017); EEOC v. Roadway Express, Inc. (Roadway Express II), 261 F.3d 634, 

638 (6th Cir. 2001). 

B. Relevance 

“Once an adequate charge has been issued, the EEOC has authority to serve subpoenas to 

gain ‘access to . . . any evidence of any person being investigated or proceeded against that 

relates to unlawful employment practices . . . and is relevant to the charge under investigation.’” 

Roadway Express II, 261 F.3d at 638 (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-8(a)). Although “the relevancy 

standard places some limitation on the scope of the EEOC’s investigative authority[,] . . . courts 

have ‘generously construed the term ‘relevant’ and have afforded the Commission access to 

virtually any material that might cast light on the allegations against the employer.’” Id. at 639 

(quoting EEOC v. Shell Oil Co., 466 U.S. 54, 68–69 (1984)). Thus, § 2000e-8(a)’s “relevancy 

limitation does not . . . force the EEOC only to review evidence concerning the specific charge.” 

Roadway Express I, 750 F.2d at 43; EEOC v. Cambridge Tile Mfg. Co., 590 F.2d 205, 206 (6th 

Cir. 1979) (“Notions of relevancy at the investigatory stage are very broad, and so long as the 

EEOC is not wandering into wholly unrelated areas, . . . we hold that the Commission has the 
No. 16-2132 EEOC v. UPS Page 5

power to investigate and thus to subpoena documents concerning any employer practice which 

may shed light on the discrimination charged.”). 

As an illustration of this generous construction, we have held in the Title VII context that 

“the EEOC is entitled to . . . evidence [that] focuses on the existence of patterns of racial 

discrimination in job classifications or hiring situations other than those that the EEOC’s charge 

specifically targeted.” Roadway Express II, 261 F.3d at 639. We see no reason to hold 

differently with respect to discrimination on the basis of disability, keeping in mind that 

“discrimination as referred to in [the ADA] shall include medical examinations and inquiries,” 

42 U.S.C. § 12112(d)(1). Thus, so long as a charge alleges unlawful use of medical 

examinations and inquiries, evidence of patterns of such unlawful use is “relevant to the charge 

under investigation.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-8(a); Roadway Express II, 261 F.3d at 639. 

UPS argues that “[t]he EEOC is only entitled to information regarding similarly-situated 

employees.” Reply Br. at 4. However, under the standard described above, there is no such 

restriction under § 2000e-8(a). In fact, in Roadway Express II, we deemed evidence to be 

relevant despite the fact that it concerned employees who were decidedly not similarly situated to 

the employee who was the subject of the EEOC charge; whereas “the charge only alleged failure 

to hire women as operators and laborers and the failure to promote blacks to sales and upper 

management positions,” we held that evidence “regarding the promotion of women to sales and 

upper level management positions and the hiring of blacks as operators and laborers” was 

nevertheless relevant. 261 F.3d at 638. The true test of relevance is not whether the information 

is about similarly situated employees, but whether the evidence “provides context for 

determining whether discrimination has taken place.” Id. at 639. 

With these principles in mind, we hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion 

in this case. The first and third requests, which were for the databases that stored and allegedly 

disclosed employee medical information, are directly relevant to Matovski’s charge. Matovski 

claims that UPS violated the ADA’s confidentiality provision by publishing his request for 

medical leave on “on the company’s Health and Safety intranet site.” R. 1 (Mar. 25, 2014 

Charge) (Page ID #30) (citing 42 U.S.C. § 12112(d)). He also notes in his amended charge that 

“all other employees subject to the Health and Safety incident action/reports have had their 
No. 16-2132 EEOC v. UPS Page 6

confidentiality breached in the same manner as me.” R. 1 (Feb. 16, 2015 Charge) (Page ID #32). 

Matovski’s charge thus directly implicates the databases that UPS uses to store and potentially 

disclose employee medical information. The district court did not abuse its discretion in finding 

such reports relevant to Matovski’s charge. 

UPS argues in response that the EEOC’s requests are overbroad because the information 

contained in the SCS-CSI H & S report and RiskConsul Oracle Database contain information 

about other employees from other regions in the United States and Canada and that Matovski’s 

information never appeared on the RiskConsul Oracle Database. However, the breach of 

confidentiality that Matovski describes in his amended charge is not limited to himself; he claims 

that “all other employees subject to Health and Safety incident action/reports have had their 

confidentiality breached in the same manner as me.” R. 1 (Feb. 16, 2015 Charge) (Page ID #32). 

