In an important decision issued last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Mach Mining v. EEOC that a court has the authority to review whether the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has met its statutory duty under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to conciliate a discrimination claim.
Although Mach Mining arguably was a win for the employer — the EEOC had unsuccessfully claimed that the adequacy of its conciliation efforts were not subject to judicial review — most courts that have addressed the issue have found the agency met its duty, most recently in the first federal appeals court ruling to be decided on point.
In EEOC v. The Geo Group, Inc., No. 13-16292 (9th Cir. March 14, 2016), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a trial court and reinstated a sex discrimination lawsuit brought by the EEOC. The court found that the agency satisfied its statutory duty by attempting to conciliate the individual charging party’s claims along with the claims of a class of unidentified women that came to light during the agency’s charge investigation.
Even though the underlying charge was limited to the charging party’s own individual claims, the appeals court found that the EEOC’s failure to specifically identify or individually conciliate the claims of additional alleged victims who were revealed during the agency’s investigation did not amount to a failure by the EEOC to satisfy its statutory mandate.
A copy of the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in Geo Group is available here.
Members of the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC) can read more here.