Opinion ID: 552820
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Chancellor Stewart and Trustees:

Text: 39 Sosa alleged that the individually-named trustees and Chancellor Stewart discriminated against him by censuring him for unprofessional conduct after the EEOC had issued its Reasonable Cause Determination. Sosa has not alleged, as he did against the administrators, that the trustees and Chancellor Stewart discriminated against him before they censured him two years after the Reasonable Cause Determination. The district court therefore applied the general rule--that those not named in an EEOC charge may not be named in a subsequent court action--to preclude Sosa from suing these defendants. 40 Three other well-established exceptions to the general rule may apply to Sosa's case, however. First, if the respondent named in the EEOC charge is a principal or agent of the unnamed party, or if they are substantially identical parties, suit may proceed against the unnamed party. 2 A. Larson at Sec. 49.11(c)(2). Second, suit may proceed if the EEOC could have inferred that the unnamed party violated Title VII. Id. Third, if the unnamed party had notice of the EEOC conciliation efforts and participated in the EEOC proceedings, then suit may proceed against the unnamed party. Id. As Professor Larson explains: 41 Courts are particularly likely to invoke one of these exceptions when the initial EEOC charge was filed without the assistance of counsel, since the charging party may not understand the need to name all parties in the charge, or may be unable to appreciate the separate legal identities of, for instance, a corporation and its officers. 42 Id. In analyzing the applicability of these exceptions, we note first that the underlying policy obtains in Sosa's case. Sosa did in fact file his EEOC charge without assistance of counsel. Second, we note that Sosa may be able to develop facts concerning Chancellor Stewart's and the trustee's involvement in Title VII violations and the EEOC investigation and conciliation process sufficient to retain them as defendants in his suit. 43 Sosa specifically alleged Chancellor Stewart had received actual notice of Sosa's EEOC charge in December of 1985. The notice and participation exception may therefore apply to Chancellor Stewart. It appears at this stage of the proceedings, then, that Sosa can indeed allege a set of facts against Chancellor Stewart upon which relief can be granted. See Love, 871 F.2d at 1491. Dismissal of Sosa's claims against Chancellor Stewart was therefore error. 44 Moreover, we have previously applied the exception for substantially identical parties when in Chung we permitted suit against doctors not named in the EEOC charge and whose only apparent role in denial of promotions was as directors of the hospital named in the charge. See Chung, 667 F.2d at 790, 792; see also Kaplan, 525 F.2d at 1359 (international union was subject to Title VII suit where EEOC charge identified only the union local as a respondent). In Sosa's case, the trustees govern the District, the entity Sosa named as respondent in his EEOC charge, just as the director-doctors governed the hospital named as respondent in Chung's EEOC charge. See Cal.Educ.Code Sec. 72200. Therefore, the trustees and the District could well be substantially identical parties, thus exposing the trustees to Sosa's court action. The district court therefore erred in dismissing Sosa's claims against the individually-named trustees. 45