EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OP. COM'N v. General Dynamics Corp.

• Decision Date: 15 August 1974
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. CA 4-74-54.
• Citation: 382 F. Supp. 59
• Parties: EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION v. GENERAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas

382 F. Supp. 59

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION v. GENERAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION et al.

Civ. A. No. CA 4-74-54.

United States District Court, N. D. Texas, Fort Worth Division.

August 15, 1974.

Walter W. Garnsey, Jr., EEOC, Denver, Colo., for plaintiff.

J. Olcott Phillips, McDonald, Sanders, Ginsburg, Phillips, Maddox & Newkirk, Fort Worth, Tex., for General Dynamics Corp.

Sam Houston Clinton, Jr., Clinton & Richards, Austin, Tex., Gordon A. Gregory, Gregory, Van Lopik & Higle, Detroit, Mich., Michael D. Schattman, Schattman & Guthrie, Fort Worth, Tex., Otto B. Mullinax, Mullinax, Wells, Mauzy & Baab, Dallas, Tex., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM ORDER

MAHON, District Judge.

This case is before the Court on defendant, General Dynamic's motion to dismiss. The principal contention is that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission¹ is precluded from maintaining this action because it failed to timely bring suit.²,³

EEOC brought this suit pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act on February 25, 1974.⁴

EEOC is suing General Dynamics and the several unions which operate plant facilities at General Dynamics locations in Fort Worth and Waco, Texas. It alleges that charges were filed with the Commission more than thirty days prior to the institution of the suit, that the Commission had determined that reasonable cause existed to believe that defendants had engaged in unlawful employment practices, and that no conciliation agreement acceptable to it had been secured. It complains of systemic discrimination based upon race, sex and national origin vis a vis the employment opportunities of blacks, females, and Spanishsurnamed Americans. It alleges that such discrimination has occurred since July 1965 and has continued up to the present date. There is no dispute that more than one hundred eighty days has expired since the filing of the last charge with EEOC. Nor is there dispute that a right to sue notice was issued by the commission to various aggrieved parties and that this suit was brought prior to that notice.⁵ Section 706(f)(1) of the act is reproduced in its complete complexity in the margin.⁶ General Dynamics strongly contends that this section establishes a jurisdictional time frame in which EEOC must bring suit. The Commission's position is that the statute is merely enabling in nature and does not establish any limitations period or jurisdictional prerequisite to its filing suit, other than the expiration of thirty days from the date of a charge being filed with them and a subsequent inability to secure from the named respondent a conciliation agreement. It asserts that the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, which gave the Commission the power to sue in its own right for the first time, should be understood as encompassing three distinct changes to the original legislation.⁷ Initially, says EEOC, the first sentence should be perceived, apart from the remainder of 706 (f)(1), as empowering the Commission to sue, subject only to a charge being filed, thirty days elapsing and an inability to secure a conciliation agreement. Next, EEOC would direct attention to the enlargement of the time period for conciliation efforts to continue, without any individual claimants being empowered to sue, from thirty days to one hundred eighty days from the date of the charge being filed. The last change, EEOC advances, enlarges the period during which an individual claimant can sue, after he has received notice, from thirty to ninety days. It is within this context that EEOC interprets § 706(f)(1). In other words, the elapse of one hundred eighty days is to be seen as a condition precedent to any suit which an individual claimant might bring and not as affecting EEOC in any way.

General Dynamics' approach to 706(f) (1) is to consider it as a complete unit and view it as creating a new right, distinct and apart from any known at common law and therefore to be construed accordingly.⁸

