Howlett v. Holiday Inns, Inc.
| Decision Date | 09 May 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 93-6100,93-6100 |
| Parties | 67 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 289, 66 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 43,492 Ronald H. HOWLETT; Graves B. Ivey; Siegfried K. Konetzny; Jeffrey E. McLaughlin; Homayoon Meshginpoosh; Terry Phillips; Edward Rinckel; Frederick C. Roozen; Christopher R. Ryan; Rene H. Schiegg; and Fred Wright, Plaintiffs, Gordon McNeely, Appellant, v. HOLIDAY INNS, INC., Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Beth M. Rivers (argued and briefed), Rudy J. Huizenga, Huizenga, Hagan, Hergt & Rivers, Detroit, MI, Donald A. Donati, Donati & Associates, Memphis, TN, for appellant.
Thomas L. Henderson (argued and briefed), Frederick J. Lewis (briefed), McKnight, Hudson, Lewis & Henderson, Memphis, TN, for defendant-appellee.
Before: MARTIN and BATCHELDER, Circuit Judges; and COHN, District Judge. **
COHN, D. J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which MARTIN, J., joined. BATCHELDER, J. (pp. 197-98), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.
This is an age discrimination case under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). 29 U.S.C. Sec. 621, et seq. The complaint was filed by eleven named plaintiffs 1 and alleges that appellee, Holiday Inns, Inc. (Holiday Inns), discriminated against them on the basis of age in its termination of their employment and its failure to rehire them. The named plaintiffs and appellant, Gordon L. McNeely (McNeely), moved to join McNeely as a party plaintiff, but were denied on the ground that the district court did not have jurisdiction over McNeely's claim. McNeely appeals from the denial, arguing that although his charge of age discrimination with the EEOC was untimely, the "single filing rule" should operate to vest jurisdiction over his claim because he is similarly situated to the named plaintiffs who did file timely charges of age discrimination with the EEOC. For the reasons that follow, the district court's decision will be reversed.
Holiday Inns owns, operates, and manages hotels throughout the United States. In the spring of 1991, Holiday Inns moved its Memphis, Tennessee operations to Atlanta, Georgia in the course of reorganizing its corporate structure. Holiday Inns's reorganization involved a reduction in work force.
McNeely worked for Holiday Inns in Memphis, Tennessee as an accounting supervisor. He was born on October 25, 1941, and began working for Holiday Inns in 1976. On June 7, 1991, McNeely and the named plaintiffs were told that they were terminated from employment with Holiday Inns. After notifying McNeely of his termination, Holiday Inns requested that he continue working for several months and sign a waiver and release of all rights immediately. He complied with both requests, and worked for Holiday Inns until October, 1991. McNeely trained Linda Butler (Butler), who was twenty-eight years old, in his duties for several weeks before leaving Holiday Inns. Butler had been hired in September, 1991.
On April 24, 1992, McNeely filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in Memphis. The parties agree that McNeely's charge was not timely.
Named plaintiff Graves B. Ivey (Ivey) was also informed on June 7, 1991, that he would be terminated from his employment with Holiday Inns, where he had worked as a District Director in the Franchise Division. Ivey filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC in Jackson, Mississippi on December 10, 1991, 185 days later. Ivey's charge, after amendment in February, 1992, reads:
On June 7, 1991, I learned that I would not be hired in any of the available positions for which I was qualified after my District Director's position was eliminated.
I, along with others similarly situated, was told that although my position was being eliminated, I could apply and would be considered for other available positions.
I believe that I was discriminated against and denied further employment with this employer on the basis of my age, 54, since:
I had been employed for 31 years and had a good employment record.
Most of the employees hired into available positions after jobs were eliminated were younger, less senior, and less qualified persons.
Subsequent to the reorganization and as recent as January or February of 1992, I am being denied hire into positions such as General Manager, which are becoming available [and] which are being filled by younger less qualified persons.
On October 22, 1992, the named plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging age discrimination. 2 On June 4, 1993, McNeely and the named plaintiffs moved to amend the complaint and to join McNeely as a named plaintiff under Fed.R.Civ.P. 15 and 20, respectively. The district court denied the motion in an order entered July 9, 1993, holding that it did not have jurisdiction over McNeely's claim because McNeely had not timely filed an EEOC charge. McNeely filed a notice of appeal on August 12, 1993.
