Court Opinion

ID: 9466467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:16:46.385429+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:45.135457
License: Public Domain

REAVLEY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I agree that the judgment of the district court must be reversed because the discovery sanction was improper. I do not join in the dictum in the first footnote of the majority opinion.
The first footnote portends a departure from the statutory language of section 706 of Title VII. The majority indicates that EEOC v. Brookhaven Bank and Trust Co., 614 F.2d 1022 (5th Cir. April 2, 1980), precludes the employer from asserting, on remand, that the failure of the EEOC to attempt informal methods of reso*1009lution must abate the present suit. I do not understand that ease to stand for the asserted proposition. Rather, the issue in Brookhaven Bank is whether the EEOC can institute suit on alleged unlawful employment practices discovered in the course of investigating a charge that does not result in a reasonable cause finding. The right to conciliation was not raised. However, one of the policies the majority in Brookhaven Bank found to support its holding was that “employers should have the opportunity to settle with the EEOC and all aggrieved parties before court action is initiated.” Brookhaven Bank & Trust Co., 614 F.2d at 1025. Somehow, the employer now loses that right.
It cannot be argued that the employer has waived his right to assert the failure to attempt conciliation as an abatement to this suit. As the majority points out, the action was dismissed as a discovery sanction in its embryonic stage. The employer may well have wished to amend his answer when discovery is completed.
Subsection (f)(1), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1) (1976), makes it unmistakably clear that a failure of conciliation efforts is an absolute prerequisite to suit by the EEOC. The first footnote in the majority opinion ignores this language. Congress clearly intended for the EEOC to attempt informal methods of resolution before bringing the grievance before the federal courts. The duty should not be lightly cast aside. Moreover, when the suggestion in the first footnote is juxtaposed with the majority’s holding in Brookhaven Bank, much of the statutory paradigm of section 706 is emasculated. The two can be read in concert to mean that the EEOC can file suit on alleged unlawful employment practices despite the lack of any reasonable cause finding and despite the fact that the EEOC makes no attempt at conciliation. I cannot agree.