EQUAL EMPLOY. OP. COM'N v. Raymond Metal Prod. Co.

• Decision Date: 26 November 1974
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 73-320-N.
• Citation: 385 F. Supp. 907
• Parties: EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION v. RAYMOND METAL PRODUCTS COMPANY, a subsidiary of Raymond International, Inc., and the United Steelworkers of America and its Local 6414.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

385 F. Supp. 907

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION v. RAYMOND METAL PRODUCTS COMPANY, a subsidiary of Raymond International, Inc., and the United Steelworkers of America and its Local 6414.

Civ. A. No. 73-320-N.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

November 26, 1974.

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William A. Carey, Gen. Counsel, Charles F. Wilson, Associate Gen. Counsel, Delores Wilson, Regional Atty., Stuart I. Saltman, Associate Regional Atty., Frank J. Tuk, Supervisory Trial Atty., Theodore E. Ravas, Jr., Trial Atty., all of Philadelphia Regional Litigation Center, EEOC, Philadelphia, Pa.; George Beall, U. S. Atty., and James M. Kramon, Asst. U. S. Atty., for the District of Maryland, for plaintiff.

George H. Cohen, Jeffrey L. Gibbs of Washington, D. C., and I. Duke Avnet and Avnet & Avnet Baltimore, Md., for defendant, The United Steelworkers of America.

I. Duke Avnet and Avnet & Avnet of Baltimore, Md., and George H. Cohen Washington, D. C., for defendant Local 6414, The United Steelworkers of America.

Peter F. Healey of Washington, D. C., and John Eris Powell of Rockville, Maryland, for defendant Raymond Metal Products Co.

NORTHROP, Chief Judge.

This is an action brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission hereinafter, "EEOC" or "Commission" pursuant to Sections 706(f)(1) and (3) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., as amended by Public Law 92-261, 86 Stat. 103 (March 24, 1972) hereinafter, "Civil Rights Act" or "Title VII". The EEOC alleges that the defendants, Raymond Metal Products Co. and The United Steelworkers of America and its Local 6414, engaged in discriminatory employment practices based on sex, race and national origin in violation of § 703(a) of the Civil Rights Act.

Each defendant has filed a motion to dismiss and/or in the alternative for summary judgment.

MOTION OF UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA and its LOCAL 6414.

In addition to adopting the grounds put forth by Raymond Metal Products Co. hereinafter, "Raymond Metal" or "the Company" in support of their motion for summary judgment, infra, United Steelworkers of America hereinafter, "the International" or "the Union" raise two independent arguments. First, it is argued that this Court lacks jurisdiction over the Union in that the International was neither named in the charge, served with notice of the charge, nor served with a copy of the complaint. EEOC, on the other hand, argues that service upon Local 6414 was sufficient as service upon the International on the basis of the alleged agency relationship existing between the two entities.

The presence or absence of an agency relationship between the two unions is the critical factor in determining this Court's jurisdiction over the International. Moody v. Albemarle Paper Co., 271 F.Supp. 27, 29 (E.D.N.C. 1967); Mondy v. Crown Zellerbach Corp., 271 F.Supp. 258, 267 (E.D.La. 1967). In the instant case, the labor-management agreement between Raymond Metal and the United Steelworkers of America expressly provides that the Local will act as representative of the International.¹ This Court finds that an agency relationship did exist between the International and the Local and for that reason, naming the Local in the charge and making service upon it was sufficient as process against the International. Claycraft Co. v. United Mine Workers of America, 204 F.2d 600, 603 (6th Cir. 1953).

Second, both the International and the Local argue that they are improperly before this Court in that the Union's offer to participate in conciliation discussions was rejected by EEOC. While recognizing that an attempt at conciliation is a jurisdictional prerequisite to bringing a civil action, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1), EEOC maintains that the refusal of Raymond Metal to conciliate rendered futile any anticipated settlement discussions with the Union. It is EEOC's position that any agreement with the Union which did not include the Company would not be acceptable, and therefore the determination that conciliation had failed was justified.

This Court cannot accept EEOC's arbitrary construction of the conciliation mandate of Title VII. The language of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f) (1)² does not permit the Commission to determine that the conciliation agreement of a particular respondent is unacceptable before conciliation discussions have ever taken place. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Container Corp. of America, 352 F.Supp. 262, 265 n.10 (M.D.Fla.1972). If the parties had engaged in conciliation discourse, the Union might well have agreed to bind themselves to whatever agreement was reached between EEOC and the Company, thus eliminating the need to include the Union in this civil action. This opportunity was never afforded the Union. This Court will not sanction such a deviation from Title VII's mandate that a sincere endeavor at conciliation be pursued with each respondent named in the charge before a civil action is brought. For this reason, the Union's motion for summary judgment will be granted.

