A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) can seek class-wide compensatory and punitive damages when suing under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act without first having to prove that each class member was harmed by the employer’s alleged discriminatory action.
The court’s ruling comes in the case of EEOC v. Bass Pro Outdoor World, No. 15-20078 (5th Cir. June 17, 2016). Although Title VII contains two distinct provisions governing lawsuits brought by the EEOC, the Fifth Circuit glossed over any meaningful distinction between the two, thus approving a hybrid action which let the agency cherry-pick the provisions that gave it the most leverage.
NT Lakis lawyers had filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief in the case arguing that allowing the EEOC to obtain full statutory damages on behalf of a 50,000-member class without having to present any individual evidence of discrimination under a “hybrid” model would not serve the policies underlying Title VII. Indeed, the Fifth Circuit’s decision arguably has made it easier for the EEOC to construct massive class-based suits that will be very difficult to defend.
A copy of the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Bass Pro is available online here.
Members of the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC) can read more here.