Ellis v. U.S. Postal Service

• Decision Date: 27 February 1986
• Docket Number: No. 85-1813,85-1813
• Citation: 784 F.2d 835
• Parties: 40 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 318, 39 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 35,992 Joseph ELLIS, Mae Campbell, Delbra Roberts, Savannah Daniels and Pearl Holmes, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE and Postmaster Frank Goldie, Individually and in his official capacity, and Gwendolyn White, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 835

784 F.2d 835

40 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 318,

39 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 35,992

Joseph ELLIS, Mae Campbell, Delbra Roberts, Savannah Daniels and Pearl Holmes, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE and Postmaster Frank Goldie, Individually and in his official capacity and Gwendolyn White, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 85-1813.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Dec. 12, 1985.

Decided Feb. 27, 1986.

Armand L. Andry, Oak Park, Ill., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Elizabeth Stein, Asst. U.S. Atty., Anton R. Valukas, U.S. Atty., Lori Dym, Law Dept., Office of Labor Law, U.S. Postal Service, Chicago, Ill., for defendants-appellees.

Before COFFEY, FLAUM and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge.

The appellants, five employees of the United States Postal Service, filed this action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleging claims under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1981; 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985; Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et seq. (Title VII); the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 621 et seq. (ADEA); the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 151 et seq.; the Postal Reorganization Act, 39 U.S.C. Sec. 201 et seq.; and the due process clause of the fifth amendment. ¹ The gravamen of the appellants' complaint is that defendant Gwendolyn White, another Postal Service employee, was improperly given preference over the appellants with respect to job promotion and shift assignment. The district court dismissed the action. We affirm.

I

Appellants Mae Campbell, Savannah Daniels, Joseph Ellis, and Pearl Holmes applied for the position of Head Nurse at the main post office in Chicago, Illinois; Gwendolyn White had also filed an application for the same position. All five applicants were interviewed by an advisory panel. After reviewing the applications and considering the panel's recommendation, Frank Goldie, Postmaster of the Chicago Office, selected Ms. White for the job.

The appellants' complaint is based on this hiring decision. In Count I, appellants Ellis, Campbell, Daniels, and Holmes allege that White's promotion constituted "political discrimination." They contend that Ms. White was selected because of her membership in the Phoenix Association, an "upward mobility social organization," Appellees' Br. at 4, of which the appellants were not members. Appellants claim that Ms. White flaunted the fact that she was chosen because she knew the "right people." As further evidence of their claim, the appellants allege that they each had better qualifications and greater seniority than did White.

In Count II, Ellis additionally alleges that he was denied the promotion to Head Nurse because of sex discrimination. In Count III, Daniels also alleges that she was denied the promotion because of her age. Finally, in Count IV, Roberts alleges that she too was the victim of political discrimination. Roberts contends that, because of White's promotion, she was reassigned to a less desirable work shift at the Post Office.

The appellees moved for partial dismissal or, in the alternative, partial summary judgment. The district court first addressed Counts II and III. With respect to Count II, Ellis' sex discrimination claim, the court held that Title VII provided the exclusive remedy in the context of federal employment discrimination. Similarly, with respect to Count III, Daniels' age discrimination claim, the court held that the ADEA provided the sole remedy. However, the court found that, while the Title VII and ADEA counts stated claims on which relief could be granted, they were nonetheless deficient since neither claim named the proper defendant. Relying on McGuinness v. United States Postal Service, 744 F.2d 1318 (7th Cir.1984), the court held that, under Title VII and, by inference, the ADEA, a plaintiff must name the head of the federal agency as a defendant. Therefore, since the plaintiffs in this case had sued only the United States Postal Service, the local postmaster, and White, the pleadings needed to be corrected. The district judge granted the plaintiffs leave to amend their complaint to sue the proper party; however, no correction was ever made. ² These two counts were dismissed at a later date for failure to name the Postmaster General as defendant.

