Maintaining an Action Under Title Vii: Administrative and Procedural Requirements
| Publication year | 1996 |
| Pages | 69 |
1996, February, Pg. 69. Maintaining an Action Under Title VII: Administrative and Procedural Requirements
The Civil Rights Act of 1991(fn1) amended both 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 42 U.S.C. § 2000(e) et seq. ("Title VII"). The primary effect and intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 on Title VII was to expand the scope of liabilities and remedies available for discriminatory employment practices. This article explores the current trends regarding procedural prerequisites for maintaining a Title VII action, as well as the status of the "continuing violation doctrine" in Title VII cases.
Employees may bring Title VII claims based on discrimination with regard to hiring, firing and promotions; forms of compensation; racial or sexual harassment; and retaliation. Before bringing a suit in federal court, the claimant must comply with certain administrative and procedural requirements: (1) a timely and sufficient charge must be filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"); (2) the claimant must receive notice of a "right to sue" letter from the EEOC; and (3) suit must be filed within ninety days after receipt of the right to sue letter. The federal district courts lack subject matter jurisdiction if these administrative requirements are not met.(fn2)
An employee who feels he or she was discriminated against in violation of Title VII must file a charge with the EEOC.(fn3) By filing the charge, the claimant satisfies the first element of a prima facie case of a Title VII retaliation action.(fn4)
A sufficient EEOC charge is a jurisdictional prerequisite to bringing a lawsuit.(fn5) Sufficiency of the charge is a matter of law to be determined by the trial judge.(fn6) Because most EEOC charges are completed by lay persons, courts normally do not require that every fact forming the basis of the complaint be alleged in the EEOC charge.(fn7)
However, separate allegations of discrimination do not automatically form a reasonable relationship to each other. The Tenth Circuit dismissed sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination-based claims as not sufficiently related to the prior EEOC charge where the administrative charge merely alleged retaliation.(fn8) With this ruling, the Tenth Circuit joined the First, Second, Fourth and Seventh Circuits by holding that consideration of claims not expressly included in the EEOC charge is appropriate when the alleged misconduct would fall within the scope of an EEOC investigation reasonably expected to grow out of the actual charges.(fn9)
The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado held that an investigation of racial discrimination may not be reasonably expected to include an investigation of retaliation when the retaliatory acts occurred before the charges were filed.(fn10) However, the court also found that disparate treatment was reasonably expected to be included in an investigation of racial discrimination, especially given that the plaintiff was one of two black employees. At the very least, the EEOC charge and the complaint must depict the same conduct and implicate the same individuals.(fn11)
Because the complaint should be construed liberally, the normally strict requirement that each defendant be named in the EEOC charge has exceptions.(fn12) For instance, the Tenth Circuit considered harassment by employees not named in the charge where: (1) the claimant did not seek to hold those individuals personally liable and (2) the charge contained allegations of the employer's policy of accepting and tolerating harassment.(fn13) The Tenth Circuit also developed four factors to be considered in determining whether a complaint should be dismissed for omission of a party's name in the EEOC charge: (1) could the role of the party have been ascertained at the time of filing with the EEOC through reasonable effort; (2) were the interests of a named party sufficiently identical so that inclusion of the unnamed party would be unnecessary for purposes of conciliation and compliance; (3) is the unnamed party prejudiced by exclusion from the EEOC charge; and (4) did the unnamed party represent in any way to the claimant that its connection to the claimant was to be through the party specifically identified.(fn14)
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