Court Opinion

ID: 9478402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:48:14.627612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:24.831004
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in fact, but concurring1 with lamentations in law.
Perhaps, at least with respect to F.R. Civ.P. 15(c) cases, I should adopt the position of a former Chief Judge that dissenting opinions are “generally useless.” See Payne v. McLemore’s Wholesale and Retail Stores, 654 F.2d 1130, 1147 (5th Cir.1981); (Coleman, J., dissenting). Despite the temptation to resign myself to the futil*1353ity of dissent, I find the unfairness of dismissing litigants such as Minnie Honeycutt —especially in light of the intent of the 1966 amendments to Rule 15(c) to mitigate the harshness of pleading errors which impart no damage to the opposing party — too severe to be accepted as an unavoidable evil under the guise of interpretation.
While I agree with the court’s conclusion in Part II that Commander Long of AAFES is not a proper party defendant, I find myself once again at odds with the court with respect to the application of Rule 15(c)’s allowance for an amendment of a complaint to relate back. See Gonzales v. Secretary of Air Force, 824 F.2d 392, 396—400 (5th Cir.1987) (Brown, J., dissenting). Unlike Gonzales, my disagreement in the instant case is primarily factual for I disagree with the court’s conclusion that the Secretary of Defense failed to receive any notice — actual or imputed — within the 30-day limitations period and therefore cannot be substituted as the defendant under Rule 15(c).

Will the Real Defendant Please Stand Up?

I find no fault with the court’s analysis of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(c) and related statutory provisions which ultimately concludes that Long, the Commander of AAFES, is not a proper defendant in this ADEA action. In this context, however, I must point out that (i) the Commander of AAFES has been a named defendant in a Title VII class action,2 and (ii) the Third Circuit recently stated, in interpreting § 2000e-16(c), that the correct defendant in a Title VII action is either the Secretary of Defense or the head of AAFES. Williams v. Army and Air Force Exchange Service, 830 F.2d 27, 31 (3d Cir.1987). (“It is clear that had ... counsel consulted the statute ... he would have ascertained that the correct defendant was the Secretary of Defense or the head of the Agency (AAFES).”) I raise these two points to highlight the fact that Honeycutt’s failure to sue the correct party should not be scoffed at or dismissed as a mere act of attorney carelessness. To the contrary, Honeycutt and her attorneys could stand fairly confident that they had indeed sued the correct party. Although — as the majority urges with respect to relation back— the plaintiff employee could have safely served process on the United States Attorney under F.R.Civ.P. 15(c), this option is of little aid to one who has no serious doubt that he has served a proper party defendant.
Finally, I believe this court should join the ranks of those courts3 which have criticized ambiguities in EEOC and agency right to sue letters, and extend that criticism to agency correspondence which advises prospective plaintiffs of their legal rights to sue in federal court.4 I urge AAFES, as the court urged the Secretary of Defense in Williams,5 to reconstruct its notice to employees about their rights to appeal agency disposition of discrimination complaints to identify by specific name and title the proper party to be sued in a civil action.6 This does not rest on any notion *1354that there has been any active misrepresentation to employees such as Honeycutt. Rather it is to acknowledge the inherent confusion of applying § 2000e-16(c) to an organizational structure as complex as AAFES.7

Relation Back: A Long-Lost Cousin?