The district court also dismissed Counts I and IV, the political discrimination claims. Interpreting these claims to be premised on section 1981, section 1985(3), and the due process clause, the court addressed each possibility seriatim. First, with respect to section 1981, the court held that it was unavailable in this case because it only redressed claims of racial discrimination. Second, the court dismissed the section 1985 claims on the grounds that the Postal Service, as a single entity, could not engage in the requisite conspiracy, and section 1985 could not reach non-racial animus. Finally, the court held that the appellants' political discrimination claims could not be brought directly under the fifth amendment. While believing that this court's decision in Egger v. Phillips, 710 F.2d 292 (7th Cir.1983), would not have per se foreclosed this remedy, the district court nonetheless held that a subsequent Supreme Court decision, Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 103 S.Ct. 2404, 76 L.Ed.2d 648 (1983), barred the requested fifth amendment relief in this case because an elaborate and comprehensive remedial scheme was already in place. Accordingly, the entire action was dismissed.

The appellants have presented only two issues which we need consider in this appeal. ³ First, we are asked to determine whether the district court justifiably dismissed the Title VII and ADEA claims for failure to name the proper party defendant. Second, with respect to the fifth amendment political discrimination claims, the appellants ask us to decide whether the existence of a comprehensive remedial scheme is sufficient to preclude nonstatutory relief premised solely on the fifth amendment. Since we believe that the district court properly resolved both issues, we affirm.

II

It is well-settled in this circuit that, in a Title VII action alleging discrimination in the Postal Service, the only proper defendant is the head of the agency--the Postmaster General. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-16(c); McGuinness v. United States Postal Service, 744 F.2d 1318, 1322-23 (7th Cir.1984); see also Canino v. EEOC, 707 F.2d 468, 472 (11th Cir.1983); Hall v. Small Business Administration, 695 F.2d 175, 180 (5th Cir.1983); Davis v. Califano, 613 F.2d 957, 958 n. 1 (D.C.Cir.1979). The only novel question presented by this case, then, is whether the same rule should apply to actions under the ADEA. We hold that it should.

Unlike Title VII, the ADEA does not specify who must be named as a proper party defendant in an age discrimination case. However, we find persuasive the reasoning set forth in Gillispie v. Helms, 559 F.Supp. 40 (W.D.Mo.1983). In that case, the court noted that the portion of the ADEA applicable to federal employees was patterned after a similar provision in Title VII. Id. at 41. When a section of the ADEA can be traced to a similar section of Title VII, the two provisions should be construed consistently. See Oscar Mayer & Company v. Evans, 441 U.S. 750, 755-56, 99 S.Ct. 2066, 2071, 60 L.Ed.2d 609 (1979); see also Gillispie, 559 F.Supp. at 41.

Like the Gillispie court, we find that the purposes of the ADEA are not impeded by requiring that the agency head be named as the only proper defendant. Title VII shares with the ADEA a common purpose--the elimination of discrimination in the workplace. "[B]ecause the purpose of Title VII is fulfilled by just naming the agency head, then surely the purpose of the ADEA will be fulfilled by naming a like defendant." Gillispie, 559 F.Supp. at 41. Moreover, the appellants have not stated a single reason why the ADEA and Title VII should not be similarly construed in this case. Appellants' Br. at 14-17. Accordingly, we believe that the district court correctly required the plaintiffs to name the Postmaster General as the defendant in the ADEA claim. ⁴ Therefore, because the Postmaster General was named in neither the Title VII nor ADEA claims, both Count II and Count III were properly dismissed.

We note that the appellants are not the unwitting victims of a technical trap. In his initial opinion, the district judge informed the appellants that he considered their claims deficient for failure to name the proper defendant. However, he did not dismiss the claims; rather, he gave the appellants leave to amend their complaint to sue the proper party. See supra note 2. Yet, for some reason, this amendment was never made. At oral argument, we asked the appellants' counsel to explain why the complaint was never amended. He told us that the appellants chose not to amend because it would delay the appeal on the political discrimination claims--Counts I and IV. We are at a loss to understand this decision. The district court told the appellants that their pleadings were deficient; the court told them how to correct the pleadings; and the appellants were given time to effect these changes. Nonetheless, they did not amend. Therefore, we will not hear the appellants to claim that the dismissal of the ADEA and Title VII counts was inequitable or denied them substantial justice.

III

The appellants' second argument is that the district court improperly dismissed their political discrimination claims, Counts I and IV, for failure to state a claim. Relying on Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 103 S.Ct. 2404, 76 L.Ed.2d 648 (1983), the district judge dismissed the portion of the claim which rested on the due process clause of the fifth amendment. ⁵ It is this issue which we now consider. ⁶

In Bush, an employee of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) charged that he had been demoted because of statements he made regarding the quality...