EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Applicant-Appellee, v. BAY SHIPBUILDING CORPORATION, Respondent-Appellant

668 F.2d 304, 27 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1377, 33 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 287, 1981 U.S. App. LEXIS 14776, 27 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 32,314
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedDecember 31, 1981
Docket81-1328
StatusPublished
Cited by68 cases

This text of 668 F.2d 304 (EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Applicant-Appellee, v. BAY SHIPBUILDING CORPORATION, Respondent-Appellant) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Applicant-Appellee, v. BAY SHIPBUILDING CORPORATION, Respondent-Appellant, 668 F.2d 304, 27 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1377, 33 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 287, 1981 U.S. App. LEXIS 14776, 27 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 32,314 (7th Cir. 1981).

Opinions

CUMMINGS, Chief Judge.

In July 1980 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) applied to the district court for an order requiring Bay Shipbuilding Corporation (Bay) to obey a subpoena duces tecum issued by the EEOC and served upon Bay on March 6, 1980. The district court granted enforcement of the subpoena and Bay appealed to this Court. We granted a stay pending resolution of the appeal but now affirm.

Bay was the employer of a security guard, Ann Marie Keller. According to the affidavit accompanying the EEOC’s application for enforcement of its administrative subpoena, on July 26, 1978, Keller filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC’s Milwaukee, Wisconsin, District Office alleging that Bay discriminated against her and other women because of their sex by denying them access into Bay’s electrical department and its electrical training/apprenticeship program. In June 1979, Keller’s charge was designated by the EEOC for special treatment under the EEOC’s “Early Litigation Identification Program” (App. 31). The “ELI” program identifies charges suitable for an expanded, litigation-oriented investigation covering discriminatory practices like those affecting the “charging party,” Keller in this case (EEOC Compliance Manual § 12). About five weeks later, at the suggestion of the EEOC’s Milwaukee District Office, Keller amended her original charge to allege that Bay aiso discriminated against women employees by denying them access into the job classifications of “expediter, draftsman, carpenters, painters, pipe-fitters, outside cleanup crew and labor positions in reference to hiring, job assignments, training, transfers and promotions” (App. 49). The original charge was served on Bay in July 1978 and the amended charge a year thereafter.

As stated in the EEOC affidavit, in December 1979 the EEOC sent Bay a questionnaire consisting of twenty inquiries with respect to Bay's employment practices.1 The questionnaire was prompted by an earlier ruling by the court below that the EEOC’s investigation was then too incomplete to warrant a preliminary injunction. EEOC v. Bay Shipbuilding Corp., 480 F.Supp. 925 (E.D.Wis.1979). Bay refused to comply with the questionnaire. Consequently a subpoena duces tecum was served upon Bay on March 6, 1980, directing Bay to respond to the questionnaire by March 14, 1980. The subpoena was authorized by Section 709(a) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which grants the EEOC “access to * * * and the right to copy any evidence of any person being investigated or proceeded against that relates to unlawful employment practices * * * and is relevant to the charge under investigation” (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-8(a)). In 1972, Congress [307]*307amended Title VII to give the EEOC the investigatory powers contained in 29 U.S.C. § 161 (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-9). By this amendment Congress granted the district courts jurisdiction to enforce subpoenas “upon application” by the EEOC (29 U.S.C. § 161(2)).

On the last day for compliance with the subpoena, Bay mailed the EEOC a petition to revoke the subpoena based upon fifteen objections to the ELI program, the amended charge, and the questionnaire.2 On April 4, 1980, the EEOC’s Milwaukee District Office denied the petition but extended the return date for the subpoena from March 14, 1980, to April 14, 1980. In a fifteen-page document the EEOC’s “determination” carefully answered each of Bay’s objections to compliance with the subpoena (App. 74-88).

On April 9, 1980, Bay requested the EEOC’s general counsel to overrule the Milwaukee District Office’s denial of Bay’s petition to revoke the subpoena. The appeal was denied by the EEOC’s general counsel on May 20, 1980, but he further extended the return date to June 9, 1980. In this “determination” the general counsel adopted each ground used in the District Office’s prior denial (App. 121-122). On June 6 the EEOC proposed a settlement with Bay which was rejected on June 13, 1980, resulting in the July 2,1980, EEOC application to the district court for enforcement of its administrative subpoena.

On July 30 Bay moved to dismiss the application on the ground that it was not a pleading within Rule 7(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure3 and furthermore did not state a claim upon which relief could be granted. This motion was supported by a brief suggesting that if the application were not dismissed, it should be treated as a complaint to which Bay could file an answer. On August 5, 1980, the EEOC filed its brief requesting that defendant’s motion to dismiss be denied “and that an immediate hearing be set on Plaintiff’s application for subpoena enforcement” (App. 143). Bay filed a reply brief on August 19 asking permission to file an answer and counterclaim in response to the application of the EEOC. In the reply brief Bay also asserted that the EEOC application did not state a claim because it did not allege that (1) “the subpoena was issued pursuant to an investigation within the lawful authority of the plaintiff;” (2) “the subpoena is not indefinite;” and (3) “the information requested is relevant” (App. 150). In an August 22 letter to the district judge, the EEOC urged him to grant an expeditious hearing or deny the motion to dismiss outright, with five days for Bay to comply with the subpoena (App. 153).

About six months later, on February 12, 1981, the district court granted the EEOC’s application to enforce the subpoena and denied Bay’s motions to dismiss and to file an answer and counterclaim (25 EDP If 31,635). Bay was ordered to comply with the subpoena by February 17, and its request for a stay pending appeal was denied.

In his decision and order enforcing the subpoena, Judge Evans rejected Bay’s contention that the EEOC application could not institute a civil action because it was not a “complaint” within Rules 3 and 7(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The court held that Rule 81(a)(3) applied instead, which states that the Rules do not apply to proceedings for the enforcement of a subpoena if “otherwise provided by statute * * * or by order of the court in the proceedings.” The court noted that the relevant statute did not require subpoena enforcement to begin with the filing of a complaint but rather “upon application” by the agency (19 U.S.C. § 161(2)). Even without this statutory deviation from the Rules, under Rule 81(a)(3) the court could have ordered that a complaint was unneces[308]*308sary. The court then held that since no complaint was required under the Rules, no answer 'would be allowed.

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668 F.2d 304, 27 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1377, 33 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 287, 1981 U.S. App. LEXIS 14776, 27 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 32,314, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/equal-employment-opportunity-commission-applicant-appellee-v-bay-ca7-1981.