Opinion ID: 187096
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The D.C. Worksharing Agreement

Text: EEOC regulations, specifically 29 C.F.R. § 1626.10, allow the Commission to enter into agreements with State or local fair employment practices agencies to cooperate in enforcement, technical assistance, research, or public informational activities, and [to] engage the services of such agencies in processing charges assuring the safeguard of the federal rights of aggrieved persons. Id. § 1626.10(a), The regulations further provide that these agreements may authorize such agencies to receive charges and complaints pursuant to § 1626.5 and in accordance with the specifications contained in §§ 1626.7 and 1626.8. Id. § 1626.10(b). The first of these provisions allows aggrieved employees to submit EEOC charges to any office of the Commission or to any designated representative of the Commission, id. § 1626.5, the second establishes timeliness requirements, id. § 1626.7, and the third prescribes the necessary substantive contents of charges, id. § 1626.8. Critically for this case, the regulation's final subsection provides: When a worksharing agreement with a State agency is in effect, the State agency will act on certain charges and the Commission will promptly process charges which the State agency does not pursue. Charges received by one agency under the agreement shall be deemed received by the other agency for purposes of § 1626.7. Id. § 1626.10(c) (emphasis added). Pursuant to these regulations, the EEOC has entered into worksharing agreements with both the NYSDHR and the DCOHR. Thus, Schuler argues, when he filed his charge with the EEOC's New York district office, it should have been deemed received by the DCOHR, id., thereby satisfying ADEA section 633(b) and clearing the way for his federal suit. PwC counters that these worksharing agreements bind only individual EEOC field offices to individual state agencies, meaning that the New York agreement allows the NYSDHR and the Commission's New York office to refer charges to one another while the D.C. agreement does the same for the DCOHR and the EEOC's District of Columbia field office. But because the EEOC's New York officewhere Schuler filed his chargehas no contractual relationship with the DCOHR, PwC argues that the charge cannot be deemed received by that agency, id., which, according to PwC, is the only state agency authoriz[ed] . . . to grant or seek relief from [the alleged] discriminatory practice. 29 U.S.C. § 633(b). And because nothing in the record indicates the DCOHR ever actually received a copy of Schuler's charge, either from the Commission or from Schuler himself, PwC insists that the district court correctly dismissed the action for failure to satisfy ADEA section 633(b). Resolving this dispute requires an analysis of the worksharing agreement, which the EEOC, acting in accordance with 29 C.F.R. § 1626.10, has signed with the DCOHR. Because that worksharing agreement . . . is in effect, . . . [c]harges received by one agency under the agreement shall be deemed received by the other agency.  Id. § 1626.10(c) (emphasis added). The D.C. worksharing agreement's first operative provision expressly implements this regulation, stating, [i]n order to facilitate the assertion of employment rights, the EEOC and the [DCOHR] each designate the other as its agent for the purpose of receiving and drafting charges. D.C. Worksharing Agreement ¶ II.A. Read together, the regulation and agreement thus make clear that for all intents and purposes, the DCOHR receives charges filed with the EEOC. Even if this arrangement alone fails to refute PwC's argument, it bears mentioning that the DCOHR has waived its right to process age discrimination claims initially filed with the EEOC. The worksharing agreement provides that [t]he EEOC and the [DCOHR] will process all Title VII, ADA, and ADEA charges that they originally receive. Id. ¶ III.A. Deferral state filing requirements are designed to give state agencies a prior opportunity to consider discrimination complaints, Love v. Pullman Co., 404 U.S. 522, 526, 92 S.Ct. 616, 30 L.Ed.2d 679 (1972), and states may voluntarily waive that right if they wish, see. EEOC v. Commercial Office Prods. Co., 486 U.S. 107, 117, 108 S.Ct. 1666, 100 L.Ed.2d 96 (1988) (holding that states may waive the [Title VII] 60-day deferral period but retain jurisdiction over discrimination charges by entering into worksharing agreements with the EEOC). Here, the District of Columbia has preemptively declined its opportunity, effectively telling the EEOC that it wants nothing to do with ADEA claims the Commission receives first. Had the D.C. agency physically received Schuler's charge, it would have taken no action on it. Accordingly, absent any indication to the contrary, we hold that the D.C. worksharing agreement alone sufficed to commence[ ] proceedings under state law as ADEA section 633(b) requires. In Griffin v. City of Dallas, 26 F.3d 610 (5th Cir. 1994), the Fifth Circuit reached an identical conclusion while interpreting a similar worksharing agreement in the Title VII context. There, the court held that upon the EEOC's receipt of the complaint, the [state agency], for all legal and practical purposes, received the complaint, meaning that once the [state agency] received [the] complaint, even if only nominally, proceedings were instituted within the meaning of [the statute]. Id. at 612-13. The Seventh Circuit similarly allowed an ADEA claim to proceed in light of a worksharing agreement. See Kaimowitz v. Bd. of Trustees of the Univ. of Ill., 951 F.2d 765, 767 (7th Cir.1992) (Because the workshar[ing] agreement provides for direct filing with the EEOC and both initiation and termination of the state's interests pursuant to a prearranged waiver, [the plaintiff] was not required to physically file his complaint with the [state agency].). Nothing in the record before us provides any reason to reach a more restrictive result here. We therefore conclude that Schuler, having waited more than sixty days after proceedings ha[d] been commenced under . . . State law to file his complaint in federal court, has satisfied ADEA section 633(b)'s procedural requirements. 