Opinion ID: 799452
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Judicial Estoppel as Applied to EEOC

Text: The district court also invoked judicial estoppel to bar the EEOC from seeking any remedy on Starke's, Payne's, and Timmons's behalf. Specifically, the district court asserted that [t]he judicial estoppel doctrine applies part-and-parcel to the EEOC, notwithstanding the fact that it is the `master of its own case' and does not merely stand in the shoes of the allegedly aggrieved persons for whom it seeks relief in this action under [§ 706 of Title VII]. Id. at 976. On appeal, the EEOC argues that the district court abused its discretion in applying judicial estoppel to the EEOC because the EEOC did not assert an inconsistent position in a prior proceeding. Rather, the EEOC maintains, the past representations of Intervener Starke, Payne, and Timmons, do not bind the EEOC because, in its present posture as a plaintiff suing in its own name under § 706, [the] EEOC does not merely stand in their shoes, and [the] EEOC's litigation does not exist simply to seek relief on their behalf. (Citing Waffle House, 534 U.S. at 296-98, 122 S.Ct. 754.) According to the EEOC, it filed this litigation not for the personal benefit of any particular claimant, but for the broader public interest in enforcing Title VII and ensuring CRST maintains a workplace free from discrimination. In response, CRST concedes that [n]o federal appellate court has yet ruled on this issue of whether a court can judicially estop the EEOC from bringing suit in its own name to remedy allegedly unlawful employment practices because those practices were perpetrated against an employee who herself is judicially estopped. CRST urges, nevertheless, that the district court did not abuse its discretion in judicially estopping the EEOC. Noting that judicial estoppel's chief purpose is to protect the integrity of the judicial process, CRST avers that, [w]hile the individual claimants in an EEOC enforcement action may not technically be parties to the case, their prior inconsistent representations to another court pose no less of a threat to the integrity of the judicial process. Upon review, we concur with the EEOC that the district court abused its discretion in judicially estopping the EEOC from suing in its own name to correct any discriminatory employment practices that CRST allegedly perpetrated against the three women. The district court's and CRST's contrary position is inconsistent with the realities of the EEOC's role as a plaintiff in its own name under § 706 and with the basic principles of the judicial estoppel doctrine. As the Supreme Court has emphasized, [g]iven the clear purpose of Title VII, the EEOC's jurisdiction over enforcement, and the remedies available, the EEOC need look no further than § 706 for its authority to bring suit in its name for the purpose, among others, of securing relief for a group of aggrieved individuals. Gen. Tel. Co., 446 U.S. at 324, 100 S.Ct. 1698; see also Occidental Life Ins. Co., 432 U.S. at 368, 97 S.Ct. 2447 (The EEOC does not function simply as a vehicle for conducting litigation on behalf of private parties....). In Waffle House, the Supreme Court considered whether an agreement between an employer and an employee to arbitrate employment-related disputes bars the EEOC from pursuing victim-specific judicial relief, such as backpay, reinstatement, and damages, in an enforcement action alleging that the employer has violated Title I of the ... ADA. [15] 534 U.S. at 282, 122 S.Ct. 754. The Fourth Circuit had held that, insofar as the EEOC was suing in its own capacity under § 706 to vindicate the public interest in discrimination-free workplaces, the EEOC was limited to seeking general injunctive relief and could not also seek victim-specific relief on behalf of a victim who himself was subject to a binding arbitration agreement. Id. at 290, 122 S.Ct. 754. The Supreme Court reversed, concluding that such an arbitration agreement between the employer and employee did not preclude the EEOC from suing in federal court to seek victim-specific relief relating to the employee's injury. Id. at 298, 122 S.Ct. 754. Specifically, the Supreme Court reasoned that [t]here is no language in the statutes or in either of these cases suggesting that the existence of an arbitration agreement between private parties materially changes the EEOC's statutory function or the remedies that are otherwise available. Id. at 288, 122 S.Ct. 754. Moreover, in rejecting the Fourth Circuit's conclusion that the EEOC could not recover victim-specific relief because the employee himself would be ineligible for such recovery by virtue of the binding arbitration agreement, the Supreme Court stated as follows: If it were true that the EEOC could prosecute its claim only with [the employee]'s consent, or if its prayer for relief could be dictated by [the employee], the court's analysis might be persuasive. But once a charge is filed, the exact opposite is true under the statutethe EEOC is in command of the process.... If ... the EEOC files suit on its own, the employee has no independent cause of action, although the employee may intervene in the EEOC's suit.... The statute clearly makes the EEOC the master of its own case and confers on the agency the authority to evaluate the strength of the public interest at stake. Id. at 291, 122 S.Ct. 754. Under Waffle House a court cannot judicially estop the EEOC from bringing suit in its own name to remedy employment discrimination simply because the defendant-employer happened to discriminate against an employee who, herself, was properly judicially estopped. Indeed, under Title VII, whenever the EEOC chooses from among the many charges filed each year to bring an enforcement action in a particular case, the agency may be seeking to vindicate a public interest, not simply provide make-whole relief for the employee, even when it pursues entirely victim-specific relief. Id. at 296, 122 S.Ct. 754. Accordingly, the district court abused its discretion in judicially estopping the EEOC from suing in its own name under § 706 to remedy sexual harassment that CRST allegedly perpetrated against Starke, Payne, and Timmons, and we reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment on that ground accordingly. [16]