Smith v. City of Chicago

• Decision Date: 29 July 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-2858,84-2858
• Parties: Harold SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 408

769 F.2d 408

Harold SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 84-2858.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued June 18, 1985.

Decided July 29, 1985.

Stephen J. Senderowitz, Troelstrup, Dolkart, Patterson & Senderowitz, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant.

James D. Montgomery, Corp. Counsel, Chicago, Ill., for defendants-appellees.

Before CUMMINGS, Chief Judge, and BAUER and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.

Demoted from bricklayer to laborer in November 1982, discharged as a laborer in June 1984 because of a reduction in force, Harold Smith sought judicial relief in August 1984. Smith's petition contended that the demotion came in retaliation for his support of a candidate for Mayor and so violated the Shakman consent decree. The Shakman decree, entered in 1972 and modified several times since, controls the use of political patronage in the City's employment practices. See Tomczak v. City of Chicago, 765 F.2d 633 (7th Cir.1985), which describes the history and scope of the decree.

Smith contends that but for the demotion in 1982 he would not have been let go in 1984. (Smith does not contend that his discharge is an independent violation of the decree.) The district court concluded that Smith had waited too long to seek relief. Twenty-one months passed between the demotion and the commencement of this proceeding. The district court thought that Smith's reason for waiting--his fear of further retaliation against employees who file suits against the City--was a poor one because "it is such retribution that actions under Shakman are aimed at eliminating." The court held the claim barred by laches in light of "the harm presumably suffered by the City, a governmental employer," during the delay, 591 F.Supp. 635.

I

This court reviews findings of laches under a highly deferential standard. We reverse only if the losing party shows a "clear abuse of discretion." Piper Aircraft Corp. v. Wag-Aero, Inc., 741 F.2d 925, 932 (7th Cir.1984). Although the review is deferential, laches nonetheless presents challenging questions for all concerned. Laches is a question of degree. Laches may be invoked only when unreasonable delay and prejudice to the other party coincide. Lingenfelter v. Keystone Consolidated Industries, 691 F.2d 339 (7th Cir.1982). How much delay is "unreasonable"? Often the parties disagree about whether the plaintiff took other steps that put the defendant on notice; here, for example, Smith protested the demotion to several of his supervisors and for four months received bricklayers' wages for laborer's work. Is this form of self-protection enough to extend the time for suit?

Then there are questions about "prejudice." Does this include any monetary loss (such as the need to pay increasing sums in back wages) or only a diminution in the ability to defend against the claim? Compare Lingenfelter, supra, 691 F.2d at 342 (expressing doubt that an increase in liability for back pay is "prejudice"), with United States ex rel. Arant v. Lane, 249 U.S. 367, 39 S.Ct. 293, 63 L.Ed. 650 (1919) (delay that requires government to pay two salaries for a single service is prejudicial). In this case the City says it will have to pay substantial back wages; Smith says that what is big money to him is small from the City's perspective. The City says it would need to fire someone else to make room for Smith; is this "prejudice" at all? No matter what counts as prejudice, how much is too much?

Litigation about laches diverts time and energy from the central issue in the litigation. It is a costly, enervating sideshow. Litigation about laches in Shakman cases has become routine business in the district court. Shakman applies to most workers in Chicago's government. It may be in effect for many years to come. It is likely to affect thousands of employment decisions. In 1984 alone the district court published at least four decisions adjudicating claims of laches in cases under Shakman, and there must have been many more unpublished orders, such as the one we review here. See McGuire v. City of Chicago, 592 F.Supp. 56 (N.D.Ill.1984); Herron v. City of Chicago, 591 F.Supp. 1565 (N.D.Ill.1984); Gurgone v. City of Chicago, 587 F.Supp. 1347 (N.D.Ill.1984); Crabtree v. City of Chicago, 585 F.Supp. 1389 (N.D.Ill.1984).