Moreover, the EEOC is entitled to evidence that shows a pattern of discrimination other than the 

specific instance of discrimination described in the charge. See Roadway Express II, 261 F.3d at 

639. “A company’s business practices are not so compartmentalized as the defendant in this case 

would contend”; UPS is not shielded from the EEOC’s subpoena power merely because it began 

disclosing employee medical information on a new database. See Cambridge Tile Mfg. Co., 

590 F.2d at 206. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that reports 

with information about other employees are relevant to Matovski’s charge. 

UPS also argues that Matovski’s amended charge is not valid because it “appears to have 

been amended for an illegitimate purpose—to obtain documents that the subpoena otherwise 

could not reach.” Appellant’s Br. at 16. However, UPS did not raise this argument below. 

Therefore, it is forfeited. See Lucaj v. FBI, 852 F.3d 541, 547 n.4 (6th Cir. 2017). Nevertheless, 

we note that even if the amended charge were invalid, databases that unlawfully disclose medical 

information of other employees would reflect a pattern of discrimination that “may well justify 

an inference that the practices complained of here were motivated by . . . factors [in violation of 

the ADA].” Roadway Express II, 261 F.3d at 638–39 (quoting Blue Bell Boots, Inc., 418 F.2d 

355, 358 (6th Cir. 1969)). Therefore, the first and third requests are relevant to either of 

Matovski’s charges.
No. 16-2132 EEOC v. UPS Page 7

The district court also did not abuse its discretion in finding that UPS’s “privacy case” 

criteria were relevant to Matovski’s charge. The explanation that the EEOC provided, and which 

the district court adopted, R. 11 (Mot. Hr’g Tr. at 19) (Page ID #135), is that the “privacy case” 

criteria may reveal an acknowledgment on the part of UPS that some information in the 

databases was “confidential information that shouldn’t be shared with all managerial employees 

throughout the country.” Id. at 16 (Page ID #132). Showing what UPS knew to be confidential 

and what it believed not to be confidential “provides context for determining whether 

discrimination has taken place.” Roadway Express II, 261 F.3d at 639. It is not an abuse of 

discretion for the district court to deem evidence regarding such knowledge to be relevant. 

UPS argues in response that the EEOC’s request is overbroad because it “provides no 

temporal scope.” Appellant’s Br. at 23–24. However, the relevance of the “privacy case” 

criteria is not dependent on when UPS developed the criteria. Regardless of when UPS 

developed the criteria, this piece of evidence may provide insight into how UPS categorizes 

information as confidential. This is relevant to Matovski’s charge that UPS disclosed 

confidential medical information in violation of the ADA. Therefore, the EEOC shall have 

access to it. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-8(a). 

* * *

Finally, although the bulk of UPS’s argument is focused on the relevance of the requested 

information, UPS also argues that the request is “unduly burdensome.” Appellant’s Br. at 11. 

It is true that courts “may not enforce an administrative subpoena unless the request seeks 

relevant material and is not unduly burdensome.” EEOC v. Ford Motor Credit Co., 26 F.3d 44, 

47 (6th Cir. 1994) (citing Univ. of Pa. v. EEOC, 493 U.S. 182, 191 (1990); Shell Oil Co., 

466 U.S. at 68–69, 72–73). However, UPS has not identified how producing the requested 

pieces of evidence would be unduly burdensome. In fact, the only evidence in the record on this 

point suggests that it would not be burdensome for UPS to comply with the subpoena; when 

asked how difficult it would be for UPS to provide the requested information, both parties 

acknowledged that the information could be transmitted electronically. Because UPS has not 

shown that the subpoena is burdensome in any material way, the district court did not abuse its 

discretion in ordering UPS to comply with the subpoena. 
No. 16-2132 EEOC v. UPS Page 8

III. CONCLUSION 

 In light of the generous construction we give to “relevant” evidence, Roadway Express II, 

261 F.3d at 638, we hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in directing UPS to 

comply with the EEOC’s subpoena. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district 

court.