Court Opinion

ID: 9470293
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:01:41.0508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:49.450629
License: Public Domain

E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur with the majority opinion except as to its handling and disposition of the Title VII aspects of this case.
With respect to the Title VII claim, the panel’s opinion means well, but is misguided in its attempt to reach a given result. I therefore dissent.
The result reached by the district court is correct. The defendant specifically raised the defenses of failure to file a charge with the EEOC and the failure to obtain a right-to-sue letter. Although the plaintiff had ample time to amend her complaint to allege the filing of a charge and to secure a right-to-sue letter, at the time the district court dismissed the Title VII claim without prejudice, the plaintiff had done neither. Under these circumstances, the district court’s ruling was proper. Upon the district court’s dismissal, the plaintiff could have obtained a right-to-sue letter and amended her complaint immediately and proceeded to litigate her Title VII claim. To this day the complaint remains unamended and, as far as the record reveals, the plaintiff has not requested her right-to-sue letter from the EEOC. Whether the plaintiff’s failure to take action resulted from her negligence or from a deliberate course, we do not know. We do know, however, that in her June 16, 1980, Brief in Opposition to the Motion to Dismiss, McKee noted that she had now filed a formal EEOC charge and, should her Title VII claim be dismissed, she could pursue her Title VII case in a “separate action regardless of the outcome of this case.” As far as the record reflects that charge is still pending, without any steps on the part of the plaintiff to initiate action thereon.
Unless it is the position of the majority that the trial judge had a duty to direct the pleadings of the plaintiff to decide stratagems of the plaintiff, and to try her case, the district court acted properly in dismissing without prejudice claims with respect to which the plaintiff failed and refused either to fulfill or plead the conditions precedent or the jurisdictional basis.
Furthermore, for essentially the reasons I have set out above, I am puzzled by the majority’s laying the full blame of the plaintiff’s predicament at the feet of the EEOC. This is especially true when it is clear that the EEOC did not act in dereliction of its duty. It is undisputed that the gravamen of the plaintiff’s complaint at all times has been that on account of her sex she received less pay than a male performing the same duties — a classic and typical Equal Pay Act claim. At the time she appeared at the EEOC to file her complaint against the defendant, the Department of Labor, not the EEOC, was responsible for enforcing the Equal Pay Act. The responsibilities for enforcing equal pay claims were not administratively shifted to the EEOC until July 1, 1979, under a reorganization plan submitted by President Carter to the Congress. Thus the EEOC acted properly in referring her to the Department of Labor on April 11,1979. That equal pay was the gravamen of her complaint, if not the sole basis, is underscored by the later amendment of her complaint in the district court to allege a Title VII violation. No independent violations of Title VII were alleged, only her claims for equal pay.
Nevertheless, the ultimate prejudice, if any, suffered by the plaintiff resulted, not from the actions of the EEOC, but from her own failure to follow the statutory procedure of obtaining a right-to-sue letter and *267amending her complaint in court, as I have noted above.
The reasons for the majority’s concern about the possible prejudice that the plaintiff may suffer are not fully evident to me. The plaintiff, in my opinion, is entitled to pursue her claim for equal pay under theories peculiar to Title VII if she meets the statutory conditions precedent. If she had met the statutory procedural requirements, she could have urged her claim under both Title VII and the Equal Pay Act in the proceeding below. She is not precluded, under the facts presented here, from obtaining her right-to-sue letter from the EEOC and filing a new lawsuit limited to her claims under Title VII. Dismissal of her claims in this proceeding were “without prejudice” to raising these claims in a new action. At oral argument, McKee’s counsel stated that he would not object to going forward with a new case under the pending EEOC charge as long as his client’s rights were protected. Cases of both this court and of the Supreme Court have recognized that statutes of limitation and periods of limitation may be tolled for equitable reasons. Here those equitable considerations plainly obtain. The plaintiff presented herself to the EEOC, ready, willing and able to file a charge, and through no fault of her own was rejected and referred to the proper governmental agency. Clearly, these are grounds for the equitable tolling of the periods of limitation and the statute of limitation under Title VII. Furthermore, the doctrines of res judicata or equitable estoppel do not apply here where the plaintiff attempted to raise her claim in the previous case but was precluded by procedural rulings of the district court for jurisdictional reasons. It is undeniable that her claim in this case was dismissed without prejudice to her right to institute a new action under Title VII.
