Astoria Federal Savings and Loan Association v. Solimino

• Decision Date: 10 June 1991
• Docket Number: No. 89-1895,89-1895
• Citation: 111 S.Ct. 2166,115 L.Ed.2d 96,501 U.S. 104
• Parties: ASTORIA FEDERAL SAVINGS AND LOAN ASSOCIATION, Petitioner v. Angelo J. SOLIMINO
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

501 U.S. 104

111 S.Ct. 2166

115 L.Ed.2d 96

ASTORIA FEDERAL SAVINGS AND LOAN ASSOCIATION, Petitioner

v Angelo J. SOLIMINO.

No. 89-1895.

Argued April 17, 1991.

Decided June 10, 1991.

Syllabus

Respondent Solimino filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging that petitioner Astoria Federal Savings and Loan Association had dismissed him because of his age, in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (Age Act). Under a worksharing agreement, the EEOC referred his claim to the state agency responsible for claims under New York's Human Rights Law. That agency found no probable cause under state law to believe that he was terminated on account of age, and its decision was upheld on administrative review. Rather than appealing that decision to state court, Solimino filed in the Federal District Court an Age Act suit grounded on the same factual allegations considered in the state proceedings. The court granted Astoria's motion for summary judgment, holding that the State's age-discrimination findings precluded federal litigation of the claim. The Court of Appeals reversed, inferring from the Age Act's structure a legislative intent to deny preclusive effect to such state administrative proceedings.

Held: Judicially unreviewed state administrative findings have no preclusive effect on age-discrimination proceedings in federal court. While well-established common-law principles, such as preclusion rules, are presumed to apply in the absence of a legislative intent to the contrary, Congress need not state expressly its intention to overcome a presumption of administrative estoppel. Clear-statement requirements are appropriate only where weighty and constant values are at stake, or where an implied legislative repeal is implicated. Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 243, 105 S.Ct. 3142, 3147-48, 87 L.Ed.2d 171; EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U.S. ----, ----, 111 S.Ct. 1227, ----, 113 L.Ed.2d 274; Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 551, 94 S.Ct. 2474, 2483, 41 L.Ed.2d 290. Such values are not represented by the lenient presumption in favor of administrative estoppel, the suitability of which varies according to context; nor does a finding against estoppel in this case give rise to an implied legislative repeal. Thus, the test for the presumption's application is whether administrative preclusion would be inconsistent with Congress' intent in enacting the particular statute. University of Tennessee v. Elliott, 478 U.S. 788, 796, 106 S.Ct. 3220, 3225, 92 L.Ed.2d 635. The Age Act implies, in its filing requirements, that federal courts should recognize no preclusion by state administrative findings. Both § 14(b) and § 7(d)(2) assume the possibility of federal consideration after state review. However, such proceedings would be strictly pro forma, with the employer likely enjoying an airtight defense, if state administrative findings were given preclusive effect. The provision, in § 14(b), for a claim's consideration in federal court after state proceedings are concluded would as a result be left essentially without effect, notwithstanding the rule that statutes should be read to avoid rendering superfluous any parts thereof. Administrative preclusion was likewise found not to apply with respect to claims arising under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in Elliott, supra, which held that Title VII's provision directing the EEOC to accord substantial weight to state administrative findings allowed for something less than preclusion. Id., at 795, 106 S.Ct., at 3224. It is immaterial that the Age Act lacks a similar delimitation, since the Title VII provision was only the most obvious piece of evidence that administrative estoppel does not operate in a Title VII suit. This holding also comports with the Age Act's broader scheme and enforcement provisions, and, although Congress' wisdom in deciding against administrative preclusion is not relevant to this determination, its choice has plausible policy support. Pp. 107-114.

901 F.2d 1148 (CA 2 1990), affirmed and remanded.

SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Paul J. Siegel, New York City for petitioner.

Leonard N. Flamm, New York City for respondent.

Amy L. Wax, Washington, D.C. for U.S., as amicus curiae, pro hac vice, supporting respondent, by special leave of Court.

Justice SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question presented is whether claimants under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (Age Act or Act), 81 Stat. 602, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq., are collaterally estopped to relitigate in federal court the judicially unreviewed findings of a state administrative agency made with respect to an age-discrimination claim. We hold that such findings have no preclusive effect on federal proceedings.

