Equal Emp't Opportunity Comm'n v. FedEx Ground Package Sys., Inc.

158 F.Supp.3d 393

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Plaintiff,

v.FedEx Ground Package System, Inc., Defendant.

Civil Action No. 2:15-cv-256

United States District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania.

Signed January 25, 2016

Deborah A. Kane, Lisa H. Hernandez, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Pittsburgh, PA, Thomas Rethage, Jennifer L. Hope, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Philadelphia, PA, Debra M. Lawrence, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Baltimore, MD, Maria L. Morocco, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.

Christina Kepplinger Johansen, John C. Snyder, Michael W. Higginbotham, FedEx Ground Package System, Inc., Moon Township, PA, Grace E. Speights, Matthew J. Sharbaugh, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, Washington, DC, for Defendant.

OPINION

Mark R. Hornak, United States District Judge

The big issues in this case are whether the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) can bring a federal civil lawsuit to end what it claims to be employment practices made unlawful by the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), achieve compensatory relief for specific job applicants and employees as it does so, and whether that effort requires the EEOC's compliance with Rule 23 doctrines. The Court concludes that the answer to the first two questions is yes, and to the third, no.

FedEx Ground Package System, Inc. (“FedEx Ground”) has moved to dismiss a Complaint filed by the EEOC alleging unlawful discrimination on the basis of disability. See ECF No. 47; ECF No. 1. In the alternative, FedEx Ground has moved to strike the EEOC's “pattern or practice” related allegations in its Complaint. ECF No. 47. The main dispute now centers on the scope of the EEOC's litigation authority, with FedEx Ground arguing that the EEOC must bring these claims as hundreds of individual federal lawsuits and the EEOC countering that no, it can bring them in just this one.

The issues were robustly briefed, see ECF Nos. 48; 56; 63; 67; 74, and the Court has carefully reviewed all submissions and held a lengthy oral argument on September 11, 2015. Because the Court concludes that the EEOC has statutory litigation authority to bring this suit, that Circuit precedent does not pretermit or limit the EEOC's statutory litigation authority in this case, and that the ADA does not require identification of any singular discriminatory procedure or policy in this context, FedEx Ground's Motions are denied.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is charged with enforcing federal laws that prohibit various forms of discrimination against job applicants and employees. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–5 ; EEOC, Overview , http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/index.cfm (last visited Jan. 4, 2016). One form of employment discrimination outlawed in the United States is discrimination on the basis of disability. See 42 U.S.C. § 12117(a) (Section 107(a) of the Americans with Disabilities Act, incorporating by reference Section 706 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”)); 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(2) (Section 102 of the Civil Rights Act of 1991). The EEOC brought this suit to remedy what it alleges is such unlawful discrimination by FedEx Ground.

The EEOC says that FedEx Ground violated the ADA by discriminating against deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals who worked in, and applied for, Package Handler positions with the company. See ECF No. 1. The stated qualifications for the job are modest. To be hired for such entry-level positions, applicants must be at least eighteen years old and pass a criminal background check. Id. at 6, ¶¶16-17.¹ Applicants complete an application, attend a mandatory sort-observation tour (where they see an active package handling shift, loading and unloading delivery vehicles, the conveyor systems, scanning, sorting, and routing of packages), and participate in an interview. Id. at 6, 20-22.

Package Handlers perform a variety of tasks that would require accommodation if they are to be performed by deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals. For example, the scanners used to scan package barcodes typically emit an audible beep, id. at 6, 23, and regular meetings and training sessions often contain auditory presentations and/or videos, id. at 7, 28. The EEOC says that in all phases of hiring, training, orienting, and employing Package Handlers, FedEx Ground failed to make reasonable accommodations required by law for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals. Specifically, the EEOC charges that FedEx Ground failed to engage in a good faith interactive process to identify those reasonable accommodations, and that such failure resulted in impermissible employment discrimination. Id. at 9, 31.

