Schuler v. Pricewaterhousecoopers, Llp

• Decision Date: 12 February 2008
• Docket Number: No. 06-7207.,06-7207.
• Citation: 514 F.3d 1365
• Parties: Harold D. SCHULER, on behalf of himself and other similarly situated older employees, Appellant v. PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS, LLP, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

514 F.3d 1365

Harold D. SCHULER, on behalf of himself and other similarly situated older employees, Appellant v. PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS, LLP, Appellee.

No. 06-7207.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued December 10, 2007.

Decided February 12, 2008.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 05cv02355).

David L. Rose argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs was Dotie Joseph.

Eric M. Nelson argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Stephen L. Sheinfeld and Minoti Patel. Julie A. Klusas Gasper entered an appearance.

Before: ROGERS, TATEL, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

TATEL, Circuit Judge:

A sixty-three-year-old professional who works in his employer's Washington, D.C. branch office filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's New York district office alleging that his employer, headquartered in Manhattan, is violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) by maintaining a discriminatory partnership policy under which the company refuses to promote older qualified employees. After the EEOC dismissed the charge and informed the employee of his right to sue, the employee filed a class-action complaint in federal district court in Washington, D.C., alleging violations of the ADEA and the District of Columbia Human Rights Act and seeking relief for the company's failures to promote him in July 2004 and July 2005. The district court dismissed the complaint, holding that plaintiff failed to satisfy the ADEA's procedural requirements because he failed to file (1) his EEOC charge with the D.C. Office of Human Rights and (2) a new EEOC charge following the company's allegedly unlawful July 2005 promotion denial. We reverse. Plaintiff satisfied the ADEA's state filing requirement by virtue of a worksharing agreement between the EEOC and the D.C. Office of Human Rights, as well as through the Commission's referral of his charge to the New York State Division of Human Rights. And because plaintiff seeks damages flowing from the July 2004 ADEA violation alleged in his original EEOC charge through the present, his failure to file a new charge after the July 2005 non-promotion decision is of no consequence.

I.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act makes it "unlawful for an employer to ... discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's age." 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1). Patterned after Title VII, the ADEA allows "[a]ny person aggrieved [to] bring a civil action in any court of competent jurisdiction for ... legal or equitable relief." Id. § 626(c)(1). Before doing so, however, plaintiffs must jump through two administrative hoops. First, under section 626(d) plaintiffs must file a discrimination charge with the EEOC. See id. § 626(d) ("No civil action may be commenced by an individual under this section until 60 days after a charge alleging unlawful discrimination has been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission."). Second, section 633(b) requires that plaintiffs also file a charge with an appropriate state agency:

[If] an alleged unlawful practice occur[s] in a State which has a law prohibiting discrimination in employment because of age and establishing or authorizing a State authority to grant or seek relief from such discriminatory practice, no suit may be brought under section 626 of this title before the expiration of sixty days after proceedings have been commenced under the State law, unless such proceedings have been earlier terminated.

Id. § 633(b). Under section 633(b), "resort to administrative remedies in deferral States by individual claimants is mandatory, not optional." Oscar Mayer & Co. v. Evans, 441 U.S. 750, 758, 99 S.Ct. 2066, 60 L.Ed.2d 609 (1979). This requirement "is intended to screen from the federal courts those discrimination complaints that might be settled to the satisfaction of the grievant in state proceedings." Id. at 756, 99 S.Ct. 2066.

In this case, appellee PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a large accounting and professional services firm headquartered in New York City, maintains a "Partners and Principals Agreement" providing that each partner's "association with the Firm shall cease at the end of the fiscal year in which he or she attains age 60," and, as a result, rarely promotes employees over the age of forty-five to partner. See Compl. ¶¶ 17-19; see also Murphy v. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, LLP, 357 F.Supp.2d 230, 245 (D.D.C.2004) (noting, in a related case, that "PwC does not dispute that its Partnership Agreement requires mandatory retirement for partners or that fewer employees are admitted in higher age brackets...."). Partners enjoy higher salaries, more generous retirement benefits, and greater responsibilities than other professional employees. Compl. ¶ 12.

Appellant Harold Schuler, a managing director in PwC's Washington, D.C. office, alleges that the company refuses to promote him "and other qualified older professional employees" to partner on the basis of age in violation of the ADEA. Id. ¶ 2. Schuler alleges he is the longest serving managing director in the firm, having been promoted to that position in 1994, and that his education, training, and experience qualify him for partnership.

