Smith v. Oral Roberts Evangelistic Ass'n, Inc.
| Decision Date | 09 April 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 83-1608,83-1608 |
| Citation | 731 F.2d 684 |
| Parties | 34 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1640, 34 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 34,330 Heather SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ORAL ROBERTS EVANGELISTIC ASSOCIATION, INC., an Oklahoma corporation; David Moore, and Matt Connolly, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Randolph P. Stainer, Tulsa, Okl., for plaintiff-appellant.
Maryann C. Hayes, Chicago, Ill. (Robert K. Skolrood of Tulsa, Okl., with her on the brief), for defendants-appellees.
Before McWILLIAMS and LOGAN, Circuit Judges, and CAMPOS, District Judge *.
This appeal requires us to determine whether the Equal Employment Opportunity Act (42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-2000e-17) requires a plaintiff to file a charge of discrimination with a state agency within state imposed time limitations as a jurisdictional prerequisite to the extended federal filing period for deferral states. Appellant appeals from an order of the district court which dismissed her case. The district court held that because appellant had not filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (hereinafter "EEOC") within the 180-day state time period for filing with the Oklahoma Human Rights Commission, her complaint was not timely filed. Appellant contends that Mohasco Corporation v. Silver, 447 U.S. 807, 100 S.Ct. 2486, 65 L.Ed.2d 532 (1980) and Oscar Mayer & Company v. Evans, 441 U.S. 750, 99 S.Ct. 2066, 60 L.Ed.2d 609 (1979) compel reversal of the district court decision and that the Tenth Circuit precedent relied on by that court has been implicitly overruled. For the reasons stated below, we agree with Appellant, reverse the decision of the district court, and conclude that Dubois v. Packard Bell, 470 F.2d 973 (10th Cir.1972) has been overruled.
Appellant brought this action pursuant to the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-2000e-17. She alleged that she was employed by Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association (hereinafter "OREA"); that Appellees Connolly and Moore were OREA employees and her direct supervisors; that they committed offensive acts toward her; and that she was terminated without cause other than the friction caused by the sexually-oriented treatment of Appellant and other women.
Appellant originally filed her charge with the EEOC 237 days after her termination. She filed this charge against "Oral Roberts University," not OREA or the individual defendants she later sued. OREA is a production organization associated with the University; Oral Roberts is the president and director of both.
The EEOC automatically deferred the charge to the Oklahoma Human Rights Commission (hereinafter "OHRC"). Pursuant to a work sharing agreement with the EEOC, the OHRC waived jurisdiction to EEOC. Unable to investigate within the statutory time period, EEOC issued a "right to sue" letter to Appellant and Appellant filed suit.
Appellees subsequently moved to dismiss Appellant's suit because, they say, (1) Appellant had filed her charge with the EEOC 237 days after the alleged discriminatory act, beyond the 180-day time limit Okla.Stat. tit. 25 Sec. 2 sets for filing with the OHRC and, therefore, Appellant had not filed a timely action; and (2) Appellant had named Oral Roberts University, not OREA or the individual OREA employees, in the charge she filed with the EEOC and, therefore, Appellant could not bring this civil action against the Appellees.
The district court granted Appellee's Motion to Dismiss. It did not address the second issue in its order. It held that despite the fact that Appellant's complaint was timely under "a literal interpretation" of Mohasco v. Silver, 447 U.S. 807, 100 S.Ct. 2486, 65 L.Ed.2d 532 (1980), the charge was not timely filed in Oklahoma, where the state deferral agency has a limitation period of 180 days. The Court (1) refused to interpret Mohasco to give Appellant a 240-day time period to file with the EEOC; (2) was not persuaded by Supreme Court case law which construed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (hereinafter "ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. Secs. 621-634, which, if applicable, supported Appellant's position; (3) rejected another Oklahoma district court case which addressed this question and chose the 240-day time limit; and (4) held that Dubois v. Packard Bell, 470 F.2d 973 (10th Cir.1972) was still good law. Observing that the Supreme Court had not yet spoken as clearly on Title VII time limitations as it had on ADEA cases, the district court refused to construe Mohasco as applicable since to do so would bring on "complete subversion of state employment discrimination laws." Heather Smith v. Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, No. 82-C-658-E, slip op. at 5 (N.D.Okl. April 28, 1983).
