Court Opinion

ID: 9426085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:45.82065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.962526
License: Public Domain

*468Mr. Justice Marshall,
with whom Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Brennan join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
In recognizing that Congress intended to supply aggrieved employees :with independent but related avenues of relief under-' Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and § 16 of the Civil Rights Act of 1870, 42 U. S. C. § 1981, the Court emphasizes the importance of a full arsenal of weapons to combat unlawful employment discrimination in the private as well as the public sector. The majority stands on firm ground in recognizing that both remedies are available to victims, of discriminatory practices. Accordingly, I concur in Parts I-III of the Court’s opinion.
But, the Court .stumbles in its analysis of the relation between the two statutes on the tolling question. The majority concludes that the filing of a Title VII charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) does not toll the applicable statute of limitations. It relies exclusively on state law for the period and effect of the limitation and dis90unts the importance of the federal-policies of conciliation and avoidance of *469unnecessary litigation in this area. The majority recognizes these policies but concludes that tolling the statute of limitations for a § 1981 suit during the pendency of Title VII proceedings is not an appropriate means of furthering them. I disagree. The congressional purpose of discouraging premature judicial intervention and the absence of any real risk of reviving stale claims suggest the propriety of tolling here. On balance, I view the failure to apply the tolling principle as undermining the foundation of Title VII and frustrating the congressional policy of providing alternative remedies. I must, therefore, dissent from Parts IV and V of the opinion.
The Court sets out the circumstances that suspend a statute of limitations without close examination of the statute’s equitable underpinnings. According to the majority, the federal court is deprived of authority to toll the state statute because it borrows both “the State’s wisdom in setting a limit, [as well as] exceptions thereto,” ante, at 464, and offers no special reason for reluctance to apply the “overtones” of the period to a federal civil rights action. As a general practice, where Congress has created a federal right without prescribing a period for enforcement, the federal courts uniformly borrow the most analogous state statute of limitations. The applicable period of limitations is derived from that which the State would apply if the action had been brought in a state court. See, e. g., Auto Workers v. Hoosier Corp., 383 U. S. 696 (1966); Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392 (1946); O’Sullivan v. Felix, 233 U. S. 318 (1914). See also American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, 414 U. S. 638, 556 n. 27 (1974). For the purposes of this case the § 1981 action is governed by the District Court’s application of the one-year Tennessee provision for “actions . . . brought under the federal civil rights statutes.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-304 (Supp. 1974). See ante, at 462 n. 7.
*470Congress’ failure to include a built-in limitations period in § 1981 does not automatically warrant "an imprimatur on state law” and sanction the borrowing of both the effect as well as the duration from state law. Auto Workers v. Hoosier Corp., supra, at 709 (White, J., dissenting); Holmberg v. Armbrecht, supra, at 394-395; Board of Comm’rs v. United States, 308 U. S. 343 (1939). It is well settled that when federal courts sit to enforce federal rights, they have an obligation to apply federal equity principles:
“When Congress leaves to the federal courts the formulation of remedial details, it can hardly expect them to break with historic principles of equity in the enforcement of federally-created equitable rights.” Holmberg v. Armbrecht, supra, at 395.
See also Moviecolor, Ltd. v. Eastman Kodak Co., 288 F. 2d 80 (CA2), cert. denied, 368 U. S. 821 (1961).
The effect to be given the borrowed statute is thus a matter of judicial implication. Simply stated, we must determine whether the national policy considerations favoring the continued availability of the § 1981 cause of action outweigh the interests protected by the State’s statute of limitations. See Auto Workers v. Hoosier Corp., supra, at 708; Holmberg v. Armbrecht, supra, at 395.
I
Title VII and now § 1981. both express the federal policy against discriminatory employment practices. Emporium Capwell Co. v. WACO, 420 U. S. 50, 66 (1975); Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U. S. 36, 44 (1974); McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S. 792, 800 (1973); Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424, 429-430 (1971). As we have recently observed, “legislative enactments in this area have long evinced a *471general intent to accord parallel or overlapping remedies against discrimination.” Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., supra, at 47. It is this general legislative intent that must guide us in determining whether congressional purpose with respect to a particular statute is effectuated by tolling the statute of limitations.
A full exposition of the statutory origins of § 1981 with respect to prohibition against private acts of discrimination is set out in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409 (1968). In construing § 1982, a sister provision to § 1981, we concluded that Congress intended to prevent private discriminatory deprivations of all the rights enumerated in § 1 of the 1866 Act, including the right to contract. 392 U. S., at 426. The Court’s recognition of a proscription in § 1981 against private acts of employment discrimination, ante, at 459-460, reaffirms that the early Civil Rights Acts reflect congressional intent to “speak ... of all deprivations . . . whatever their source.” Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U. S. 88, 97 (1971); see also Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, Inc., 396 U. S. 229 (1969).
The legislative history of Title VII and its 1972 amendments demonstrates that Congress intended to provide a coordinated but comprehensive set of remedies against employment discrimination. The short statute of limitations and the procedural prerequisites to Title VII actions emphasized the need to preserve the remedy of a suit under the 1870 legislation, which did not suffer from the same procedural restrictions as the latter enactment. See H. R. Rep. No. 92-238, p. 19 (1971); S. Rep. No. 92-415, p. 24 (1971). See also 118 Cong. Rec. 3370 (1972). Congressional sentiment was that “[b]y strengthening the administrative remedy [it] should not also eliminate preexisting rights which the Constitution and [the Congress had] accorded to aggrieved individ*472uals.” Id., at 3371. While encouragement of private settlement to avoid unnecessary litigation under Title VII and the preservation of an independent § 1981 action may appear somewhat at odds, the two themes are reconciled in the context of their joint remedial purpose: devising a flexible network of remedies to guarantee equal employment opportunities. See, e. g., Guerra v. Manchester Terminal Corp., 498 F. 2d 641, 650 (CA5 1974); Boudreaux v. Baton Rouge Marine Contracting Co., 437 F. 2d 1011, 1017 (CA5 1971); Macklin v. Spector Freight Systems, Inc., 156 U. S. App. D. C. 69, 84-86, n. 30, 478 F. 2d 979, 994-996, n. 30 (1973). See also Culpepper v. Reynolds Metals Co., 421 F. 2d 888 (CA5 1970).
