McAdoo v. Toll

• Decision Date: 07 August 1984
• Docket Number: Civ. No. Y-82-1770.
• Parties: Harriette McADOO v. John S. TOLL, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

591 F. Supp. 1399

Harriette McADOO v. John S. TOLL, et al.

Civ. No. Y-82-1770.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

August 7, 1984.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Roma J. Stewart, Washington, D.C., and Samuel Hamilton, Silver Spring, Md., for plaintiff.

Frederick G. Savage, Asst. Atty. Gen., for Md., Baltimore, Md., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM

JOSEPH H. YOUNG, District Judge.

The plaintiff, Harriette McAdoo, applied and was considered for a position as a professor with the Department of Family and Community Development, College of Human Ecology, University of Maryland. Although she claims that she was orally offered the job and that she orally accepted it, she was notified in writing in June, 1980, that her application for the position had been rejected. She then filed a Title VII complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claiming that she had been discriminated against on the basis of race, age, and sex. Shortly thereafter, she filed this action, claiming, at that time, that her civil rights had been violated. Later, after disposition of the Title VII complaint by the EEOC, she filed an amended complaint adding a Title VII claim to her case.

The defendants filed a motion to dismiss and later a motion for summary judgment, and plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment. Responses to all motions have been received, and the motions are ripe for resolution.

The plaintiff is seeking relief under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, and 2000e. She has named as defendants John S. Toll, President of the University of Maryland; Robert Gluckstern, Chancellor of the University of Maryland; William Kirwan, Vice-Chancellor of the University for Academic Affairs; John R. Beaton, Dean of the College of Human Ecology; William J. Hanna, Chairman of the Department of Family and Community Development; George Funaro, Provost, Division of Human and Community Resources; and the University of Maryland. In addition to maintaining that these defendants were responsible for denial of her application for the professorship on the basis of her race, she alleges — and it appears to be undisputed — that the position was later filled, as a junior-level professorship, by a white woman.

The defendants have raised numerous claims for dismissing certain causes of action or certain defendants in their motion to dismiss. Many of these grounds are re-alleged in the motion for summary judgment. Each of the claims will be considered in turn, and then the plaintiff's cross-motion for summary judgment will be resolved.

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

The first challenge to the sufficiency of the complaint raised by the defendants in their motion to dismiss the first amended complaint is that the plaintiff's causes of action under §§ 1981 and 1983 are time-barred. Neither statute contains an express period of limitations, so the Court must look to state law to find the controlling period. Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, 421 U.S. 454, 462, 95 S.Ct. 1716, 1721, 44 L.Ed.2d 295 (1975). Defendants urge that the six-month limitations period contained in the Maryland discrimination statute, Md.Ann.Code art. 49B § 9(a) (1979 replacement volume), is the "most appropriate" state limitations period. Plaintiff alternatively presses for the applicability of the general three-year limitations period found in Md.Cts. & Jud.Proc. Ann. § 5-101 (1980 replacement volume).

The Fourth Circuit addressed this issue recently with regard to both sections of Title 42. In McNutt v. Duke Precision Dental & Orthodontic Lab., 698 F.2d 676 (4th Cir.1983), the court held that the three-year period would be applicable to § 1981 actions in Maryland. That ruling was extended to include employment discrimination claims lodged against state officials under § 1983 in Grattan v. Burnett, 710 F.2d 160 (4th Cir.1983). This decision was affirmed very recently by the Supreme Court in Burnett v. Grattan, ___ U.S. ___, 104 S.Ct. 2924, 82 L.Ed.2d 36 (1984). It is rare indeed that a federal court is guided in resolving a dispute between litigants by on-point precedent issued by the United States Supreme Court within the past month in an unanimous decision.

MONETARY RELIEF UNDER §§ 1981 and 1983

Although the plaintiff will be allowed to seek an award for backpay from the defendant under Title VII (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(g)), the defendants seek dismissal of any monetary claims against them under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Absent state consent, the Eleventh Amendment generally bars any award of retroactive compensatory relief which would be paid out of a state treasury. Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 99 S.Ct. 1139, 59 L.Ed.2d 358 (1979); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974). Prospective relief may be granted even if one of its results will be to deplete the state treasury. Id. Here, the plaintiff does not sue the state directly, but she does sue (1) university officials solely in their official capacities, and (2) the university. Any damages awarded against the University will certainly be borne by the general taxpayers, as held in Bickley v. University of Maryland, 527 F.Supp. 174 (D.Md.1981), and supported by a review of the relevant statutes regulating the University. See, e.g., Md.Educ.Code Ann. § 13-101, § 13-105.

