Equal Employment Opportunity Comm'n v. Fry's Electronics Inc.

770 F.Supp.2d 1168

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff,

v.FRY'S ELECTRONICS, INC., Defendant.

No. C10–1562RSL.

United States District Court, W.D. Washington.

March 17, 2011.

John Freeman Stanley, May R. Che, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Seattle, WA, William R. Tamayo, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, San Francisco, CA, for Plaintiff.Patricia A. Eakes, Rachel L. Hong, Yarmuth Wilsdon Calfo PLLC, Seattle, WA, for Defendant.

ORDER DENYING AMERICA RIOS' MOTION TO INTERVENE

ROBERT S. LASNIK, District Judge.I. Introduction

This matter comes before the Court on “Intervenor Plaintiff America Rios' Motion to Intervene.” Dkt. # 29. Plaintiff, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), filed this lawsuit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 to correct defendant Fry's Electronics' allegedly discriminatory and retaliatory employment practices and to recover appropriate relief for the two individuals who were adversely affected by those practices, namely Ka Lam and America Rios. The parties agreed that Mr. Lam should be permitted to intervene as of right in the above-captioned matter, and he was permitted to intervene by the Court's February 14, 2011 order, 2011 WL 666328. Dkt. # 44. Ms. Rios now moves to intervene.

Having considered the memoranda, declarations, and exhibits submitted by the parties, the Court finds as follows:

II. Analysis

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 authorizes the EEOC, upon the filing of a charge of discrimination, to notify the employer, investigate the charge, and attempt to conciliate. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–5(b). If conciliation fails, the EEOC is authorized to bring a civil action against the employer on behalf of the complainant. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–5(f). The EEOC is also authorized to bring suit on behalf of individuals who did not file a charge if it discovers other violations in the course of a “reasonable investigation” into a valid charge. EEOC v. Occidental Life Ins. Co. of California, 535 F.2d 533, 541–42 (9th Cir.1976).

Aggrieved individuals who wish to file suit or to intervene in a suit brought by the EEOC on their behalf are ordinarily required to exhaust their administrative remedies. See Sosa v. Hiraoka, 920 F.2d 1451, 1456 (9th Cir.1990). Plaintiffs exhaust their administrative remedies by, inter alia, filing a charge of discrimination with the EEOC within the limitation period contained in Section 2000e–5(e). “Incidents of discrimination not included in an EEOC charge may not be considered by a federal court unless the new claims are ‘like or reasonably related to the allegations contained in the EEOC charge.’ ” Green v. Los Angeles Cty. Superintendent of Schools, 883 F.2d 1472, 1475–76 (9th Cir.1989) (quoting Brown v. Puget Sound Elec. Apprent. & Training Trust, 732 F.2d 726, 729 (9th Cir.1984)). The purpose behind the exhaustion requirement “is to place the employer on notice of an impending suit that he can try to head off by negotiating with the complainant, utilizing the conciliation services offered by the EEOC.” Horton v. Jackson Cty. Bd. of Cty. Comm'rs, 343 F.3d 897, 899 (7th Cir.2003) (citation omitted); see also Moore v. City of San Jose, 615 F.2d 1265, 1271 (9th Cir.1980) (“In enacting Title VII, Congress has specifically endorsed voluntary compliance and settlement as the preferred means of achieving the elimination of unlawful employment discrimination.” (citation omitted)).

Individuals who file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC (like Mr. Lam) have an unconditional right to intervene in suits that the EEOC brings on their behalf. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–5(f)(1). The right to intervene of individuals who do not file a charge with the EEOC, on the other hand, is not clear from the statutory text and is the subject of some debate. See, e.g., Anson v. Univ. of Tex. Health Science Center at Houston, 962 F.2d 539, 541–42 (5th Cir.1992) (discussing treatment of non-charging Title VII intervenors among various circuits). While these individuals have failed to exhaust their administrative remedies, one could argue that barring an individual from intervening in a suit brought on his or her behalf is overly formalistic and at odds with the policies behind Title VII.

Plaintiff-intervenor Rios puts forth two arguments why she should be able to intervene in this matter: a) because the statutory text affords her an unconditional right to intervene; and alternatively b) because her claims are so related to those of plaintiff Lam that they should be excepted from the exhaustion requirement under the “single filing rule.”

