United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued October 14, 2010 Decided January 11, 2011
No. 09-5121
CYNTHIA ARTIS, ET AL.,
APPELLANTS
v.
BEN S. BERNANKE, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS
OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM,
APPELLEE
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 1:01-cv-00400)
Walter T. Charlton argued the cause and filed the briefs
for appellants.
Kenneth M. Willner argued the cause for appellee. With
him on the brief were Richard M. Ashton and Katherine H.
Wheatley, Associate General Counsel, Board of Governors of
the Federal Reserve System, and John L. Kuray, Senior
2
Counsel. R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney,
entered an appearance.
Before: BROWN, GRIFFITH and KAVANAUGH, Circuit
Judges.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge BROWN.
BROWN, Circuit Judge: Appellants are members of a
putative class of secretaries employed currently and formerly
by the Federal Reserve Board. They claim the Board
systematically discriminated against them on account of their
race in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42
U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. The district court dismissed the
complaint for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
Because we conclude the secretaries completed informal
counseling in a manner sufficient to give the Board an
opportunity to investigate their claims, we vacate the district
court’s dismissal of their complaint.
I
Some of these secretaries appeared before us in 1998
when we affirmed the district court’s dismissal of their first
putative class action without prejudice, due to their failure to
exhaust administrative remedies. Artis v. Greenspan (Artis I),
158 F.3d 1301, 1306–08 (D.C. Cir. 1998). Board regulations
provide that “[a]ggrieved persons who believe they have been
discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex,
national origin, age or disability must consult a Counselor prior
to filing a complaint in order to try to informally resolve the
matter.” 12 C.F.R. § 268.104(a). In Artis I, we held the putative
class failed to complete counseling before bringing their
claims of agency-wide discrimination. The would-be class
agents, who were all employed in a single division of the
3
Board, had failed to “identify any agency-wide discriminatory
personnel practices” in counseling. 158 F.3d at 1308. Instead,
“[t]he four named complainants only addressed Board-wide
complaints by way of asking for data on other secretaries.” Id.
at 1307.
While the Board’s motion to dismiss was pending in Artis
I, the same putative class initiated a new round of
counseling—this time represented by secretaries employed
throughout the Board. 1 The Board’s Equal Employment
Opportunity (“EEO”) counselors held group counseling
sessions on January 15 and February 13, 1997, attended by
several of the secretaries and their counsel. No
contemporaneous record of the group counseling sessions
exists.
On January 17, 1997, in response to the Board’s request
for information at the January 15 group counseling session, the
secretaries submitted fourteen identical copies of a document
entitled “Resubmission of Class-Action Complaint.” In that
document, the secretaries alleged “a systematic and pervasive
pattern of discrimination against African-American . . .
secretaries” by the Board. In particular, the secretaries claimed
the Board paid them lower salaries than non-minority
secretaries, awarded them fewer and smaller bonuses, granted
them fewer promotions, deflated their performance appraisals,
denied them privileges and training that non-minority
secretaries enjoyed, unfairly enforced leave procedures against
them, and discriminated against them in the quantity and
quality of work assignments.
1
For example, Barbara Carter was employed in the Bank Operations
Division, Donna Dorey by the Research and Statistics Division, and
Donna Love-Blackwell by the Banking Supervision and Regulation
Division.
4
Between approximately January 24 and February 18,
1997, the Board’s counselors met individually with nine
secretaries, including six who are named plaintiffs in this case.
In the individual counseling sessions, the secretaries confirmed
the general allegations in the “Resubmission,” and some of
them alleged specific instances of discrimination from
personal experience. The EEO counselors prepared reports
based on the notes they took in these individual counseling
sessions.
The secretaries filed their administrative complaint with
the Board on March 3, 1997, and it wound its way through the
adjudicatory functions of the Board and the U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) without
success. 2
2
The Board dismissed the secretaries’ administrative complaint on
July 23, 1997. The EEOC affirmed the Board’s decision on
November 18, 1998. Although we had filed our decision in Artis I
almost a month earlier, the EEOC found “no indication in the record
that the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit has issued a decision on the matter,” and concluded that
dismissal was appropriate to avoid the risk of “inconsistent rulings
by the United States Court of Appeals and the Commission.” See 29
C.F.R. § 1614.107(a)(1), (3) (“[T]he agency shall dismiss an entire
complaint . . . [t]hat . . . states the same claim that is pending before
or has been decided by the agency . . . or that was the basis of a civil
action decided by a United States District Court in which the
complainant was a party . . . .”). For reasons that are not clear on the
record before us, an EEOC Administrative Law Judge dismissed the
administrative class complaint again on December 18, 2000—again
on the ground that it was the subject of the present civil action, then
pending in the district court. The Board “fully implement[ed]” that
decision on January 30, 2001.