Respondent Angelo Solimino had worked for petitioner Astoria Federal Savings and Loan Association for almost 40 years when at age 63 he was dismissed from his position as a vice president in the mortgage department. Less than two weeks later, on March 18, 1982, he filed a charge of age discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Under a worksharing agreement between it and the state agency, see 29 CFR § 1626.10 (1990), the EEOC referred the matter to the New York State Division of Human Rights, which is responsible for preliminary investigation and disposition of age-discrimination cases under New York's Human Rights Law. On January 25, 1983, after a hearing at which both parties were represented by counsel, the state agency found no probable cause to believe that petitioner had terminated respondent because of his age. The ruling was affirmed on review for abuse of discretion by the State Human Rights Appeal Board on May 30, 1984. Although both the Division and the Appeal Board entertained respondent's complaint only on state-law grounds, neither party suggests that the elements of an age-discrimination claim differ as between the state and federal statutes.

Respondent did not seek review of the board's decision in state court, but instead filed an Age Act suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York grounded on the same factual allegations considered in the state administrative proceedings. The District Court granted petitioner's motion for summary judgment, 715 F.Supp. 42 (1989), and relied heavily on the decision in Stillians v. Iowa, 843 F.2d 276 (CA8 1988), in holding the common-law presumption of administrative estoppel to prevail by virtue of Congress' failure in either the language or legislative history of the Age Act "actually [to] addres[s] the issue." 715 F.Supp., at 47. It ruled accordingly that the determination of the State's Human Rights Division that petitioner had not engaged in age discrimination precluded federal litigation of the claim. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed, 901 F.2d 1148 (1990), inferring from the Act's structure a legislative intent to deny preclusive effect to such state administrative proceedings. We granted certiorari, 498 U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 669, 112 L.Ed.2d 662 (1991), to resolve the conflict between the ruling here under review, see also Duggan v. Board of Education of East Chicago Heights, Dist. No. 169, Cook County, Ill., 818 F.2d 1291 (CA7 1987), and those of the Eighth Circuit in Stillians, supra, and of the Ninth Circuit in Mack v. South Bay Beer Distributors, Inc., 798 F.2d 1279 (1986).

We have long favored application of the common-law doctrines of collateral estoppel (as to issues) and res judicata (as to claims) to those determinations of administrative bodies that have attained finality. "When an administrative agency is acting in a judicial capacity and resolves disputed issues of fact properly before it which the parties have had an adequate opportunity to litigate, the courts have not hesitated to apply res judicata to enforce repose." United States v. Utah Constr. & Mining Co., 384 U.S. 394, 422, 86 S.Ct. 1545, 1560, 16 L.Ed.2d 642 (1966). Such repose is justified on the sound and obvious principle of judicial policy that a losing litigant deserves no rematch after a defeat fairly suffered, in adversarial proceedings, on an issue identical in substance to the one he subsequently seeks to raise. To hold otherwise would, as a general matter, impose unjustifiably upon those who have already shouldered their burdens, and drain the resources of an adjudicatory system with disputes resisting resolution. See Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 326, 99 S.Ct. 645, 649, 58 L.Ed.2d 552 (1979). The principle holds true when a court has resolved an issue, and should do so equally when the issue has been decided by an administrative agency, be it state or federal, see University of Tennessee v. Elliott, 478 U.S. 788, 798, 106 S.Ct. 3220, 3225-26, 92 L.Ed.2d 635 (1986), which acts in a judicial capacity.

Courts do not, of course, have free rein to impose rules of preclusion, as a matter of policy, when the interpretation of a statute is at hand. In this context, the question is not whether administrative estoppel is wise but whether it is intended by the legislature. The presumption holds nonetheless, for Congress is understood to legislate against a background of common-law adjudicatory principles. See Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U.S. 325, 103 S.Ct. 1108, 75 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983); United States v. Turley, 352 U.S. 407, 411, 77 S.Ct. 397, 399, 1 L.Ed.2d 430 (1957). Thus, where a common-law principle is well established, as are the rules of preclusion, see, e.g., Parklane Hosiery, supra; Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, 402 U.S. 313, 91 S.Ct. 1434, 28 L.Ed.2d 788 (1971); Chicot County Drainage Dist. v. Baxter State Bank, 308 U.S. 371, 60 S.Ct. 317, 84 L.Ed. 329 (1940), the courts may take it as given that Congress has legislated with an expectation that the principle will apply...