Clement GABRIELE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHRYSLER CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee

573 F.2d 949, 1978 U.S. App. LEXIS 11795, 16 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 8228, 17 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 200
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit·Decided April 7, 1978·No. 76-2265·Published·Cited by 28 cases

Opinions

CELEBREZZE, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-appellant Clement Gabriele, a former employee of defendant-appellee Chrysler Corporation, filed an action in the district court alleging that his employment was terminated on the basis of age in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-34. The district court granted Chrysler’s motion for summary judgment based upon Gabriele’s failure to timely file an age discrimination complaint with the Michigan Civil Rights Commission (MCRC). 416 F.Supp. 666 (E.D.Mich.1976). The principal issue raised on appeal is whether timely resort to an agency charged with enforcement of state age discrimination laws is a prerequisite to filing suit under the ADEA in federal court.1 We hold that the ADEA imposes no such prerequisite and reverse the judgment.

Gabriele was employed by Chrysler as an engineer from 1965 until he was laid off on May 9, 1975. On August 15, 1975, he filed a complaint with the MCRC alleging age discrimination.2 On September 3, 1975, he was informed by the MCRC that it could not accept the complaint since it was not filed within ninety days of the alleged discriminatory act, as then required by Michigan [951] law.3 On November 6, 1975, he filed an action in the district court, alleging that the sixty-day advance notice of intent to sue, required by 29 U.S.C. § 626(d), had been given to the Secretary of Labor, which Chrysler does not contest. Thus, the notice to the Secretary of Labor was necessarily given within the 180-day period set forth in 29 U.S.C. § 626(d)(1).4

The district court held that this largely uncontested procedural history deprived it-of jurisdiction since it read 29 U.S.C. § 633(b)5 as mandating prior resort to an appropriate state agency before one could bring suit in federal court. It relied heavily upon cases which have held that provisions of the ADEA should be construed consistently with parallel language in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Noting that 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(c),6 a Title VII provision parallel to § 633(b), has usually been interpreted to require' prior resort to an appropriate state agency before a charge can be filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the district court imposed a similar requirement on ADEA suits. The court also relied upon cases from this Court which it read as making a timely filing of notice of intent to sue with the Secretary of Labor, § 626(d), a jurisdictional prerequisite to an ADEA suit in federal court. The district court finally noted that Congress must have been aware that some states had shorter filing periods under their age discrimination laws than [952] the 180-day federal period and must have tacitly approved them when enacting the ADEA. This was said to justify the holding that one must not only first file a complaint with the appropriate state agency, but that filing must also be timely under state law, in order to proceed in federal court. The district court was not persuaded by arguments that its holding effectively turned the state filing limit into the federal filing limit, even though the former was only one-half of the latter.

Our research discloses a Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision which addressed the narrow but important question presented herein. Goger v. H. K. Porter Co., 492 F.2d 13 (3d Cir. 1974).7 In Goger, relied upon by the district court, the court held that although § 633(b)

does not require an aggrieved person to exhaust state remedies as a condition precedent to the institution of a federal suit, it does require that the State be given a threshold period of sixty days in which it may attempt to resolve the controversy, normally by voluntary compliance.

Id. at 15.

Its ratio decidendi was that § 633(b) was nearly identical to 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(c)

and courts have repeatedly interpreted the latter as requiring that appropriate state agencies be given a prior opportunity to consider discrimination complaints before resorting to the federal courts.

Id. at 15-16 (footnote omitted).

The court could not find anything in the ADEA’s legislative history to justify a different interpretation of § 633(b). The court held, however, that equitable considerations in that case excused the plaintiff’s failure to resort to the appropriate state agency and the case was remanded to the district court for a hearing on the merits.8

Judge Garth filed a concurring opinion in Goger in which he agreed that the case should be remanded for consideration of the merits of the complaint. He disagreed, however, that § 633(b)’s similarity to 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(c) mandated construing the two statutes similarly. He concluded “there is no requirement that a plaintiff must first attempt to utilize available state remedies before filing suit under the 1967 Act.” Id. at 17. He approved the position taken there by the Secretary of Labor as amicus curiae that resort to a state agency is completely optional and that § 633(b)’s sixty-day waiting period applies only if one has chosen to pursue state relief.9

[953] We agree with the reasoning of Judge Garth in Goger and reject the holding of the majority in that case.10

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Clement GABRIELE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHRYSLER CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee, 573 F.2d 949, 1978 U.S. App. LEXIS 11795, 16 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 8228, 17 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 200 (6th Cir. 1978).

573 F.2d 949 (Clement GABRIELE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHRYSLER CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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