Court Opinion

ID: 9483922
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:35:32.812969+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:55.108552
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Judge,
dissenting.
I find persuasive the EEOC's argument that the ADEA’s legislative history supplies the clear and plain congressional intent that the ADEA should apply to Indian tribes. As set forth in Judge Tacha’s dissent in EEOC v. Cherokee Nation, 871 F.2d 937, 939 (10th Cir.1989) (Tacha, J., dissenting), there is a good deal of evidence that Congress was aware of Title VII’s provisions when it promulgated the ADEA. Id. at 941 n. 2. By specifically excluding Indian tribes from the definition of “employer” in Title VII and by omitting an exclusion for Indian tribes in the ADEA, Congress made clear its intent that Indian tribes come with the ADEA’s reach. As summarized by Judge Tacha:
The definition of employer in the ADEA was patterned after the definition of employer in Title VII, with the important exception that Title VII explicitly excludes Indian tribes from the definition. The omission of the Indian tribe exclusion in the ADEA, in light of the clear congressional reliance on Title VIPs provisions ... evidences congressional intent on the face of the statute to include Indian tribes in the definition of employer for the purposes of the ADEA. Congress has carefully enumerated the exceptions to ADEA coverage, and I find no basis to imply a further exception for Indian tribes.
Id. at 942 (footnote omitted).
Moreover, the reason for excluding Indian tribes from Title VII’s coverage—to enable Indian tribes to give preference to Indians in tribal government employment (see id., citing Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 94 S.Ct. 2474, 41 L.Ed.2d 290 (1974), and Senator Mundt’s comments)—do not exist in the present case, at least on the basis of the record before us, for there is no evidence that Indian tribes have any long-standing cultural practices that favor the employment of younger rather than older members of the tribe (indeed, I do not understand the Fond du Lac Band’s brief as making such an argument). In the absence of such a showing, I see the ADEA as posing no more of a threat to the sovereign prerogatives of tribal government, or to the control of that government over its internal affairs, than it posed to the separate, independent existence and sovereignty of state governments. See EEOC v. Wyoming, 460 U.S. 226, 103 S.Ct. 1054, 75 L.Ed.2d 18 (1983). Rather, I would analogize the impact of the ADEA upon tribal independence and sovereignty to that flowing from ERISA and OSHA, which, as the court’s opinion points out, have been held applicable to Indian tribes in the face of arguments that those statutes would impermissibly infringe upon the right of tribal self-government. Smart v. State Farm Ins. Co., 868 F.2d 929 (7th Cir.1989); Donovan v. Coeur d’Alene Tribal Farm, 751 F.2d 1113 (9th Cir.1985).
I would reverse the judgment of dismissal and remand the case with directions to reinstate the complaint.