Satz v. ITT Financial Corp.

• Decision Date: 16 April 1980
• Docket Number: No. 79-1127,79-1127
• Citation: 619 F.2d 738,22 FEP Cases 929
• Parties: 22 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 929, 22 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 30,843 Goldie SATZ, Appellant, v. ITT FINANCIAL CORPORATION, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 738

619 F.2d 738

22 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 929,

22 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 30,843

Goldie SATZ, Appellant, v. ITT FINANCIAL CORPORATION, Appellee.

No. 79-1127.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Nov. 5, 1979.

Decided April 16, 1980.

Francis H. Kennedy, Jr., St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.

H. Kent Munson, St. Louis, Mo., for appellee.

Before LAY, Chief Judge, ^* and BRIGHT and McMILLIAN, Circuit Judges.

McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge.

Appellant appeals from an order ¹ of the district court for the Eastern District of Missouri dismissing her Title VII sex discrimination claim against her employer, ITT Financial Corporation, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. We reverse.

I.

A. FACTS

In dismissing the complaint the district court considered appellant's deposition, an affidavit by appellant and the complaint. Those documents allege the following facts which are not at this time disputed by appellee. ²

Appellant was employed by appellee or a predecessor corporation with steadily increasing responsibilities from 1964; by 1974 she was assistant treasurer with full responsibility for cash management and short term debt. At that time appellee sold all its short term indebtedness obligations or commercial paper ³ through a dealer. Appellant was responsible for determining cash needs of appellee's lending offices, helping decide whether to raise funds through sale of long term or short term obligations, making day-to-day changes in the interest rates appellant would offer on its commercial paper, keeping track of maturation and payment, handling the accounting of the outstanding debt obligations and supervising issuance and redemption of the paper through banks. She also participated in discussion with bankers as to the appellee's general financial condition and managed cash accounts and transfers of funds for appellee's operations generally.

In 1975, appellee replaced its treasurer; later that year, the new treasurer, Mr. Gerard, informed appellant that appellee would hire its own "inside" salesperson of commercial paper who would supplement the outside dealer sales. Appellant was also told that her job responsibilities would not change, and she continued to maintain accounting of all the commercial paper and for a time to handle interest rates while she trained the new inside salesperson, Mr. Seiver, after he was hired at the beginning of 1976.

Also, early in 1976, appellee changed the computer system used to aid in keeping track of commercial paper transactions. Unreliability of this new computer system made it necessary for appellant to keep track manually of appellee's commercial paper. An additional increase in her duties was caused by the growth in the number of banks (from 2 to 14) involved in appellee's commercial paper transactions. (In the spring of 1977, appellee installed a replacement computer system which was reliable and made possible once again mechanical organization of accounts.)

During the period from 1976 through early 1977, Seiver travelled frequently. In Seiver's absence, appellant assumed his responsibilities which did not involve actual sales. Therefore, during this period appellant continued to be quite busy, although increasing "inside sales" of commercial paper through Seiver gradually replaced sales through the outside dealer, until the dealer sales were discontinued in late 1976. Indeed, because appellant was overloaded with work, some of her duties attending to long term indebtedness accounts were transferred to Mr. Michal, another employee who had been hired in 1974.

During the early part of 1977, appellee's management gave serious consideration to a plan to sell intermediate term notes ⁴ to finance its operations. Appellant and Michal were asked to take a licensing or qualifying examination which would enable them to sell intermediate term notes. ⁵ Both took the examination and passed it. Subsequently, Michal received a promotion and pay increase. Appellant received no promotion. ⁶

In June, 1977, she was told that she was no longer to assume Seiver's duties relating to commercial paper in his absence but that the duties would be assumed by his assistant. Appellant had begun to realize during the spring of 1977 that she was not advancing as rapidly as Seiver or Michal and that, contrary to what she had been told, expansion of Seiver's position had adversely affected her own. She had mentioned her concern to a supervisor in March, 1977. In July, 1977, she wrote a letter to appellee's treasurer suggesting that the difference in treatment between her and the two men was unfair and that she too was entitled to advancement opportunities. At about this time, appellee issued a revised job description for appellant's position that did not include her earlier duties involving commercial paper sales. She was told that she would have other duties including meetings with visiting bankers and travel, but little such opportunity has transpired.

