Opinion ID: 7263
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: exclusion of ex gratia claims

Text: Appellants' final argument deals with the last-minute exclusion of their ex gratia claims. The ex gratia claims are based on allegations that Aramco paid employees over the age of 49 substantially smaller severance payments than similar, younger employees with the same length of service. On the first day of trial, the district court granted the Appellee's earlier filed motion to vacate the consolidation order and convert the matter back into seven individual actions. The court held that, [I]t's been determined that this is not and cannot proceed as a representative action—it seems to me that each individual plaintiff's claims must be examined with respect to whether they have been perfected, whether limitations has [sic] run independently of the other plaintiffs. Only one of the original named plaintiffs filed an EEOC charge asserting an ex gratia claim. None of the Trial Plaintiffs filed an EEOC charge asserting the claim, nor did any of the Trial Plaintiffs' complaints assert an ex gratia claim. As stated by the district court, [N]one of the six plaintiffs that are to proceed to trial had asserted an ex gratia claim and all would be barred by limitations if they undertook now to assert such claim. 27 In an attempt to save their ex gratia claims, Trial Plaintiffs attempted to resurrect a previously filed motion for leave to file a second amended complaint (filed in one of the Delaware cases), which had sought to add a class-wide ex gratia claim. Trial Plaintiffs asserted that filing the second amended complaint would bring them under the single filing rule, and allow all of the complaints to ride on the single EEOC charge. The district court denied the motion, refused to apply the single filing rule, and ruled that issues of EEOC charges and limitations would have to be resolved on a case-by-case basis. Trial Plaintiffs argue that the district court thus abused its discretion.
As we have noted previously, one cannot take legal action in ADEA cases unless one has filed an administrative charge, in cases arising in Texas, within 300 days of the last act of discrimination. Anson v. Univ. of Tex. Health Science Center, 962 F.2d 539, 540 (5th Cir.1992). However, [t]he federal courts now universally hold that an individual who has not filed an administrative charge can opt-in to a suit filed by any similarly situated plaintiff under certain conditions. Id. at 541. This so-called single filing rule generally allows a plaintiff, who did not file an EEOC charge, to piggyback on the EEOC complaint filed by another person who is similarly situated. In this case, all of the named Trial Plaintiffs filed an individual EEOC charge, but failed to include an ex gratia claim. Trial Plaintiffs now attempt to rely on the ex gratia claim contained in the individual 28 EEOC charge of Robert Olson, a named plaintiff who was not included in the group of Trial Plaintiffs. Whether the single filing rule can be used by someone who actually filed a EEOC charge to append an additional claim appears to be matter of first impression. It is uncontroversial that the single filing rule' is not limited to class actions but also can permit a plaintiff to join individual ADEA actions if the named plaintiff filed a timely administrative charge to permit piggybacking' by the joining plaintiff. Howlett v. Holiday Inns, 49 F.3d 189, 195 (6th Cir.1995). Two conditions must be satisfied. First, the person attempting to piggyback must be similarly situated to the person who actually filed the EEOC charge.21 See Anson, 962 F.2d at 541. Second, the charge must provide notice of the collective or class-wide nature of the charge. See id. at 541-43. There is no dispute that Olson's EEOC charge contained language purporting to make the ex gratia claim class-wide, however, that does not end our inquiry. The policy behind the single filing rule is that [i]t would be wasteful, if not vain, for numerous employees, all with the same grievance, to have to process many identical complaints with the EEOC. Oatis v. Crown Zellerbach Corp., 398 F.2d 496, 499 (5th Cir.1968). As long as the EEOC and the company are aware of the 21 As we found previously, Appellants in this matter are not similarly situated to each other or to other claimants. However, the district court did not specifically address whether Trial Plaintiffs might be similarly situated, for purposes of the single filing rule, with regard to the ex gratia claim. Because we find that single filing rule inapplicable for other reasons, we do not address this issue. 29 nature and scope of the allegations, the purposes behind the filing requirement are satisfied and no injustice or contravention of congressional intent occurs by allowing piggybacking. However, where the party wishing to piggyback has filed his own EEOC charge, policy cuts the other way. Once the charge is filed, unless it is permissibly modified, the EEOC and the employer are entitled to rely on the allegations contained therein. To allow a plaintiff to file an EEOC charge, file suit upon that charge and then, at the eleventh hour, when the statute of limitations has run, to amend his complaint in reliance on the charge of another belies the policies behind the single filing rule and controverts congressional intent. The employee, by failing to assert a particular allegation in his charge, has necessarily excluded himself from the class of persons purportedly covered by the charge of another. As a result, the EEOC and the employer are given no notice and no opportunity to remedy his complaint. He is bound by the parameters of his own EEOC charge, and cannot subsequently utilize the single filing rule to avoid the statute of limitations.22 Because the single filing rule was 22 Cf. Anderson v. Unisys Corp., 47 F.3d 302, 308 (8th Cir.1995), For those plaintiffs who have never filed an administrative charge and who are allowed to piggyback on the filed claim of another, we deem it reasonable to permit them to join suit as long as the claimant on whose administrative filing they have relied timely files suit after receiving right-to-sue letters from the state and federal agencies. Those plaintiffs who do file administrative charges, however, should be bound by the statute of 30 inapplicable, the district court properly denied Trial Plaintiffs' motion for leave to amend.