Opinion ID: 509338
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Ward III

Text: 11 In Ward III, the district court denied Montgomery Ward's motion for reconsideration of Ward II. Montgomery Ward argued that Ward II was in error because none of the timely charges had purported to be brought on behalf of other plaintiffs. The court rejected this argument, reiterating its holding in Ward II that Title VII law is applicable when interpreting the charge-filing requirement of ADEA. The court then said that several plaintiffs filed timely EEOC charges sufficient to notify both the EEOC and Montgomery Ward that the company may have been engaging in systematic age discrimination. Ward III, 650 F.Supp. at 1478. In the court's view, those charges satisfied all the purposes of ADEA's charge-filing requirement. Moreover, the court noted that ADEA must be interpreted liberally to further its remedial purposes, and that it would be improper to require pro se litigants to use hypertechnical language in order to allege a class-based charge. Id. at 1479. The court also rejected Montgomery Ward's argument that the court had erred in allowing the plaintiffs to convert their action into a representative action. The court stated that Montgomery Ward had had full knowledge of all of the plaintiffs' claims for several years, and that the mere readjustment of this lawsuit from a multiple plaintiff joint action to a representative action did not prejudice Montgomery Ward. Id. III Contentions of the Parties A. Necessity of a Timely Charge 12 All of the parties to this appeal argue that the court erred in not adopting a more absolute position on whether every plaintiff must file a timely charge. Montgomery Ward submits that piggybacking should not be allowed under any circumstance. It contends that the plain language of the charge-filing requirement establishes that the filing of a charge is a mandatory prerequisite for any individual who wishes to bring a civil action under the ADEA. Appellant's Br. at 7. Montgomery Ward claims that courts cannot overlook a statute's procedural requirements by focusing on the broad remedial goals of a statute. Focusing on broad policies rather than specific statutory language frustrates congressional intent by ignoring the legislative compromises frequently embodied in procedural requirements. Id. at 8. Montgomery Ward also maintains that Title VII precepts are not controlling in ADEA cases. Rather, Montgomery Ward claims that Congress intended to incorporate into ADEA the remedies and procedures of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. Secs. 201-219, and not the procedural requirements of Title VII. Montgomery Ward points out that Title VII allows traditional class actions while ADEA, following the pattern of the FLSA, only allows representative actions in which plaintiffs must expressly consent to being represented. 13 As its fallback position, Montgomery Ward argues that piggybacking should be permissible only when an expressly representative charge has been filed. Montgomery Ward claims that every other circuit that has addressed this issue has at least required that the timely charges be expressly representative. According to Montgomery Ward, [w]ithout such an expressly representative charge the conciliation purpose of the charge-filing requirement is severely undermined when piggybacking is permitted. Appellant's Br. at 14. 14 The appellees argue that the district court should have fully adopted the case law that has developed under Title VII. In their view, so long as one plaintiff has filed a timely charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, similarly-aggrieved individuals can join the litigation as co-plaintiffs, intervenors, or members of the class. Appellees' Br. at 11. Thus, the appellees argue that there should be no requirement that piggybacking is allowed only into representative actions. 15 As a fallback position, the appellees argue that there should be no requirement of a representative charge, but that if this court should find such a requirement, it was satisfied here. The appellees submit that a whole host of charges complained in the clearest possible way of a policy and pattern of age discrimination at Montgomery Ward. Appellees' Br. at 27. These claims satisfied the purpose of the charge-filing requirement that Montgomery Ward and the EEOC be placed on notice of an allegation of class-wide age discrimination. According to the appellees, requiring the charges to contain talismanic language of express representation would violate the Supreme Court's admonition against imposing strict technicalities on a charge process in which parties frequently are not represented by attorneys. B. Amendment of the Complaint 16 Assuming that piggybacking is permissible, Montgomery Ward contends that the district court erred in allowing the plaintiffs to amend their complaint into a representative action. Montgomery Ward claims that the statute of limitations for an ADEA action is at most three years. Because more than three years had passed since any of the plaintiffs' cause of action accrued, the amendment should not have been allowed. Moreover, Montgomery Ward contends that the amendment would be inappropriate in this instance because ADEA requires that each plaintiff in a representative action file a written consent with the district court in order to opt-in to a representative action. See 29 U.S.C. Sec. 216(b). According to Montgomery Ward, because none of the plaintiffs have filed a written consent opting-in to a representative action, amendment of the complaint was futile because it was too late for any claimant to file his written consent. See 29 U.S.C. Sec. 256. 17 The appellees' first response is that this court need not address this issue. Should this court decide that piggybacking is permissible even when the lawsuit is not styled as representative, then there was no need for the appellees to amend their complaint. However, should this court determine that amendment was required, the appellees argue that the district court properly permitted amendment because the date that the amended complaint was filed should relate back to the date that the original complaint was filed, as allowed by Rule 15(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Thus, the representative action was commenced well within the three-year statute of limitations. Further, the appellees argue that they have complied with ADEA's requirement that all opt-in plaintiffs file written consents with the court. By participating as individual plaintiffs in this suit for several years, the appellees maintain that they notified the court and Montgomery Ward of their willingness to participate in litigation against Montgomery Ward. Montgomery Ward has conducted discovery involving the appellees for several years, they claim, and therefore it would be fundamentally unfair to bar the appellees from proceeding based on an overly strict reading of the written consent requirement. IV