These respective readings of 706(f)(1) oversimplify the limitations question. See, Guerra v. Manchester Terminal Corporation, 498 F.2d 641 (5th Cir. 1974); United States v. Georgia Power Co., 474 F.2d 906, 922-924 (5th Cir. 1973). The issue is not as EEOC suggests, a matter of finding in Title VII a boundless right to sue for the Commission because there is merely oblique language concerning the extent of its powers. The whispered commands of Congress must be followed just as certainly as those more clearly articulated.⁹ Nor is following General Dynamics' position of applying the limitation period of one hundred eighty days, which is the inception of the individual claimant's power to sue, as a strict foreclosure of the Commission's power to sue, a simple endeavor.¹⁰ There is no quarrel with General Dynamics' position that where ". . . rights asserted in a court are statutory in nature, compliance with the statute is a prerequisite to the commencement of a civil action based thereon . . ." Miller v. International Paper Co., 408 F.2d 283, 286 (5th Cir. 1969). As observed in Miller, supra, however, this begs the question and leaves this Court with the task of determining the prerequisites found in that statute, even though courts have recognized that Title VII rights are novel and independent creations of Congress. Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 49, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 1020, 39 L.Ed.2d 147, 159 (1974); Dent v. St. Louis-San Francisco Ry., 406 F.2d 399, 403 (5th Cir. 1969). The Fifth Circuit in addressing the issue of when a claimant's right to sue matured under the 1964 version of Title VII noted that confusion there stemmed from the inclusion in the pertinent section of ". . . both a time limitation on the conciliation efforts of the EEOC and a time limitation on the charging party's right to file suit." Miller, supra, 408 F.2d at 286. There is a similar confusion in the present version of the Act. Here, however, we deal not with the rights of an individual claimant, but rather the rights of the Commission. It is one matter to show solicitude for individuals, whose rights are paramount. With individual claimants in Title VII cases, courts do not deal with

". . . businessmen-plaintiffs or plaintiffs accustomed to consulting lawyers about their rights. This law is a remedial one, and the Congressional purpose would not be furthered by making plaintiffs of the kind with which we are concerned, members of the working class who are generally without substantial higher education, dot every `i' and cross every `t' on their way to the courthouse." Antonopulos v. Aerojet-General Corp., 295 F.Supp. 1390, 1395 (E.D.Cal.1968).

Can this same reasoning apply to the Commission with equal vitality? I think not.

This Court is well aware that it does not write on a blank slate in facing this particularly obscure statute. There are numerous district court opinions on the matter reflecting a clear split of authority.¹¹ Because of this division, the closeness of the question, and the well reasoned opinions on both sides of the issue, I have no doubt but that appellate review is imperative. This is really a matter for the Congress to decide. The lights of Congressional intent shine dim on this section. Support for either position may be found in the legislative history. See e. g., EEOC v. Union Oil Co., supra, (arguments pro and con presented with excerpts from Congressional Record). Our American practice of inspecting legislative history for Congressional intent demonstrates its inherent limitations in such cases. Legislation by its very nature is a compromise of competing interest. Compare, the English experience where only the words of the Acts themselves may be considered. Commissioner v. Acker, 361 U.S. 87, 94, 80 S.Ct. 144, 4 L.Ed.2d 127, 132 (Justice Frankfurter, dissenting). I, too, agree that the problem here is a typical instance of statutory construction:

"The fact is that the difficulties of so-called interpretation arise when the legislature has had no meaning at all; when the question which is raised on the statute never occurred to it; when what the judges have to do is, not to determine what the legislature did mean on a point which was present to its mind, but to guess what it would have intended on a point not present to its mind, if the point had been present." Gray, The Nature and Sources of the Law, § 370 at 165 (1948) cited in Miller v. International Paper Co., 408 F.2d 283, 287 (5th Cir. 1969).

If there is no finality to the time when EEOC can bring suit against named respondents, the Court believes that the broad underlying policy of Title VII of encouraging adjustment and settlement of employment discrimination complaints outside of litigation would be frustrated. Enforcement through litigation is only one aspect of the Commission's responsibilities. EEOC is also, and perhaps primarily, an administrative body with a developing expertise in problems of employment discrimination. Conciliation by EEOC was originally intended to and still does, even after the 1972 Amendments, play an important role in the legislative scheme. Beverly v. Lone Star Lead Construction Corporation, 437 F.2d 1136, 1139 (5th Cir. 1971); Caldwell v. National Brewing Co., 443 F.2d 1044, 1046 (5th Cir. 1971), (citing with approval Young v. International Telephone & Telegraph Co., 438 F.2d 757 (3rd Cir. 1971), and recommending in another context, that the district court accord due regard to the conciliatory policy which is at the heart of Title VII). Under the present scheme envisioned by Title VII, I have no difficulty in holding the Commission to the same standards as courts have held individual complainants. I can find no indication that Congress intended to abandon the clear policy of deferring action in federal court until a charge has been filed with the Commission and an opportunity given the Commission to effect conciliation, if possible. Macklin v. Spector Freight Systems, Inc., 156 U.S.App.D.C. 69, 478 F.2d 979, 985-987 (1973). I...