Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators & Paperhangers of America, Local 857

384 F. Supp. 1264, 8 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1291, 19 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 683, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11887, 9 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 9916
CourtDistrict Court, D. South Dakota
DecidedNovember 26, 1974
DocketNo. CIV 74-4022
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 384 F. Supp. 1264 (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators & Paperhangers of America, Local 857) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. South Dakota 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 v. Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators & Paperhangers of America, Local 857, 384 F. Supp. 1264, 8 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1291, 19 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 683, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11887, 9 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 9916 (D.S.D. 1974).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM DECISION

NICHOL, Chief Judge.

This is a suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e, at seq. Each of the defendants is amenable to suit under the provisions of Title VII. The required conciliation procedures having failed, EEOC alleges that defendant Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators and Paperhangers of America, Local 857 (hereinafter Local 857), engaged in unlawful employment practices at its referral hall by: 1) failing and refusing to refer American Indians on the same basis as it refers its non-American Indian members, and 2) failing and refusing to admit American Indians to union membership on the same basis as it admits non-American Indian persons. Defendant International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades (hereinafter the International) and defendant Sioux Falls Chapter of the Painting and Decorating Contractors are named pursuant to Rule 19(a) (2) (ii) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

This memorandum decision constitutes findings and rulings on three motions before the court: 1) Clyde Low Dog’s motion to intervene as a party plaintiff, 2) defendant International’s motion to dismiss it as a party to the suit, and 3) plaintiff’s and plaintiff-intervenor’s motions to strike defendant Local 857’s demand for a jury trial. Briefs on the motions having been submitted and studied, the motions will be discussed and ruled upon seriatim.

LOW DOG’S MOTION TO INTERVENE

Clyde Low Dog filed the discrimination complaint bringing this matter to the attention of the EEOC. He now seeks to intervene in this lawsuit, claiming he is given a right to intervene by Rule 24(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and by 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f) (!)■

Rule 24(a) provides:

(a) Intervention of Right. Upon timely application anyone shall be permitted to intervene in an action: (1) when a statute of the United States confers an unconditional right to intervene; or (2) when the applicant claims an interest relating to the property or transaction which is the subject of the action and he is so situated that the disposition of the action may as a practical matter impair or impede his ability to protect that interest, unless the applicant’s interest is adequately represented by existing parties.

42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f) (1) appears to confer an unconditional right to intervene upon Low Dog. It provides in pertinent part: “The person . . . aggrieved shall have the right to intervene in a civil action brought by the Commission or the Attorney General in a case involving a government, governmental agency, or political subdivision.”

The meaning of this sentence could be subject to debate. It is possibly unclear whether the clause, “in a case involving a government, governmental agency, or political subdivision” refers only to cases brought by the Attorney General, or also to cases brought by EEOC. The statutory scheme provides, however, that EEOC cannot bring suits against a government, governmental agency, or political subdivision, id.; this would seem to indicate that the clause referred to above applies only to cases brought by the Attorney General, thus an aggrieved person could intervene in any case brought by EEOC. The same conclusion is supportable on the basis of the rules of statutory construction. It is a general rule of statutory construction that modifying phrases or clauses should be referred to the word, phrase, or clause with which they are grammatically connected. McClurg et al. v. Kingsland et al., 42 U.S. (1 How.) 202, 11 L.Ed. 102 (1843). In the sentence under analysis, then, the clause, “in a case involving a government . . .,” refers [1267]*1267only to eases brought by the Attorney General because the clause is not grammatically connected to the words “the Commission.” The proper interpretation, in this court’s view, is, therefore, that the statute grants the person aggrieved an unconditional right to intervene in any case brought by the EEOC. Low Dog’s motion to intervene is, therefore, proper under Rule 24(a) and is granted.

DEFENDANT INTERNATIONAL’S MOTION TO DISMISS

Defendant International moves that the action be dismissed as to the International for essentially the following reasons: 1) The International was not a party to the proceedings before the EEOC, therefore it cannot be made a defendant in this case; 2) the International is not a necessary party to this action under Rule 19 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure because Local 857 is an autonomous body that negotiates its own collective bargaining agreements and enforces them and is not entitled to act on behalf of the International; and 3) the International maintains no offices and has no property or funds located in South Dakota.

A. The first question to be decided is whether the plaintiff’s failure to bring the International into the proceedings before the EEOC is a bar to naming it as a defendant in this action. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f) provides that if the conciliation efforts are unfruitful an action may be initiated in this court against those charged in the complaint to the EEOC. Thus, as a general rule, a party not charged before the EEOC could not be made a party to this action. Local 179, United Textile Workers v. Federal Paper Stock Co., 461 F.2d 849, 851 (8th Cir. 1972).

This rule, however, is not without exception. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said in Macklin v. Spector Freight Systems, Inc., 156 U.S.App.D.C. 69, 478 F.2d 979 (1973), that “requiring recourse to EEOC against all Title VII defendants is not absolute, as where a defendant who was not called before EEOC is an indispensable party under Rule 19, Fed.R.Civ.P.” Id. at 993 n. 25. Although this language was dicta, it was found persuasive and relied upon in Held v. Missouri Pacific Railroad Co., 373 F.Supp. 996, 999 (S.D.Tex.1974). The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has also indicated that it does not consider a failure to bring a party before the EEOC an absolute bar to joining that party in an action under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5, Norman v. Missouri Pacific Railroad, 414 F.2d 73, 84-85 (1969). This court agrees that when a party should be joined under Rule 19, failure to bring that party before the EEOC is not cause for outright dismissal of the action as to that defendant.

B.

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384 F. Supp. 1264, 8 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1291, 19 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 683, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11887, 9 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 9916, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/equal-employment-opportunity-commission-v-brotherhood-of-painters-sdd-1974.