Black v. Brown University, Civ. A. No. 82-0702S.

• Decision Date: 27 January 1983
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 82-0702S.
• Citation: 555 F. Supp. 880
• Parties: George BLACK v. BROWN UNIVERSITY.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

555 F. Supp. 880

George BLACK v. BROWN UNIVERSITY.

Civ. A. No. 82-0702S.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

January 27, 1983.

Oleg Nikolyszyn, William A. Dimitri, Jr., Providence, R.I., for plaintiff.

Tillinghast, Collins & Graham by Christopher H. Little, Providence, R.I., for defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

SELYA, District Judge.

Plaintiff, a black male employee of Brown University, alleges, on behalf of himself and others similarly situated, that the University violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. ("Title VII"), by initiating and perpetuating racially discriminatory policies, practices, customs and usages with respect to the terms, conditions and privileges of employment. Plaintiff's suit also alleges that the defendant violated 42 U.S.C. § 1981 ("§ 1981") by engaging in a continuous course of racial harassment and racially-based disciplinary practices. While the suit is clothed in the trappings of a class action, no class has yet been certified. The defendant answered and denied the plaintiff's material allegations. The defendant subsequently filed the instant motion to dismiss the plaintiff's Title VII claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The plaintiff objected, briefs were filed, and oral arguments ensued on December 22, 1982. At that juncture, leave was granted to the parties to file supplementary briefs. The defendant alone elected so to do, and the allotted time has now expired.

Before addressing the merits of the pending motion, it appears desirable to set forth the detailed procedures by which an aggrieved employee can seek redress in this forum for an ostensible violation of Title VII. Under Title VII, an individual alleging unlawful employment discrimination must first exhaust administrative remedies. This requires the complainant to file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). The EEOC may either investigate the matter or refer the charge for perscrutation to the appropriate state agency.¹See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(c). The state agency must thereafter be accorded sixty days within which to process the claim. Id. Under EEOC regulations, the state agency's actions and findings will be adopted by the EEOC unless (i) review is requested within fifteen days next following the conclusion of state action, 29 C.F.R. § 1601.76, or (ii) the state agency's action was in the nature of a failed conciliation attempt. 29 C.F.R. § 1601.77. If the dispute is not adjusted within two hundred forty days of the initial filing with EEOC² and the EEOC has not instituted litigation, the complainant may request a letter from the EEOC permitting the institution of suit in federal court (the "right-to-sue letter"). Bradshaw v. Zoological Society of San Diego, 569 F.2d 1066, 1067 (9th Cir.1978); Page v. U.S. Industries, Inc., 556 F.2d 346, 351 (5th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1045, 98 S.Ct. 890, 54 L.Ed.2d 796 (1978); Currington v. Polaroid Corp., 457 F.Supp. 922, 923 (D.Mass.1978); 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f); 29 C.F.R. § 1601.28. After receiving the right-to-sue letter, the complainant has ninety days within which to file a federal action. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f).

In the case at bar, the plaintiff has complied with most of these requirements: he filed his complaint with the EEOC, a referral to RIHRC was undertaken, the requisite sixty day period elapsed, and the plaintiff now awaits EEOC review of the failed conciliation endeavor. In addition, the plaintiff, pursuant to R.I.G.L. § 28-5-24.1, obtained on July 30, 1982 a right-to-sue letter from RIHRC permitting the plaintiff to pursue a judicial remedy in Superior Court for the State of Rhode Island. Thereafter, within the ninety day statutory period delimited under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1), the plaintiff commenced the instant action.³ He did not, however, request or obtain a right-to-sue letter from the EEOC.

The defendant asserts that this Court lacks jurisdiction over the subject matter, contending that the EEOC right-to-sue letter is a jurisdictional prerequisite under the holdings in Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 47, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 1019, 39 L.Ed.2d 147 (1974) and McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 798, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1822, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). The plaintiff confronts this premise by confession and avoidance: he argues that the right-to-sue letter issued by RIHRC is a sufficient surrogate for an EEOC right-to-sue letter. Relying on the EEOC's policy that it will adopt state agency actions as final unless review is requested, 29 C.F.R. § 1601.76, the plaintiff contends that the EEOC has, sub silentio, adopted the RIHRC letter as its own, thus obviating any need to procure a right-to-sue letter from the EEOC.

The Court believes that the fusillades launched by the parties fall wide of the mark, and do not zero in upon the issues which are fairly raised by the pleadings. It thus falls to the Court independently to collocate the factual pieces in order to pass upon the pending motion.

In McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, and Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Corp., both supra, the Supreme Court did indeed refer to certain of the filing requirements and time limitations contained in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5 as "jurisdictional". See, e.g., McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. at 798, 93 S.Ct. at 1822. Any ambiguity arising from the use of that terminology was put to rest, however, in Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 455 U.S. 385, 102 S.Ct. 1127, 71 L.Ed.2d 234 (1982). There, a labor union objected to settlement of a class action discrimination suit. The union protested that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because members of a subclass had not filed charges with the EEOC within the period prescribed by 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e).⁴ The Supreme Court noted (i) that 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(3),⁵ which confers jurisdiction on federal courts over Title VII claims, does not limit jurisdiction to those cases in which a timely filing has been made, id. at 393-94, 102 S.Ct. at 1132-33, and (ii) that the timely filing requirement is not couched in jurisdictional terms.⁶Id. at 394, 102 S.Ct. at 1133. The Court then considered the legislative history of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e). This perlustration indicated that Congress intended the timely filing requirement to operate as a statute of limitations and not as a jurisdictional bar. Id. at 394-95, 102 S.Ct. at 1133. The Court found such a conclusion to be consistent both with prior case law,⁷ and with Title VII's remedial purposes. Id. at 396-98, 102 S.Ct. at 1134-35. This, then, is the law which must govern the case at bar.

The First Circuit has recently had occasion to apply and to elaborate upon the Zipes rationale in Rice v. New England College, 676 F.2d 9 (1st Cir.1982). Rice centered upon the requirement to file an action within ninety days of receipt of an EEOC right-to-sue letter. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1), quoted at n. 3, ante. There, the Court of Appeals rejected out of hand the argument that the logic of Zipes should not be extended to the ninety day requirement for commencing suit. Id. at 10. The Court proceeded to hold that 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1) is nonjurisdictional and, as a mere statute of repose, is subject to equitable modification. Id.

The First Circuit's holding is applicable to the issue at bar. The right-to-sue letter requirement of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1) is contained in the same clause and sentence as the requirement discussed in Rice. Plaintiff's argument that the procurement of a right-to-sue letter is jurisdictional would, if sustained, require this Court either to ignore Rice or to hold that one part of a phrase should for some mystical reason be treated differently than another part of the same phrase. Such a tortured reading of the teachings of Rice and of the plain language of the statute cannot be countenanced.

In holding that the issuance of a right-to-sue letter is only a condition precedent to suit and not a jurisdictional prerequisite, this Court draws further sustenance from the holding in Pinkard v. Pullman-Standard, 678 F.2d 1211 (5th Cir.1982). There, the Fifth Circuit noted that Title VII's jurisdictional grant is not restricted to those instances in which a right-to-sue letter is issued and concluded that the letter is but a condition precedent (and therefore, subject to waiver, estoppel, equitable tolling and the like). Id. at 1218. The Pinkard court expressly found that such an analysis does not contravene any discernible legislative history. Id. at 1217.

The principal purpose of Title VII is remedial in nature. Love v. Pullman, 404 U.S. 522, 526-27, 92 S.Ct. 616, 618-19, 30 L.Ed.2d 679 (1972). 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5 is intended to permit administrative disposition of complaints, thereby avoiding unnecessary litigation. See New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v. Carey, 447 U.S. 54, 63-65, 100 S.Ct. 2024, 2030-2031, 64 L.Ed.2d 723 (1980); Love v. Pullman, 404 U.S. at 526, 92 S.Ct. at 618; Curran v. Portland Superintending School Committee, 435 F.Supp. 1063, 1073-74 (D.Me.1977). A right-to-sue letter is nothing more than the EEOC's formal pronouncement that it is unable to resolve a dispute at an administrative level. See Perdue v. Roy Stone Transfer Corp., 690 F.2d 1091, 1093 (4th Cir.1982); Pinkard v. Pullman-Standard, 678 F.2d at 1218. The construction of the right-to-sue letter requirement endorsed by this Court would serve a salutary purpose in protecting authentic Title VII complaints from dismissal by reason of arcane procedural technicalities, cf. Waiters v. Robert Bosch Corp., 683 F.2d 89, 92 (4th Cir.1982), and would take into account the remedial nature and thrust of Title VII by appropriately elevating substance over ritualistic formality.

The Court holds, therefore, that the right-to-sue letter is but a condition precedent to the commencement of suit, subject to equitable modification under appropriate...