5
After we issued our decision in Artis I, the secretaries filed
the underlying complaint in the district court. 3 As in Artis I,
the Board moved to dismiss for failure to exhaust
administrative remedies. The district court denied the motion
and ordered discovery on the issue of exhaustion—specifically
“whether plaintiffs have satisfied their obligation to engage in
counseling” and whether “the administrative counseling
process was a futile exercise.” Artis v. Greenspan, 223 F.
Supp. 2d 149, 155 (D.D.C. 2002).
Following five years of contentious discovery, the Board
renewed its motion to dismiss in 2005. The district court
granted the motion on January 31, 2007, holding the court
lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the secretaries’ claims
because, as in Artis I, the secretaries had failed to exhaust the
counseling requirement. Artis v. Greenspan, 474 F. Supp. 2d
16, 19 (D.D.C. 2007). 4
3
The operative complaint in this case was filed on February 22,
2001, after the Board’s “final action” on the administrative
complaint. See Dist. Ct. Docket No. 1. It was consolidated with a
virtually identical complaint filed on August 3, 1999. See Dist. Ct.
Docket No. 6.
4
We pause to note that failure to exhaust administrative remedies is
not jurisdictional under current precedents. The Supreme Court
recently clarified that “a threshold limitation on a statute’s scope
shall count as jurisdictional” only “[i]f the Legislature clearly states”
as much; otherwise “courts should treat the restriction as
nonjurisdictional.” Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 515–16
(2006). Because Title VII includes no such clear statement, we have
recently said Title VII’s exhaustion requirements are not
jurisdictional. See Menominee Indian Tribe of Wis. v. United States,
614 F.3d 519, 527 (D.C. Cir. 2010); see also Colbert v. Potter, 471
F.3d 158, 167 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (“The filing time limit imposed by
Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(c), is not a jurisdictional
requirement but rather is similar to a statute of limitations.”
(quotation marks omitted)).
6
The secretaries filed a motion for reconsideration,
repeating their argument that they had successfully completed
counseling in the group and individual sessions, and proffering
for the first time the declaration of secretary Kim Hardy, who
recounted her ten-year-old recollection of the January 15, 1997
group counseling session. Dist. Ct. Docket No. 72. The district
court denied the motion, holding Hardy’s declaration was not
“new evidence” under the standard governing a Rule 59(e)
motion to alter or amend the judgment. Artis v. Bernanke, 256
F.R.D. 4, 6 (D.D.C. 2009). The secretaries appealed.
“A challenge to a dismissal for lack of administrative
exhaustion is a question of law, which this court reviews de
novo.” Brooks v. Dist. Hosp. Partners, L.P., 606 F.3d 800, 807
(D.C. Cir. 2010).
II
Title VII protects government employees, like private
employees, from personnel actions that discriminate on the
basis of “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42
U.S.C. § 2000e-16(a). To bring a civil action in federal court
under this section, an employee must first be “aggrieved by the
final disposition of his [administrative] complaint, or by the
failure to take final action on his complaint.” Id.
§ 2000e-16(c). Federal Reserve Board regulations modeled on
the EEOC’s regulations require Board employees to “consult a
Counselor . . . in order to try to informally resolve the matter”
before filing an administrative complaint. 12 C.F.R.
§ 268.104(a); see 29 C.F.R. § 1614.105(a). If the employee
intends to file a class action, she must satisfy the counseling
requirement on behalf of the class. See 12 C.F.R. § 268.204(b).
“If a complainant forces an agency to dismiss or cancel the
complaint by failing to provide sufficient information to enable
the agency to investigate the claim, [s]he may not file a judicial
7
suit.” Wilson v. Peña, 79 F.3d 154, 164 (D.C. Cir. 1996). The
district court concluded the secretaries failed to satisfy this
counseling requirement because they “declined to cooperate
with the Board by failing to provide any meaningful
information about specific instances of discrimination.” Artis,
474 F. Supp. 2d at 19. We disagree.
A
The purpose of EEO counseling is clear from the text of
the regulation: Counseling is designed to enable the agency
and its employee “to try to informally resolve the matter”
before an administrative charge is filed. 12 C.F.R.
