Court Opinion

ID: 9488348
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:42:24.968872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:49.712298
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the judgment of the court. Although the correctness of Zimmerman v. North American Signal Company, 704 F.2d 347 (7th Cir.1983), is not free from doubt, I must conclude, with some reluctance, that the EEOC has not made a sufficiently strong case to warrant our overruling established precedent of long standing. As the majority notes, our obligation to adhere to the doctrines of stare decisis and precedent is especially strong when we are dealing with matters of statutory construction. See Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 172, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 2370, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989). That obligation is tempered somewhat by our obligation to reassess our work when a thoughtful divergence of opinion emerges from the other circuits. Upon examination of the case law to the contrary, however, I cannot say that those cases cast such a shadow on Zimmerman as to justify its overruling. This issue is one, however, that deserves definitive legislative attention. The ambiguity of the present situation ought to be clarified. The scope of Title VII ought to be the same in Boston and New Orleans as it is in Chicago.