On appeal, McNeely argues that his failure to file a timely EEOC charge should be excused under the single filing rule. McNeely says that under the single filing rule, "[a]n individual can be exempted from the administrative filing requirement if a timely charge arising out of similar discriminatory treatment was filed by another aggrieved employee." In order to invoke the single filing rule, McNeely says, the charge relied upon must be (1) timely and not otherwise defective, and (2) must arise out of discriminatory treatment similar to, and occurring in the same time frame as, that suffered by the party seeking to invoke the rule. Here, McNeely says, the EEOC charges filed by ten of the eleven named plaintiffs satisfy both requirements, and therefore are sufficient to allow McNeely to "piggyback" on them.
McNeely argues that the district court erred in requiring that the charge on which he seeks to piggyback his claim contain an explicit allegation of class-wide discrimination, contending that a timely charge based on similar discriminatory treatment can function to put an employer on notice of a potential group lawsuit even if it does not explicitly claim class-wide discrimination. Here, he says, the charges of the named plaintiffs "contained allegations virtually identical to the claims raised by McNeely," and therefore gave Holiday Inns and the EEOC notice of the possibility that other claims could be raised. McNeely points out that Ivey's charge refers to Ivey and "others similarly situated," and that it states that "most of the employees hired into available positions after jobs were eliminated were younger, less senior, and less qualified persons." McNeely recognizes that some circuits have incorporated a requirement of class allegations into the single filing rule, but states that the requirement has not been universally adopted, and urges this Court to reject it.
The purposes of the administrative charge requirement, McNeely says, are to afford the employer notice of the allegations it faces and to permit the EEOC to attempt conciliation. Anderson v. Montgomery Ward, 852 F.2d 1008, 1016 (7th Cir.1988). McNeely argues that these purposes are met by timely charges, such as the Ivey charge, that address the discriminatory actions that form the basis of the piggybacker's claim. In such a case, McNeely says, requiring the filing of additional charges with the EEOC, or requiring additional language in the charges filed, is wasteful and is likely to be futile.
Holiday Inns responds that the district court properly denied the motion to join McNeely as a party plaintiff because he did not timely file an EEOC charge. Holiday Inns offers several alternative reasons why McNeely should not benefit from the application of the single filing rule. First, Holiday Inns argues, the single filing rule should not be invoked in the case of a claimant who filed an untimely EEOC charge, as McNeely did, as opposed to one who never filed a charge. Holiday Inns says the purposes of the single filing rule are administrative convenience and the avoidance of futile acts, and that these ends are not served by allowing the filer of an untimely EEOC charge to invoke the single filing rule, because the EEOC will already have investigated his charge and attempted conciliation by the time the claimant "seeks his 'second bite at the apple.' "
Second, Holiday Inns argues that Ivey's EEOC charge was not timely filed, and therefore cannot support the application of the single filing rule. While Ivey's charge was filed within the 300 day period of limitations applicable to Tennessee, Holiday Inns argues that because Ivey's charge was filed in Mississippi against Holiday Inns, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, he should have filed within the 180 day period of limitations applicable to Mississippi and Georgia. 3 Since Ivey's charge was filed 185 days after he was terminated, Holiday Inns says, his charge was not timely and cannot support application of the single filing rule.
Third, Holiday Inns argues that the district court correctly found that an EEOC charge can only support application of the single filing rule if it contains an allegation of class-wide discrimination, and that Ivey's charge contains no such allegation. Holiday Inns says that "[t]he Circuits uniformly hold that the single filing rule can be invoked only where a timely age discrimination charge notifies the employer and the EEOC that class-wide discrimination is alleged," citing a number of Court of Appeals opinions, including an unpublished opinion of this Court, Parrish v. Ford Motor Co., 909 F.2d 1484, 1990 Westlaw 109188 at * 7 (6th Cir.1990). Holiday Inns says the requirement of an allegation of class-wide discrimination serves the purposes of giving the employer notice of its potential liability and the EEOC the opportunity to conciliate all potential claims, and that acceptance of McNeely's...
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