District Court's Erroneous Dismissal Results In Disaster For Title VII Plaintiffs And Their Lawyer
LEE v. COOK COUNTY (March 22, 2011)
Twelve African-American Cook County employees believed that the County discriminated against them on account of their race in making promotions. They filed a charge with the EEOC. The EEOC issued right-to-sue letters in March 2008. The employees brought suit pursuant to Title VII in May of 2008, well within the 90-day window. Judge Castillo (N.D. Ill.) did not think that the twelve plaintiffs belonged in the same suit. So, in a September 18 order, he dismissed the complaint without prejudice and gave each individual plaintiff 40 days within which to file an individual action. But three of the plaintiffs waited over seven months before filing their individual actions. Judge Kendall (N.D. Ill.) and Judge St. Eve (N.D. Ill.) dismissed the individual actions as untimely. Plaintiffs appeal.
In their opinion, Chief Judge Easterbrook and Judges Cudahy and Posner affirmed -- and issued sanctions. The Court first pointed out that there was nothing improper about the original filing. Rule 20 only requires multiple plaintiffs to share a common question of law or fact, which we have here. It does not require that a common question predominate, as do the class action rules. The district court therefore erred when it dismissed the complaint. The plaintiffs should have appealed, but they did not. Instead, the plaintiffs waited several months, refiled, and appeal the dismissal of the refiled complaints. So the Court turned to the merits of the actual appeal and agreed with the district courts that refiled actions were untimely. First, the district court's order directing the plaintiffs to file individual actions within 40 days did not extend the statute of limitations or the EEOC filing window. Second, equitable tolling requires a litigant to pursue his rights diligently. Plaintiffs' lawyer did anything but. Third, the Court rejected plaintiffs' argument that the defendants either waived or waited too long to assert the limitations defense. Having resolved the merits of the case against the plaintiffs, the Court turned to their lawyer. It noted his "calamitous handling" of the case in the district court, the "sloppy performance" in the appellate court, his several procedural gaffes, his failure to file required pleadings, his grossly inadequate response to the Court’s order to show cause, and his numerous violations of the Circuit Rules. The Court reprimanded the attorney, fined him $5000, and ordered him to send a copy of the opinion to his clients.
Tamika Jones, an African-American female, has several complaints about the way she was treated during her employment at Res-Care. She claims she was promoted in both 2003 and 2004 and acquired increased job responsibilities without an increase in compensation -- unlike several non-African-American employees. She claims she had to specially request time off and that she was denied tuition reimbursement -- unlike several non-African-American employees. She claims she was passed over for promotions in April and November of 2005 and June of 2006 – in favor of non-African-American employees. She filed an EEOC charge in August of 2006, referring to the November 2005 failure to promote and the tuition reimbursement treatment. In 2007, while under specific orders not to vary her work schedule without permission, she returned from her honeymoon three days early. She was given corrective action for the incident. She brought suit under Title VII in June of 2007. She filed a second EEOC charge in November of that year, claiming that the corrective action from the honeymoon incident was in retaliation for the first EEOC charge. She also amended her complaint accordingly. Testimony was elicited during discovery that the Executive Director, after an internal investigation established that Jones improperly charged her employer for some lunches, called her either a "rat" or a "fink" and referred to her as "untrustworthy" to another employee. Jones added a state law slander claim. Judge Lawrence (S.D. Ind.) granted summary judgment to Res-Care on all claims. Jones appeals..jpg)
The Chicago Teachers Union fired Earl Prince from his job. Prince filed an administrative discrimination charge. He then brought an action pro se for employment discrimination under Title VII before he received any response from the Illinois Department of Human Rights or the EEOC. The district court dismissed the complaint because Prince had not yet received a right-to-sue letter. Several months later, after Prince had received the letter, the district court granted his motion to reopen the case. The court vacated the order, however, a few days later at Prince's request. Months later, on the last day to sue, Prince again moved to reopen the case. This time, the judge turned him down -- and it was too late to file a new complaint. Prince appeals.