Anderson v. Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc.

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
• Writing for the Court: Before CUMMINGS, EASTERBROOK and RIPPLE; RIPPLE
• Citation: Anderson v. Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc., 852 F.2d 1008 (7th Cir. 1988)
• Decision Date: 25 July 1988
• Docket Number: No. 87-1297,87-1297
• Parties: 47 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1463, 47 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 38,165, 57 USLW 2104, 11 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1200 Robert ANDERSON, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. MONTGOMERY WARD & CO., INC., et al., Defendants-Appellants.

Page 1008

852 F.2d 1008

47 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1463,

47 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 38,165, 57 USLW 2104,

11 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1200

Robert ANDERSON, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. MONTGOMERY WARD & CO., INC., et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 87-1297.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Oct. 28, 1987.

Decided July 25, 1988.

Bridget Arimond, Davis, Barnhill & Galland, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs-appellees.

Ronald S. Cooper, Steptoe & Johnson, Washington, D.C., for defendants-appellants.

Before CUMMINGS, EASTERBROOK and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge.

This interlocutory appeal presents an important question of statutory construction under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. Secs. 621-634. We must decide whether discharged employees of Montgomery Ward & Co. (Montgomery Ward) may participate in an age discrimination suit against Montgomery Ward even though the employees failed to file timely charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), but when other employees, subject to the same alleged discriminatory practice, filed timely charges. ¹ The district court concluded that individuals need not file timely EEOC charges when at least one other similarly situated plaintiff has filed a timely charge. For the reasons set forth in the following opinion, we affirm.

I Facts

This appeal involves seven of 39 plaintiffs who have filed suit against Montgomery Ward alleging age discrimination in violation of ADEA. ² The plaintiffs were management employees of Montgomery Ward with between 10 and 43 years of service. All of the plaintiffs, including the seven appellees, filed charges with the EEOC alleging that they had been discriminated against because of their age. However, the charges of the seven appellees were untimely under ADEA because they were not filed within 300 days of the alleged discriminatory actions. At least 27 charges, 23 of which were timely, contained allegations that Montgomery Ward had engaged in class-based age discrimination some of the charges mentioned names of other employees who also allegedly had been discriminated against. ³ Montgomery Ward admits that it was aware of an "onslaught" of charges and that it stopped efforts to conciliate the matter with the EEOC once it became aware of the number of charges it was facing. ⁴

The plaintiffs filed suit in November 1982. The suit was styled a multiple plaintiff joint action, ⁵ not a "representative action" (ADEA's version of a class action). ⁶ On May 10, 1985, after the appellees had participated in the lawsuit, including discovery, for several years, Montgomery Ward moved for summary judgment against them alleging that their participation in the suit was barred by their failure to file a timely EEOC charge. On February 18, 1986, the district court granted Montgomery Ward's motion, ruling that all plaintiffs must have filed timely charges unless other timely charges were expressly representative and the subsequent lawsuit was a representative action. Anderson v. Montgomery Ward & Co., No. 82 C 7277, mem. op. (N.D.Ill. Feb. 18, 1986) [hereinafter Ward I ]; R. 387. The plaintiffs then moved for reconsideration and for leave to file a third amended complaint to convert their action to a representative action. On April 14, 1986, the district court granted the plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration and issued a second memorandum opinion allowing those plaintiffs who had not filed timely charges to "piggyback" on the timely charges of other plaintiffs. Anderson v. Montgomery Ward & Co., 631 F.Supp. 1546 (N.D.Ill.1986) [hereinafter Ward II ]. The court also allowed the plaintiffs to amend their complaint to plead a representative action. On January 7, 1987, the district court denied Montgomery Ward's motion for reconsideration of Ward II, and then certified for interlocutory appeal those portions of the Ward II order "which address the charge-filing and statute of limitations issues." Anderson v. Montgomery Ward & Co., 650 F.Supp. 1476 (N.D.Ill.1987) [hereinafter Ward III ]. Montgomery Ward then filed this appeal, which this court accepted for review on February 17, 1987.