A. Statutory Right of Intervention

Plaintiff-intervener Rios argues that she must be permitted to intervene under Rule 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which requires that “[o]n timely motion, the court must permit anyone to intervene who: (1) is given an unconditional right to intervene by a federal statute.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 24(a). With respect to the timeliness requirement, the parties debate whether Ms. Rios' motion to intervene was submitted in accordance with the deadlines established in the Court's December 7, 2010 order (Dkt. # 23). The Court's order set a January 4, 2011 deadline for joining additional parties, and Ms. Rios filed her motion to intervene on December 23, 2010. See Minute Order (Dkt. # 23) at 1; Motion to Intervene (Dkt. # 29). Because the Court finds Ms. Rios' motion to be submitted in a timely fashion, it must grant her motion if a statute of the United States grants her an unconditional right to intervene.

Ms. Rios relies on the provision of Title VII that states that “[t]he person or persons aggrieved shall have the right to intervene in a civil action brought by the [EEOC].” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–5(f)(1). This right to intervene granted to “persons aggrieved” must be read in concert with Title VII's exhaustion requirement. See Lyons v. England, 307 F.3d 1092, 1104 (9th Cir.2002) (“To establish federal subject matter jurisdiction, a plaintiff is required to exhaust his or her administrative remedies before seeking adjudication of a Title VII claim.” (citation omitted)). Furthermore, the structure of Section 2000e–5(f)(1) as a whole supports the interpretation that only complainants who have filed a charge with the EEOC have an unconditional right to intervene. Section 2000e–5(f)(1) elsewhere requires the EEOC to notify “the person aggrieved” if it dismisses their administrative charge or decides not to pursue a civil action; upon receipt of such notice, the individual may bring a civil action against the respondent named in the charge. Under this provision, the person whom the EEOC is required to notify, and who thereby gains the right to sue, is clearly the person who filed the charge rather than every person who might have constitutional standing to sue because they were injured or “aggrieved.” This specific use of the term “person aggrieved” is within the same statutory subsection that describes the right of intervention. Because courts “interpret identical phrases used in the same statute to bear the same meaning,” the Court finds that Congress intended to limit the right of intervention to those “persons aggrieved” who previously filed a charge with the EEOC. United States v. Maciel–Alcala, 612 F.3d 1092, 1098 (9th Cir.2010) (citing Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U.S. 561, 570, 115 S.Ct. 1061, 131 L.Ed.2d 1 (1995)). “[I]f Congress intended for the person who filed the charge (“the person aggrieved”) to be the only person statutorily entitled to notice and consequently to file suit in the event the EEOC dismissed or declined to act on the charge, Congress must also have intended for the person who filed the charge (“the person aggrieved”) to be the only person statutorily entitled to intervene in the event the EEOC determined to commence a civil action based on the charge.” Spirt v. Teachers Ins. and Annuity Ass'n, 93 F.R.D. 627, 640 (S.D.N.Y.1982), rev'd on other grounds, 691 F.2d 1054 (2d Cir.1982).¹

Accordingly, the Court finds that plaintiff-intervenor Rios does not have an unconditional right to intervene under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–5(f)(1). Ms. Rios may thus be permitted to intervene only if her failure to exhaust her administrative remedies is excused by the “single filing rule.”

B. The “Single Filing Rule”

The single filing rule is an exception to the exhaustion requirement “which provides that ‘in a multiple-plaintiff, non-class action suit, if one plaintiff has filed a timely EEOC complaint as to that plaintiff's individual claim, then co-plaintiffs with individual claims arising out of similar discriminatory treatment in the same time frame need not have satisfied the filing requirement.’ ” Foster v. Ruhrpumpen, Inc., 365 F.3d 1191, 1197 (10th Cir.2004) (quoting Allen v. United States Steel Corp., 665 F.2d 689, 695 (5th Cir.1982)). The rule is “universally recognized.” Foster, 365 F.3d at 1197; see also Anson, 962 F.2d at 541 (federal courts “universally hold” that rule applies “under certain conditions”). “The policy behind the single filing rule is that it would be wasteful, if not vain, for numerous employees, all with the same grievance, to have to process many identical complaints with the EEOC.” Thiessen v. Gen. Elec. Capital Corp., 267 F.3d 1095, 1110 (10th Cir.2001) (internal quotation omitted). If “[t]he purpose of requiring exhaustion of administrative remedies in Title VII cases is to place the employer on notice of an impending suit that he can try to head off by negotiating with the complainant, utilizing the conciliation services offered by the EEOC,” that purpose “is not engaged when the same claim has been the subject of a timely charge by another employee of this employer.” Horton, 343 F.3d at 899.

In order for a non-charging party to be exempt from the exhaustion requirement under the single filing rule, district courts typically require that the claims be “nearly identical”...