Opinion ID: 796153
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Filing Period Applicable to the Title VII Claims

Text: 34 Bogle-Assegai contends that the district court erred in dismissing her Title VII claims as untimely, arguing principally that the applicable period for the filing of her administrative charge, which she filed 186 days after she received the Termination Letter, was not 180 days but 300 days. She argues that the State has a work-sharing agreement with the EEOC, and that under such agreements the filing of an administrative charge with either the EEOC or the State agency (here CHRO) is deemed a filing with each agency—a dual filing—and is timely if made within 300 days. We reject this contention because it was not raised in the district court and because Bogle-Assegai has failed to present any reasonable ground for its consideration by this Court. 35 [I] t is a well-established general rule that an appellate court will not consider an issue raised for the first time on appeal. Greene v. United States, 13 F.3d 577, 586 (2d Cir.1994). However, because th[is] rule is prudential, not jurisdictional, we have discretion to consider waived arguments, Sniado v. Bank Austria AG, 378 F.3d 210, 213 (2d Cir.), vacated on other grounds, 542 U.S. 917, 124 S.Ct. 2870, 159 L.Ed.2d 774 (2004), and [w]e have exercised this discretion where necessary to avoid a manifest injustice or where the argument presents a question of law and there is no need for additional fact-finding, Allianz Insurance Co. v. Lerner, 416 F.3d 109, 114 (2d Cir.2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). Nonetheless, the circumstances normally do not militate in favor of an exercise of discretion to address ... new arguments on appeal where those arguments were available to the [parties] below and they proffer no reason for their failure to raise the arguments below. Id. 36 It is clear that Bogle-Assegai did not make her present argument to the district court, although she had ample incentive to do so. Defendants' motion for summary judgment asserted that there was no dual filing with both CHRO and EEOC (it was filed only with EEOC), and thus that plaintiff is not entitled to 300 days and her Title VII claim is untimely and must be dismissed .... (Defendants' Summary Judgment Memorandum at 24 (emphases in original)). As described in Part I.B. above, Bogle-Assegai's response to this untimeliness contention made no reference to a work-sharing agreement, or to the concept of dual filing, or to any possibility that the applicable period was 300 days. Her memorandum argued only that defendants had used the wrong starting date for calculating the 180-day period and that the 180-day deadline had been met. ( See Bogle-Assegai Memorandum Opposing Summary Judgment at 5 (the court should not use the [March 29] date that the defendant indicates she `would' be terminated; but rather the date that she was in fact .... effectively terminated[,] April 12).) 37 At oral argument of this appeal, we asked counsel to review the record and inform this Court whether Bogle-Assegai had in fact argued in the district court that the 300-day filing period applied to her claims. In response, Bogle-Assegai's counsel submitted a letter stating that counsel for Plaintiff-Appellant has made a diligent search of the record below and finds that with regard to the 300-day filing rule, Plaintiff-Appellant did not specifically argue the 300-day rule. (Letter from Bogle-Assegai's attorney Josephine Smalls Miller to this Court dated April 28, 2006 (Miller Letter).) 38 Bogle-Assegai's counsel argued, however, that the complaint's citation of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5, which provides for the 180-day filing period and the 300-day filing period in deferral states .... was sufficient to raise the issue for all subsequent purposes. (Miller Letter.) We disagree. The mere citation to a statute that provides alternative filing periods, the applicability of each turning on whether the EEOC has or does not have a work-sharing agreement with the state agency, does not constitute an assertion that there in fact existed such an agreement at the pertinent time and that the longer period applies. We see nothing in the record to indicate that Bogle-Assegai raised the issue of the existence of a work-sharing agreement before the district court or that she in any way suggested to that court that the filing period applicable to her was 300 days. 39 Bogle-Assegai urges us nonetheless to entertain her present 300-day contention, arguing that we should take judicial notice that the EEOC regularly enters into such work-sharing agreements, that the existence of such an agreement presents an issue that is purely legal, and that CHRO should not be allowed to deny the existence of a work-sharing agreement on which she relied. These arguments are meritless. 40 Bogle-Assegai's contention that [t]his court may take judicial notice of the fact that the [EEOC] regularly enters into work-sharing agreements with state fair employment practices [sic] (Bogle-Assegai reply brief on appeal at 2 (emphasis added)) is not a sound basis for consideration of her new argument. Even if we were to take judicial notice of that practice in general, it would not ineluctably follow that there existed such an agreement between the EEOC and CHRO on October 1, 2001, in particular. 