Court Opinion

ID: 9476642
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:01:24.650956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:25.858713
License: Public Domain

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring;
The only question here is what Congress intended. The comprehensive nature of Ti-*965tie VII and the obvious differences between Title VII and § 1983 suggest at first blush that Title VII is the exclusive remedy for claims of employment discrimination against state and local governments. These facts are, however, only clues in the search for congressional intent. Here the legislative history of the 1972 Amendments leaves no doubt that Congress intended to preserve a § 1983 cause of action for employment discrimination that violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Congress weighed the vexatiousness of multiple actions for a single offense against the need to assault the evil of discrimination with a varied legal arsenal. Congress found the latter value paramount.
I.
In determining when Congress intends a statutory remedy to be exclusive, the Supreme Court has increasingly focused on the comprehensiveness of a statute and its remedies. When Congress has enacted a statute that establishes an administrative process for resolving disputes and imposes strict restrictions on private actions, the Court has limited parties to their statutory remedies and has prevented plaintiffs from using a § 1983 cause of action to bypass the administrative process. See Smith v. Robinson, 468 U.S. 992, 1009-13, 104 S.Ct. 3457, 3467-69, 82 L.Ed.2d 746 (1984) (decision modified by 20 U.S.C.A. § 1415 (West Supp.1987)); Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 385-89, 103 S.Ct. 2404, 2414-17, 76 L.Ed.2d 648 (1983); Brown v. GSA, 425 U.S. 820, 829-33, 96 S.Ct. 1961, 1966-68, 48 L.Ed.2d 402 (1976). Cf. Great American Federal Savings & Loan Association v. Novotny, 442 U.S. 366, 373-76, 99 S.Ct. 2345, 2349-51, 60 L.Ed.2d 957 (1979); Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Association, 453 U.S. 1, 13-15, 101 S.Ct. 2615, 2622-24, 69 L.Ed.2d 435 (1981). Thus, in the absence of a specific congressional intent to the contrary, the comprehensive nature of Title VII is strong evidence that Congress meant the statutory remedy to be exclusive.
A section 1983 suit allows the employee to avoid virtually all of the specific Title VII limitations. A claimant can avoid the 180-day filing requirement because the § 1983 suit is subject to the same statute of limitations as any personal injury action. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 278, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 1948, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985). An aggrieved employee would not be entitled to a jury trial under Title VII, but would be for her legal claims under § 1983. Moreover, she can sue for compensatory damages and, although she cannot obtain punitive damages from a municipality, Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 101 S.Ct. 2748, 69 L.Ed.2d 616 (1981), she could seek punitive damages by suing a municipal employee directly, Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 103 S.Ct. 1625, 75 L.Ed.2d 632 (1983). Title VII, by contrast, is equitable in nature. Most importantly, an employee may be able to “completely bypass the administrative process, which plays such a crucial role in the scheme established by Congress in Title VII.” Novotny, 442 U.S. at 376, 99 S.Ct. at 2351.
Before allowing litigants to ignore a statutory scheme as detailed and comprehensive as Title VII, courts must make certain that Congress has expressed its intent in an unambiguous fashion. I concur in the result reached here because, in this case, the legislative record is not murky. It is clear that Congress intended Title VII to be an additional, rather than exclusive, remedy for employment discrimination.
The 1972 Amendments began when Representative Hawkins introduced a bill to extend Title VII coverage to state and federal employees. Although the bill did not state whether Title VII was the exclusive remedy for state employees, the report from the House Committee on Education and Labor noted that the bill preserved a state employee’s cause of action under § 1983. H.R.Rep. No. 92-238, 92d Cong., 1st Sess. 18-19 (1971) reprinted in Legislative History of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, at 78-79 (1972) [hereinafter Legislative History]. The minority members of the committee filed a *966separate report, noting that they believed Title VII should be the exclusive remedy, but they had failed to convince a majority of the committee. Legislative History at 126-27.
The minority, however, did convince the whole House that Title VII should be the exclusive remedy. Representative Erlenbom introduced a substitute bill, which provided in part that, except for a claimant’s right to sue under Title VII, “a charge filed hereunder shall be the exclusive remedy of any person claiming to be aggrieved by an unlawful employment practice of an employer, employment agency, or labor organization.” Legislative History at 326, 329. During debate in the House, Representative Erlenbom noted the unfairness of allowing an employee to bring multiple suits against an employer for the same incident. Id. at 231. The House ultimately enacted the Erlenbom substitute bill with its exclusivity provision.
After the House passed this bill, the Senate renewed the debate on exclusivity. Senator Williams introduced a bill without an exclusivity clause, and the accompanying committee report explained that “neither the above provisions regarding the individual’s right to sue under Title VII, nor any of the other provisions of this bill, are meant to affect existing rights granted under other laws.” Legislative History at 433. In response to the Williams bill, Senator Hruska introduced an amendment that, with a few exceptions, would have made Title VII the exclusive remedy for employment discrimination. Id. at 1382.
The Senate conducted extensive debate on the exclusivity issue. Senator Hruska argued that exclusivity would prevent employees from harrassing or blackmailing their employers by bringing more than one lawsuit. See Legislative History at 1395-98, 1402, 1509, 1518. Senators Williams and Javits lead the fight for non-exclusivity, arguing that a battery of actions was necessary to fight employment discrimination. Id. at 1400, 1403-05, 1511-15, 1517. During the debate, both sides apparently assumed that state employees could bring a § 1983 action before the 1972 amendments and would be able to bring such an action unless the 1972 Amendments contained an exclusivity provision. The Senate finally rejected the Hruska Amendment by a vote of 33-33 and rejected a motion to reconsider the amendment by 50-37. Thus, the Senate version of the 1972 Amendments went to conference without an exclusivity provision.
At conference, the committee had to reconcile the differing House and Senate versions of exclusivity. The Senate version prevailed; the conference bill did not contain an exclusivity provision. The conference report did not discuss this issue, but simply stated that the “House bill provided that charges under Title VII are the exclusive remedy for unlawful employment practices. The House receded.” Legislative History at 1815. During the post-conference debates, no Congressman mentioned the exclusivity problem.
In sum, the legislative history shows that the House and Senate extensively debated the effect of the 1972 Amendments on § 1983 causes of action and were aware that, without an exclusivity clause, state employees could still bring a § 1983 suit. Although the House initially supported an exclusivity provision, the Senate desire for non-exclusivity prevailed in the conference bill. Based on this explicit record, I believe that Congress did not intend Title VII to be the exclusive remedy for state employees who allege employment discrimination that violates the Fourteenth Amendment.