Court Opinion

ID: 8910119
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 02:37:13.949601+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:08:27.319756
License: Public Domain

MESKILL, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
When the rights of litigants depend on the interpretation of legislation, whatever canon of statutory construction a party may fire at the opponent an equally authoritative but directly contrary shot will undoubtedly be fired in reply.1 Caught as we are in the crossfire,* it is understandable that judges sometimes wonder about the ratio of light to sound being generated by these attempts at persuasion. This, for me, is one of those times for wondering. If I were convinced, as the majority apparently is, that we must choose between interpreting the disputed statute (1) in accord with its language and contrary to its purpose, or (2) in accord with its purpose and contrary to its language, I too, following the learned canon that has been handed down to us, might have avoided over-solicitude for the letter of the statute and might have joined, without wincing, in carrying out its purpose. But we are not in such a predicament here. The majority has made a choice between two alternatives neither of which is presented by this case. Because both parties claim to have interpreted subsections 706(c) and 706(e) of Title VII in accordance with the purposes of Congress, our task is not to choose between effectuating or frustrating the purposes of Congress, but rather to. determine which of the proferred interpretations in fact captures the purposes behind the words. Believing that in this case the purposes of Congress are furthered by a literal reading of these provisions, I respectfully dissent from part II of today’s decision.2
*1092Despite the much-emphasized complexity of Title VII, there is no dispute over the literal meaning of the two statutory provisions under examination. Section 706(c), the deferral provision, provides that in a state that has created an agency to hear employment discrimination claims (a “deferral state”), no charge may be filed with the EEOC until 60 days or 120 days (depending on how long the state agency has been in existence) after state proceedings have been commenced, unless such state proceedings have been earlier terminated. Section 706(e), the limitations provision, provides that charges must be filed with the EEOC within 180 days of the alleged unlawful employment practice, except that where an aggrieved party has initially instituted state proceedings, a charge must be filed with the EEOC within 300 days of the alleged unlawful practice.
The purposes behind these provisions are every bit as clear as their literal meanings. In Love v. Pullman Co., 404 U.S. 522, 526, 92 S.Ct. 616, 30 L.Ed.2d 679 (1972), a unanimous Supreme Court explicitly stated that the purpose of Title VIPs deferral provision is “to give state agencies a prior opportunity to consider discrimination complaints” while the purpose of the limitations provision is “to ensure expedition in the filing and handling of those complaints.” Not surprisingly, the scheme enacted by Congress effectuates these two different goals by imposing two different requirements on those who seek to invoke the remedial provisions of Title VII. Thus, a charge must not be filed with the EEOC until after the expiration of the mandatory deferral period (or termination of state proceedings), yet a charge must be filed with the EEOC within 300 days of an alleged unlawful employment practice. As a practical matter, a person who complains to the EEOC within 180 days of an alleged illegal employment practice can be sure of neither tripping on the deferral threshold nor bumping against the limitations ceiling. Regardless of whether the relevant state has created an agency to which deferral is necessary, and regardless of how long any such agency has been in existence, and regardless of how quickly any such deferral agency terminates its proceedings, the complaint will be timely.
The majority’s refusal to read the statute as written interferes significantly with the congressional decision to require prompt action on the part of Title VII plaintiffs. The legislative history of the predecessor of § 706(e) makes clear that the section contains two different limitations periods not to reward persons in deferral states, but rather to ensure that they are not penalized for having to comply with the statute’s deferral requirements.
As originally enacted in 1964, Title VII required extraordinary diligence on the part of complainants. The original limitations provision (then labelled section 706(d)), like present section 706(e), contained two different limitations periods. The statute provided for a basic 90 days filing period and a 210 day period — the latter to apply to cases where state procedures were followed. Looking at the legislative history of this original limitations section, in Moore v. Sunbeam Corp., 459 F.2d 811 (7th Cir. 1972), Justice (then Judge) Stevens concluded:
The legislative history as a whole indicates a basic purpose to require the complainant to make his initial filing within 90 days; the extension of the period to 210 days in certain states was plainly intended to permit him to “exhaust” the state procedures. There is no suggestion that complainants in some states were to be allowed to proceed with less diligence than those in other states. [Selections from the legislative history] indicate that unless a complainant pursues his state remedies with sufficient diligence to permit the state, within 210 days, either to complete its action or to have 60 days in which to act without federal interference, he may not file a timely charge with the EEOC.
459 F.2d at 825 n. 35. Before passage of the 1964 legislation, Senator Dirksen clearly explained the relationship of the proposed deferral section and the proposed limitations section:
*1093“New subsection (d) [now labelled (e)] requires that a charge must be filed with the Commission within 90 days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred, except that if the person aggrieved follows State or local procedures in subsection (b) [now labelled (c)], he may file the charge within 210 days after the alleged practice occurred or within 30 days after receiving notice that the State or local proceedings have been terminated, whichever is earlier. The additional 120 days is to allow him to pursue his remedy by State or local proceedings.”
