Shaffield v. Northrop Worldwide Aircraft Services, Inc.

• Decision Date: 21 March 1974
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 1310-S.
• Parties: Edward D. SHAFFIELD, Jr., Plaintiff, v. NORTHROP WORLDWIDE AIRCRAFT SERVICES, INC., Defendant, United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Amicus Curiae.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama

373 F. Supp. 937

Edward D. SHAFFIELD, Jr., Plaintiff, v. NORTHROP WORLDWIDE AIRCRAFT SERVICES, INC., Defendant, United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Amicus Curiae.

Civ. A. No. 1310-S.

United States District Court, M. D. Alabama, S. D.

March 21, 1974.

Howard A. Mandell, Montgomery, Ala., for plaintiff.

Edward E. Soule, Lytle, Soule & Emery, Oklahoma City, Okl., for defendant.

Charles Hodge, an attorney for the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, D. C., for amicus curiae.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

JOHNSON, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff is a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and, as such, believes that his religion prohibits his working between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday, except in situations involving emergency to life or property. Plaintiff was employed as a helicopter mechanic by defendant Northrop Worldwide Aircraft Services, Inc., and by its corporate predecessor in the activity of aircraft maintenance and repair at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Plaintiff was so employed from 1966 to 1972, when he was fired for the stated reasons of leaving work without permission and insubordination.

Plaintiff brought suit in this Court pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, specifically 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). Plaintiff claims that defendant was guilty of an actionable wrong, religious discrimination prohibited by Title VII, when it failed to make a reasonable accommodation to his religious beliefs and practices. Defendant denies that it failed to make a reasonable accommodation to plaintiff's religious beliefs and practices, and this is the sole issue for trial on the merits if this Court has subject matter jurisdiction over this case. However, defendant raises a challenge to the jurisdiction of this Court in this cause.

I. Jurisdiction

During the trial of this case, defendant moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, basing its motion upon legal developments which had come to the attention of defendant's counsel during the course of trial. The motion to dismiss was denied in open court on February 15, 1974, but defendant was orally granted leave to amend in order that its answer would reflect a defense of lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The effect of the Court's action was to reserve ruling on the motion.

Defendant contends, among other things, in its answer that the "right to sue" letter issued to plaintiff in this case is invalid for failure of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (hereafter "EEOC") to comply with the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552. Defendant views this alleged defect as jurisdictional and asserts that this action must be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Defendant relies upon McDonald v. General Mills, Inc., (E.D. Cal.1974), in which a lack of subject matter jurisdiction was found to exist in a case similar in many respects to this one.

After trial, the EEOC moved for leave to appear as Amicus Curiae in this case. The brief filed by the EEOC indicates that the procedural stance of this case raises novel issues, relating to the procedures used in Title VII claims, which deserve consideration.

Under the procedures of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the EEOC, if it is unable to effect a nonjudicial settlement, notifies the aggrieved party who then has ninety days within which to file suit. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1). Courts frequently state that lack of such a "right to sue" letter, or "suit letter," is a jurisdictional defect:

The tenor of the cases has established only two jurisdictional prerequisites to suit in federal court under Title VII: (1) the filing of a complaint with the EEOC and (2) the receipt of the statutory notice of right to sue . . . .

Beverly v. Lone Star Lead Constr. Corp., 437 F.2d 1136, 1139-1140 (5th Cir. 1971).

Defendant contends that (1) the EEOC manual pursuant to which plaintiff's suit letter was issued was invalid for failure to comply with the Freedom of Information Act, since it was marked "Administratively Restricted"; (2) the delegation to the EEOC district directors of the right to issue such suit letters, being in the invalid manual, was itself an invalid delegation, and the district director therefore had no power to issue suit letters; (3) this suit letter, having been issued without a valid delegation of authority, is an invalid suit letter; (4) since the holding of a suit letter is a jurisdictional necessity to suit under Title VII, the holding of an invalid suit letter is a jurisdictional defect; and (5) therefore this case must be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

The memorandum of the EEOC as Amicus Curiae in this case points out that defendant's argument is factually in error, although a close analysis of the procedural facts here has raised a similar problem.