The case before us is Schuler's second lawsuit against PwC. In May 2002, Schuler, along with a co-worker, C. Westbrook Murphy, sued the firm over the same allegedly discriminatory partnership policy. See Murphy, 357 F.Supp.2d 230. Before initiating that suit, Schuler filed an administrative charge with the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights (DCOHR) alleging that PwC denied him promotion on the basis of age from 1999 to 2001. Id. at 236. Schuler "cross-filed" his charge with the EEOC, meaning that both the DCOHR and the Commission received a copy. Schuler and Murphy alleged violations of the ADEA, as well as the New York Human Rights Law (N.Y.HRL) and the District of Columbia Human Rights Act (DCHRA), both of which also prohibit age discrimination. See D.C.Code § 2-1401.01 et seq.; N.Y. Exec. Law § 290 et seq. The district court dismissed most of the ADEA claims for failure to file timely administrative charges with the EEOC. See Murphy, 357 F.Supp.2d at 239-40. And of significance to the case now before us, the district court dismissed the NYHRL claims because, in its view, New York law requires plaintiffs to "allege that the actual impact of the discriminatory act was felt in New York." Id. at 244. The court allowed the plaintiffs' DCHRA claim and ADEA "disparate treatment" claim to go forward, however, and that case remains pending in the district court. See id. at 245, 249.

On February 23, 2005, Schuler, laying the groundwork for the case now before us, filed another EEOC charge alleging that PwC's promotion policy violates the ADEA. In particular, the class-action charge, which Schuler's counsel mailed overnight from his office in Washington, D.C. to the EEOC's New York district office, alleged that "PwC has followed and continues to follow age discriminatory practices for promotion to partnership that favor employees younger than 40 years old and harm me and other older employees." EEOC Charge of Discrimination, No. 160-2005-01264 (February 2005). Schuler's charge also alleged that "PwC has promoted more than 1,500 of its professional employees to partnership on and after July 1, 1998 through at least July 1, 2004, and not one (0) of those promoted was over the age of 60 when promoted." Id. In a five-page declaration attached to the charge, Schuler asserted that he and other employees had failed to make partner because of "policies and procedures adopted and maintained by [PwC]'s Senior Partner and Chief Executive Officer Dennis Nally and the 14 other members of its Board of Partners and Principals," and alleged that the "Board decides each year which employees shall be promoted to partnership." Decl. of Harold Schuler 1, 4. Schuler stated that he resides in Virginia and alleged that PwC maintains its headquarters in New York City.

Schuler addressed his charge to the "New York City (N.Y.) Commission Human Rights [sic], and New York State Div. of Human Rights, and EEOC." He included the following instruction: "I want this Class Action Charge filed with both the EEOC and the State and local Agency, if any." EEOC Charge of Discrimination. At the end of his supporting declaration, Schuler typed, mostly in capital letters, "This complaint should be CROSS FILED WITH. THE HUMAN RIGHTS AGENCIES OF NEW YORK CITY, THE STATE OF NEW YORK, AND WASHINGTON, D.C." Decl. of Harold Schuler 5.

Three weeks later, the EEOC informed Schuler by letter that it had received his ADEA charge and would file it with the New York State Division of Human Rights (N.Y.SDHR), assuring him, "You need do nothing further at this time." Letter from Patricia M. Araujo, Investigator, EEOC, to Harold Schuler (Mar. 14, 2005). The letter made no mention of the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights, however, and nothing in the record indicates whether either the EEOC or Schuler ever referred the charge to that local agency.

On April 28, 2005, the EEOC, acting again through its New York district office, dismissed Schuler's charge with the cryptic explanation, "Case in Court/District of Columbia," EEOC Dismissal and Notice of Rights (Apr. 28, 2005)—an apparent reference to the still pending Murphy litigation. See Schuler v. PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, 457 F.Supp.2d 1, 3 n. 2 (D.D.C.2006). The notice informed Schuler that he could file suit in federal district court within ninety days, a time limit the parties, tolled as they attempted to settle the case. When negotiations failed, Schuler, seeking relief for PwC's failure to promote him to partner in July 2004 and again in July 2005, filed the present action in...