Opinion ID: 2709064
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Review Undermines Conciliation

Text: An implied affirmative defense for failure to conciliate also does not fit well with the broader statutory scheme of Title VII. Offering the implied defense invites employers to use the conciliation process to undermine enforcement of Title VII rather than to take the conciliation process seriously as an opportunity to resolve a dispute. The Supreme Court has recognized “Congress’s intent that voluntary compliance be the preferred means of achieving the objectives of Title VII.” Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557, 581 (2009) (internal quotations omitted). In 1972 Congress gave the EEOC the new power to bring suit in order to spur more voluntary compliance. EEOC v. Kimberly-Clark Corp., 511 F.2d 1352, 1357 (6th Cir. 1975). Congress’s purpose is not served well by litigating the parties’ informal endeavors at “conference, conciliation, and persuasion.” Simply put, the conciliation defense tempts employers to turn what was meant to be an informal negotiation into the subject of endless disputes over whether the EEOC did enough before going to court. Such disputes impose significant costs on both sides, as well as on the court, and to what end? All the employer should legitimately hope to gain is some unspecified quantum of additional efforts at conciliation by the EEOC. The result of such a defense, as we have said in a closely related context, is to “protract and complicate Title VII litigation, and with little or no offsetting benefit.” Oberweis Dairy, 456 F.3d at 710 (reversing summary judgment for employer; complaining party’s failure to cooperate did not provide employer with affirmative defense); see also EEOC v. Chicago Miniature Lamp Works, 526 F. Supp. 974, 975–76 (N.D. 16 No. 13-2456 Ill. 1981) (discussing at length “undesirability of turning every properly-filed EEOC action into a two-fold action” by litigating first the EEOC’s probable cause finding and then the actual merits). Of course, we doubt that many employers will go to the trouble of putting on a failure-to-conciliate defense purely out of a desire to see their adversary across the negotiating table again. What most hope to win is dismissal of the case, or at least its delay. See, e.g., Asplundh Tree, 340 F.3d at 1261; EEOC v. Bloomberg LP, — F. Supp. 2d —, —, 2013 WL 4799150, at –11 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 9, 2013) (dismissing case while acknowledging that meritorious discrimination claims “now will never see the inside of a courtroom”). If an employer engaged in conciliation knows it can avoid liability down the road, even if it has engaged in unlawful discrimination, by arguing that the EEOC did not negotiate properly—whatever that might mean—the employer’s incentive to reach an agreement can be outweighed by the incentive to stockpile exhibits for the coming court battle. Similar reasoning explains why Title VII makes negotiations confidential in the first place. See Branch v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 638 F.2d 873, 881 (5th Cir. 1981) (“the prospect of disclosure or possible admission into evidence of proposals made during conciliation efforts would tend to inhibit the kind of free and open communication necessary to achieve unlitigated compliance with the requirements of Title VII”). An employer cannot be sure in advance that its defense will carry the day, of course. But the cost to the employer of pursuing that defense rather than settling before suit is filed is No. 13-2456 17 likely to be relatively low—a civil complaint from the EEOC, perhaps accompanied by a negative press release—because the employer remains free to settle after the EEOC files suit. The potential gains of escaping liability altogether will, in some cases, more than make up for the risks of not engaging in serious attempts at conciliation. And the stronger the EEOC’s case on the merits, the stronger the incentive to use a failure-toconciliate defense. We see no persuasive reason to find that a statute meant to encourage voluntary compliance on the part of employers implied a defense that would create such contrary incentives for them. See generally EEOC v. Shell Oil Co., 466 U.S. 54, 81 (1984) (rejecting employer’s effort to litigate adequacy of EEOC’s disclosure of facts supporting subpoena where such disputes would slow and undermine EEOC’s enforcement efforts). Mach Mining and the amici supporting it argue strenuously that judges must police the EEOC, lest it either abandon conciliation altogether or misuse it by advancing unrealistic and even extortionate settlement demands. Neither scenario is plausible. We are not persuaded by Mach Mining’s argument that EEOC field offices are so eager to win publicity or to curry favor with Washington by filing more lawsuits that they will needlessly rush to court. First, in the context of deciding whether to imply private rights of action, the Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear that not every statutory directive is the subject of a private right of action. See generally Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 727 (2004) (“this Court has recently and repeatedly said that a decision to create a private right of action is one better left to legislative judgment in the great majority of cases”); 18 No. 13-2456 Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275, 286–87 (2001) (without congressional “intent to create not just a private right but also a private remedy … a cause of action does not exist and courts may not create one, no matter how desirable that might be as a policy matter, or how compatible with the statute”). The Court’s reluctance to imply private rights of action would seem to apply with similar force to implied affirmative defenses, especially as defenses for violations of federal law where Congress provided expressly for the enforcement action itself. Using the standards for implied rights of action, there is no indication that Title VII’s directive to conciliate was for the special benefit of employers or that they have a right to conciliation. Congress was focused on effective enforcement of the anti-discrimination standards of Title VII, not creating new rights for employers. See Alexander, 532 U.S. at 289 (“Statutes that focus on the person regulated rather than the individuals protected create ‘no implication of an intent to confer rights on a particular class of persons.’”), quoting California v. Sierra Club, 451 U.S. 287, 294 (1981). Second, the agency has its own powerful incentives to conciliate, and the available data show that it does so. The EEOC currently processes and investigates nearly 100,000 charges of discrimination a year, but it ultimately files suit in only a few hundred cases. In fiscal year 2012, the agency attempted conciliation in 4207 cases, was unsuccessful in 2616, yet filed suit on the merits in just 122. All Statutes: FY 1997 T h r o u g h F Y 2 0 1 2 , http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/all.cfm; EEOC Litigation Statistics, FY 1997 Through FY 2012, http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/litigation.cfm No. 13-2456 19 (both sites last visited Dec. 20, 2013). That so few unsuccessful efforts at conciliation end up in court shows how constrained the agency is by practical limits of budget and personnel. The agency’s practices and priorities are also checked in this regard by the two other branches of government, making it less urgent for the judiciary to add its supervision, at least without a statutory command to do so. Although structured as an independent agency, the EEOC shares its enforcement authority with the Attorney General, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f), and it is attuned to the policy priorities of the executive. See Neal Devins, Political Will and the Unitary Executive: What Makes an Independent Agency Independent?, 15 Cardozo L. Rev. 273, 297–98 (1993). As it can with other agencies, Congress can exert its influence on the EEOC through oversight hearings, adjustments to appropriations, and statutory amendments. In addition, the commissioners who head the agency are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. In short, even without the judiciary trying to monitor the EEOC’s efforts at conciliation, those efforts are subject to meaningful scrutiny.