29 U.S.C. § 633(b). PwC nonetheless insists that Schuler's EEOC filing was insufficient, but its arguments are unpersuasive. In support of its contention that EEOC worksharing agreements bind individual EEOC field offices rather than the Commission in general, PwC points out that both the D.C. and New York agreements were signed by the EEOC's regional directors on behalf of each local office. But so what? That the Commission conducts its affairs through local offices and officers goes without saying. Indeed, the EEOC's annual report, which lays out the agency's organizational structure, explains that through the [Headquarters-based] Office of Field Program's State and. Local Programs, the EEOC maintains worksharing agreements . . . with 96 state and local Fair Employment Practices Agencies (FEPAs) for the purpose of coordinating the investigation of charges dual-filed under State and local law and Federal law, as appropriate. EEOC, FISCAL YEAR 2007 PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT appx. A (2007), available at http://www.eeoc.gov/ abouteeoc/plan/par/2007/appendixes.html# a. Accordingly, the agreements refer to the EEOC as the relevant party throughout their substantive provisions, not to its constituent field offices. In that sense, the worksharing agreements echo their authorizing regulation, which states that  the Commission may enter into agreements with state or local fair employment practices agencies. 29 C.F.R. § 1626.10(a) (emphasis added). Furthermore, it would make little sense to allow aggrieved employees to satisfy AREA section 626(d) by submitting their EEOC charges in any office of the Commission or to any designated representative of the Commission across the country, id. § 1626.5, while simultaneously saddling them with the burden of divining which other EEOC offices must also receive their charges to satisfy section 633(b). These worksharing agreements are meant to ease charges through the remedial system, not to erect hurdles claimants must decipher and overcome. As the Sixth Circuit put it while discussing Title VII's analogous deferral state provision, [a]lthough . . . state worksharing agreements are designed to allow states a `first bite' at resolving [discrimination] cases, mechanisms created to give states such [an] opportunity must not stand in the way of the necessarily simple claims-making procedure. Nichols v. Muskingum College, 318 F.3d 674, 678-79 (6th Cir.2003). Next, PwC argues that section 1626.10(c) comes into play only after the EEOC actually sends a charge to the relevant state agencysomething PwC says never happened here. For support, it points to Petrelle v. Weirton Steel Corp., 953 F.2d 148 (4th Cir.1991), in which the Fourth Circuit, interpreting a West Virginia EEOC worksharing agreement, found similar deemed received language insufficient to satisfy section 633(b) because the charge had never actually been referred to the state agency. Id. at 152-53. In Petrelle, however, the Fourth Circuit heard the case on appeal from a decision granting a motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, id. at 149, not from a motion to dismiss on the pleadings, as we do. Therefore, the Petrelle court could go beyond the pleadings and consider the trial record, which included testimony by the West Virginia Human Rights Commission's assistant director explaining that despite the agreement's language of agency, the [state agency] requires physical receipt by it of the EEOC's referral in order to deem charges filed with . . . it. Id. at 152. Here, by contrast, we have no evidence outside the pleadings, and nothing in those documents implies that the DCOHR maintains a similar requirement. Nor do we see any reason to read one into the agreement; indeed, given that any ambiguities or doubts concerning the sufficiency of the claim must be resolved in favor of the pleader, Doe, 753 F.2d at 1102, we must assume its absence. Moreover, the agreement at issue in Petrelle contain[ed] no automatic waiver language which [could] be interpreted as an unconditional waiver by the state of its deferral rights under § 633(b). 953 F.2d at 153. As discussed above, the D.C. worksharing agreement contains precisely such language. Even if the DCOHR had to receive an actual copy of the complaint to commence proceedings, it bears repeating that Schuler explicitly told the EEOC that his complaint should be CROSS FILED WITH THE HUMAN RIGHTS AGENCIES OF NEW YORK CITY, THE STATE OF NEW YORK, AND WASHINGTON, D.C.  