In Alexander v. Gardner-Denver, supra, we examined the relationship between compulsory arbitration and litigation under Title VII, a relationship analogous to that between the EEOC factfinding and conciliation process and litigation under § 1981, and accommodated both avenues of redress. The reasoning leading to that result is equally compelling here. Forced compliance with a short statute of limitations during the pendency of a charge before the EEOC would discourage and/or frustrate recourse to the congressionally favored policy of conciliation, Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U. S., at 44, and “[t]he possibility of voluntary compliance or settlement of Title VII claims would thus be reduced, and the result could well be more litigation, not less.” Id., at 59. Cf. American Pipe & Constr. Co. v. Utah, 414 U. S., at 555-556.
Congressional effort, with the 1972 amendments, to strengthen the administrative remedy by increasing EEOC’s ability to conciliate complaints is frustrated by the majority’s requirement that an employee file the § 1981 action prior to the conclusion of the Title VII conciliation efforts in order to avoid the bar of the *473statute of limitations.1 Legislative pains to avoid, unnecessary and costly litigation by making the informal investigatory and conciliatory offices of EEOC readily available to victims of unlawful discrimination cannot be squared with the formal mechanistic requirement of early filing for the technical purpose of tolling a limitations statute. In sum, the federal policies weigh strongly in favor of tolling.
II
Examination of the purposes served by the statute of limitations indicates that they would not be frustrated by adoption of the tolling rule. Statutes of limitations are designed to insure fairness to defendants by preventing the revival of stale claims in which the defense is hampered by lost evidence, faded memories, and disappearing witnesses, and to avoid unfair surprise. None of these factors exists here.
Respondents were informed of the petitioner’s grievances through the complaint filed with the Commission and conciliation negotiations. The charge filed with the EEOC and the § 1981 claim arise out of the same factual circumstances. The petitioner in this case diligently pursued the informal procedures before the Commission and adhered to the congressional preference for conciliation prior to litigation. Now, when Johnson asserts his right to proceed with litigation under § 1981 after his good-faith, albeit unnecessary, compliance with Title VII procedures, the majority interposes the bar of the Tennessee statute of limitations which clearly was not designed to include such cases.2
*474In my judgment, following the antitolling position of the Court to its logical conclusion produces an inequitable result. Aggrieved employees will be forced into simultaneously prosecuting premature § 1981 actions in the federal courts. In essence, the litigant who first explores conciliation prior to resort to litigation must file a duplicative claim in the district court on which the court will either take no action until the Title VII proceedings are concluded or proceed in frustration of the EEOC attempts to conciliate. No federal policy considerations warrant this waste of judicial time and derogation of the conciliation process.
Adoption of the tolling principle, however, protects the federal interest in both preserving multiple remedies for employment discrimination and in the proper function of the limitations statute. As a normal consequence tolling works to suspend the operation of a statute of limitations during the pendency of an event or condition. See American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, 414 U. S., at 560 561; Burnett v. New York-Central R. Co., 380 U. S. 424, 427 (1965). In American *475Pipe we held that the initiation of a timely class action tolled the running of the limitation period as to individual members of the class, enabling them to institute separate actions after the District Court found class action an inappropriate mechanism for the litigation. In similar manner the Burnett court viewed' the initiation of a timely Federal Employers’ Liability Act suit in state court as tolling the statute of limitations for the later filing of a federal action following dismissal of the state proceeding for improper venue. The Court’s analysis in both cases rested on the conclusion that each plaintiff had by his prior action given the defendant timely notice in a manner that “fulfilled the policies of repose and certainty inherent -in the limitation provisions and tolled the running of the period.” American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, supra, at 558.
Although the length of the limitation in these cases was fixed by federal statute, the tolling rationale is equally adaptable to protect subsequent litigation when the duration period is established by state statute. The federal policy in favor of continuing availability of multiple remedies for persons subject to employment discrimination is inconsistent with the majority’s decision not to suspend the operation of the statute. As long as the claim arising under § 1981 is essentially limited to the Title VII claim, staleness and unfair surprise disappear as justification for applying the statute.3 Additionally, the difference in statutory origin for the right asserted under the EEOC charge and the subsequent § 1981 suit is of no consequence since the claims are *476essentially equivalent in substance. Cf. Alexander v. Qardner-Denver, supra. Since the EEOC charge gives notice that petitioner also has a grievance under § 1981, that filing, like the initial litigation in Burnett and American Pipe, satisfied the equitable policies underlying the limitation provision. American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, supra, at 558.
Neither the legislative history of these Acts nor the avowed purposes of statutes of limitations foreclose good-faith resort to the administrative procedures of the EEOC. Adoption of the tolling theory avoids the Draconian choice of losing the benefits of conciliation or giving up the right to sue, yet preserves the independent nature of the § 1981 action. Accordingly, I would reverse the court below on this point.

