Bernstein v. National Liberty Intern. Corp., Civ. A. No. 74-2122.

• Decision Date: 07 April 1976
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 74-2122.
• Parties: Evelyn C. BERNSTEIN v. NATIONAL LIBERTY INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

407 F. Supp. 709

Evelyn C. BERNSTEIN v. NATIONAL LIBERTY INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION.

Civ. A. No. 74-2122.

United States District Court, E. D. Pennsylvania.

January 23, 1976.

As Amended April 7, 1976.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Daniel C. Cohen, Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff.

Matthew J. Broderick, Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

BECHTLE, District Judge.

This is a civil rights action brought by plaintiff alleging that National Liberty International Corporation ("NLIC") terminated her employment for religiously discriminatory reasons, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.¹ Presently before the Court is plaintiff's motion for leave to file an amended complaint for purposes of: (1) restating more accurately plaintiff's allegations contained in the original complaint; (2) adding an additional count alleging sex discrimination; (3) adding two additional counts setting forth class action allegations concerning religious and sex discrimination; and (4) adding NLIC's parent corporation, National Liberty Corporation, as a party defendant. Also before the Court is plaintiff's motion for declaration of a class action pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(b)(2).

Plaintiff was employed by NLIC from September 19, 1972, until she was discharged on July 18, 1973. On July 26, 1973, she filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") alleging, inter alia, that she had been given work that she was not hired to perform and was falsely accused of not performing a certain work assignment. Plaintiff went on to state that the fact that she was Jewish must have been the underlying reason for the unfair treatment. On the first page of the charge, she checked the box labeled "Religious Creed" as the "Cause of Discrimination." On August 1, 1973, the EEOC notified plaintiff that it had deferred her complaint to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission for the requisite period of 60 days, in accordance with 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-5(b) and 2000e-5(c).²

On January 17, 1974, plaintiff wrote to the EEOC stating that she believed that NLIC had also discriminated against her on the basis of sex and asked the EEOC to investigate sex discrimination as well as religious discrimination. She then filed a formal amended charge on April 12, 1974, setting forth these charges. This time plaintiff checked the box labeled "Sex" as the "Cause of Discrimination." On May 20, 1974, the EEOC sent plaintiff a statutory notice of her right to sue in the appropriate federal district court within 90 days of her receipt of the same notice, as required by 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1). Plaintiff's judicial complaint was filed on August 15, 1974.

One who alleges a violation of Title VII may not sue in a federal district court unless he has satisfied two jurisdictional prerequisites: timely filing of a charge of employment discrimination with the EEOC, and filing of suit in federal district court within 90 days after receiving the EEOC's statutory notice of the right to sue. See Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 47, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 39 L.Ed.2d 147 (1974); McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 798, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). There is no question that the original complaint satisfied both these requirements. Defendant contends, however, that to "permit the addition of sex claims, allegations of retaliatory conduct, and new factual allegations" would run afoul of these prerequisites. Specifically, defendant contends that, in accordance with 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e), all charges must be brought within 180 days of the alleged unlawful employment practice, and that the 90-day right-to-sue period expired long before plaintiff filed her motion to amend the complaint.

Both parties agree that plaintiff's amended charge was filed subsequent to the allotted 180 days. Defendant argues that the sex discrimination claim was not presented to the EEOC and, therefore, must be dismissed.^2a Apparently, defendant's position is based on the fact that plaintiff checked the box labeled "Religious Creed" in her original charge of discrimination rather than the box labeled "Sex." We find no merit in this contention. The EEOC's relation-back regulation, 29 C.F.R. § 1601.11(b), provides that:

Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph (a) of this section, a charge is deemed filed when the Commission receives from the person aggrieved a written statement sufficiently precise to identify the parties and to describe generally the action or practices complained of. A charge may be amended to cure technical defects or omissions, including failure to swear to the charge, or to clarify and amplify allegations made therein, and such amendments relate back to the original filing date. However, an amendment alleging additional acts of constituting unlawful employment practices not directly related to or growing out of the subject matter of the original charge will be permitted only where at the date of the amendment the allegation could have been timely filed as a separate charge. (Emphasis added.)

