Culpepper v. Reynolds Metals Company

• Decision Date: 08 January 1970
• Docket Number: No. 27547.,27547.
• Citation: 421 F.2d 888
• Parties: Samuel CULPEPPER, Plaintiff-Appellant-Cross Appellee, v. REYNOLDS METALS COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee-Cross Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

421 F.2d 888 (1970)

Samuel CULPEPPER, Plaintiff-Appellant-Cross Appellee, v. REYNOLDS METALS COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee-Cross Appellant.

No. 27547.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

January 8, 1970.

Howard Moore, Jr., Peter E. Rindskopf, Atlanta, Ga., Jack Greenberg, Norman C. Amaker, Robert Belton, Vilma Martinez Singer, New York City, David Copus, E. E. O. C., Washington, D. C., for defendant-appellee-cross-appellant; Albert J. Rosenthal, New York City, of counsel.

Fred R. Edney, Richmond, Va., William M. Pate, Mitchell, Clarke, Pate & Anderson, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiff-appellant-cross-appellee.

Daniel Steiner, Gen. Counsel, Russel Specter, Asst. Gen. Counsel, David Cashdan, Atty., Washington, D. C., for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as amicus curiae.

Before TUTTLE, COLEMAN and SIMPSON, Circuit Judges.

TUTTLE, Circuit Judge.

Appellant, Samuel Culpepper, filed an action on October 24, 1968, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, pursuant to 42 U.S.C.A. § 1981 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e et seq. alleging racial discrimination in the employment practices of appellee, Reynolds Metals Company, and specifically in the denial of a promotion to the position of relief slitter operator.

Samuel Culpepper, a 48-year old Negro, was originally employed at Reynolds' Atlanta Colorweld plant in 1955. The plant is primarily concerned with the cutting, shaping and painting of aluminum siding produced by its Alabama plant and is the final processing before delivery to the customer. Culpepper was initially employed in the receiving department. He later moved into fabrication and is now a decoiler operator in that department, earning $2.62 per hour. This job classification is the highest wage rate within the fabrication department other than a slitter operator which carries a pay rate of fifteen cents per hour more. It is this job for which appellant applied and the denial of which he alleges was based on race.

Reynolds' Atlanta plant is a union plant and has been since 1956. The union agreement gives each employee plant seniority and departmental seniority with each new job opening filled on the principle of qualification and seniority. Each new job or vacancy in an existing job is posted by management for a period of twenty-four hours, and interested employees bid the job by signing the bulletin. Priority for the job opening is based first on departmental seniority and qualifications. Failure of an applicant with departmental seniority to qualify opens the bid to employees in the other departments based on plant seniority and qualifications. The senior bidder is granted a twenty-day trial period to qualify. If he does, he is promoted; if not, the next senior bidder is granted the trial period.

Culpepper unsuccessfully bid the job for the first time in the fall of 1962. The job was awarded to a white employee with less seniority. Culpepper made a grievance complaining of the awarding of the job to the less senior white employee. In April 1963 the job was again posted and Culpepper again bid. He was given a trial period but was found not qualified. (There is some question concerning the conditions and circumstances under which Culpepper was trained and eventually determined not qualified. However, we do not reach this issue, since the case is before us in a preliminary posture.) On March 20, 1967, the job of relief slitter operator was posted. Appellant, being the most senior employee, bid again. The job was awarded to a white employee with less seniority on March 28, 1967, because of Culpepper's not having qualified on a different but similar machine in 1963.¹

Culpepper filed a complaint with the union pursuant to his contractual remedies on April 4, 1967. On May 5, 1967, appellee offered Culpepper a 90-day position as slitter helper at helper rates ($.25 per hour less than his present earnings) with the opportunity to bid should there be a future opening (a right which he presently had under the union-management contract). On July 15, 1967, Culpepper filed his formal charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as provided by the Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e-5(a). A "suit letter," which amounts to a determination by the Commission that probable cause exists, was issued to Culpepper on September 26, 1968, and this action was filed 30 days thereafter.²

The district court held that (1) under Title VII, appellant's claim must be dismissed for failure to file timely charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC); (2) that under Title VII, the court does not have the power to grant a preliminary injunction to an individual litigant and (3) that a claim for relief against purely private racial discrimination in employment could not be predicated on 42 U.S.C.A. § 1981. This appeal followed.

