Court Opinion

ID: 9469872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:51:04.328893+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:36.486096
License: Public Domain

NEESE, District Judge,
concurring.
I can identify with the District Judge’s difficulty in deciding whether the jurisdiction of the District Court was invoked properly herein. (It is not clear from his memorandum opinion whether he considered Mohasco Corp. v. Silver, 447 U.S. 807, 100 S.Ct. 2486, 65 L.Ed.2d 532 (1980).)
At first blush, I thought he had erred in dismissing the appellant’s action, because the complainant in a civil rights action in a deferral state, such as Kentucky, insured the preservation of his or her federal rights relating to an unfair labor practice on the basis of racial discrimination by filing a charge at anytime within 240 days of the alleged discriminatory employment practice. Id., 447 U.S. at 814, n. 16, 100 S.Ct. at 2490-2491, n. 16. The appellant’s charge was filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) with the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights (KCHR) on the 228th day after the alleged occurrence.
Afterward, I receded from that opinion and tended to agree with the District Court when I noticed that the complainant in Mohasco had not initially instituted proceedings with the state agency but had merely complained in a letter to the EEOC that his employer had discriminated against him because of his religion; whereas, here, the appellant Ms. Jones initially instituted proceedings with the EEOC directly against her employer. The pertinent statutes state plainly that, in the case of a charge filed by a grievant with the EEOC, it was required that: “Charges shall be * * * under oath or affirmation and shall contain such information and be in such form [emphasis supplied by this writer] as the [EEO] Commission requires,” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(b), and that *1205the exception relating to deferral states having a pertinent agency more than 12 months old, was triggered only “in the case of an unlawful employment practice with respect to which the person aggrieved has initially instituted proceedings with a State or local agency,” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e).
The opinion of the majority prepared by Circuit Judge Contie has convinced me that my first impression was correct, however, and that the charge of the appellant Ms. Jones was timely. Justice Stevens stated for the Supreme Court:
When respondent [the grievant there] submitted his letter to the EEOC, he had not yet instituted any state proceedings. Under the literal terms of the statute, it could therefore be argued that he did not bring himself within the exception to the general 180-day requirement. But in Love v. Pullman Co., 404 U.S. 522, 525 [92 S.Ct. 616, 618, 30 L.Ed.2d 679] we held that “[n]othing in the Act suggests that the state proceedings may not be initiated by the EEOC acting on behalf of the complainant rather than by the complainant himself.. . . ” Here, state proceedings were instituted by the EEOC when it immediately forwarded his letter to the state agency on June 15, 1976. Accordingly, we treat the state proceedings as having been instituted on that date. Since the EEOC could not proceed until either state proceedings had ended or 60 days had passed, the proceedings were “initially instituted with a State ... agency” prior to their official institution with the EEOC. Therefore, respondent came within § 706(e)’s exception allowing a federal filing more than 180 days after the occurrence.
* * * The question, then, is whether the June 15,1976, letter was “filed” when received by the EEOC within the meaning of subsection (e) of § 706.
* * * [T]he statute prohibited the EEOC from allowing the charge to be filed on the date the letter was received. * * * [I]t was proper for the EEOC to hold respondent’s “complaint in ‘suspended animation,’ automatically filing it upon termination of the State proceedings ’’***.
Id., 447 U.S. at 816-17, 100 S.Ct. at 2491-2492.
Although divided, the Supreme Court in Mohasco was discharging its traditional role as the final expounder of federal statutory law; we, of course, are bound by it. Jordan v. Gilligan, 500 F.2d 701, 707 (6th Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 991, 95 S.Ct. 1996, 44 L.Ed.2d 481 (1975); accord, United States v. Linkenauger, 357 F.2d 925, 926 (6th Cir. 1966); cf. Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 344-45, 95 S.Ct. 2281, 2289-2290, 45 L.Ed.2d 223 (1975); therefore, I concur that this action was not barred because of the appellant’s failure to commence timely proceedings directly with the KCHR, and that she filed timely with the EEOC within the extension of time allowed her by 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e), supra.