The failure to attach a legal conclusion, such as sexual discrimination, to the factual occurrences complained of has been interpreted to be a "technical defect" within the meaning of § 1601.11(b) and, as such, an amended charge remedying the defect relates back to the original filing date. In Sanchez v. Standard Brands, Inc., 431 F.2d 455 (5th Cir. 1970), the plaintiff filed a charge with the EEOC alleging sex discrimination and, after the applicable time period had run, filed an amended charge alleging discrimination on the basis of national origin as well as sex. In holding that the amended charge related back to the original filing date, the court pointed out that "the crucial element of a charge of discrimination is the factual statement contained therein" and not "the attachment of a legal conclusion to the facts alleged." Id. at 462 (original emphasis). The Third Circuit reached much the same conclusion in Wetzel v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, 511 F.2d 199, 202 (3d Cir. 1975), vacated on other grounds, ___ U.S. ___, 96 S.Ct. 1202, 47 L.Ed.2d 435 (1976), wherein the court refused to dismiss that portion of the judicial complaint relating to discriminatory claims not presented to the EEOC. The court was unmoved by plaintiffs' failure to check the "correct" box on the notice of charge form.

We agree that a charging party's failure to attach a particular legal conclusion to the underlying factual allegations contained in an original notice of charge is a "technical defect" which may be amended after the 180-day period. Thus, plaintiff's checking of the box labeled "Sex" on the amended notice of charge relates back to the filing of the original charge on July 26, 1973.

Defendant also objects to the proposed amended complaint because it impermissibly expands the scope of the original claim filed with the EEOC; that is, new factual allegations are made which include an allegation of retaliatory conduct by defendant. This argument has consistently been rejected by the courts. See Sanchez v. Standard Brands, Inc., supra, 431 F.2d at 464-467; Ruhe v. The Philadelphia Inquirer, slip op. at 4 (E.D.Pa. No. 72-2423, filed Feb. 11, 1975); Scott v. University of Delaware, 385 F.Supp. 937, 942-943 (D.Del.1974); and Mack v. General Electric Company, 329 F.Supp. 72, 77 (E.D.Pa.1971). These cases hold that the scope of a judicial complaint is defined not by the allegations in the EEOC charge, but by the scope of the EEOC investigation which can reasonably be expected to grow out of the charge of discrimination. Applying this standard, the new factual allegations which plaintiff seeks to add in her proposed amended complaint might reasonably have been the subject of an EEOC investigation growing out of plaintiff's original charge of religious discrimination. Therefore, this Court has jurisdiction to hear these new factual allegations.

The next question presented is whether the proposed amended complaint would violate the requirement that suit must be filed within 90 days after receiving a right-to-sue letter. Since the 90-day period is in effect a statute of limitations, the proposed amended complaint, which was filed subsequent to that period, may only be allowed if it relates back to the original judicial complaint, which was filed within the requisite time period.³ In order for an amendment to relate back, it must satisfy the standard set forth in Rule 15(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which states in pertinent part that "whenever the claim or defense asserted in the amended pleading arose out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set forth or attempted to be set forth in the original pleading, the amendment relates back to the date of the original pleading." There can be no question that the additions contained in plaintiff's proposed amended complaint, involving sex discrimination and new factual allegations, arose out of the same factual circumstances as the original complaint. The underlying basis for the action, employment discrimination, is still the same. Plaintiff merely wishes to amplify and state with greater particularity the details of the alleged discrimination. Furthermore, the fact that she now claims that she was discriminated against on the basis of her sex, as well as her religion, merely adds a new label and not a completely new cause of action. As mentioned above, a court must examine the underlying factual allegations, not the legal conclusion a plaintiff may attach to those facts. We are satisfied that the facts averred in the proposed amended complaint arise out of the same transaction as the original complaint. Therefore, this Court holds that the proposed amended complaint relates back to the original complaint and satisfies the 90-day time limit.⁴

Plaintiff's motion to amend her complaint to add two additional counts setting forth...