Court Opinion

ID: 9465923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:59:54.325998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:26.744001
License: Public Domain

WISDOM, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
With his usual thoroughness, Judge Clark has carefully analyzed the question whether the 180-day period contained in § 2000e— 5(e) of Title VII is subject to equitable delay or interruption. I agree with his conclusion that equity must be considered in determining whether a timely filing occurred. I went at least that far in Reeb v. Economic Opportunity Atlanta, Inc., 5 Cir. 1975, 516 F.2d 924. Judge Clark has taken a long walk to the river, undressed, put on a bathing suit, tested the temperature of the water with his toe, and then decided that it was too cold for a swim. I would take the plunge.
Mrs. Chappell is the victim of a bureaucratic tangle. She filed her complaint with the Texas Employment Commission on September 18, 1973, eighteen days after she was fired. S. R. Whitley, a supervising interviewer for the Commission, stated in an affidavit that “in the regular course of business” he made “a memorandum or record . . . personally at the time of an interview with Mrs. Cleda J. Dykes [Chap-pell] on September 18, 1973”. He continued: “These two pages of records represent an employment discrimination complaint. My records reflect that the complaint was forwarded to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ... on September 18, 1973 . . . [as] is customary in the usual course of business of Texas Employment Commission”. The EEOC complaint, attached to Whitley’s affidavit, is dated *1305September 18, 1973. The Texas Employment Commission records reflect that her complaint was forwarded to the Albuquerque district office of the EEOC that day.
EEOC records, however, show that the complaint bearing the notation of the Texas Employment Commission was received on March 5, 1974. Although we do not know where the complaint was between September 18, 1973 and March 5,1974, we do know that Mrs. Chappell was in no way responsible for the delay in filing. The fault for the delay lies with the state agency, the EEOC district office, or the United States mails, in recent years not distinguished for efficiency.
The majority opinion acknowledges that equitable modification would be appropriate had Mrs. Chappell relied on an employee of the EEOC to file her complaint. A complainant “is entitled to rely on . seemingly authoritative statement[s] made by the agency presumed to know the most about these matters”. Page v. U. S. Industries, Inc., 5 Cir. 1977, 556 F.2d 346, 351. The majority declines to apply this principle, however, in the case of seemingly authoritative statements made by the supervising interviewer of the Texas Employment Commission because, in its view, there is no logical stopping point between reliance on a state agency and reliance on a lawyer, relative, or. an acquaintance to file the party’s complaint. I consider that an officer or employee of a state agency may be presumed to do his duty in the regular course of business no less than an officer or employee of a federal agency.
State agencies occupy a special role in the statutory scheme of Title VII. Many of the procedural requirements of the Act reflect the judgment that local, more informal enforcement agencies are the preferred means of resolving employment discrimination grievances. Resort to state agencies reduces the EEOC caseload and conserves federal resources. The Seventh Circuit has noted that “as part of the compromise which made it possible to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, its sponsors agreed to the inclusion of provisions which . require a resort to state procedures, where available, as a condition precedent to a private action in the federal courts.” Moore v. Sunbeam Corp., 7 Cir. 1972, 459 F.2d 811, 820-21. Indeed, the EEOC cannot act on a complaint unless it is first presented to the state agency if the agency is one empowered by the state’s fair employment legislation to grant relief from the discriminatory act charged. 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-5(c) and 2000e-5(d). Although Mrs. Chappell was not required to file her complaint first with the Texas Employment Commission, since that agency is not a fair employment practice agency within the definition of § 2000e-5(c),1 the Texas agency is charged with assisting claimants in obtaining remedies for employment discrimination and routinely handles EEOC complaints for litigants. Whitley’s job was just exactly that.
In Reeb, we said that “the timing provisions [of the Act] will be s'ubject to the same sort of equitable modifications that are applied to statutes of limitations, with the important additional requirement that these modifications will be applied in the interest of effectuating the broad remedial purposes of the statute.” Reeb, supra, at 927. Modification should be applied if “doing so would further the purposes of the statute as a whole.” Id.
It would be ironic for Mrs. Chappell to be penalized for resorting to a state forum when Title VII places great emphasis on resorting initially to state agencies to rectify unfair practices. Insistence on formalistic distinctions between the EEOC and its “agents” on the one hand and state agencies created to assist the individual in processing his grievance on the other hand is *1306particularly indefensible in light of the avowed purpose of Title VII to provide a scheme whereby an unlettered layman can present his complaint without resort to a lawyer. Cf. Love v. Pullman Co., 1972, 404 U.S. 522, 92 S.Ct. 616, 30 L.Ed.2d 679. In this case Whitley specifically instructed Mrs. Chappell that she did not need a lawyer because the Texas agency would handle the matter for her.
Here, there is an absence of any prejudice to the defendant attributable to the delay in filing. The delay was minimal, only four days. It can even be said that in terms of the effect on the defendant of the statutory requirement of timeliness — there was no delay. March 1 was the 180th day. The law requires that the defendant be notified within ten days of the filing of a complaint; that is, 190 days from the date of the offense. Here, that would be March 11. The EEOC mailed the notice to the defendant on March 8. The defendant received the notice on March 11. Considering, therefore, notice to the defendant as integral to the ultimate purpose of the timely filing requirement, there was no delay, certainly no prejudicial delay.
The EEOC took the case on the merits, investigated, and found discrimination. Significantly, the EEOC itself, the agency Congress authorized to process employment discrimination complaints, considered the filing was timely. The EEOC “Determination” contains a finding of timeliness. And the district director of the EEOC stated that the “complaint was treated by my office as timely filed”. The Commission found that the defendant’s reasons for Mrs. Chappell’s discharge were “so groundless as to warrant a conclusion that sex was the sole motivating factor for her discharge”. In short, the facts cry out for justice.
Mrs. Chappell’s reliance on Whitley’s assurances was reasonable. To be sure, Mrs. Chappell’s repeated inquiries regarding the status of her complaint “obviously indicate that she knew something was awry”. But Whitley told Mrs. Chappell that the complaint had been forwarded and that the EEOC was in the process of taking action. It was reasonable for her to suppose that the delay was attributable to the slow turning of bureaucratic wheels. Her repeated inquiries demonstrate impatience; they do not show that she slept on her rights.
Mrs. Chappell actively pursued her remedies. She filed her complaint with an official state agency set up to carry out the broad purposes of Title VII by assisting laymen in initiating complaints with the EEOC. Bureaucratic ineptitude, whether of the Texas Employment Commission or the EEOC district office, or perhaps the United States postal service, should not result in the forfeiture of her rights. I would, therefore, reverse the district court.

. Section 2000e-5(c) defines that agency as one established in a state or political subdivision “which has a state or local law prohibiting the unlawful employment practice alleged and establishing or authorizing a state or local authority to grant or seek relief from such practice or to institute criminal proceedings with respect thereto. . . See also C.F.R., Chptr. XIV, 1601.12. Cf. White v. Dallas Independent School District, 5 Cir. 1978 en banc, 581 F.2d 556.