In the oft repeated words of Schiavone, notice is the “linchpin” of relation back under Rule 15(c). Schiavone, 477 U.S. 21, 33, 106 S.Ct. 2379, 2386, 91 L.Ed.2d 18, 29. The notice requirement serves to protect a party from prejudice who is named to the suit after the limitation period. The court concludes that the record does not establish whether the Secretary of Defense had either actual or imputed notice of the suit against AAFES’s Commander Long. My objection to the court’s position is basic: (i) neither the trial court nor this court afforded any opportunity to Honeycutt either to establish or, for that matter ascertain through minimal discovery, whether that global enterprise known officially as The Department of Defense (and its Head, the Secretary) and symbolized by the Pentagon which houses its thousands of employees, was aware, before expiration of the statute of limitations, of the suit against Commander Long; and (ii) there is sufficient evidence of identity of interest to impute notice from Commander Long of AAFES to the Secretary of Defense.
Looking first at (ii) identity of interest, this court has previously stated in Kirk that “[wjhere service of the original complaint is perfected upon an agent of a party sought to be brought in by amendment, there is adequate notice of the action to that party.” Kirk v. Cronvich, 629 F.2d 404, 407 (citations omitted). A review of the structure of AAFES supports the conclusion that the Commander of AAFES is an agent of the Secretary of Defense, and therefore notice can be imputed.
The Secretary of Defense delegated authority to the Secretaries of the Army and Air Force to operate AAFES.8 Those two Secretaries, in turn, set up a Board of Directors to administer AAFES. Commander Long serves as the executive agent for the Board of Directors for the administration of AAFES and also as a member of the Board of Directors.9
AAFES civilian personnel, such as Ho-neycutt, are federal employees within the Department of Defense.10 The Commander of AAFES is responsible for setting “the policies, programs and procedures governing the administration of AAFES civilian employees ... according to the objectives of the DOD [Department of Defense] Personnel Policy Manual ... and the basic policies approved by the Board of Directors.” 11
Additionally, the notice that Honeycutt received of her final interview with the AAFES EEO Counselor stated in paragraph 3 that the Commander of AAFES was authorized to receive discrimination complaints.12
Putting the Picture Puzzle Together— Where Does — The AAFES — the DOD Fit?
Putting these pieces of the puzzle together, we have undeniable delegation of authority on the part of the Secretaries of Defense, Army and Air Force to the Com*1355mander of AAFES to handle, at minimum, all civilian personnel matters, including discrimination complaints and suits. This delegation indicates that at the very least Commander Long was an agent of the Secretary of Defense. Thus under Kirk we may, and should, impute notice to the Secretary of Defense from the timely service upon Long. There is no reason why this agency relationship should be deemed to evaporate when an employee’s claim of discrimination leaves the realm of the administrative process and enters the doors of a federal court.
The Government’s argument that placement of the Department of Defense shield along with that of AAFES on the notice letterhead (see n. 10 supra) should alert employees that the Secretary of Defense, not AAFES, is the proper defendant in Title VII and ADEA cases is, or borders on, the absurd. That very shield illustrates the closeness of the two entities. Whom to sue, and how the respondent is to be described — by title or by name, by the agencies above or below him/her — are not reflected in these Heraldic Shields.
Was the Exalted Secretary of Defense Aware of Knowledge by His Subordinate: — AAFES—Commander Long?
Even assuming that notice cannot be imputed to the Secretary of Defense from service on Commander Long as I have urged under (ii), I further think it is most objectionable that this court declines to remand this case to the trial court to determine, after carefully controlled discovery, whether the Secretary of Defense or an authorized subordinate had actual notice within the meaning of Schiavone of the pendency of this case within the limitation period.
The court flatly rejects the notion that there indeed could have been actual informal notice by speculating that “[i]t is highly unlikely that in two days[13] the Secretary of Defense’s office became aware of the suit.” The court also states that Ho-neycutt failed to prove that notice of her claim against AAFES filtered “through the ranks of the military” within the eight day period between delivery of service to Commander Long and the running of the limitation period.
There is no contest that the record is insufficient to show actual notice. The trouble is that the trial court — even worse, this court — denied the employee any opportunity to ascertain, much less establish, what the facts are. Without the benefit of discovery, which in effect we now deny, I cannot fathom how an untutored government employee face to face with the glacial ominence of the federal establishment can be expected to make a showing of actual notice. Without either access to relevant materials from the files of the Commander of AAFES, his legal counsel, the Secretary of Defense and the General Counsel of the Secretary of Defense, or answers to interrogatories to ascertain other notices of the Honeycutt suit, the employee has no means of proving actual i.e. imputed or informal notice.
If the notion of informal actual (including imputed) notice is to be accorded any meaning, then the employee must be afforded an opportunity for discovery before the trial or this court decides the issue.

Discovery Thwarted

Before Honeycutt received Commander Long’s responses to a set of interrogatories, the trial court granted Long’s motion to stay all discovery pending resolution of his motion to dismiss. This court has long recognized the trial judge’s broad discretion with respect to handling discovery. We find an abuse of discretion only if a discovery order is arbitrary or clearly unreasonable. See, e.g., Mayo v. Tri-Bell Industries, 787 F.2d 1007, 1012 (5th Cir.1986); Dukes v. South Carolina Insurance, 770 F.2d 545, 548-49 (5th Cir.1985); Scroggins v. Air Cargo, Inc., 534 F.2d 1124, 1133 (5th Cir.1976). However, a deni*1356al of discovery as to matters relevant to a motion for denial or grant of summary judgment can constitute an abuse of discretion. Petrus v. Bowen, 883 F.2d 581 (5th Cir.1987), Ingram Corp. v. J. Ray McDermott & Co., 698 F.2d 1295, 1304 (5th Cir.1983); Scroggins, supra, 534 F.2d at 1133; Panola Land Buyers Ass’n. v. Shuman, 762 F.2d 1550, 1560 (11th Cir.1985).
Even though the employee did not directly challenge the trial court’s denial (stay) of discovery, the problem remains as to the role of the district court, and this court when there is a Schiavone and relation-back problem by a governmental employee seeking to vindicate the right given him/her by Congress to challenge in an Article III court the right to relief.
That discovery would have been fruitful can hardly be doubted in this day and world of big, big government and its enveloping bureaucracy. It would have displayed to an almost certainty that the last thing the Secretary of Defense — surrounded by hundreds of civilian experts and literally thousands of military supporters of tan, green and blue uniforms, conferring with Joint Chiefs of Staff on worldwide problems of defense strategy, the planning for and choice of defensive weapons bearing worldwide political implications — would be concerned about is this suit in Dallas, Texas by one single AAFES employee claiming she was discriminated against by being denied various promotions.
Obviously in an enterprise as widefolding and demanding, Congress — with or without the focus of national TVs — would have expressed dismay, indeed outright disapproval, of any system — really non-system — that committed any such prosaic matters to a person already so overwhelmed by global, political, military, geographic problems.
Obviously within this vast bureaucracy, the Secretary must have, a formalized system14 for receipt of legal notices, summons, and citations which Congress has ordained — or courts have declared — are to be served on “the Secretary.”
Undoubtedly within the labyrinth of the Pentagon there was an office to whom Commander Long routinely under appropriate regulations or directives sent word that he had been served with a legal summons in Honeycutt’s case. If this took place it was enough to charge then Secretary Wein-berger (or his successor) with notice that such a claim was being asserted. No one— and certainly not the Supreme Court — ever envisioned that its Schiavone notice had to be actual, not imputed.
In the never ending list of those cases15 in which we throw out at least qualified suitors for failure to distinguish between the United States or the Departments of Defense, Army, Air Force, Navy, or Coast Guard and the relevant Department’s Secretary, the minimum the trial and this court should do is to permit proof, with adequate discovery, of the governmental agency’s procedure on service of notice or summons.

