Court Opinion

ID: 9488683
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:52:46.884045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:02.561296
License: Public Domain

K.K. HALL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Imagine that on Friday, the first day of the month, XYZ Corporation decides to terminate two of its line workers, Smith and Jones, and immediately gives them two weeks’ written notice. Smith and Jones, each believing that she has been unlawfully discriminated against, file charges with the EEOC on Monday the fourth. Unable, however, to afford the luxury of undue optimism, both Smith and Jones explore the possibility of signing on with XYZ’s competitor, LMNOP, Inc.
On Tuesday the twelfth, XYZ’s personnel department receives a letter from its LMNOP counterpart, requesting employment information and references on Smith and Jones. Annoyed that the pair have filed EEOC charges against the company, XYZ’s personnel director intentionally and vindictively prepares false reports for dissemination to LMNOP. The spurious reports are placed in separate envelopes and stamped for mailing on Friday the fifteenth, which also happens to be Smith and Jones’s last day at XYZ. Although Smith’s report is included in Friday’s outgoing mail, Jones’s report is inadvertently excluded, and, therefore, not sent to LMNOP until Monday the eighteenth.
The majority cannot dispute that XYZ’s conduct toward Smith and Jones was equally culpable, and that the company’s behavior was precisely that which Title VII’s anti-*333retaliation provision was designed to prohibit. Nevertheless, under the approach adopted today by the majority — an approach in diametric opposition to that employed by the vast preponderance of our sister circuits and by the EEOC itself — Smith would be entitled to file a retaliation charge, and Jones would be left out in the cold. Because the majority’s decision will soon create many more Joneses than Smiths, I must respectfully dissent.
I.
A.
The majority acknowledges that, even if the term ’’employees” as used in Section 704(a) unambiguously designates only those persons earning a paycheck from the offending employer at the moment of retaliation, this court may nevertheless expand the scope of the designation to avoid a grossly absurd or plainly unintended result.1 As illustrated by the XYZ hypothetical, the majority’s construction of Section 704(a) will inevitably lead to grossly absurd results; that those results are also plainly unintended can be readily understood by examining Congress’s purpose in enacting Title VII.
B.
“In determining the meaning of [a] statute, we look not only to the particular statutory language, but to the design of the statute as a whole and to its object and policy.” Crandon v. United States, 494 U.S. 152, 158, 110 S.Ct. 997, 1001, 108 L.Ed.2d 132 (1990) (citations omitted). The statutory scheme in this case is Title VII, and Congress’s purpose in enacting it is easily discerned.
Title VII is sweeping, remedial legislation; it applies to virtually all entities that affect the employment relationship, and it proscribes a vast range of ignoble behavior.2 There is a detailed enforcement procedure— including resort to the federal courts, which are accorded broad power to grant legal and equitable relief.3 Congress demonstrated, by giving Title VII a broad reach, that it is serious about eradicating discrimination and its invidious effects within the employment relationship. That is why the statute was enacted, and that is why the anti-retaliation provision was included; Congress understood that Title VII could only be enforced effectively if the persons most aggrieved by discriminatory practices could come forward without fear of retribution. Unfortunately, the majority’s construction of the term “employees” in Section 704(a) will actively hinder the enforcement mechanism.
This hindrance will work on two levels. There is, of course, the obvious hindrance of *334allowing an employer to escape sanctions for behavior that is clearly unlawful.4 More subtle, however, is the hindrance on enforcement that will almost certainly result from the remaining employees’ reluctance to bring subsequent violations to the EEOC’s attention; no reasonable employee will «orne forward if there is any chance that his or her term of employment will soon end, thus giving the employer carte blanche to retaliate. Moreover, an aggrieved person should not be forced to remain with an abusive employer solely to ensure that he or she receives the full protection of Title VII.
C.
Today’s decision erodes a crucial Title VII enforcement mechanism; it thus will inevitably erode the substantive protections of Title VII itself. Because Congress’s inclusion of Section 704(a) was intended to strengthen— not weaken — the statute, I would interpret the section’s language in a manner consistent with that intent.
My interpretation of Section 704(a) hardly brands me a maverick; indeed, the majority’s approach is the eccentric one. No fewer than six courts of appeal have concluded, as I do, that the section’s protection extends to those employees no longer actively engaged in working for the retaliating employer.5 Until now, the Seventh Circuit had stood alone in reaching the opposite conclusion. See Reed v. Shepard, 939 F.2d 484, 492-93 (7th Cir.1991).6 Moreover, the EEOC itself has appeared before this court, as amicus curiae, to urge that we adopt the dominant rule fashioned by our sister circuits.
Two of those courts have explicitly concluded that the primary focus in determining whether a plaintiff states a claim under Section 704(a) should be on whether the alleged retaliation either arose from the employment relationship or was related to the employment.7 I wholeheartedly agree. By choosing instead to focus exclusively on the time when the employee was actively working, the majority has framed its inquiry much too narrowly; such a myopic approach only frustrates Congress’s attempt, through Title VII, to eradicate workplace discrimination.8
*335II.
To this point, I have accepted, for the purposes of argument, the majority’s contention that the term “employees,” as used in Section 704(a), is unambiguous. I have argued that the result arrived at by the majority is nevertheless grossly absurd and so clearly contrary to Congressional intent as to justify expanding the asserted ordinary meaning of the term to embrace, if necessary, an extraordinary meaning.
In actuality, my burden is not as difficult as the majority purports it to be. If it were, it is unlikely that six other courts of appeal, comprised of judges who are doubtlessly familiar with the canons of statutory construction, would have all arrived at a conclusion that the majority of this court apparently finds so bewildering.
I believe it likely that our sister circuits have, at least implicitly, grounded their decisions on a premise that I find inescapable— that the term “employees” is ambiguous. Indeed, under the statute’s tautological definition of the term as “individual[s] employed by an employer,” see 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e(f) (West 1994), one could no more comprehend what an employee is than one could ascertain the legal essence of the term designee, if defined merely as an “individual designated by a designator.” To comprehend the meaning of employee (or designee), one must first understand what it means to employ (or to designate). The root “employ,” of course, may mean many different things, even within the business/labor context; though it is often used to describe the current contractual relationship between a company and a designated worker, that is not its exclusive meaning.9 Where the use of a term in a particular context admits of more than one meaning, that term is, ipso facto, ambiguous.
III.
Because the term “employees,” as used in Section 704(a) is ambiguous, it is our duty to construe its meaning. I choose to interpret the term consistently with what I perceive to be the clear intent of Congress to effectively remedy the problem of discrimination in employment — a problem that today’s decision will not assist in solving.
Chief Judge ERVIN and Judge MICHAEL join in this dissent.