Timely filing with the EEOC is a prerequisite to civil suit under Title VII. 1
42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5(c) specifies that in states with state or local authority which enforces state or local employment discrimination law, no federal charge may be filed until 60 days after commencement of state or local proceedings, "unless such proceedings have been earlier terminated."
In a "non-deferral state," a state with no state or local agency authorized "to grant or seek relief from such practice or to institute criminal proceedings with respect thereto," a charge must be filed with the EEOC within 180 days of the act complained of. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5(e). In a "deferral state," in a case where the complainant has "initially instituted proceedings" with the appropriate state or local agency, the charge must be filed with the EEOC within an extended 300-day time period. Id.
(1) Automatic Deferral.
In Love v. Pullman, 404 U.S. 522, 92 S.Ct. 616, 30 L.Ed.2d 679 (1972), the Supreme Court approved of the EEOC's practice of automatic deferral of charges filed with the EEOC when the aggrieved party had not exhausted state or local administrative remedies. In such cases, exhaustion of state or local administrative remedies is accomplished automatically by the EEOC. It refers the charge to the appropriate state or local agency and then, after the expiration of the 60-day deferral period, reactivates the charge within its own proceedings. See 29 C.F.R. Sec. 1601.13 (1982).
(2) The "240-day maybe" rule.
In Mohasco Corporation v. Silver, 447 U.S. 807, 100 S.Ct. 2486, 65 L.Ed.2d 532 (1980), the Supreme Court rejected the cases which construed 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5(c) and (e) to require filing with the EEOC (or the state or local agency) within 180 days in deferral states. 2 Mohasco held that a complainant "need only file his charge within 240 days of the alleged discriminatory employment practice to insure that his federal rights will be preserved." Mohasco, 447 U.S. at 814, n. 16, 100 S.Ct. at 2491, n. 16. Even if a charge is initially filed with the EEOC more than 240 days after the alleged discrimination, the charge may still be effectively filed within 300 days of the alleged illegal acts if state or local proceedings terminate in less than 60 days, thereby ending the deferral period, 3 and automatically reactivating the charge with the EEOC. 4
Despite this language, Mohasco is not precisely on point: in Mohasco, the complainant had filed with the EEOC within New York's 365-day limitation for its state proceedings. Timely federal filing within state time requirements for state administrative proceedings was not directly addressed.
In Dubois v. Packard Bell, 470 F.2d 973 (10th Cir.1972), this Court affirmed the district court's summary judgment for defendants because plaintiff had filed with the EEOC after the expiration of New Mexico Human Rights Commission filing time period. Dubois is directly on point, but was decided ten years before the Supreme Court decision in Mohasco, and also before the Supreme Court had spoken on this issue in the Age Discrimination in Employment context.
Nothing in Title VII requires filing with the state or local agency (or the EEOC) within the time periods commanded by state law. Our understanding of employment discrimination law has been enhanced by Supreme Court decisions since Dubois; consequently, we cannot construe 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5(c) or (e) to require filing within state specified time limits. This construction is fully consistent with Title VII's remedial purposes and is especially appropriate "in a statutory scheme in which laymen, unassisted by trained lawyers, initiate the process." Love v. Pullman, 404 U.S. 522, 527, 92 S.Ct. 616, 619, 30 L.Ed.2d 679 (1972).
Title VII requires the EEOC to defer for 60 days "after proceedings have been commenced under state or local law...." 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5(c) (emphasis added). It establishes a 300-day extended filing period for "a case of an unlawful employment practice with respect to which the person aggrieved has initially instituted proceedings with a state or local agency...." 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5(e) (emphasis added). By its terms, then, Title VII requires only that state proceedings be commenced (or initially instituted) before federal consideration takes place. Specifically, there is no requirement that in order to "commence" state proceedings and thus preserve federal rights, the complainant must comply with state dictated time periods. In fact, the "commenced" and "initially instituted" language suggests that time periods set by state law "are irrelevant--since by way of analogy, under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure even a time-barred action may be 'commenced' by the filing of a complaint." Oscar Mayer & Co. v. Evans, 441 U.S. 750, 759, 99 S.Ct. 2066, 2073, 60 L.Ed.2d 609 (1979), citing Fed.R.Civ.P. 3 and Magalotti v. Ford Motor Co., 418 F.Supp. 430, 434 (E.D.Mich.1976).
In fact, the previous analysis of the Title VII language is identical to Justice Brennan's statutory construction of ...
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