Conclusion

For these reasons, I cannot endorse the further erosion of the principles of the 1966 amendments to Rule 15(c). These amendments sought to eliminate the inequities and injustice of the “sporting theory of justice” 16 whereby minor pleading errors deprived litigants with legitimate claims of their day in a federal court.
*1357Therefore', I respectfully dissent and concur with reservations.

. The Court, over my somewhat spirited defense, has ruled in Gonzales v. Secretary of Air Force, 824 F.2d at 395; therefore as a loyal trooper I am bound although still convinced of the error of our — and with utmost deference, the Supreme Court’s — ways.

. Shafer v. Commander, Army and Air Force Exchange Service, 667 F.Supp. 414 (N.D.Tex.1985) (a formidable Title VII sex discrimination class action suit).

. Williams v. Army and Air Force Exchange Service, 830 F.2d 27, 31 (3d Cir.1987); Mondy v. Secretary of the Army, 845 F.2d 1051, 1052 n. 1 (D.C.Cir.1988); Lubniewski v. Department of Navy, 682 F.Supp. 462, 464 (N.D.Cal.1988).

. The Department of Health and Human Services identifies the proper defendant in its right to sue letters, and I see no reason why AAFES cannot do the same for its AAFES employees in correspondence explaining their options to file civil actions.

. See Williams, supra, 830 F.2d at 31.

. Honeycutt received a Notice of Proposed Disposition of Discrimination Complaint from an AAFES Deputy EEO Officer in addition to the final agency decision. The Notice, pursuant to 29 C.F.R. §§ 1613.221 and 1613.282, advised Ho-neycutt that "[u]pon receipt of notification [of the proposed disposition of her complaint], you may appeal to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ... or file a civil action in an appropriate U.S. District Court within 30 days.” Only one additional phrase would be required to identify the proper defendant and give an employee not only notice of her right to sue, but also a chance to vindicate her overriding right to be free from employment discrimination.

.In the first place what is the agency, and then who is its head? Is it the Department/Secretary of the Army? The Department/Secretary of the Navy? The Department/Secretary of the Air Force? Or the D.epartment/Secretary of Defense?
AAFES is called a nonappropriated fund instrumentality of the Department of Defense. In other words, “The Secretary of Defense has vested in the Secretaries of the Army and the Air Force all functions, power, and duties relating to exchange and motion picture activities within their departments.” A.R. 60-10/AFR 147-7, para. 1-5.

. See n. 5 supra.

. A.R. 60-10/AFR 147-7 paras. 1-7, 2-1.

. Personnel Policy Manual For Nonappropriat-ed Fund Instrumentalities, DOD 1401.1-M, para. 1-E.

. A.R. 60-10/AFR 147-7, para. 3-10d(2).

. The AAFES letterhead on which the notice appeared displayed both the shield of the Department of Defense and the AAFES logo.

13. The time remaining in the limitation period after service on Commander Long was acknowledged.

. On argument, the United States Attorney, clothed with the full armor of the sovereign advised this court that indeed, there is such an office in the Pentagon. Imagine in its absence the plight of a Deputy United States Marshal, trying to penetrate the maze of Pentagon halls to gain entrance into the bureaucratically defended redoubt of the Secretary, or worse a civilian attorney hand carrying service of process as allowed under F.R.Civ.P. 4(c)(2)(A).

. E.g., Brown v. Department of Army, 854 F.2d 77 (5th Cir.1988); Harris v. Department of Transportation, 843 F.2d 219 (5th Cir.1988); Williams v. Army & Air Force Exchange Service, supra, 830 F.2d 27; Koucky v. Department of Navy, 820 F.2d 300 (9th Cir.1987); Lubniewski, supra, 682 F.Supp. 462; Portis v. Department of Army, 117 F.R.D. 579 (E.D.Va.1987).

.Schiavone, 477 U.S. 21, 33, 106 S.Ct. 2379, 2386, 91 L.Ed.2d 18, 29 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (quoting Pound, The Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice, 29 A.B.A. Reps. 395, 404-05 (1906).