Court Opinion

ID: 9462419
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:40:41.94461+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:35.008043
License: Public Domain

McCREE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I do not view Hiscott v. General Electric Co., 521 F.2d 632 (6th Cir. 1975) as holding the requirements of § 626(d) to be jurisdictional in the .i sense that noncompliance with them would deprive a court of its power to entertain a suit. Although compliance with these notice requirements is a statutory prerequisite to bringing suit, an exceptional case meriting equitable relief is presented where a claimant can show that his state had a statute that prohibits employment discrimination based upon age, but a person of ordinary intelligence with the exercise of reasonable diligence could not determine within a 180 day period whether the state also had an agency established or authorized to grant or seek relief. I would hold that in such a case the remedial purpose of the Act is served by affording the claimant the benefit of the *251300 day period in which to give the notice “required by § 626(d). To hold claimants who were misled by such circumstances to the 180 day requirement would frustrate congressional intent by penalizing intended beneficiaries of the Act who have substantially complied with the statutory preconditions to suit. The Act should not be construed to make it a trap for the unwary, nor should it require every claimant to retain counsel experienced in the technicalities of age discrimination litigation. Frequently the monetary amount in controversy is so small that such a wooden approach would, as a practical matter, prevent recovery by many members of the class that the Act was adopted to protect. Goger v. H. K. Porter Co., Inc., 492 F.2d 13 (3rd Cir. 1974) provides precedent for flexibility in the interpretation of the Act.
Since it is undisputed that Ohio has a statute that prohibits age discrimination in employment, the inquiry should be whether a person of ordinary intelligence, exercising reasonable diligence, would have been able to discover within the 180 day period whether Ohio had an agency established or authorized to grant or seek relief. Appellant communicated with both the Ohio Civil Rights Commission and the Ohio Attorney General in an attempt to obtain enforcement of the statute. Before the district court, appellant suggested that the Ohio Industrial Commission had authority to enforce the statute. Nevertheless, a. majority of this court holds, as did the district court, that Ohio does not have a state agency established or authorized to grant or seek relief in age discrimination cases. In this situation appellant should be held to have substantially complied with the notice requirement of section 626(d) by filing within 300 days. It was entirely reasonable for Eklund to assume after Ohio adopted a specific prohibition against age discrimination in employment, that one of the agencies with assigned authority over the enforcement of labor practices, or civil rights, or at least the chief state law enforcement officer, would attempt to enforce the statute.