Id., quoting the EEOC’s Legislative History of Titles VII and XI of Civil Rights Act of 1964 at 3018 (emphasis added). The equally unambiguous remarks of Senator Humphrey make clear that the 210 day limitations period for deferral cases was intended to protect a complainant against losing the right to file with the EEOC “simply because the 90-day period for filing with the Federal Commission has elapsed while he seeks to pursue State remedies.” Id., quoting Legislative History, supra, at 3006.
When Title VII was amended in 1972, both limitations periods were lengthened. New section 706(e) specifies a base period of 180 days and a period of 300 days applicable to complainants subject to the statute’s deferral requirements. The differential between the two remained the same: an aggrieved individual in a deferral state still has an extra 120 days in which to file with the EEOC so that compliance with the deferral requirements of the act can be achieved. Thus the limitations section as amended still ensure that no penalty is exacted from those in deferral states. No more diligence is required of those complainants than is required of their counterparts in states lacking deferral agencies.
Like the cases on which it relies, the majority opinion overlooks the legislative history which clearly establishes that the statute is to be applied as it reads. See Richard v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 469 F.2d 1249 (8th Cir. 1972); Anderson v. Methodist Evangelical Hospital, Inc., 464 F.2d 723 (6th Cir. 1972); and Vigil v. American Telephone and Telegraph Co., 455 F.2d 1222 (10th Cir. 1972). The majority offers nothing to support the assumption, necessarily implicit in today’s decision, that Congress intended to give complainants in deferral states a 120 day bonus and to excuse them from exercising roughly the same degree of diligence required of persons in non-deferral states. It should be noted that in 1975, the Eighth Circuit, sitting en banc, concluded that an examination of the legislative history excerpted above necessitated a rethinking of Richard v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., supra, which had attempted to interpret Title VII’s filing requirements without reference to this history.
[I]t would not be in keeping with the intent of Congress to allow one individual 300 days to file a charge because of the fortuitous circumstance that the state where the claim arose is a deferral state, when another individual in a non-deferral state will have only 180 days in which to file. The purpose underlying the extended period in a deferral state is to give the state agency an initial opportunity to process the claim without jeopardizing the federal right, not to extend by 120 days the time for assertion of this federal right.
While we agree that “the statute leaves much to be desired in clarity and precision,” . . . there is no doubt as to what the extended filing period in [§ 706(e)] was intended to accomplish. In the 1964 Act a complainant was given 90 days in which to file a charge of employment discrimination. However, due to the proviso in then [§ 706(b)] that the charge must first be made with a state or local agency if one exists, an additional 120 days was given to file a charge with the EEOC to allow a complainant to pursue his state or local remedies without prejudicing his federal right.
The extended filing period was not intended as a bonus for complainants residing in a deferral state but as a means of effecting an accommodation between the federal right and the requirement of preamendment [§ 706(b)] of initial resort to an available state or local agency.
*1094We are here concerned with amended Title VIL However, except for an enlargement of time for filing a charge from 90 to 180 days and concomitant extension of the deferral provision to 300 days, there were no substantive changes made in [§ 706(d)] (renumbered [§ 706(e)]).
Olson v. Rembrandt Printing Co., 511 F.2d 1228, 1231-33 (8th Cir. 1975) (footnote and citation omitted).
The only legislative history on which the majority relies is an excerpt from a report of the House-Senate Conference Committee on the 1972 amendments, which endorsed the decision of the Tenth Circuit in Vigil. However, the fact remains that in 1972 Congress chose to leave the design and wording of the limitations subsection intact; the only changes made were a renumbering of the section and the lengthening of the two limitations periods contained therein. In my view, since the intent of the enacting Congress is unambiguous and the amending Congress chose to retain the original scheme, the evidence is insufficient to permit the inference that the later Congress intended to accomplish wholly new ends by leaving intact the scheme constructed by an earlier Congress which had different purposes in mind. See Oscar Mayer & Co. v. Evans, - U.S. -,---, 99 S.Ct. 2066, 60 L.Ed.2d 609 (1979).