Questions such as "how much delay is too much?" take their toll in more than time and energy. The existence of such questions may injure potential plaintiffs who do not know what they must do to protect their rights. People aggrieved by the City's decisions may protect their rights by filing suit at once, but they may have good reasons not to do so. They may believe that informal procedures, including discussions with supervisors, will lead to redress. Litigation strains relations between employee and employer; it is properly a last resort. The injured employee may want to postpone litigation for as long as possible while exhausting other avenues. If no clear rule establishes how much delay is permissible, however, injured employees must either forswear their less contentious remedies or risk losing their legal rights.

The litigants and the legal system therefore have a common interest in easily stated, easily applied rules of procedure. Bright-line rules save the time of litigants and courts for the merits of the disputes; they tell parties what they must do to protect their rights. Courts should establish understandable, simple rules for the timely filing of litigation whenever possible. See Wilson v. Garcia, --- U.S. ----, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 1946-47, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985). Laches is not the doctrine of choice for determining the outer limit within which to file suit. Its usual role is to terminate the right to sue someplace short of the period of limitations, when inexcusable delay coupled with prejudice makes the regular period too long. Yet laches has so far been the only device for determining the timeliness of litigation under the Shakman decree. The time has come to establish a period of limitations.

II

Shakman is a judicial decree; a violation of that decree is contempt of court. There is no fixed statutory period for prosecuting civil contempts, but federal courts may borrow suitable periods of limitations from other statutes as a matter of federal law. See DelCostello v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 158-63 & n. 13, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 2287-90 & n. 13, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983). The source of the right in question is federal. The remedy (contempt of court) is part of the common law power of the federal courts. The period of limitations therefore also is an issue of federal law, to be adopted through the common law process. See DelCostello, supra.

One possible source of a period of limitations is 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. Section 1983 was the foundation of the original suit in Shakman. See Shakman v. Democratic Organization of Cook County, 435 F.2d 267 (7th Cir.1970), cert. denied, 402 U.S. 909, 91 S.Ct. 1383, 28 L.Ed.2d 650 (1971). Section 1983 does not supply a statute of limitations, however. Instead 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 refers courts to state law when federal law is not "sufficient." In Wilson v. Garcia the Supreme Court held that federal law supplies a sufficient characterization of all Sec. 1983 suits--as actions to redress personal injuries--and state law then supplies the statute of limitations, in Illinois, generally two years. More to the point this case, unlike the original Shakman suit, is not based on Sec. 1983. It is an action for contempt of the consent decree. The decree defines and shapes the rights in question. Many of the issues that make Sec. 1983 litigation difficult are not present here. The decree defines jobs for which political considerations are appropriate and those for which they are not. Cf. Grossart v. Dinas, 758 F.2d 1221 (7th Cir.1985). The district court, sitting without a jury, hears Shakman ases expeditiously. The simplification of the litigation suggests the use of a shorter period of limitations. Cases under Shakman are all of a kind. They are complaints about a particular kind of discrimination in the course of employment. United Parcel Service, Inc. v. Mitchell, 451 U.S. 56, 101 S.Ct. 1559, 67 L.Ed.2d 732 (1981), and DelCostello hold that reasonably short periods should be borrowed in employment cases and reject arguments for use of the statute of limitations for enforcing contracts. The reasons the Court gives in Mitchell and DelCostello apply here as well. We look, therefore, to the many statutes that establish periods of limitations for employment disputes similar to the ones governed by the Shakman decree.

Federal statutes regulating the employment relation contain periods of limitations in the range of 180 days. For example, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act gives a complaining party 180 days within which to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 626(d); see Posey v. Skyline Corp., 702 F.2d 102 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 392, 78 L.Ed.2d 336 (1983). Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ordinarily gives the complaining party the same 180 days. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5(e). (We disregard the difference between "deferral" and "non-deferral" states.) An employee protesting an unfair labor practice under the National Labor Relations Act has six months to complain to the National Labor Relations Board, 29 U.S.C. Secs. 158, 160(b), and DelCostello holds that the same period applies to most suits under the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 185. Cf. Vallone v. Local 705, 755 F.2d 520 (7th Cir.1984) (applying the same period to the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act).

Statutes apply the six-month period to claims connected with civil service employment, too. A person complaining to the Federal Labor Relations Authority about an unfair labor practice must do so within...