Court Opinion

ID: 9493478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:09:30.833641+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:52.062294
License: Public Domain

LUTTIG, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I would decide this case on the narrow ground that Edelman’s second filing is ineligible for relation back because (1) E del-man characterized his initial filing as a request for a charge rather than as a charge; (2) the EEOC did not even treat Edelman’s original filing as a charge; (3) the EEOC never served a copy of the letter on Lynchburg College; and (4) the second sworn letter, which allegedly amended the first letter, even alleges different discriminatory conduct than that charged in the original letter.
I am sufficiently uncomfortable with the broader ground for decision set forth in the majority opinion, that verification may never relate back after 180 days from the date of the alleged discriminatory action, that I am unable to concur in the opinion for the court. As to this issue, we are not confronted with a single statute stating either by terms or in effect that “a verified charge must be filed within 180 days of a discriminatory action.” Were we confronted with a single statute worded in this way, then the plain meaning interpretation advanced in the opinion for the court would, I think, be unassailable. Instead, we are presented with two statutes, the first providing that a charge shall be filed within 180 days of the unlawful employment practice, and the second providing that charges shall be in writing and include an oath or affirmation.
Although I confess some uncertainty as to this, it seems to me that, between these two statutes, there is not necessarily the nexus required in order to sustain the plain meaning interpretation advanced in the opinion. That is to say, it seems to me at least plausible to read the first statute to require simply that a charge be filed within 180 days, and the second as freestanding of the first, and simply to require that, before a charge is finalized, all of the allegations and information required by the EEOC be provided and verified. Of course, if the two statutes are so read as temporally independent of each other, or at least not temporally coterminous, then there is no statutory requirement that the charge be verified within the 180 days, and relation back would be available by regulation.
Apart from what I believe is its inherent structural logic, this interpretation is plausible because there is no statutory definition of “charge,” contrary to the implicit premise of the majority’s opinion. There is no statutory definition that provides that, in order to constitute a “charge,” an allegation must be verified. Thus, the “charge” that must be filed within 180 days need not — at least need not by definition — be an allegation that is verified or that includes all the information that eventually must be provided before it is sufficiently complete to require notice to the employer. Insofar as the statute informs us, the “charge” that must be filed within 180 days can be merely an allegation of discrimination; it need not be verified.
As precisely as I can state it — and I readily concede that the point is conceptually elusive — the majority’s interpretation seems to me actually to depend entirely upon reading the two statutes as if they were one. And I fear that it is only through reading the two as one that the nexus necessary to the majority’s interpretation is supplied; in other words, unless the two statutes are read as one, I believe that it is impossible to say, with the certainty necessary to abrogate the agency’s *513contrary interpretation, that a charge must be filed and verified within 180 days of the alleged discriminatory action.
I do not believe that the alternative interpretation I suggest is the only interpretation of the two statutes, by any means. Indeed, I do not even believe that it is the better interpretation; in fact, I believe that the one adopted by the majority is the better. But I do believe that this alternative interpretation of the agency is a plausible one. And, of course, being such, we are bound to give deference to that administrative interpretation.
For these reasons, I concur only in the judgment of the court.