EEOC v. World's Finest Chocolate, Inc.

• Decision Date: 22 November 1988
• Docket Number: No. 86 C 237.,86 C 237.
• Citation: 701 F. Supp. 637
• Parties: EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff, v. WORLD'S FINEST CHOCOLATE, INC., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

701 F. Supp. 637

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff, v. WORLD'S FINEST CHOCOLATE, INC., Defendant.

No. 86 C 237.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, E.D.

November 22, 1988.

Julianne Bowman, Jason Hegy, Jean P. Kamp, E.E.O.C., Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.

Narcisse A. Brown, Lloyd S. Kupferberg, Ira S. Kolb, Steven M. Bazer, Schwartz, Cooper, Kolb & Gaynor, Chicago, Ill., for defendant.

ORDER

NORGLE, District Judge.

Before the court is defendant's motion for summary judgment and its amended motion for summary judgment. See Fed.R. Civ.P. 56(b). For the following reasons, both motions are denied.

FACTS

On September 24, 1984, Faye Calvin filed a charge ("Charge") with plaintiff, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), alleging that defendant, World's Finest Chocolate, Inc. ("WFC"), engaged in discriminatory hiring practices. The EEOC investigated the Charge allegations, and on July 27, 1985, issued a Letter of Determination finding that it had reasonable cause to believe that WFC discriminates against blacks, and especially against black females in hiring and recruitment, and segregates jobs and assignments by gender. On January 13, 1986, the EEOC filed this action, alleging that WFC discriminates against blacks as a class and females as a class in that it discriminates against blacks and females in hiring and recruitment, and segregates jobs and assignments by gender. The EEOC has declined to pursue Calvin's individual claim. WFC moves for summary judgment.

DISCUSSION

Rule 56(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that a summary judgment "shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ. P. 56(c). A dispute about a material fact is "genuine" if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). A plaintiff cannot rest on mere allegations of a claim without any significant probative evidence which supports his complaint. Id.; see First National Bank of Arizona v. Cities Service Co., 391 U.S. 253, 88 S.Ct. 1575, 20 L.Ed.2d 569 (1968). "One of the principal purposes of the summary judgment rule is to isolate and dispose of factually unsupported claims and defenses." Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323-24, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2553, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). Accordingly, the nonmoving party is required to go beyond the pleadings, affidavits, depositions, answers to interrogatories and admissions on file to designate specific facts showing a genuine issue for trial. Id. With this standard in mind, the court addresses each of defendant's four arguments.

Defendant first argues that Calvin's entire Charge is invalid, because while she signed the Charge, she did not write the date on which she signed. Defendant argues that the Charge should therefore be held invalid, and a curative amendment to the Charge, allowing Calvin to write the date she signed on the Charge, should not be allowed, but rather summary judgment on this action should be granted in favor of WFC.

Not surprisingly, research unearths no case directly addressing the question of whether an EEOC Charge signed but not dated is valid. The relevant statute reads in pertinent part:

Wherever, under any law of the United States ... any matter is required or permitted to be supported, evidenced, established, or proved by the sworn declaration, verification, certificate, statement, oath, or affidavit, in writing of the person making the same ... such matter may, with like force and effect, be supported, evidenced, established or proved by the unsworn declaration, certificate, verification, or statement in writing of such person which is subscribed by him, as true under penalty of perjury, and dated, in substantially the following form:

* * * * * *

(2) "... I declare (or certify, verify, or state) under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on (date).

(Signature)".

28 U.S.C. § 1746 (emphasis supplied). Two facts are noteworthy at this point. First, defendant first raised this argument two years after it received the Charge. Second, extrinsic evidence demonstrates that the Charge was signed between September 12 and September 24, 1984.

Given the statutory language and these facts, the court refuses to declare the Charge invalid. The statute requires verification in substantially the prescribed form. The crucial aspect of the form provided in the statute is that the person write his or her signature under penalty of perjury. Calvin has done that. While, as WFC points out, the date of the statement is crucial to any perjury charge, because a statement may be true if made on one date but perjurious if made on another, it does not follow that the signor must write the date. Rather, it is simply essential that the date or approximate date (depending on the situation) be demonstrable, as is the case here. Defendant makes no argument that knowledge that the Charge was signed between September 12 and 24 is not sufficiently precise for a charge of perjury.

Furthermore, even if § 1746 does require a dated signature, WFC has waived this argument by not raising it until two years after it received the Charge. If WFC felt that a date accompanying the signature was essential, it should have pressed the matter sooner. If it had, the court might have ordered Calvin to date the charge as a curative amendment. See 29 C.F.R. § 1601.12(b). Moreover, the absence of a written date in no way prejudices WFC, as the Charge itself had the date September 24, 1984 stamped on it. Had WFC needed to know the precise date of the signature beyond the obvious fact that it had been signed shortly before September 24, 1984 (which is unlikely), it could have demanded that information, and the EEOC presumably would have complied.

Defendant's second argument is that the EEOC impermissibly expanded the scope of the Charge. WFC argues that the Charge only alleges that WFC discriminated in not hiring one black person, Calvin, and the EEOC is improperly attempting now to allege other wrongful practices. The relevant standard in the Seventh Circuit was fully articulated in Babrocky v. Jewel Food Co. and Retail Meatcutters, 773 F.2d 857 (7th Cir.1985). There, the court stated that a complaint may not "encompass allegations outside the predicate EEOC charge." Id. at 863. However, "all claims of discrimination are cognizable that are `like or reasonably related to the allegations of the charge and growing out of such allegations.'" Id. at 864, citing Jenkins v. Blue Cross Mutual Hospital Insurance, Inc., 538 F.2d 164, 167 (7th Cir.1976) (en banc). Furthermore, "charges are to be construed with `utmost liberality.'" Id. at 866 (citation omitted), and "an EEOC complaint contains factual statements only, which may implicate several types of illegal discrimination." Id. Applying this standard, the Babrocky court found that an EEOC charge alleging sex-segregation was closely linked to complaint allegations of discriminatory hiring, recruiting, transfer, and promotion practices, but was not itself closely linked to a charge of a discriminatory seniority system. The court also referred favorably to Jenkins. In Jenkins, the charge alleged that the plaintiff was fired because of her Afro hairstyle, and because she was a leader of the women employees. The charge only mentioned race...