 Loss of the § 1981 cause of action would deprive the aggrieved employee of the opportunity to recover punitive damages and more ample backpay.

 Under the Court’s no-tolling principle petitioner’s discharge on June 20, 1967, activated the statute which subsequently ran on-*474June 20, 1968 — two years prior to his receipt of the right-to-sue letter! The majority suggests that even if the statute were tolled during the consideration of the EEOC charge and the initial court proceedings, petitioner’s Title VII action may be time barred because of the unusual procedural history of the case, requiring the Court to extend his § 1981 claim beyond that arising out of Title VII. But our limited grant of certiorari forecloses consideration of the timeliness of the Title VII claim.
In any event this case reflects no departure from the normal rule of tolling. Consistent with the common understanding that tolling entails a suspension rather than an extension of a period of limitations, petitioner is allowed whatever time remains under the applicable statute, as well as the benefit of any state saving statute. Under Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-106 (1955) an action dismissed without prejudice may be reinstituted within a year of dismissal. The filing here falls well within that time frame.

 Where there are differences between the § 1981 claim and thé Title VII complaint, the district courts could easily limit the tolling to those portions of the § 1981 claim that overlapped the Title VII allegations. Cf. EEOC v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 505 F. 2d 610, 617 (CA5 1974); Sanchez v. Standard Brands, 431 F. 2d 455, 466 (CA5 1970).