Chowdhury v. Reading Hospital and Medical Center

• Decision Date: 18 March 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-2503,81-2503
• Citation: 677 F.2d 317
• Parties: 29 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 32,697 A. Rab CHOWDHURY, M.D., Appellant, v. The READING HOSPITAL AND MEDICAL CENTER. . Submitted under Third Circuit Rule 12(6)
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 317

677 F.2d 317

29 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 32,697

A. Rab CHOWDHURY, M.D., Appellant, v. The READING HOSPITAL AND MEDICAL CENTER.

No. 81-2503.

United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit.

Submitted under Third Circuit Rule 12(6) March 18, 1982.

Decided May 3, 1982.

Malcolm H. Waldron, Jr., Waldron, Lipkin & Goldstein, Philadelphia, Pa., for appellant.

David H. Roland, Mogel, Speidel & Roland, Reading, Pa., for appellee.

Before ALDISERT, VAN DUSEN and GARTH, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

VAN DUSEN, Senior Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a final order of the district court dismissing the plaintiff's discrimination claim, brought under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq. (1976) (Title VI), for failure to exhaust his administrative remedies. Chowdhury v. Reading Hospital and Medical Center, 520 F.Supp. 134 (E.D.Pa.1981). The crucial operative language in the district court's opinion is:

"Plaintiff's failure to seek administrative redress of his Title VI claims requires dismissal of the present complaint.... If the parties cannot amicably resolve their differences and other administrative remedies prove ineffective, plaintiff may return to the courts for relief. Accordingly, defendant's motion to dismiss will be granted."

Id. at 135 (citations omitted). This court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (1976).

Because we believe this conclusion to be inconsistent with expressions found in previous opinions of this court and the Supreme Court, we will reverse.

I.

These facts are alleged in the complaint: ¹ The plaintiff is a physician licensed to practice medicine and surgery in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Board certified in internal medicine and gastroenterology. He is not of the Caucasian race.

The defendant is a non-profit corporation operating a hospital in West Reading, Pennsylvania. It has received various sorts of federal financial assistance within the meaning of section 601 of Title VI, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d (1976) (section 601). See 45 C.F.R. § 80.13 & app. A (1980).

The plaintiff sought and was denied courtesy staff privileges at the defendant hospital. He alleges that this denial was based upon his race and thus violated section 601. As a result of this denial, and without contacting the hospital's federal funding agency or otherwise seeking an administrative remedy, the plaintiff brought this action. As set forth above, the district court dismissed the complaint for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. 520 F.Supp. at 135.

This appeal followed.

II.

Section 601 states a broad and sweeping rule of non-discrimination in any program receiving federal financial assistance:

"No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

42 U.S.C. § 2000d (1976). Its twin purposes are clear: "to avoid the use of federal resources to support discriminatory practices ... (and) to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices." Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677, 704, 99 S.Ct. 1946, 1961, 60 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); ² Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 284-87, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 2745-46, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.). In furtherance of the first of these purposes, Congress explicitly provided for an administrative enforcement mechanism, contained in section 602, ³ by which the funding agency attempts to secure voluntary compliance and, failing that, is empowered to terminate the violator's federal funding. Under the regulations promulgated pursuant to this section, an aggrieved individual may file a complaint with the funding agency ⁴ but has no role in the investigation or adjudication, if any, of the complaint. ⁵ The only remedies contemplated by the language of the Act and the Regulations are voluntary compliance and funding termination. There is no provision for a remedy for the victim of the discrimination, such as injunctive relief or damages. ⁶ Section 603 of the Act provides for judicial review of funding termination decisions. ⁷

Since the enactment of Title VI, the courts have found that Congress intended to protect the interests of individual discriminatees by implying a private cause of action for injunctive relief under section 601. Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S. at 706 n.40, 99 S.Ct. at 1962 n.40 (citing cases). ⁸ This court explicitly recognized such a cause of action in N.A.A.C.P. v. Medical Center, Inc., 599 F.2d 1247, 1250-58 (3d Cir. 1979). ⁹ In doing so, we specifically rejected the argument that the rights conferred by section 601 are dependent upon or limited by the funding termination procedure of section 602 or the judicial review provisions of section 603. Id. at 1253-55. ¹⁰ The court made a detailed analysis of the legislative history and concluded that, while there was little or no dispute over section 601, there was substantial disagreement over the propriety of using funding termination as an enforcement tool because of its potential for abuse. Thus, the court found that

