Opinion ID: 2994406
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ripeness of Ameritech Action

Text: The EEOC argues in the alternative that Ameritech’s suit was unripe because the parties failed to exhaust their administrative remedies. At the time Ameritech filed its action, individual charges were still pending before the EEOC’s Cleveland office, that office had not completed its consideration of the charges, yet Ameritech named some of those people as defendants. Shortly after Ameritech filed this action, the Commission filed its own suit in the Northern District of Ohio, naming Ameritech, the IBEW, and the CWA as the defendants and asserting claims similar to those that are here. Although Bernabei’s suit was transferred to the Northern District of Illinois from the same Ohio district court, that court denied Ameritech’s motion to transfer the EEOC case here, and so the Commission’s action is still pending there, awaiting the outcome of this appeal. Had Ameritech not filed its declaratory judgment action, the Commission could have controlled both the timing and the forum of this litigation to a far greater degree. (We note, however, that the Commission is not immune from a transfer of venue under 28 U.S.C. sec. 1404(a), and so this right is not unqualified.) The Commission argues that the employer should not have the right to thwart its enforcement decisions in the way that Ameritech has done here. In a sense, its argument is that any employer action that is possible (assuming arguendo that such actions exist) must be subject to the same exhaustion requirements that employees face. This too is a reasonable argument, but not one that can carry the day on the facts before us. To begin with, exhaustion is not a jurisdictional requirement for Title VII claims. See Gibson v. West, 201 F.3d 990, 994 (7th Cir. 2000). It is merely a precondition to bringing a Title VII claim in federal court, and is therefore subject to the doctrines of waiver, estoppel, and equitable tolling. See id. We would have a much more difficult case on our hands if Bernabei and Cuprys had never filed charges with the EEOC, or if the EEOC had not responded to the charges by issuing right-to-sue letters. We do not need to address that hypothetical situation here, however, nor is it necessary for us to address the question whether an employer must file a formal charge with the Commission as a prerequisite to bringing the kind of declaratory judgment action Ameritech filed. In our case, individual charges were filed and the EEOC issued right-to-sue letters. Thus, whatever interests in completion of the Commission’s internal procedures may exist were satisfied. We are left with the more conventional problem of competing lawsuits on the same issues in two different federal districts. This does not seem to have bothered the parties much, and it is surely not the kind of fundamental defect that divests the district court of power to rule on the case.