Opinion ID: 78633
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Worksharing Agreement

Text: The worksharing agreement between the CCRD and the EEOC states that each agency designate[s] the other as its agent for the purpose of receiving and drafting [employment discrimination] charges.... Aplt.App. at 54. Accordingly, after each agency receives a discrimination charge, it is filed automatically with the other agency. The agreement then delegates authority to the CCRD to receive, investigate, and draft charges on behalf of the EEOC. The agreement, however, also expressly limits the delegation of authority: This delegation of authority to receive charges does not include the right of one Agency to determine the jurisdiction of the other Agency over a charge. Id. (emphasis added). As to the investigation of the charges' merits, the agreement provides that the CCRD may receiv[e] and draft[] charges, and, once [the CCRD] begins an investigation, it resolves the charge. Id. The resolution of charges by the CCRD is not binding on the EEOC. According to the worksharing agreement and federal regulations, the EEOC is only required to give substantial weight to state agency final action and the EEOC is not bound by the state action. 29 C.F.R. § 1601.21(e); Aplt.App. at 57. Thus, the EEOC's Notice of Charge of Discrimination informs parties that the state agency's final findings and orders will be given weight by EEOC in making its own determination as to whether reasonable cause exists to believe that discrimination has occurred. Aplt.App. at 21 (emphasis added). The EEOC's substantial weight review occurs only after the state agency here, the CCRDcompletes its review and investigation. Aplt.App. at 57. Rodriguez and the EEOC contend that nothing in the worksharing agreement authorizes the CCRD to act on behalf of the EEOC for this purpose. They argue the agreement delegates a limited investigatory authority to the CCRD, but the EEOC reserves its authority to conduct a substantial weight review and then issue a right-to-sue notice terminating its jurisdiction. We agree. As an initial matter, this case does not require us to resolve whether the EEOC has the statutory authority to delegate to a state agency the power to issue right-to-sue notices on its behalf. For purposes of our analysis, we can assume it may do so. Wet Ink contends the worksharing agreement authorizes the CCRD to issue right-to-sue notices on the EEOC's behalf, and points to the portion of the agreement that allows the CCRD to resolv[e] charges. Wet Ink further argues to resolve a charge necessarily includes the power to make a final administrative decision on the legal status of the claim. We find this interpretation of the worksharing agreement unpersuasive. The plain language of the agreement does not authorize the CCRD to resolve charges for the EEOC in a final, binding manner. Instead, the agreement merely allows the EEOC to give some deference to the CCRD's resolution of the charges. That deference is not a delegation of the EEOC's requirement to make its own, final administrative determination. To the contrary, according to the agreement, the EEOC will conduct its own substantial weight review of the CCRD's final findings, and the Notice of Charge of Discrimination expressly states that thereafter the EEOC will make its own determination as to whether reasonable cause exists to believe that discrimination has occurred. Aplt.App. at 21. Only following the substantial weight review does the EEOC finally resolve the complaint. Thus, even if the authorization to the CCRD to resolve charges implies the power to make some final factual or legal determinations, the worksharing agreement makes clear that the power is contingent upon the EEOC's final review. Before the EEOC makes its final decision, the CCRD's power to resolve charges whatever meaning we give that termis merely a recommendation that has no binding effect on the EEOC. It is implausible that the worksharing agreement would be so careful to make the CCRD's resolution of charges advisory, yet allow the CCRD to bind discrimination complainants through the issuance of a right-to-sue notice. This is especially true when the agreement does not even require the CCRD to give the EEOC notice of its own resolution of charges under Colorado law. The worksharing agreement's express preservation of each agency's jurisdiction further supports our conclusion that the CCRD is not authorized to send right-to-sue notices on the EEOC's behalf. After authorizing a joint agency for the purpose of receiving and drafting charges, the agreement cautions, [t]his delegation of authority to receive charges does