NT Lakis Brief to Tenth Circuit Argues That Lower Court Ruled Correctly in Denying Enforcement of Overly-Broad EEOC Subpoena

NT Lakis lawyers have filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in an important case involving the limitations on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) authority to demand information from an employer as part of a discrimination charge investigation.

Our brief to the appeals court in the case of EEOC v. TriCore Reference Laboratories, No. 16-2053 (10th Cir.), urges affirmance of a federal trial court decision that denied enforcement of a subpoena issued by the EEOC that sought company-wide data that had no relevance to the allegations of the individual discrimination charge brought under Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that the agency was investigating.

We argue that the EEOC’s now-common practice of issuing overly-broad subpoenas demanding information about matters not raised in the underlying charge disregards the plain language of Title VII, as well as Supreme Court and Tenth Circuit precedents, all of which make it clear that the EEOC is entitled only to require an employer to produce evidence relevant to the charge under investigation.

A copy of the brief is available here.

Members of the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC) can read more here.