Coen v. Riverside Hospital

2 F. App'x 449
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 18, 2001
DocketNo. 99-4412
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 2 F. App'x 449 (Coen v. Riverside Hospital) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Coen v. Riverside Hospital, 2 F. App'x 449 (6th Cir. 2001).

Opinions

PER CURIAM.

Holly Coen sued her former employer, Riverside Hospital (“Riverside”), pursuant [450]*450to the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12101, et seq., and the state disability discrimination statute, Ohio Rev.Code § 4112.02.

We affirm the opinion of District Judge James G. Carr granting summary judgment to defendants on the merits, but we find that plaintiff did not fulfill the procedural requirements of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) and that her case should have been dismissed on that ground. Defendants asserted the following defenses to the suit filed on May 27, 1997, based upon an alleged violation of the Americans With Disability Act (“ADA”):

Plaintiffs claims are barred because she failed to timely initiate and exhaust available administrative and contractual remedies. Plaintiff failed to comply with some or all of the procedural prerequisites for maintaining a claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. and/or the Ohio Fair Employment Practices Act, R.C. § 4112.02 et seq.
Some or all of the Plaintiffs claims are barred by the applicable statute of limitations.

The complaint averred that Coen was discharged May 9, 1996, and that she filed charges with the EEOC on or about August 6, 1996. She avers receipt of a “ ‘right to sue’ [‘RTS’] letter from the EEOC” on February 25,1997.1 There was an interval of ninety-one days from the date Coen says she received the right-to-sue letter and the filing of the suit. A legal holiday, Memorial Day, occurred on the ninetieth day, May 26,1997.

The EEOC letter, dated January 31, 1997 and postmarked February 10, 1997, rejected plaintiffs ADA claim and informed her of her right to bring suit within ninety days of her receipt of the notice with the ninety-day period limit emphasized by capital letters and underlining:

Title VII and/or the Americans with Disabilities Act: This is your NOTICE OF RIGHT TO SUE, which terminates the Commission’s processing of your charge. If you want to pursue your charge further, you have the right to sue the respondents) named in your charge in U.S. District Court. If you decide to sue, your must sue WITHIN 90 DAYS from your receipt of this Notice; otherwise your right to sue is lost.

Plaintiff does not deny that the postman left a notice of the EEOC letter at her address on February 12 and on February 19 before she picked up the letter allegedly on February 25, 1997. I believe it may be more than fortuitous that plaintiff claims she “received” the notice on the last possible date that might avoid an untimeliness defense.

This court recently held that “the deposit of a post attempt-to-deliver advisory at the claimant’s last known residential address of record within the five-day mailing interval ordinarily will constitute constructive receipt of the RTS notice by the claimant.” Graham-Humphreys v. Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Inc., 209 F.3d 552, 560 (6th Cir.2000). Graham-Humphreys reiterated that:

[t]he Sixth Circuit has resolved that notice is given, and hence the ninety-day limitations terms begins running, on the fifth day following the EEOC’s mailing of an RTS notification to the claimant’s record residential address, by virtue of a presumption of actual delivery and receipt within that five-day duration, unless the plaintiff rebuts that presump[451]*451tion with proof that he or she did not receive notification within that period.

Id. at 557 (footnote omitted); see King v. Henderson, No. 99-1800, 2000 WL 1478360 (6th Cir. Sept. 27, 2000) (unpublished) (following Grahamr-Humphreys); Hunter v. Stephenson Roofing, Inc., 790 F.2d 472, 474-75 (6th Cir.1986); Banks v. Rockwell Int’l N. Am. Aircraft Operations, 855 F.2d 324, 325-27 (6th Cir.1988). The following facts in Grahamr-Humphreys are strikingly similar to the facts in this case.

The EEOC letter notifying plaintiff of her right-to-sue was postmarked March 7, 1996, but plaintiff was not at her address to receive the notice. Then, the postman, on March 8, 1996 and March 13, 1996, left at her address the form Postal Service attempt-to-deliver notification, which stated that a certified letter addressed to the plaintiff could be claimed at the local post office. Plaintiff never picked up the letter, which was then returned to the EEOC. As a courtesy, an EEOC employee notified plaintiff that her letter had been returned, after which plaintiff obtained the letter. This court held that plaintiffs ninety-five-day period began to run from March 7, 1996, when the letter was postmarked, unless plaintiff proved she did not receive the letter within five days. 209 F.3d at 558. Grahamr-Humphreys decided that plaintiff had “constructively ‘received’ her RTS notification on March 8, 1996, the day that the letter carrier deposited the first of two official notifications,” and this was within five days of the posted date. Id. “Because [plaintiff] ‘received’ imputed notice of her right to litigate during the five-day mailing period (March 8 through March 13, 1996), the ninety-day limitations countdown began on March 13, 1996, the fifth day following the EEOC’s March 7, 1996 mailing.” Id.

In Grahamr-Humphreys, the court noted that plaintiff conceded that she knew, or suspected, that the certified delivery contained her right-to-sue letter, but it determined that if she had not conceded as much, she would still be properly charged with such knowledge, “because she indisputably knew that her RTS notice would be proximately arrived by United States mail,” and “most adult Americans are cognizant that critical, time-sensitive official communications are frequently dispatched via certified mail.” Id. at 559. The court also rejected plaintiffs equitable tolling argument, which is reviewed for abuse of discretion, and decided that “[t]he arguable absence of any significant prejudice to the defendant if this court were to permit the plaintiffs filing out of rule is immaterial, because no other factor supports the plaintiffs equitable tolling posture.” Id. at 561, 562 n. 12.

In this case, the district court erred in denying defendant’s motion to dismiss for untimeliness. Under Grahamr-Humphreys and other Sixth Circuit authority, the notice of attempted delivery left at Coen’s address on February 12, 1997, constituted constructive receipt of her letter, and her ninety-day period began to run on February 15, five days after the posted date on the RTS notification. Coen did not file her complaint with the district court until May 27, 1997, which was well over ninety-days after February 17.

As stated in King v. Henderson,

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