As to the individual defendants sued in their official capacities, courts have repeatedly held that an award against an officer of a state agency in his or her official capacity constitutes an award against the state. Ford Co. v. Dep't. of Treasury, 323 U.S. 459, 462-64, 65 S.Ct. 347, 349-51, 89 L.Ed. 389 (1945); Dawkins v. Craig, 483 F.2d 1191 (4th Cir.1973). Accordingly, damages may not be awarded against any of the defendants in this case under §§ 1981 or 1983.

However, the Supreme Court has held that federal courts may award retroactive backpay against state officials under Title VII, because Title VII was enacted under the Enforcement Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, superseding the state immunity provisions of the Eleventh Amendment. Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445, 96 S.Ct. 2666, 49 L.Ed.2d 614 (1976). Accordingly, the only monetary relief which the plaintiff may be awarded is that to which she is entitled under Title VII, that is, back pay, less the plaintiff's "interim earnings or amounts earnable with reasonable diligence" by the plaintiff. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(g).

TITLE VII CLAIMS AGAINST INDIVIDUALS

The defendants next claim that they are entitled to dismissal of the plaintiff's Title VII claims against all six individual defendants because they were not named as respondents in the EEOC complaint filed by the plaintiff. Because they were not named in the original Title VII administrative complaint, they say, the Court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over the claims against them.

A copy of the actual EEOC charge appended to the plaintiff's first amended complaint formally names only the University of Maryland as the "discriminating employer," and 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1) expressly provides that "a civil action may be brought against the respondent named in the charge."

The seminal Fourth Circuit case on interpretation of this "naming requirement" is Mickel v. South Carolina State Employment Service, 377 F.2d 239 (4th Cir.1967). In Mickel, a Title VII civil action against an employer was dismissed because the employer, a defendant named in the civil action, was not named in the charge filed with the EEOC. The court there, in rejecting a spurious claim that the employer was the "agent" of the respondent named in the charge, opened up the possibility of a future agency exception to the naming requirement. 377 F.2d at 241.

At least two more-recent decisions issued in this district have taken up the suggestion of Mickel and determined that limited exceptions exist to the Title VII naming requirement. Chastang v. Flynn and Emrich Co., 365 F.Supp. 957 (D.Md.1973), aff'd in relevant part, 541 F.2d 1040 (4th Cir.1976), held that "where there is substantial, if not complete identity of parties before the EEOC and the Court, it would require an unnecessarily technical and restrictive reading" of the naming requirement to deny jurisdiction. 365 F.Supp. at 964, cited favorably in EEOC v. Am. Nat. Bank, 652 F.2d 1176, 1186 (4th Cir.1981). Vanguard Justice Society, Inc. v. Hughes, 471 F.Supp. 670 (D.Md.1979), addressed a situation almost identical to that presented here. In Vanguard, plaintiffs had named the employing entities in their administrative charges, but not important officials of the entities whom they named in their civil action. 471 F.Supp. at 687. Vanguard held that the plaintiffs had substantially complied with the naming requirement, particularly since

it has not been asserted that the defendant lacked actual notice of plaintiffs' charges ... or that the EEOC's actions with regard to conciliation of those charges were in any way affected ... 471 F.Supp. at 688-89.

Vanguard applied a four-part test which originated in Glus v. G.C. Murphy Co., 562 F.2d 880, 888 (3d Cir.1977), and was endorsed in Eggleston v. Chicago Journeyman Plumbers, 657 F.2d 890, 905-06 (7th Cir.1981). The factors to be applied include:

1) whether the role of the unnamed party could through reasonable effort by the complainant be ascertained at the time of the filing of the EEOC complaint;

2) whether, under the circumstances, the interests of a named party are so similar as the unnamed party's that for the purpose of obtaining voluntary conciliation and compliance it would be unnecessary to include the unnamed party in the EEOC proceedings;

3) whether its absence from the EEOC proceedings resulted in actual prejudice to the interests of the unnamed party;

4) whether the unnamed party had in some way represented to the complainant that its relationship with the complainant is to be through the named party.

Vanguard, 471 F.Supp. at 688.

Several courts, in discussing judicially created exceptions to the naming requirement, have noted that Congre...