Court Opinion

ID: 9427577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:21:14.00766+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:08.172556
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Stevens,
with whom The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Powell, and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Section 14 (b) of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 81 Stat. 607, 29 U. S. C. § 633 (b), explicitly states that “no suit may be brought” under the Act until the individual has first resorted to appropriate state remedies. Respondent has concededly never resorted to state remedies. In my judgment, this means that his suit should not have been brought and should now be dismissed.
Throughout this litigation both parties have assumed that dismissal would be required if § 14 (b) is construed to mandate individual resort to state remedies in deferral States. In Part II of its opinion, which I join, the Court so construes the statute. However, in Part III of its opinion, the Court volunteers some detailed legal advice about the effect of a suggested course of conduct that respondent may now pursue and then orders that his suit be held in abeyance while he follows that advice.
Regardless of whether the Court’s advice is accurate — a question that should not be answered until some litigant has raised it — I am unable to join Part III. If respondent should decide at this point to resort to state remedies, and if his complaint there is found to be time barred, and if he should then seek relief in federal court, the question addressed in Part III of the Court’s opinion — whether § 14 (b) requires resort to state remedies “within time limits specified by the State”— would then be presented. But that question is not presented now, and I decline to join or to render an advisory opinion on its merits. I would simply order that this suit be dismissed in accordance with “the mandate of § 14 (b).” Ante, at 765.