Opinion ID: 166561
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Other Precedent

Text: 30 We are convinced of the soundness of our holding in part because other courts of appeals have dismissed ADEA cases in which the charging party failed to cooperate with the investigating federal agency. For example, the D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal of an ADEA suit in Rann v. Chao, 346 F.3d 192, 198, 199 (D.C.Cir.2003), based on a federal employee's failure to cooperate in an investigation conducted by the Labor Department's Equal Employment Opportunity office. In that case, following an unsuccessful attempt at informal mediation with the Labor Department, Rann provided an investigator with an initial formal complaint, but then failed to respond to repeated requests to submit a signed affidavit or to provide additional details. Id. at 194. Concluding that Rann had engaged in months of . . . stonewalling and had in no way attempted to exhaust the administrative process, the D.C. Circuit held that his claim had properly been dismissed. Id. at 196-97; see also Wrenn v. Sec'y, Dep't of Veterans Affairs, 918 F.2d 1073, 1078 (2d Cir.1990) (noting that a federal employee must participate in the administrative investigation of his ADEA charge in good faith and that the failure to do so may preclude the bringing of an age discrimination claim, since [a] claimant . . . must cooperate in the administrative investigation of the complaint by making specific charges and by providing information necessary to the investigation) (internal citations omitted). While these cases involved federal employees, they are persuasive in the case at bar for the reasons discussed in connection with Khader. 31 A number of federal district courts have dismissed ADEA suits in which charging private sector employees failed to cooperate or otherwise failed to exhaust their administrative remedies. See Haggard v. Standard Register Co., No. 01-2513-CM, 2003 WL 22102133 at  n. 3 (D.Kan. Aug.1, 2003) (unpublished) ([A]llowing a plaintiff to proceed with an ADEA claim after failing to cooperate with the EEOC would thwart the administrative process and turn the EEOC filing requirement into a mere formality.); Green v. Heidelberg U.S.A., 854 F.Supp. 511, 513 (N.D.Ohio 1994) (dismissing suit based on the plaintiff's failure to cooperate with the EEOC where the plaintiff failed to respond to the EEOC's efforts to interview him regarding his allegations); see also Kozlowski v. Extendicare Health Servs., Inc., No. 99-4338, 2000 WL 193502 at -4 (E.D.Pa. Feb.17, 2000) (unpublished) (noting that a claimant is required to cooperate with the EEOC during the sixty-day period of the EEOC's exclusive jurisdiction over an ADEA charge but refraining from dismissing the suit because the record did not make clear whether the plaintiff's non-cooperation had occurred during or after this sixty-day period). 4 Such holdings give us further confidence in our own holding.