Taylor v. Gillis

405 F. Supp. 542, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14761, 11 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1250
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedDecember 18, 1975
DocketCiv. A. 73-2913
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 405 F. Supp. 542 (Taylor v. Gillis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Taylor v. Gillis, 405 F. Supp. 542, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14761, 11 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1250 (E.D. Pa. 1975).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

GORBEY, District Judge.

Plaintiff is a black female currently employed at the Army Support Center, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Plaintiff has brought this action against the federal government, claiming that she has been discriminated against in her employment by the government on the basis of race. Plaintiff claims a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16, 42 U.S.C. § 1981, the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Executive Orders No. 11246 and No. 11478.

At the direction of the court, plaintiff submitted a proposed final pretrial order to the government on November 3, 1975. Within this order, plaintiff submitted her proposed findings of fact. From a review of these proposed findings of fact, it is readily apparent that it is plaintiff’s intention at trial to prove that' the government has been discriminating against her since June, 1967. Plaintiff’s proposals outline five separate complaints which she intends to introduce evidence in support of at trial. In response to this proposed final pretrial order, the government has filed a motion for a pretrial order limiting plaintiff’s testimony and exhibits to be offered at trial. The government’s motion deals with whether or not this court has jurisdiction over the five separate complaints, each of which involves facts which occurred in five different years.

In determining jurisdiction under any of the bases alleged, the issue of sovereign immunity must be considered.

*544 “One cannot sue the United States without its consent and a court has no jurisdiction of a suit against the United States to which it has not consented.”
Gnotta v. United States, 415 F.2d 1271 (8th Cir. 1969).

A civil action against the federal government must be specifically authorized by law and plaintiff must be able to point to a constitutional provision, law or treaty which by its terms waives sovereign immunity and gives the consent of the government to be sued.

“It is well settled that a waiver of sovereign immunity must be specific and explicit; such a waiver cannot be implied by construction of an ambiguous statute.” United States v. Shaw, 309 U.S. 495, 60 S.Ct. 659, 84 L.Ed. 888; Penn v. Schlesinger, 490 F.2d 700 (5th Cir. 1973).

The Fifth Amendment and the Executive Orders clearly do not express an explicit waiver of sovereign immunity or establish a procedural remedy. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16 did expressly waive sovereign immunity. Before filing suit in a district court, however, under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a plaintiff must have exhausted his or her administrative remedies.

Plaintiff’s final alleged basis of jurisdiction is 42 U.S.C. § 1981. It is settled law that a federal employee plaintiff does have jurisdiction under § 1981 in a discrimination suit against the government. What is not settled is whether or not before filing suit in the district court alleging § 1981 as a basis of jurisdiction a federal employee must first exhaust his or her administrative remedies, as he or she must under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16. This is one of the two main issues of this case.

Plaintiff claims that exhaustion of remedies is not required in a case under § 1981. As authority she cites Young v. I.T.T., 438 F.2d 757 (3d Cir. 1971); Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U.S. 454, 95 S.Ct. 1716 44 L.Ed.2d 295 (1975) and numerous other cases, all of which, however, involved employment discrimination in the private sector. A quick review of these cases will reveal that there is no doubt that a private sector employee is not required to first exhaust his administrative remedies before filing suit under § 1981. However, since plaintiff here is a federal employee suing the federal government, these cases are not determinative of the issue herein.

Since the Third Circuit has not decided this point, I will refer to other circuits and to other district court opinions. Within our own circuit, Judge Bechtle, on September 27, 1974, in Ficklin v. Sabatini, 383 F.Supp. 1147 (E.D. Pa.), stated:

“The court is further convinced that, in order for a Federal employee to maintain a valid cause of action under § 1981, all available administrative remedies must first be exhausted. An independent cause of action challenging alleged racial discrimination in Federal employment may properly be brought under § 1981 only after the administrative remedies established by 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16 and the Commission’s regulations promulgated thereunder have been sufficiently ex-exhausted.”

In a decision decided earlier this year in the District Court of Maryland, Judge Young, citing a Fifth Circuit decision, stated:

“Only one circuit has considered the relationship between Title VII and section 1981 insofar as employment discrimination complaints against the federal government are concerned. In an en banc decision, Penn v. Schlesinger, 497 F.2d 970 (5th Cir. 1974), rev’g, 490 F.2d 700 (1973), the Fifth Circuit concluded that exhaustion of Title VII administrative remedies is required even where the plaintiff successfully skirts sovereign immunity with a section 1981 action.”
Wright v. National Archives and Rec *545 ords Service, 388 F.Supp. 1205, 1209 (D.Md.1975).

The plaintiff has not convinced me that I should disagree with the three above-mentioned decisions. Therefore, I hold that unless plaintiff has exhausted her administrative remedies for each claim, she will not be able to pursue that claim at trial. What I must finally determine then is for which complaints has plaintiff exhausted her administrative remedies.

Plaintiff states in her second proposed conclusion of law that she has exhausted federal government administrative remedies on two occasions, in 1969 and in 1973. Therefore, relying on plaintiff’s proposals and my previous determination concerning § 1981, it is determined that plaintiff is limited at most to these two complaints.

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Bluebook (online)
405 F. Supp. 542, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14761, 11 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1250, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/taylor-v-gillis-paed-1975.