Decl. of Harold Schuler 5 (emphasis added). PwC reads this statement as an abstract acknowledgment that the charge ought to be filed in Washington, D.C. rather than as a specific request that the EEOC refer the charge to the DCOHR, but this is absurd. As Schuler's counsel explained at oral argument, he filed his charge in New York to ensure that PwC managers understood what was being argued in the case and thought that was all right [be]cause the reg[ulation]s say you can file your charge with [the] EEOC anywhere. Oral Arg. Tr. 13. Counsel nonetheless sought to protect his client by asking the EEOC to cross-file his charge with all relevant state agencies, including the DCOHRa request that made sense given Commission regulations empowering it to refer all charges to any appropriate State agency . . . in order to assure that the prerequisites for private law suits, as set out in section [633(b)], are met. 29 C.F.R. § 1626.9. It is well settled law that if the EEOC fails to refer a charge to the state charging agency, the EEOC's misfeasance is not held against the plaintiff. Nichols, 318 F.3d at 678; see also Mitchell v. Mid-Continent Spring Co. of Ky., 466 F.2d 24, 27 (6th Cir.1972) (It is clear that [plaintiff] should not lose her cause of action because of the failure of EEOC to refer her complaint to a State agency.). Thus, even if the DCOHR required physical receipt of Schuler's chargeand we have no reason to believe that it doesin order to initiate proceedings over a complaint the agency has already disclaimed any intention of acting upon, Schuler cannot be held responsible for the EEOC's failure to forward the charge as he explicitly requested. This assumes, of course, that the EEOC's decision not to forward Schuler's charge to the DCOHR amounted to a bureaucratic failure in the first place. For reasons we explain below, however, we find perfectly reasonable the EEOC's decision to refer Schuler's charge only to the New York State Division of Human Rights. PwC raises a final question about the D.C. worksharing agreement. Immediately following paragraph II.A's language designating the EEOC as the DCOHR's agent for purposes of receiving charges (and vice versa), the agreement says: EEOC's receipt of charges on the [DCOHR]'s behalf will automatically initiate the proceedings of both the EEOC and the [DCOHR] for the purposes of . . . Title VII.  D.C. Worksharing Agreement ¶ II.A (emphasis added). According to PwC, this language unambiguously demonstrates that the agreement commences proceedings only for Title VII claims, not ADEA claims. Disagreeing, Schuler points to the agreement's waiver provision, which draws no such distinction and expressly mentions the ADEA. Id. ¶ III.A. The record contains no evidence at all of the contracting parties' intent because PwC chose to move for judgment on the pleadings rather than summary judgment. Absent any evidence to the contrary, it seems to us that the agreement may have singled out Title VII claims because that statute requires grievants to file with state agencies before filing with the EEOC while the ADEA allows for concurrent rather than sequential state and federal administrative jurisdiction. Oscar Mayer, 441 U.S. at 757, 99 S.Ct. 2066. Accordingly, the EEOC and the DCOHR may have wished to make it clear that the D.C. agency intended to waive its statutory right to proceed first. That the worksharing agreement addresses this statutory peculiarity neither limits nor otherwise affects the rest of the agreement's clear application to ADEA claims. We reject PwC's construction of the worksharing agreement for another reason: it would effectively rewrite the ADEA's administrative prerequisites, making them traps for the unwary, poised to spring into action and deny those who may have suffered employment discrimination their right to seek redress in federal court. Indeed, the Supreme Court has announced a guiding principle for construing the provisions of Title VII, Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 455 U.S. 385, 397, 102 S.Ct. 1127, 71 L.Ed.2d 234 (1982), which applies with equal force to the ADEA: a technical reading of the statute's filing requirements is particularly inappropriate in a statutory scheme in which laymen, unassisted by trained lawyers, initiate the process. Love, 404 U.S. at 527, 92 S.Ct. 616 (holding that a Title VII claimant need not re-file a charge after termination of state proceedings); see also Oscar Mayer, 441 U.S. at 755, 99 S.Ct. 2066 (interpreting the ADEA's state filing requirement in light of Title VII's because the two provisions are virtually in haec verba ). To be sure, Schuler had a lawyer, but we interpret the statute not just for his benefit, but for all aggrieved employees. We must therefore avoid construing the statute in a way that imposes extra-textual burdens serv[ing] no purpose other than the creation of an additional procedural technicality. Love, 404 U.S. at 526, 92 S.Ct. 616. The EEOC filing requirement is intended to promote the speedy, informal, non-judicial resolution of discrimination claims, . . . to preserve evidence and records relating to the alleged discriminatory action, McClinton v. Ala. By-Prods. Corp., 743 F.2d 1483, 1485 (11th Cir.1984), and to give prompt notice to the employer, Zipes, 455 U.S. at 398, 102 S.Ct. 1127. Like its Title VII analog, the ADEA's deferral state filing requirement is intended to give state agencies a limited opportunity to resolve problems of employment discrimination and thereby to make unnecessary, resort to federal relief by victims of the discrimination. Oscar Mayer, 441 U.S. at 755, 99 S.Ct. 2066. Because Schuler's actual filing with the EEOC and his nominal filing with the DCOHR served each of these purposes, the ADEA requires nothing more. In sum, Schuler properly and timely filed an EEOC charge and asked the Commission to cross-file it with the DCOHR, which has entered into a contractual arrangement with the EEOC designed to facilitate the assertion of employment rights. D.C. Worksharing Agreement ¶ II.A. Nothing in either the agreement's text or the record before us reveals that the EEOC or the DCOHR intended to exclude a claim like Schuler's from coverage. Under these circumstances, we conclude that Schuler satisfied ADEA section 633(b)'s deferral state filing requirement.