MOTION OF RAYMOND METAL PRODUCTS COMPANY

Defendant Raymond Metal bases its motion for summary judgment on at least four separate grounds: the charge upon which the complaint is based is barred as untimely; the scope of the complaint is overbroad in that allegations of sex and race discrimination were not part of the original charge; the Commission's delegation to District Directors of the authority to make "reasonable cause determinations" was unlawful; the EEOC failed to follow its own regulations regarding notification to defendant that conciliation could be reopened prior to litigation. Each of these allegations will be treated separately in the discussion below.

I.

Defendant's assertion regarding noncompliance with the statutory time frame of Title VII is grounded in the chronology of events which preceded the institution of this action. On February 18, 1971, the Washington Area Office of EEOC received a complaint from Mr. Michael Hadjigeorgalis charging that he was subject to discriminatory employment practices by Raymond Metal in November, 1970,³ and continuing through February, 1971,⁴ because of his Greek origin. On June 30, 1971, EEOC, as required by statute, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(c) and (d), deferred the charge to the Maryland Commission on Human Relations, and that agency waived jurisdiction of the complaint on July 23, 1971. EEOC asserts that the charge was officially filed with the Commission on July 26, 1971, although no notice of the charge was served on the defendants at that time. On February 1, 1972, Mr. Hadjigeorgalis submitted an amended charge on the EEOC charge form provided to him, and a copy of the amended charge was served on both the Company and the Union shortly thereafter.

Raymond Metal asserts that the above sequence of events violates the prescribed time limitations of the statute, thus depriving this Court of jurisdiction. Moore v. Sunbeam Corp., 459 F.2d 811 (7th Cir. 1972). The first aspect of defendant's claim is that the charge of Mr. Hadjigeorgalis cannot be recognized by this Court since it was not "filed by the person aggrieved within two hundred and ten days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred," as required by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.⁵ Raymond Metal asserts that, since the "operative charge" was filed on February 1, 1972, which time was a full year after the last of the alleged discriminatory acts, the charge violates the maximum seven-month period allowed by the old statute prior to the 1972 amendments.

While this Court agrees that the instant case arose under and is governed by the pre-1972 statute, it does not find that the charge of Mr. Hadjigeorgalis is barred as untimely. The letters from Mr. Hadjigeorgalis, received by the Commission on February 18, 1971 and April 2, 1971, are sufficiently precise to constitute an initial filing of the charge. The amended charge of February 1, 1972, relates back to the dates of receipt of these initial letters. The procedure for relating amended charges back to the date of an initial letter from the aggrieved party has been set forth in EEOC's internal regulations.⁶ This regulation has been sustained upon challenge, Weeks v. Southern Bell Tel. & Tel. Co., 408 F.2d 228, 230 (5th Cir. 1969), and followed by other federal courts in cases similar to the one at bar. Georgia Power Co. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 412 F.2d 462, 466 (5th Cir. 1969); Washington v. T. G. & Y. Stores Co., 324 F.Supp. 849, 852 (W.D.La.1971). Since there is no question that the charging party's original letter was filed within the prescribed time, the contention of Raymond Metal regarding the timeliness of the charge must necessarily fall.

The second aspect of defendant's allegation is that notice of Mr. Hadjigeorgalis' charge was not forwarded to Raymond Metal in a timely manner. At the time this action was commenced there was no statutory or regulatory provision establishing a time limit within which an employer must have been served with a copy of the complaint.⁷ Chromcraft Corp. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 465 F.2d 745, 746 (5th Cir. 1972); International Bro. of Elec. Workers v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 398 F.2d 248, 252 (3rd Cir. 1968). However, Raymond Metal maintains that the standard of unreasonable delay set forth in Section 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S. C. § 706, should be imposed upon the EEOC notification procedure.

While counsel for both sides have argued the reasonableness of EEOC's delay in notifying Raymond Metal of the charge, and while the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has given credence to this debate by holding that Section 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act is "tangentially" applicable to EEOC's notification procedures, Chromcraft Corp. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 465 F.2d 745, 747 (5th Cir. 1972), this...