It is necessary in the consideration of this question to examine the provisions of two EEOC manuals and an amendment to the latter manual. The first EEOC manual with which we are here concerned was issued on October 15, 1969, and was marked "Administratively Restricted." The court in McDonald v. General Mills, Inc., (E.D.Cal.1974), dealt with a suit letter issued pursuant to that manual. The 1969 manual delegated to EEOC district directors the power to issue suit letters. A new manual was issued and became effective on May 21, 1973, which apparently contains none of the attributes said in McDonald to violate the Freedom of Information Act. However, through inadvertence (according to the memorandum of the EEOC in this case), the new manual omitted a delegation to district directors of the power to issue suit letters. This defect was corrected by an amendment which, becoming effective on November 28, 1973, delegated to EEOC district directors the power to issue suit letters. The suit letter in this case was issued on August 15, 1973, during the hiatus in which the EEOC had inadvertently failed to grant to the district directors the power to issue suit letters. The jurisdictional issue, then, is whether this case should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because the EEOC is later found to have inadvertently failed to delegate the power to issue suit letters. The spirit and history of Title VII demand that such result be rejected. "To deny relief under these circumstances would be a meaningless triumph of form over substance." Choate v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 402 F.2d 357, 360 (7th Cir. 1968).

Our polestar in this analysis should be the fundamental principle of Title VII that procedural niceties should not be used to impede a claimant in his quest for a hearing on the merits of his case. Burns v. Thiokol Chem. Corp., 483 F.2d 300, 305 (5th Cir. 1973); Sanchez v. Standard Brands, 431 F.2d 455, 465 (5th Cir. 1970).

A suit letter under Title VII is not a talismanic device.

The sole purpose of the "right to sue" letter is to provide a formal notification to the claimant that his administrative remedies with the Commission have been exhausted.

Beverly v. Lone Star Lead Co., 437 F.2d 1136, 1140 (5th Cir. 1971). The issuance of a suit letter "is `no more than a formality.'" Stone v. E.D.S. Federal Corp., 351 F.Supp. 340, 343 (N.D.Cal. 1972).

Not only is the suit letter a mere formality, but plaintiff in this case followed every step expected of him. After having filed a complaint with the EEOC, he obtained what everyone considered to be a valid suit letter and properly brought suit in this Court. Any fault certainly does not lie with plaintiff but with the EEOC, if with any party. Courts have been adamant in refusing to penalize Title VII plaintiffs for wrongs or mistakes committed by the EEOC. In Dent v. St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. Co., 406 F.2d 399 (5th Cir. 1969), cert. denied sub nom., Hyler v. Reynolds Metals Co., 403 U.S. 912, 91 S.Ct. 2219, 29 L.Ed.2d 689 (1971), the lower court held that an actual attempt at conciliation by the EEOC was a jurisdictional prerequisite to suit. The Court of Appeals refused to adopt such a construction, noting that the

dismissal of these cases deprived the aggrieved employee of that right of action, not because of some failure on his part to comply with the requirements of the Title, but for the Commission's failure . . . — a failure that was and will always be beyond the control of the aggrieved party.

Id. at 403. The Court of Appeals for this circuit has also rejected another crabbed jurisdictional construction of Title VII, suggesting that

it seems completely unfair to nullify the grievant's complaint by a nonreviewable conclusion of the Commission, particularly when he has fully complied with the requirements of the statute.

Beverly v. Lone Star Lead Constr. Corp., 437 F.2d 1136, 1141 (5th Cir. 1971).

After an aggrieved person, such as plaintiff in this case, has filed a charge and obtained his suit letter from the EEOC, he has done all that is expected of him prior to bringing suit. He has carried every burden which Title VII requires him to carry prior to suing in the district court.

No party has cited a decision directly in point on this issue and presumably there is none. This Court is convinced, however, that under the facts of this case the inadvertent error of the EEOC, upon which no party has relied to his detriment, does not constitute a defect in the jurisdiction of this Court over this case.¹ Plaintiff's case will be considered upon the merits.

II. Law Applicable to the Merits

It is now abundantly clear that the statutory duty of an employer not to discriminate upon grounds of religion includes a duty to make reasonable accommodations to the religious needs of an employee by allowing, whenever reasonably practicable, some latitude in the employee's work schedule so as to free him for religious observances which his denomination is obliged to honor. Since 1967, the following regulation has been in effect under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act:

The

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