Court Opinion

ID: 9476954
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:09:54.567191+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:36.335141
License: Public Domain

MANION, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part.
I would vacate the district court’s judgment on the Title VII count, but affirm on the state law counts.
I.
Under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e), a charge must be filed with the EEOC “within one hundred and eighty days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” Illinois, however, is a deferral state. This means that there exists a state agency, the IDHR, authorized to adjudicate discrimination complaints. In a deferral state, a charge must be filed with the state agency, but once filed, the complainant has up to 300 days from the act complained of to file with the EEOC. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e). The EEOC may not process a charge until sixty days after the state has received the filing (unless the state agency completes its work earlier). 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(c).
Defendant Gary Schroeder raped plaintiff Cynthia Gilardi on Saturday, September 12, 1981. At his wife Carol’s insistence, he fired Gilardi on Wednesday or Thursday, September 16 or 17,1981. Gilar-di filed her charge with the EEOC on March 31, 1982, approximately 195 days after Schroeder fired her. Upon receiving her charge, the EEOC promptly referred it to the IDHR. But under Illinois law, Gilar-di’s charge had to be filed with the IDHR — directly or through the EEOC— within 180 days of her discharge. Ill.Rev. Stat. ch. 68, para. 7-102(A)(l).
Because Gilardi’s charge was not filed with the IDHR within 180 days, in my view she may not invoke the extended 300-day limitation period which arises when a charge is filed in a “deferral” state. While this circuit has not reached this precise question before, see Martinez v. United Auto., Aerospace & Agr. Implement Workers, 772 F.2d 348, 352 (7th Cir.1985) (“in a state that has an administrative statute of limitations shorter than 180 days, a timely filing is not required to preserve one’s federal rights”), other circuits the majority cites allow the extension in spite of a late state filing.1 But several cases from district courts in this circuit have properly enforced the 180-day limitations period. See, e.g., Cody v. Southwest Forest Indus., 42 F.E.P. 1632, 1634 (N.D.Ill.1987) [Available on WESTLAW, DCT database] (collecting cases). I am persuaded in particular by Judge Getzendanner’s opinion in Lowell v. Glidden-Durkee, Div. of SCM Corp., 529 F.Supp. 17 (N.D.Ill.1981) and Judge Shadur’s in Proffit v. Keycom Electronic Pub., 625 F.Supp. 400 (N.D.Ill.1985), which offer compelling reasons to disallow a claim not timely filed with the IDHR.
In Anderson v. Illinois Tool Works, Inc., 753 F.2d 622, 626 (7th Cir.1985), we held that under the the ADEA, a state charge’s timeliness is “irrelevant.” But as Martinez cogently points out, significant differences exist between the ADEA and Title VII. See Martinez, 772 F.2d at 351. *1235reasons, in 29 U.S.C. § 633(b) allows federal and state charges to be filed simultaneously. Title VII, in contrast, prohibits a claimant in a deferral state from prosecuting an EEOC charge until 60 days after state agency proceedings begin (unless the state terminates its proceedings earlier).
Here the IHDR could not consider the charge the EEOC filed on Gilardi’s behalf because more than 180 days had elapsed from the date of her firing. Neither the employer nor the employee could have ben-efitted from a favorable state agency finding on the merits. To allow a late filing with the state by the EEOC to “satisfy” the deferral requirement undermines a statute intended to “give state agencies an opportunity to redress the evil at which the federal legislation was aimed, and to avoid federal intervention unless its need was demonstrated.” Mohasco Corp. v. Silver, 447 U.S. 807, 821, 100 S.Ct. 2486, 2495, 65 L.Ed.2d 532 (1980).
No statutory ambiguity requires turning to administrative interpretation or judicial construction. The statute is clear. § 2000e-5(e) extends the 180-day limitations period only to one who files with a state “agency with authority to grant or seek relief.” By definition, when a claim is untimely filed with a state agency, the state has no authority to grant relief, at least in a state like Illinois where timely filing is a jurisdictional limitation, Pickering v. Illinois Human Rights Comm’n, 146 Ill.App.3d 340, 99 Ill.Dec. 885, 496 N.E.2d 746, 751 (1986). See Proffit, 625 F.Supp. at 407, citing O’Young v. Hobart Corp., 579 F.Supp. 418, 421 (N.D.Ill.1983).
Filing a timely charge with the EEOC is not jurisdictional and is subject to equitable tolling. Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 455 U.S. 385, 393, 102 S.Ct. 1127, 1132, 71 L.Ed.2d 234 (1982). Remanding the Title VII portion of this case to afford Gilardi the opportunity to show any basis for equitable tolling — assuming arguendo that her failure to exhaust state remedies is not fatal, see Cody, 42 F.E.P. at 1634-35 —would be appropriate.2
II.
Gilardi’s state law claims for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, which arose from the same “nucleus of operative facts” as her Title VII claim, were properly within the district court’s (and this court’s) discretionary pendent jurisdiction. The district court’s fact findings on the state law claims were not clearly erroneous, and it correctly applied Illinois law. Thus, the amount awarded solely on the Title VII cause of action — $47,500 in statutory attorney’s fees — should be vacated. The remaining amount of $114,972.15, comprised of $12,960.50 in lost wages (which equals the amount also awarded as back pay under the Title VII count), $50,-000 for psychic injury, and $50,000 in punitive damages, plus $2,011.65 in costs, should be upheld.

. One of the circuits listed, the Sixth, while finding itself "bound” by its earlier decisions, recently cited favorably the reasoning of Martinez and questioned its earlier holding. Maurya v. Peabody Coal Co., 823 F.2d 933, 935 (6th Cir.1987).

. I assume for purposes of this dissent that Gilardi — whose discharge was proximately caused by Schroeder’s wife’s demand that Gilar-di be fired — could otherwise prevail on the merits of her Title VII claim. But see Bohen v. City of East Chicago, Ind., 799 F.2d 1180, 1184 (7th Cir.1986); DeCintio v. Westchester County Medical Center, 807 F.2d 304, 308 (2d Cir.1986), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 108 S.Ct. 89, 98 L.Ed.2d 50 (1987).