. See ante at 328-29 (citing Crooks v. Harrelson, 282 U.S. 55, 59-60, 51 S.Ct. 49, 50-51, 75 L.Ed. 156 (1930), and United States v. Ron Pair Enters., Inc., 489 U.S. 235, 240-42, 109 S.Ct. 1026, 1029-31, 103 L.Ed.2d 290 (1989)). See also NLRB v. Wheeling Electric Co., 444 F.2d 783, 787 (4th Cir.1971):
The cardinal rule of statutory construction is that the intent of the legislative assembly is to be given effect ... and where a literal interpretation of a statutory provision would not accord with the intended purpose of the legislation, or produces an absurd result, courts must look beyond the plain words of the statute,
(citations omitted); Crosse & Blackwell Co. v. FTC, 262 F.2d 600, 606 (4th Cir.1959) (eschewing a literal reading of the Federal Trade Commission Act where such an interpretation was "plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole” (quoting Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178, 43 S.Ct. 65, 67 L.Ed. 199 (1922)), and would produce an absurd result).

. Various provisions of Sections 703 and 704 apply to employers, employment agencies, labor organizations, and joint labor-management committees. Section 703 prohibits, with few exceptions, all forms of discrimination in all aspects of the employment relationship on the basis of an individual's race, color, religion, gender, or national origin. 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e-2 (West 1994). Section 704, in addition to the anti-retaliation provision at issue in this case, prohibits the publication in most cases of job notices or advertisements indicating a preference based on a suspect classification.

.Section 706(g) empowers the court to order declaratory relief, injunctive relief such as reinstatement or hiring of employees with or without back pay, or "any other equitable relief as the court deems appropriate.” 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e-5(g) (West 1994). In addition, Section 102 of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 permits courts, in an appropriate case, to award compensatory and punitive damages for violations of Sections 703 and 704 of Title VII. 42 U.S.C.A. § 1981a (West 1994).

. The dawn of the brave new world envisioned by the majority will not escape the attention of employers, who will soon enough realize that they have been given a free rein to retaliate against disfavored employees, so long as the employee is first terminated. At XYZ Corporation, there may never be another Smith.

. Charlton v. Paramus Bd. of Educ., 25 F.3d 194, 198-200 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 590, 130 L.Ed.2d 503 (1994); EEOC v. J.M. Huber Corp., 927 F.2d 1322, 1331 (5th Cir.1991) (citing EEOC v. Cosmair, Inc., L’Oreal Hair Care Div., 821 F.2d 1085, 1088 (5th Cir.1987)); Bailey v. USX Corp., 850 F.2d 1506, 1509-10 (11th Cir.1988); O'Brien v. Sky Chefs, Inc., 670 F.2d 864, 869 (9th Cir.1982), overruled on other grounds by Atonio v. Wards Cove Packing Co., Inc., 810 F.2d 1477, 1481-82 (9th Cir.1987) (en banc); Pantchenko v. C.B. Dolge Co., Inc., 581 F.2d 1052, 1055 (2d Cir.1978); Rutherford v. American Bank of Commerce, 565 F.2d 1162, 1165 (10th Cir.1977). See also EEOC v. Ohio Edison Co., 7 F.3d 541 (6th Cir.1993) (former employee may state a claim under Section 704(a) on something akin to an agency theory where offer of reinstatement is withdrawn in retaliation for the actions of another employee — the plaintiff’s husband — in protesting his wife's discharge). Still another circuit has construed the nearly identical anti-retaliation provision of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act to apply to former employees. See Passer v. American Chem. Soc’y, 935 F.2d 322, 330-31 (D.C.Cir.1991).

. In Reed, the court of appeals affirmed a directed verdict for the defendants on the plaintiff’s retaliation claim, because the complained-of activities took place after the plaintiff had been terminated.

. See Charlton, 25 F.3d at 200 ("an employee may file a retaliation action against a previous employer for retaliatory conduct occurring after the end of the employment relationship when the retaliatory act is in reprisal for a protected act ... and arises out of or is related to the employment relationship.”); Pantchenko, 581 F.2d at 1055 ("the statute prohibits discrimination related to or arising out of an employment relationship, whether or not the person discriminated against is an employee at the time of the discriminatory conduct.”) (emphases added).

. In the instant case, Shell’s alleged retaliation against Robinson — said to involve the dissemination of false information and an undeserved poor reference — arose from the parties’ employment relationship because Shell would not have been provided the opportunity to retaliate against Robinson but for that relationship. Shell’s alleged retaliation was also related to the employment because it assumed the form of facts and opinions about Robinson's professional affiliation with Shell.

. For example, a manufacturing concern may have been, or will be, a major "employer,” without regard to any particular worker. Similarly, a recent retiree of Company X receiving a gold watch for his or her faithful service may be introduced at the year-end awards banquet as a long-time "employee” of the company.