Frankly, it is difficult to see how, as a practical matter, the case of the plaintiff is prejudiced. She has had her day in court on her claim of denial of equal pay for equal work. That is the gravamen of her Title VII claim and, as it is largely based on the same facts as her rejected claim, it would seem improbable, under the circumstances presented in this record, that she will prevail.
In short, what is involved here today, I am afraid, is much ado about nothing except for waste of court time and legal costs.
The reason, therefore, that I file this dissent is that I think that the panel opinion in its application of the law in regard to forgiving the statutory requirements of Title VII is a thing to be much regretted. The opinion attempts to leave the impression that the filing of a written charge with the EEOC is not jurisdictional to the institution of a complaint under Title VII in the federal district courts. It cites Zipes v. Transworld Airlines and other related cases as holding that a timely charge is not jurisdictional but rather can be equitably tolled. I would have no problem holding at this time on the record before us that the plaintiff’s appearance at the EEOC in 1979 tolled all limitation periods with respect to Title' VII. But Zipes is not at all apposite to the question I address. The question of the timeliness of the charge is not now at issue, but rather, as far as the pleadings in this case are concerned, that no charge has been filed at all. Neither Zipes nor any other case of the United States Supreme Court, nor any case in this circuit of which I am aware, has ever held that the filing of a Title VII charge at least by some party plaintiff is not a jurisdictional requirement.
If the panel opinion hopes to leave the impression that the filing of a written charge with the EEOC is merely a condition precedent and not jurisdictional, and hence can be waived, either in terms of fulfilling or pleading, it should say so in plain, unmistakable language. Even if we here treat the filing of a charge as a mere condition precedent, it clearly was not waived, as a matter of pleading, in this case. The defendant specifically pled that the conditions precedent had not been met. To this very day there has been no amendment to the complaint to allege that either a charge has been filed (which it has) or that a right-to-sue letter has been received (which it has not).
*268Are we truly to say that it is too troublesome, too demanding, too difficult or arcane, to ask that the plain language of the statute and the simple rules of pleading be followed by an attorney who is a member of the Bar of this court.
Because of the majority’s failure to come plainly to grips with the tough questions that present obstacles to the result the majority seeks to achieve, the remand becomes a conundrum. The opinion speaks of a remand to determine “the tolling question.” The tolling question alone settles nothing. If the complaint remains unamended and no right-to-sue letter has been obtained, the problem is not “tolling.” Tolling relates to the statute of limitations. The issues on remand are waiver of a written charge and waiver of the right-to-sue letter since the Amendment to the Complaint setting forth the Title VII claim alleges neither. Whether there can be a waiver either to the fulfillment of the statutory requirement or to such an allegation depends upon whether a written charge is jurisdictional or merely a condition precedent. The panel opinion brushes this question aside and refuses to address it even though its determination would seem essential before the district court can act.
In conclusion, there seems to me a simple and fair way to decide this appeal under standards ordinarily applicable to all parties and lawyers which is also fair to the plaintiff-appellant. First, we should simply affirm the district court in all respects, including its dismissal of the Title VII claims without prejudice. The plaintiff’s EEOC charge is still pending. She can now request a right-to-sue letter, initiate a new complaint pleading all statutory prerequisites, and on the basis of the record in this case, plus what additional evidence she wishes to offer, present her arguments that the facts adduced constitute a violation of Title VII. The court at that time could decide all tolling questions raised by the majority.
At least this way of handling the case avoids an opinion that inches toward the ultimate result of obliterating all statutory requirements to the filing of Title VII suits, a result which I think is a rejection of sound rules and orderly processes, not to mention plain statutory language and congressional intent.
For these reasons I dissent from the panel opinion as it applies to the plaintiff’s Title VII claims, and wish the district court the best in sorting out the procedural problems we present it.