not include the right of one Agency to determine the jurisdiction of the other Agency over a charge. Aplt.App. at 54. Finding an implied power to send right-to-sue notices would conflict with the agreement's express jurisdictional preservation for at least two additional reasons. First, under state law, the complainant's receipt of a right-to-sue notice is one way the CCRD's jurisdiction can cease. See COLO.REV.STAT. § 24-34-306(11) ([I]f the complainant has requested and received a notice of right to sue ... the jurisdiction of the [CCRD] over the complaint shall cease....). If the worksharing agreement's joint agency included the power to send right-to-sue notices, the EEOC would be authorized to terminate the CCRD's jurisdiction, which is contrary to the agreement's jurisdictional preservation provisions. Second, the CCRD's issuance of right-to-sue notices also would terminate the EEOC's jurisdiction. The EEOC is prohibited from bringing suit based on a complainant's charge if the complainant has already filed a private action. See EEOC v. Cont'l Oil Co., 548 F.2d 884, 889-90 (10th Cir.1977) (adopting the holding of EEOC v. Mo. Pac. R.R., 493 F.2d 71 (8th Cir.1974) that after the complainant has filed a suit, the EEOC only can seek permissive intervention and cannot file its own suit); accord EEOC v. Harris Chernin, Inc., 10 F.3d 1286, 1292-93 (7th Cir.1993). A delegation of this authority effectively would block the EEOC from making an independent judgment on whether to file Title VII claims. We doubt the EEOC would delegate this authority absent explicit language doing so. Other cases construing similar state and federal right-to-sue notices support our conclusion. These cases, while not directly on point, conclude that a state agency's right-to-sue notice does not trigger the federal filing period and vice versa. The closest case to the issue here presents the converse of our facts. In Vielma v. Eureka Co., 218 F.3d 458 (5th Cir.2000), the complainant received an EEOC right-to-sue notice before receiving notice from the state agency. The complainant subsequently sued in state court on state law grounds within the relevant state period but more than 90 days after receiving the federal notice. The federal/state worksharing agreement provided that the state agency and the EEOC designate the other as its agent for the purpose of receiving and drafting charges. Id. at 462. In construing this language, the court concluded that the EEOCeven if the notice could be construed to speak for the state agencycould not issue a right-to-sue notice on the state agency's behalf because doing so would exceed the scope of authority delegated in the worksharing agreement. Id. at 464. The court went on to observe that its conclusion also finds support in the fact that in the reverse situation, receipt of a [state agency] letter would not trigger the analogous EEOC ninety-day filing period. Id. at 466 (emphasis in the original). Wet Ink points to a Ninth Circuit case to support its position, but the case is readily distinguishable. In Surrell v. Cal. Water Serv. Co., 518 F.3d 1097 (9th Cir. 2008), the plaintiff received a state notice authorizing her to sue. She did not receive a federal notice even though she was legally entitled to one under Title VII because the EEOC had not made a timely final decision. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1). The plaintiff filed suit in federal court on state and federal grounds. The court held the federal claims could proceed despite the EEOC's failure to issue a right-to-sue notice. The Ninth Circuit did not address whether the state notice triggered the federal filing period. The court held that once a plaintiff is entitled to receive a [federal] right-to-sue letter ... it makes no difference whether the plaintiff actually obtained it. Surrell, 518 F.3d at 1105 (emphasis in the original). The statutory filing period simply was not at issue in Surrell, and the EEOC's timeliness is not in question in the case before us. Finally, at least two recent district courts have addressed the issue in the context of state right-to-sue notices. In both cases, the court found the state notice did not trigger Title VII's 90-day filing limitation. See Albright v. Philadelphia, 399 F.Supp.2d 575, 583 n. 13 (E.D.Pa.2005) (holding the state notice did not constitute final agency action by the EEOC); Pérez-Cordero v. Wal-Mart PR, Inc., 235 F.Supp.2d 95, 102 (D.P.R.2002) (holding the state notice did not trigger the federal filing period). In sum, nothing in the worksharing agreement or relevant case law supports Wet Ink's view that the CCRD can issue right-to-sue notices on behalf of the EEOC.