Seventeen (17) deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals filed Charges of Discrimination against FedEx Ground, which the EEOC then consolidated as part of a nationwide systemic investigation of potential ADA violations. Id. at 4–5, 8–9. The EEOC then issued Letters of Determination notifying FedEx Ground that it had reasonable cause to believe FedEx Ground had violated the ADA. The parties then engaged in a process of conciliation, conference, and persuasion. Id. at 5, 9–10. Those efforts were unsuccessful and the EEOC brought this suit for the benefit of the seventeen Charging Parties and other “similarly aggrieved individuals.” See id. It seeks a permanent injunction to prevent FedEx Ground from engaging in disability discrimination; an order directing FedEx Ground to implement policies, practices, and programs to provide equal employment opportunities and reasonable accommodations for aggrieved individuals; back pay; compensation for past and future pecuniary and non-pecuniary losses; instatement of aggrieved individuals or front pay; and punitive damages. In response, FedEx Ground filed the pending Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's Systemic Discrimination Complaint or, in the alternative, Motion to Strike Plaintiff's Pattern-or-Practice-Related Allegations from the Complaint. ECF No. 47.

II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW

A. Motion to Dismiss

A Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted is evaluated under the standards set forth in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) and Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). “[A] complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (citing Twombly , 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ). “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937.

The Court must accept all facts alleged in the complaint as true and construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party-here, the EEOC. See Flor a v. Cnty. of Luzerne , 716 F.3d 169, 175 (3d Cir.2015). Further, the Court may not make findings of fact or resolve any factual disputes. Id.

B. Motion to Strike

Under Rule 12(f), the Court has broad discretion to “strike from a pleading an insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f). “[I]f class treatment is evidently inappropriate from the face of the complaint,” Rule 12(f) can be invoked to strike class-like allegations. Zarichny v. Complete Payment Recovery Serves., Inc. , 80 F.Supp.3d 610, 615–16 (E.D.Pa.2015) ; see also Semenko v. Wendy's Int'l, Inc. , 12–0836, 2013 WL 1568407, at *11 (W.D.Pa. Apr. 12, 2013) (striking ADA class allegations because “no amount of discovery [would] demonstrate that the class can be maintained.”).

III. LEGAL ANALYSIS

FedEx Ground moved to dismiss the Complaint, or in the alternative to strike what it styles as “pattern or practice related” allegations in it, based on an essentially unitary argument: that the EEOC must prove that unlawful disability discrimination resulted from some discrete and specific policy or procedure by FedEx Ground and that each deaf and hard-of-hearing employee and applicant is “qualified” under the ADA. This, FedEx Ground maintains, is an inherently fact-specific and individualized analysis precluding any sort of class-wide or “pattern or practice” treatment and therefore this suit cannot go forward in its current form. Bottom line, argues FedEx Ground, the EEOC and/or individual applicants or employees must pursue ADA claims in a series of one-off federal lawsuits. As will be seen, however, FedEx Ground underestimates the EEOC's statutory litigation authority and confuses what the EEOC can allege with how it can prove the allegations. As such, the motions will be denied and the suit can proceed to the next step.

A. The EEOC's Litigation Authority

The EEOC has broad power to “prevent any person from engaging in any unlawful employment practice.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–5. Specifically, the EEOC is authorized to bring civil actions against discriminating employers. Id. § 2000e–5(f)(1). Of particular relevance here are the twin aims of such EEOC litigation. First, and most obviously, the EEOC can bring a suit on behalf of particular individuals, lending its institutional and societal heft to an effort to remedy discrete events of employment discrimination. EEOC litigation also serves an entirely separate and distinct purpose: the vindication of rights protected by federal anti-discrimination laws. That purpose exists wholly apart from securing relief for individual victims; indeed the injury that the EEOC was designed to remedy is the violation itself and not only the actual harm imposed on an employee or applicant for employment. This means that the EEOC is not simply a proxy for individual employees, see Gen. Tel. Co. v. EEOC , 446 U.S. 318,326, 100 S.Ct. 1698, 64 L.Ed.2d 319 (1980) ; rather it litigates in the public interest, EEOC...