Court Opinion

ID: 9464698
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:40:11.894108+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:46.041838
License: Public Domain

LIVELY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result, but am unable to accept all of the reasoning of the majority opinion. In particular, I am not persuaded that the legislative history of ADEA leads to the conclusion that a complainant in a “deferral state” may elect to begin an action in federal court without any resort to the state agency. The majority quotes a fragment from the House Report in support of this determination. However, when read in its entirety, the paragraph from which that quotation is taken leads me to the opposite conclusion. That paragraph reads:
Federal-State relationship
Section 14 provides for concurrent Federal and State actions, except that in States having laws prohibiting discrimination in employment because of age, no suit may be brought under this act before the expiration of 60 days after proceedings have been commenced under the State law (120 days during the first year after the effective date of the State law), unless such proceedings have been earlier terminated, and commencement of an action under this act shall be a stay on any State action previously commenced.
H.R.Rep.No. 805, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. (1967), reprinted in 1967 U.S.Code Cong, and Admin.News 2213, 2218-19.
The language following the word “except” in the above quotation denotes a Congressional deference to state agencies. This language, together with the “superseding clause” cited by the majority, 29 U.S.C. § 633(a), establishes a procedure under which a complainant in a deferral state must first initiate proceedings with the state agency, giving that agency 60 days in which to attempt a solution by conciliation, but is not required to continue to pursue state remedies after the expiration of that period. Such a construction is compatible with expressed Congressional concerns for harmonious state-federal regulations in the national enterprise of eliminating unlawful discrimination in employment practices. Statements of these concerns abound in the legislative history of both Title VII and ADEA.
However, untimely resort to the state agency for attempted conciliation should not deprive a claimant of his right to seek relief in a federal court where the state allows less than 180 days for filing. I would adopt the following language from the Third Circuit’s opinion in Bonham v. Dresser Industries, Inc., 569 F.2d 187 (3d Cir. 1977):
We do not think that is was the intent of Congress to allow states to shrink the federal remedy for age discrimination by imposing limitation periods shorter than the federal ones. If compliance with Pennsylvania’s 90-day filing period is deemed a jurisdictional condition precedent to suit under the ADEA, the federal 180-day limitations period becomes 90 days for residents of Pennsylvania, and the availability of the federal remedy is seriously undermined. Cf. Olson v. Rembrandt Printing Co., 511 F.2d 1228 (8th Cir. 1975) (Title VII). Moreover, any eq*957uitable grounds for relaxing the federal limitations period would evaporate if not recognized by the state.
We do not hold that the mere existence of a state limitations period which is shorter than the federal one relieves a plaintiff of his obligation to bring his complaint to the attention of the state authorities. Rather, we hold only that if plaintiff files his complaint with the state agency within the federal 180-day period, the state’s conclusion that the filing is untimely under state law will not bar the federal suit. We think this rule is in accord with Congressional intention, consistent with Goger and Rogers, and compelled by our conclusion that the federal 180-day requirement is itself in the nature of a statute of limitations and subject to equitable modification.
569 F.2d at 194 (footnote omitted).