NT Lakis lawyers have filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in an important Title VII case raising the issue of whether the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has the authority to continue to investigate a discrimination charge nearly two years after the agency had issued a right-to-sue letter and the charging party’s subsequent lawsuit had been dismissed as meritless by a federal court.
Our brief in EEOC v. Union Pacific, No. 15-3452 (brief filed September 23, 2016), urges the appeals court to reverse a trial court ruling enforcing an EEOC subpoena demanding extensive information from the company even though the original charge had been fully adjudicated.
We argue that enforcing a subpoena under these circumstances is contrary to the plain language of Title VII, established legal precedent, and even the EEOC’s own regulations, all of which support the notion that the agency does not have statutory authority to investigate charges that were subject to a right-to-sue notice, fully adjudicated by a court, and dismissed on the merits.
A copy of our brief in Union Pacific is available here.
Members of the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC) can read more here.