II District Court Opinions

A. Ward I

In Ward I, the district court concluded that every plaintiff in an ADEA action must comply with ADEA's charge-filing requirement unless two criteria are satisfied. First, those plaintiffs who did file timely charges must expressly purport to represent other claimants. And second, the ADEA action must be an "opt-in" representative action, as prescribed in section 216(b) of FLSA. ⁷ The court noted that in this case "[n]one of the plaintiffs who filed EEOC charges did so purporting to represent other employees similarly situated, and nothing in plaintiffs' complaint suggests that this action is brought by some former employees on behalf of others." Ward I at 3. Therefore, the court concluded that each plaintiff had to file a timely charge of discrimination with the EEOC.

Although many plaintiffs had alleged a pattern of discrimination in their timely charges, the court rejected the appellees' contention that Montgomery Ward was on notice that claims by other employees were likely. The court said that the "law permits an employer to assume that he faces only those complaints that have been filed," and that "[a]llowing the conversion of individual actions into class actions long after litigation has begun, as plaintiffs would have the court do here, would require employers to treat all discrimination suits as class actions, a result that would be both wasteful and unfair." Id. at 4.

B. Ward II

In Ward II, the district court reversed its earlier decision that plaintiffs could not piggyback on the timely charges of other employees unless those charges were expressly representative. The court changed its earlier position because of the similarities between ADEA and Title VII. Under Title VII, the court noted, an expressly representative EEOC charge is not a prerequisite to joinder by plaintiffs who failed to file timely charges. Ward II, 631 F.Supp. at 1549. According to the district court, Title VII case law suggests that, as long as one plaintiff has filed a valid EEOC charge, and the claims of the other plaintiffs arose out of similar discriminatory treatment in the same time frame, piggybacking is permissible. Id. Because the charge-filing requirements of Title VII and ADEA have similar purposes, the court concluded that Title VII law should be applied in the ADEA context.

The court also determined that employers would not be seriously prejudiced if courts allowed untimely claimants to piggyback despite the absence of an expressly representative charge. The court said that employers should anticipate claims from employees similarly situated to an employee who filed the charge. In addition, the court commented that ADEA is a remedial statute, and that its provisions must be construed generously to favor those whom Congress intended the law to benefit. Because the language of ADEA does not require an expressly representative EEOC charge, the district court determined that the law should not be construed narrowly so as to impose such a requirement.

The court determined that the administrative charge need not state explicitly that the parties contemplated filing a representative action. However, the court did not alter its earlier determination that, when suit is finally brought in the district court, piggybacking is permissible only if the suit is filed as a representative action. The court then concluded that Montgomery Ward would not be unduly prejudiced by allowing the plaintiffs to amend their complaint into a representative suit. The court said that this amendment would simply allow the seven appellees who failed to file timely charges to become parties to the litigation. This amendment would not be prejudicial, the court said, because Montgomery Ward had conducted discovery with respect to their claims for several years.

In sum, the court ruled that an expressly representative EEOC charge is not required to allow piggybacking, but that those appellees who did not timely file can only piggyback into a representative suit. Because Montgomery Ward was not prejudiced by allowing the action to be amended into a representative suit, the court permitted the amendment.

C. Ward III

In Ward III, the district court denied Montgomery Ward's motion for reconsideration of Ward II. Montgomery Ward argued that Ward II was in error because none of the timely charges had purported to be brought on behalf of other plaintiffs. The court rejected this argument, reiterating its holding in Ward II that Title VII law is applicable when interpreting the charge-filing requirement of ADEA. The court then said that "several plaintiffs filed timely EEOC charges sufficient to notify both the EEOC and Montgomery Ward that the company may have been engaging in systematic age discrimination." Ward III, 650 F.Supp. at 1478. In the court's view, those charges satisfied all the purposes of ADEA's charge-filing requirement. Moreover, the court noted that ADEA must be interpreted liberally to further its remedial purposes, and that it would be improper to require pro se litigants to use hypertechnical language in order to allege a class-based charge. Id. at 1479. The court also rejected Montgomery Ward's argument that the court had erred in allowing the plaintiffs to convert their action into a representative action. The court stated that Montgomery Ward had had full knowledge of all of the plaintiffs' claims for several years, and that the mere readjustment of this lawsuit from a multiple plaintiff joint action to a representative action did not prejudice Montgomery Ward. Id.

III Contentions of the Parties

A. Necessity of a Timely Charge

All of the parties to this appeal argue that the court erred in not adopting a more absolute position on whether every plaintiff must file a timely charge. Montgomery...