Court Opinion

ID: 9492637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:45:43.220655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:24.010127
License: Public Domain

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I write separately only to clarify what is before the court in this case. We are presented today with a claimant who included one incident in the intake questionnaire that was not included in the charge drafted by the EEOC. The claimant’s counsel was present when she reviewed and signed the charge, and neither she nor her counsel ever requested that the omitted information be included in the charge. On those facts, we have concluded that her signature on the charge binds her to its contents, and that we will not look beyond the charge.
The majority opinion contains some broad language which purports to limit the complainant to the language of the charge “whether or not the complainant had a lawyer ... indeed, whether or not she read or understood the charge.... ” Contrary to the opinion’s implications, we do not now decide whether an illiterate person or pro se person who signs a charge prepared by the EEOC, which leaves out critical information provided by the claimant to the EEOC in the intake questionnaire, would be similarly bound by the charge. That issue is not before us and is in fact substantially different from the one we decide today. A number of courts have recognized that equitable considerations may require a court to look outside the formal charge where the employee has done all that she can to present the claim to the EEOC, particularly where the failure to include the allegations results from EEOC negligence or misinformation. See, e.g., Sickinger v. Mega Systems, Inc., 951 F.Supp. 153 (N.D.Ind.1996); Angotti v. Kenyon & Kenyon, 929 F.Supp. 651 (S.D.N.Y.1996) and cases cited therein; see generally Steffen v. Meridian Life Ins., 859 F.2d 534 (7th Cir.1988); Early v. Bankers Life & Casualty Co., 959 F.2d 75 (7th Cir.1992). In fact, the opinion even recognizes a limited number of circumstances in which equitable considerations may affect the outcome, although its list of such circumstances is certainly not exhaustive. We simply do not address such equitable circumstances here. Any language in this opinion indicating how we would decide such a case, or what equitable circumstances not present here might justify relief, must be viewed as dicta.