Racial discrimination in employment is one of the most deplorable forms of discrimination known to our society, for it deals not with just an individual's sharing in the "outer benefits" of being an American citizen, but rather the ability to provide decently for one's family in a job or profession for which he qualifies and chooses. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act provides us with a clear mandate from Congress that no longer will the United States tolerate this form of discrimination. It is, therefore, the duty of the courts to make sure that the Act works, and the intent of Congress is not hampered by a combination of a strict construction of the statute and a battle with semantics.³

This court has held many times that Title VII should receive a liberal construction while at all times bearing in mind that the central theme of Title VII is "private settlement" as an effective end to employment discrimination. In Oatis v. Crown Zellerbach (5 Cir., 1968) 398 F.2d 496, this court held that:

"It is thus clear that there is great emphasis in Title VII on private settlement and the elimination of unfair practices without litigation."

This view was again voiced in Jenkins v. United Gas Corporation (5 Cir., 1969) 400 F.2d 28, where this court stated that:

"* * * EEOC whose function is to effectuate the Act\'s policy of voluntary conference, persuasion and conciliation as the principal tools of enforcement."

It would, therefore, be an improper reading of the purpose of Title VII if we were to construe the statute as did the district court to permit the short statute of limitations to penalize a common employee, who, at no time resting on his rights, attempts first in good faith to reach a private settlement without litigation in the elimination of what he believes to be an unfair, as well as an unlawful, practice. We, therefore, hold that the statute of limitations, which has been held to be a jurisdictional requirement, is tolled once an employee invokes his contractual grievance remedies in a constructive effort to seek a "private settlement of his complaint."⁴ Culpepper also sought to settle his complaint in 1963 through the grievance procedures. We do not think that Congress intended for a result which would require an employee, thoroughly familiar with the rules of the shop, to proceed solely with his Title VII remedies for fear that he will waive these remedies if he follows the rules of the shop or to do both simultaneously, thereby frustrating the grievance procedure.

In Burnett v. New York Central Railroad Co., 380 U.S. 424, 85 S.Ct. 1050, 13 L.Ed.2d 941 (1965), the Court, in holding that the FELA limitations period is not totally inflexible, stated that the basic inquiry is whether congressional purpose is effectuated by tolling the statute of limitations in given circumstances. The Court also held that in order to determine congressional intent, the Court must examine the purposes and policies underlying the limitation provision, the act itself and the remedial scheme developed for the enforcement of the rights given by the Act. See Minnesota Mining v. New Jersey Wood Co., 381 U.S. 311, 85 S.Ct. 1473, 14 L.Ed.2d 405 (1964).

"Statutes of limitations are primarily designed to assure fairness to defendants. Such statutes' promote justice by preventing surprises through the revival of claims that have been allowed to slumber until evidence has been lost, memories have faded * * *.'" Burnett v. New York Central R. R. Co., supra, 380 U.S. at 428, 85 S.Ct. at 1054. Congress, in placing the various time limitations in Title VII, was attempting to eliminate the problem of "second thought complaints," stale complaints and the hampering effect that they can have on our labor market. However, the time limitation is meant to penalize only those who sleep on their rights and remedies, not one who actively attempts to settle his complaint by following the "rules of the shop." Moreover, "the policy behind statutes of limitations is outweighed when the interests of justice require vindication of the plaintiff rights." Burnett v. New York Central R. R., supra, at 428, 85 S.Ct. at 1055. This is the only consistent reading of a "humane and remedial Act." Burnett v. New York Central R. R. Co., supra, at 427, 85 S.Ct. 1050.

In Dewey v. Reynolds Metal Company, D.C., 291 F.Supp. 786, the plaintiff Dewey, a member of the Reformed Church, brought an action under Title VII alleging that he had been discharged because of his religious beliefs. This charge was brought after Dewey had exhausted his contractual remedies including a hearing by an arbitrator and after he had exhausted his state remedies under Michigan law. Dewey's charge was filed with the Michigan State Civil Rights Commission more than nine months and seventeen days after the alleged discriminatory act had occurred — his discharge on September 12, 1966. The specific question before the court was whether Dewey's election to travel the contractual remedies route barred him from his Title VII rights. The court, in answering and by inference treating the...