Opinion ID: 2802126
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: continuing-violations doctrine

Text: The continuing-violations doctrine operates to toll a limitations period when an employer’s conduct “represent[s] an ongoing unlawful employment practice.” Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 107 (2002) (citations and quotation marks omitted). The first of the two categories of continuing violations permits a plaintiff to establish an exception to a statute-of-limitations bar by showing wrongful activity occurring outside of the limitations period is “sufficiently related” to alleged misconduct within the limitations period and thus may be found to “continue[] into the present.” Bowerman v. Int’l Union, 4 No. 14-2098. Pittman, et al. v. Spectrum United Auto., Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of Am., Local No. 12, 646 F.3d 360, 366 (6th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Sharpe v. Cureton, 319 F.3d 259, 268 (6th Cir. 2003), and Bell v. Ohio State Univ., 351 F.3d 240, 247 (6th Cir. 2003)). Appellants do not argue this category applies to their claims. The second category under the continuing-violations doctrine tolls the limitations period where an employee alleges her employer had “a long-standing and demonstrable policy of discrimination.” E.E.O.C. v. Penton Indus. Publ’g Co., Inc., 851 F.2d 835, 838 (6th Cir. 1988). The employee must allege an “over-arching policy of discrimination” against the protected class of which she is a member. Janikowski v. Bendix Corp., 823 F.2d 945, 948 (6th Cir. 1987); see also Sharpe, 319 F.3d at 269 (holding that “discriminatory treatment” of an individual plaintiff “is inadequate to invoke the ‘longstanding and demonstrable policy of discrimination’ continuing violation exception”). Appellants have alleged Spectrum took a class-wide discriminatory action when Spectrum acceded to its client’s discriminatory request by prohibiting all black employees from being assigned to work with the client at issue. In addition to alleging a longstanding and demonstrable policy of discrimination, however, parties who seek to invoke the continuing-violations doctrine also must allege they have suffered a specific discriminatory act within the applicable limitations period. Dixon v. Anderson, 928 F.2d 212, 217-18 (6th Cir. 1991), abrogated on other grounds by Sharpe, 319 F.3d at 268. We have been clear that an employer’s failure to rectify a prior discriminatory act is not sufficient to meet the standard for invoking the continuing-violations doctrine. In E.E.O.C. v. McCall Printing Corp., 633 F.2d 1232 (6th Cir. 1980), the court concluded the continuing-violations doctrine was not triggered by an employer’s denial of its employees’ 5 No. 14-2098. Pittman, et al. v. Spectrum “[r]epeated requests for further relief from a prior act of discrimination . . . .” Id. at 1237. In 1966, McCall entered into a settlement agreement with a group of black males who were employed in McCall’s mailing and shipping department, and who previously had been excluded from the company seniority system and its formal line of progression. Id. at 1234. The company gave the black employees access to the seniority system but calculated their seniority from the date of the settlement agreement, rather than the employees’ original hire dates. Id. In 1970, McCall transferred a group of white male employees into the mailing and shipping department and calculated their seniority dates from their original hire dates. Id. McCall rejected the black employees’ request to have their seniority dates similarly calculated. Id. In 1972, the EEOC and McCall reached a conciliation agreement under which female employees gained access to the lines of progression and were granted full departmental seniority, calculated from their original hire dates; at that time, McCall again rejected the black employees’ request for full departmental seniority. Id. We rejected the EEOC’s contention that McCall’s denial of the black employees’ request following the conciliation agreement revived the black employees’ claims. Id. at 1237-38. The McCall court described the 1966 agreement as only a partial remedy for the company’s earlier racially discriminatory conduct, but concluded “[t]he fact that the residual effects of the alleged discrimination are still felt through seniority status established in 1966 does not render this a continuing act of discrimination . . . .” Id. at 1237. Other cases have “further defined the subtle difference between a continuing violation and a continuing effect of a prior violation.” Trzebuckowski v. City of Cleveland, 319 F.3d 853, 858 (6th Cir. 2003) (concluding plaintiff’s fear of future attempts to enforce a city ordinance against him was the “ill effect” of an earlier discriminatory prosecution and 6 No. 14-2098. Pittman, et al. v. Spectrum “not a new act or violation of his rights”); see also, e.g., Janikowski, 823 F.2d at 948 (defendant’s refusal to place plaintiff in another department, following one-year notice of termination to plaintiff allegedly motivated by plaintiff’s age, did not trigger continuingviolations doctrine because plaintiff’s placement requests were merely “an attempt to avoid the consequences of the termination”); Kovacevich v. Kent State Univ., 224 F.3d 806, 829 (6th Cir. 2000) (denial of plaintiff’s grievance alleging sex and age discrimination did not “constitute a discriminatory act that tolls the statute of limitations” (citing Janikowski, 823 F.2d at 948)); Joishy v. Cleveland Clinic Found., 3 F. App’x 259, 261 (6th Cir. 2001) (per curiam) (“Consequences of past acts . . . are insufficient to establish present acts of discrimination and will not extend or toll the limitations period.”); Z Tech. Corp. v. Lubrizol Corp., 753 F.3d 594, 600 (6th Cir. 2014) (complaint failed to allege “some injurious act actually occurring during the limitations period . . . [and offered] merely the abatable but unabated inertial consequences of some pre-limitations action.” (quoting Barnosky Oils, Inc. v. Union Oil Co. of Cal., 665 F.2d 74, 81 (6th Cir. 1981))); cf. Noble v. Chrysler Motors Corp., Jeep Div., 32 F.3d 997 1001-02 (6th Cir. 1994) (holding that, while union’s initial failure to process a grievance may constitute an unfair labor practice, union’s subsequent inactivity in pursuing the grievance was not a continuing violation). While Appellants may have plausibly alleged Spectrum violated § 1981 by acceding to its client’s racial preferences, Spectrum’s subsequent failure to undo that violation does not constitute a present act of discrimination. The loss of future shift assignments is “a delayed, but inevitable, consequence” of Spectrum’s prior discriminatory act, and not a present, discrete illegal act. Ricks, 449 U.S. at 257-58. Appellants fail to show we should apply the 7 No. 14-2098. Pittman, et al. v. Spectrum continuing-violations doctrine because they have not alleged they have suffered a specific discriminatory act within the 180-day limitations period. Dixon, 928 F.2d at 217-18.