Finding little support in the language of the statute or in its legislative history, today’s decision apparently rests on the widely accepted and reasonable principle that as a remedial statute often invoked by laypersons, Title VII should be interpreted flexibly so as to eliminate procedural barriers that serve no purpose. However this principle cannot be taken to authorize the judicial remodelling of all provisions of a remedial statute that place strict limitations on the access road to the newly-created remedy. For example, in Love v. Pullman Co., supra, the Supreme Court made three crucial observations in approving the EEOC practice of (1) making referrals to state agencies on behalf of complainants in deferral states and (2) delaying formal filing of a charge until expiration of the deferral period or termination of state proceedings. First, the Court noted that the EEOC practice interfered with neither the policy of deferral to state procedures nor the goal of expedition in the handling of claims. Second, the Court noted that no legitimate interest of defendants was prejudiced. Finally, the Court noted that nothing in Title VII suggests that state proceedings may not be initiated by the EEOC acting on behalf of a complainant or that the EEOC may not delay the formal filing of a complaint until termination of state proceedings. It was these determinations that led the Court to conclude that requiring a second filing by a complainant “would serve no purpose other than the creation of an additional procedural technicality.” 404 U.S. at 526, 92 S.Ct. at 619 (footnote omitted).
The EEOC practice in the instant case does not meet these tests. First, permitting a charge to be filed with the EEOC at any time within 300 days regardless of whether the extra time has been used as intended, is to sacrifice the diligence Congress sought to require of Title VII complainants. Although the majority assures us that the interpretation adopted today “does not countenance the filing of stale claims,” I respectfully suggest that when Congress bestows new rights and remedies on some persons and imposes new obligations and liabilities on others, its judgment regarding how and when claims are to be asserted and preserved ought not to be lightly disregarded. “Even though a statute of limitations may ‘permit a rogue to escape,’ the legislative commands must be respected.” Moore v. Sunbeam Corp., supra, 459 F.2d at 826 n. 37, citing Toussie v. United States, 397 U.S. 112, 123-24, 90 S.Ct. 858, 23 L.Ed.2d 156 (1970). Second, to the extent that the repose granted by Congress to potential defendants has been delayed, they have been adversely affected by the EEOC practice. Finally, the language of the statute indicates that the result reached today was simply not intended by the authors of Title VII. Deference to agency interpretation is appropriate only when consistent with deference to the intent of Congress.
Referring to the many “procedural requirements and time limitations that must *1095be met before a claim of discrimination can be brought to the attention of a federal court,” and citing Love v. Pullman, supra, we have remarked:
The procedures thus mandated exist not for their own sake, but rather in furtherance of substantive purposes .
[T]he rigid insistence on meticulous observance of technicalities unrelated to any substantive purpose is inappropriate.
Weise v. Syracuse University, 522 F.2d 397, 411, 412 (2d Cir. 1975) (citations omitted).3 It must be remembered, however, that where, as here, a procedural requirement does further a substantive purpose, it is judicial disregard of the statutory design that is inappropriate.

. I concur in the majority’s affirmance of Judge Foley’s order dismissing appellant’s complaint as to the individual defendants. See majority’s footnote 7, supra.
I also agree with part III of the majority opinion which states that the scope of the EEOC investigation which could reasonably have been expected to grow out of Silver’s charge was sufficiently broad to encompass his allegation of blacklisting. EEOC regulations provide for the amendment of a charge to include additional unlawful practices “related to or growing out of the subject matter of the original charge.” See 29 C.F.R. § 1601.12(b) (1978); see also 29 C.F.R. § 1601.11(b) (1976). In August of 1976, two months after first contacting the EEOC, Silver sent to the district director a letter clearly charging Mohasco with circulating bad references. I agree with the position taken by amicus EEOC on appeal; whether viewed as an amendment to the earlier charge or as a new charge, this letter was sufficient to notify the EEOC that an investigation of blacklisting was called for. The EEOC’s failure to investigate this aspect of Silver’s complaint should not foreclose his access to a court hearing. To earn the right to sue, a Title VII complainant need only seek, in an appropriate manner, administrative relief. Failure to obtain relief at the administrative level is what prompts, rather than forecloses, the search for judicial relief.
Therefore, I would remand the case to the district court for a hearing on the blacklisting claims, which appear from the record to have been promptly filed with the EEOC. In addition, I would instruct the district court to reconsider, in light of our disposition on the blacklisting issue, whether there has been any assertion of a continuous pattern of discrimination that would work to save Silver’s charge of discriminatory discharge despite what I view as his failure to make a timely filing with the EEOC as to the discharge complaint. See Smith v. American President Lines, Ltd., 571 F.2d 102, 105-106 & nn. 5-6 (2d Cir. 1978).

. It is interesting to note that the Weise Court apparently assumed, in dictum, that the deferral process was to be completed within 300 days:
If the alleged unlawful employment practice occurs within a state or locality having a law prohibiting such a practice, an aggrieved person cannot file a charge with the EEOC until 60 days have elapsed after the commencement of such state or local proceedings. . Resort to the EEOC thereafter is conditioned on the filing of charges not more than 300 days after the occurrence of the alleged unlawful practice or 30 days after the termination of state or local proceedings, whichever is earlier.
Weise v. Syracuse University, 522 F.2d 397, 411 (2d Cir. 1975) (footnote and citation omitted) (emphasis added).