"These considerations led to the enactment of sections 602 and 603. Congress was concerned with limiting the power of federal agencies to bring about compliance with section 601, not with limiting private rights under section 601. That sections 602 and 603 are limits on agencies, and not on rights, is repeatedly made clear in the legislative proceedings.

"To imply a private cause of action, we must find that such a cause would be consistent with the underlying purposes of the legislative scheme. A private cause of action under Title VI to seek declaratory and injunctive relief is entirely consistent with the legislative scheme. We find it impossible to square the plaintiffs' peripheral role in the section 602 and 603 process with their critical status as protected beneficiaries under section 601, unless section 601 is read to include a right of action distinct from the limitations of sections 602 and 603. The very fact that private parties are normally precluded from advancing their section 601 rights before the administrative agency makes more compelling the implication of a private remedy under Title VI. As the Supreme Court has noted, when there is a legal right without a legal remedy, the right has little meaning."

Id. at 1254-55 (footnotes and citations omitted).

Thus, the argument in favor of an exhaustion requirement-potential interference with the administrative enforcement scheme of sections 602 and 603-is precisely the argument rejected by this court in Wilmington Medical Center. Indeed, the court explicitly stated that "we hold that there exists a private cause of action under section 601 of Title VI which may be asserted without preliminary recourse to agency remedial procedures...." 599 F.2d at 1250 n.10. See also id. at 1249 n.6. While it might be possible to narrowly distinguish this case on the ground that the exhaustion issue was not before the Wilmington Medical Center court, we are satisfied that the exhaustion principle announced there is a sound one. Further, the Supreme Court in Cannon treated Title IX as identical in both structure and policy to Title VI ¹¹ and went on to discuss at length, although arguably in dictum, that administrative exhaustion is not required under Title IX. The Court observed:

"It has been suggested that, at least in the absence of an exhaustion requirement, private litigation will interfere with HEW's enforcement procedures under § 902 of Title IX. The simple answer to this suggestion is that the Government itself perceives no such interference under the circumstances of this case, and argues that if the possibility of interference arises in another case, appropriate action can be taken by the relevant court at that time....

"In addition, Congress itself was apparently not worried about such interference when it passed Title IX....

"True, this Court has sometimes refused to imply private rights of action where administrative or like remedies are expressly available.... But it has never withheld a private remedy where the statute explicitly confers a benefit on a class of persons and where it does not assure those persons the ability to activate and participate in the administrative process contemplated by the statute.... As the Government itself points out in this case, Title IX not only does not provide such a mechanism, but the complaint procedure adopted by HEW does not allow the complainant to participate in the investigation or subsequent enforcement proceedings. Moreover, even if those proceedings result in a finding of a violation, a resulting voluntary compliance agreement need not include relief for the complainant.... Furthermore, the agency may simply decide not to investigate-a decision that often will be based on a lack of enforcement resources, rather than on any conclusion on the merits of the complaint.... In that case, if no private remedy exists, the complainant is relegated to a suit under the Administrative Procedure Act to compel the agency to investigate and cut off funds.... But surely this alternative is far more disruptive of HEW's efforts efficiently to allocate its enforcement resources under Title IX than a private suit against the recipient of federal aid could ever be.

"For these same reasons, we are not persuaded that individual suits are inappropriate in advance of exhaustion of administrative remedies. Because the individual complainants cannot assure themselves that the administrative process will reach a decision on their complaints within a reasonable time, it makes little sense to require exhaustion."

441 U.S. at 706-08 n.41, 99 S.Ct. at 1962-63 n.41 (citations omitted). This fairly clear indication from the Supreme Court serves to reinforce our conclusion that the...