B. EEOC CHARGE AND LAWSUIT

Appellant filed an EEOC charge of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., as amended, against appellee on August 18, 1977. She alleged discrimination on the basis of her sex in two regards: denial of equal pay in comparison to similarly situated male employees and denial of promotion or advancement in comparison to a male with less seniority and experience. She subsequently obtained notice from the EEOC of her right to file a Title VII lawsuit based on the charge and duly filed this action in federal district court. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5. Her complaint alleged, in addition to the unequal pay and denial of promotion or advancement mentioned in the EEOC charge, that appellee

(c) fail(s) to give fair credit and weight to qualifications of plaintiff and other females when distributing duties, responsibilities, opportunities, and compensation, in the same respect as male employees are credited; and

(d) affords male employees but not plaintiff and other females job opportunities for experience and responsibilities leading to qualifying for, and forming the basis for, advancement, increased pay and fringe benefits and other favorable employment opportunities.

Thus, the complaint alleged discriminatory denial of training opportunities and assignment of job duties. A Title VII complainant may raise claims in court "like or related" to the substance of the complainant's charge before the EEOC. See, e. g., Jenkins v. Blue Cross Mutual Hospital Insurance Co., 538 F.2d 164 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 986, 97 S.Ct. 506, 50 L.Ed.2d 598 (1976); EEOC v. Western Publishing Co., 502 F.2d 599, 603 (8th Cir. 1974); Sanchez v. Standard Brands, Inc., 431 F.2d 455 (5th Cir. 1970). In this case there is no dispute that the allegations of discrimination in training opportunities and job assignments are like and related to the substance of appellant's EEOC charge; therefore, all allegations in the complaint are properly before the court on the basis of appellant's single EEOC charge.

Appellee took appellant's deposition and subsequently filed a motion for summary judgment because the EEOC complaint was not filed within 180 days of the discriminatory act as required by 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e). Appellee characterized as appellant's "sole complaint" the failure to hire appellant into positions which had been filled by male employees Seiver and Michal in 1976 and 1974. Appellant filed a response with an affidavit setting forth her version of the underlying facts. The district court treated the motion for summary judgment as a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the filing of a timely charge with the EEOC is a prerequisite to invocation of federal court jurisdiction under Title VII. See United Airlines v. Evans, 431 U.S. 553, 555 n.4, 97 S.Ct. 1885, 1887 n.4, 52 L.Ed.2d 571 (1977); Olson v. Rembrandt Printing Co., 511 F.2d 1228 (8th Cir. 1975) (en banc). The court accepted appellee's narrow characterization of the complaint and dismissed it as untimely.

As a preliminary matter, appellant argues that the district court should not have treated the motion for summary judgment as a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Appellant seems to object to the district court's consideration of matters outside the complaint, including appellant's deposition and affidavit, on a motion to dismiss the complaint. The district court has discretion to determine how it will proceed on jurisdictional questions, however, and it may consider materials outside the pleadings such as depositions or affidavits in determining whether the record demonstrates lack of subject matter jurisdiction. ⁷ Land v. Dollar, 330 U.S. 731, 735 & n.4, 67 S.Ct. 1009, 1010 & n.4, 91 L.Ed. 1209 (1947); Miller v. Central Chinchilla Group, Inc., 494 F.2d 414 (8th Cir. 1974); Zunamon v. Brown, 418 F.2d 883 (8th Cir. 1969). See Exchange National Bank v. Touche Ross & Co., 544 F.2d 1126, 1130-31 (2d Cir. 1976).

However, the district court should not have dismissed the complaint. "With respect to the motions to dismiss, the court must take all well pleaded allegations in the complaints as true, and will not dismiss the complaints unless it appears beyond a doubt that the plaintiffs cannot prove any facts in support of their claims which would entitle them to relief." Joseph v. Norman's Health Club, 336 F.Supp. 307, 311 (E.D.Mo.1971), citing Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957). "We have reviewed the record in the light of the principle that all doubts on jurisdictional points must be resolved in favor of plenary trial rather than dismissal at the pretrial stage." Miller v. Central Chinchilla Group, Inc., supra, 494 F.2d at 417 (footnote omitted). We conclude that the court should not have adopted appellee's unduly narrow interpretation of appellant's claim and that the appellant's charge was not time barred.

C. DISPOSITION BELOW

Appellee in...