Court Opinion

ID: 9842660
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:11:45.718523+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:25.192150
License: Public Domain

STEPHEN F. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
with whom Circuit Judge TATEL joins, concurring:
Because the EEOC’s use of its Policy Statement appears more complicated than stated above, I write separately.
The Policy Statement may not explicitly state that employment contracts requiring arbitration of discrimination claims violate Title VII, but the EEOC apparently believes that it could honestly be read to that effect. The EEOC has cited it in at least one brief in support of precisely that argument. In October 2000 the EEOC submitted a brief in the Central District of California that expressly asks the court for punitive damages because the defendant allegedly “unlawfully retaliated against Mr. Lagatree [an applicant for employment] by denying him employment ... based on his refusal to sign an employment agreement compelling mandatory arbitration of future claims of employment-discrimination ..., in violation of Title VII.” EEOC v. Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps, LLP, No. 00-1322 at 2 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 23, 2000) (plaintiffs opposition to defendant’s motion for summary judgment) (submitted under Circuit Rule 28(j)). In the section specifically addressing punitive damages, the brief states:
[I]t is also important to note that the EEOC had published a Policy Statement on July 10, 1997, two months before Luce terminated Mr. Lagatree, on “Mandatory Arbitration of Employment Disputes as a Condition of Employment”, which concluded that these unilateral agreements harms [sic] both the individual civil rights claimant and the public interest in eradicating discrimination. These policy statements put employers on notice regarding the EEOC’s position concerning most discrimination issues.
Id. at 15. Although the EEOC did not explicitly say in its brief that the Policy Statement concludes that these agreements violate Title VII, its citation to the Policy Statement — in an argument supporting the imposition of punitive damages on an employer who insisted on such agreements — must mean that the EEOC briefwriter believed that competent judges could be persuaded to believe that it reached that conclusion.1
*839As the preceding opinion notes, however, EEOC counsel before us took a quite different position — one that we believe is better supported by the Policy Statement’s language. He declared, “This agreement [referring to the Policy Statement] does not purport to do that [make an assertion of illegality], and I hope it doesn’t do that.” Tr. at 31. Indeed, he said that the Policy Statement “was vetted very carefully to make sure that it didn’t say it [an employer’s insistence on an arbitration agreement] was illegal under Title VII.” Id. at 28.
Because the formulation of the Commission’s position before a court of appeals is a more material commitment than the filing of a district court brief, and counsel certainly did not file a corrective letter despite the panel’s prolonged interrogation on the issue, it seems reasonable to take the EEOC’s position before us as its true position, a proposition helpful, though not necessarily essential, to the ultimate judgment here.

. Although the district court rejected EEOC's argument for punitive damages because of res *839judicata, the court declined to interpret Duf-field as holding “only that mandatory arbitration agreements are unenforceable” and held that injunctive relief was appropriate because requiring employees to enter into mandatory arbitration agreements is “unlawful under Title VII.” EEOC v. Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps, LLP, 122 F.Supp.2d 1080, 1091, 1093 (C.D.Cal.2000).