41 Further, despite Bogle-Assegai's assertion that the issue is purely legal and there is no need for additional fact-finding ( id. at 1 (internal quotation marks omitted)), the question of whether there existed a work-sharing agreement between the EEOC and CHRO on October 1, 2001, is a question of fact, not a question of law. Defendants state that no such agreement was in effect on that date ( see Defendants' brief on appeal at 9 n. 2); and if Bogle-Assegai had proffered any evidence that such an agreement did in fact exist on that date, there plainly would be a need for factfinding. 42 Moreover, Bogle-Assegai has not given this Court any indication that she would be able to offer evidence that in fact such an agreement existed at the time she filed her administrative charge. Her brief repeatedly refers to and purports to quote  the work-sharing agreement (emphasis added) between the EEOC and CHRO, as if the existence of such an agreement at the pertinent time were established ( see, e.g., Bogle-Assegai brief on appeal at 15 (In the instant case, the relevant portions of the work-sharing agreement between the EEOC and CHRO state[] ....); see also id. at 17 n. 2, 19, 29; Bogle-Assegai reply brief on appeal at 1, 3, 5). But not one of these quotes or references is accompanied by a citation to an agreement or to any evidence. 43 Bogle-Assegai calls our attention to the decision in Lewis v. Connecticut Department of Corrections, 355 F.Supp.2d 607 (D.Conn.2005) ( Lewis ), as an indication that there existed a work-sharing agreement between the EEOC and CHRO. That case does not, however, show that such an agreement existed at the time pertinent to Bogle-Assegai. The Lewis court noted that the work-sharing agreement that had been submitted to that court by that plaintiff stated: 44 Charges that are received by the [CHRO], whether in person or by mail, and jurisdictional with the EEOC and timely filed by the charging party or his/her representative will be automatically dual-filed with the EEOC and vice versa.... 45 FY 2001 EEOC/FEPA Worksharing Agreement Between Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Pl.'s Index of Evidence in Supp. of Objection to Summ. J.... 46 355 F.Supp.2d at 615 n. 4 (emphasis omitted). As cited, however, the document quoted by the Lewis district court was a FY 2001 work-sharing agreement, and regardless of whether FY 2001 referred to the fiscal year of Connecticut or to that of the federal government, it did not encompass October 1, 2001, the date on which Bogle-Assegai's administrative charge was filed. Fiscal years of Connecticut end on June 30 of each calendar year, see Conn. Gen.Stat. § 4-35 (2006); fiscal years of the United States end on September 30 of each calendar year, see Bill Heniff Jr., Cong. Research Serv., The Federal Fiscal Year 1 (2003), available at http:// www.rules.house.gov/archives/crs— reports.htm; and  [e]ach fiscal year is identified by the calendar year in which it ends and commonly is referred to as `FY.' For example, [federal] FY2003 began October 1, 2002, and ends September 30, 2003, id. (emphasis added); see also Memorandum from the Comptroller of the State of Connecticut on Fiscal Year 2006 Year-End Instructions (2006), available at http://www.osc.state.ct.us/2006memos/ fiscalyearend/fyeinstructions.htm (describing monies deposited prior to July 1, 2006 as Fiscal Year 2006 receipts). Thus, the Connecticut FY 2001 ran from July 1, 2000, through June 30, 2001; the United States FY 2001 ran from October 1, 2000, through September 30, 2001; and whichever government's FY 2001 was referred to in the title of the work-sharing agreement quoted in Lewis, that FY ended before the filing of Bogle-Assegai's administrative charge with the EEOC on October 1, 2001. 47 Finally, Bogle-Assegai's argument that CHRO should not be permitted to work an injustice upon claimants, such as Plaintiff-Appellant, who relied upon the existent [sic] of the charge processing agreement  (Bogle-Assegai reply brief on appeal at 4-5 (emphasis added)) fails for lack of any evidence whatever to support its factual premise. Bogle-Assegai, in filing her administrative charge 186 days after her receipt of the Termination Letter, cannot be found to have relied on the existence of a work-sharing agreement. Had she so relied, she would have argued the existence of such an agreement in the district court. Instead, she argued that the 180 days began to run on the effective date of termination rather than on the earlier date of notice of termination. And even after the district court granted summary judgment dismissing the Title VII claims, stating that the 180 day limitations period applies, District Court Opinion at 10 n. 7, Bogle-Assegai did not move for reargument on the ground that the applicable period was 300 days or that there was a work-sharing agreement. Bogle-Assegai did move in November 2005 to reopen the judgment pursuant to Fed. R.Civ.P. 60(b), but she did so on entirely different grounds. 48 In sum, faced with a summary judgment motion expressly asserting that her charge had not been dually filed with the state agency and that the 300-day filing period therefore did not apply to her claims, Bogle-Assegai had every incentive and opportunity to contest that argument. She made no argument to the district court in opposition. And in arguing to this Court that the 300-day period is applicable, she has proffered no reason for her failure to make that argument in the district court and has pointed to no evidence that would support her factual premises. In the circumstances, appellate consideration of her unpreserved argument is unwarranted. We affirm the district court's dismissal of Bogle-Assegai's Title VII claims on the ground that her administrative charge was not timely filed. 49