§ 268.104(a), quoted in Artis I, 158 F.3d at 1306; see Wilson,
79 F.3d at 165 (“The purpose of the [administrative
exhaustion] doctrine is to afford the agency an opportunity to
resolve the matter internally and to avoid unnecessarily
burdening the courts.”); see also Blackmon-Malloy v. United
States Capitol Police Bd., 575 F.3d 699, 711–12 (D.C. Cir.
2009) (“[U]nlike agency exhaustion in other contexts, the
purposes of counseling and mediation are not to compile a
record for judicial review but instead simply to afford the
employee and the employing office an opportunity to explore
and possibly resolve the employee’s claims informally.”
(describing a similar counseling requirement in the
Congressional Accountability Act)).
Where counseling produces “sufficient information to
enable the agency to investigate the claim,” that purpose has
been served. Artis I, 158 F.3d at 1306 (quoting Wilson, 79 F.3d
at 164). Thus, we recognized that “where a complainant has
pleaded a nonpromotion claim to the agency, it is not her
responsibility to identify the positions for which she applied.”
Id. at 1308 (citing Mangiapane v. Adams, 661 F.2d 1388 (D.C.
Cir. 1981) (per curiam)). To hold otherwise would turn the
8
informal counseling requirement into a trap for unwary
counselees rather than a step toward remediation, and it would
violate the principle that “Title VII’s exhaustion requirement
should not be read to create useless procedural technicalities.”
President v. Vance, 627 F.2d 353, 362 (D.C. Cir. 1980).
An agency risks misusing the counseling requirement
when it demands excessively detailed support for a class-wide
complaint alleging a pattern and practice of subtle financial
and professional discrimination. Unlike an allegation of overt
harassment or a specific instance of retaliation against an
individual employee, class-wide claims of systemically
depressed salaries, performance ratings, advancement
opportunities, and the like can often be proven only by a
statistical comparison of the employer’s treatment of the class
to its treatment of non-minority employees. See generally
Segar v. Smith, 738 F.2d 1249, 1267 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (“A
plaintiff class seeking to show a pattern or practice of disparate
treatment must carry the initial burden of offering evidence
adequate to create an inference that employment decisions
were based on a discriminatory criterion illegal under [Title
VII]. This usually means providing evidence—often in
statistical form—of a disparity in the position of members of
the plaintiff class and comparably qualified whites.” (citation,
quotation marks, and emphasis omitted)). Usually, such an
analysis will be possible only after the employees obtain data
from their employer, whether informally or through discovery.
It would be perverse to dismiss a complaint for failure to
provide adequate detail in counseling when all of the relevant
data is in the employer’s exclusive control.
B
In light of the nature of the secretaries’ claims, the
information they provided collectively and in individual
9
counseling sessions satisfied the counseling requirement of 12
C.F.R. § 268.104(a). At the first group counseling session on
January 15, 1997, the EEO counselor and the Board’s lawyer
met with approximately fourteen secretaries and requested
more information about their claims. In response to the
Board’s request, the secretaries provided a list of “class
allegations” in a document entitled “Resubmission of
Class-Action Complaint.” Copies of that document were
signed individually by several of the putative class agents. The
“Resubmission” alleged on behalf of the “named
Complainants and the members of their putative class” that the
Board discriminated against them by
a. Failing to pay class members at the
comparable hourly rate or salary paid to
non-class members who were no more qualified
than were the class members.
b. Failure to pay the same amount of
money for cash awards, merit increases, lump
sum salary adjustments or other forms of
bonuses to class members as was paid to
comparable non-class members for similar
performance. . . .
c. Failing to award class members cash
awards, merit increases, special achievement
awards, lump sum salary adjustments or other
forms of bonuses as was done for comparable
or inferior non-class members.
d. Failing to adequately and properly
train class members as comparable non-class
members were trained.
e. Maintaining certain positions for
non-African-Americans and other positions for
African-Americans.
10
f. Maintaining certain facilities, within
[the Board’s] workplace, which are segregated
and inaccessible for African-Americans.
g. Failure to provide class members
with equal amount [sic] of personal time on the
phone as is afforded non-class members.
h. Failure to provide class members
with equal time away from the office for
personal reasons as is afforded non-class
members.
i. Failure to treat class members
equally with regard to utilization and
enforcement of leave procedures and records as
is afforded to non-class members.
j. Disparate treatment with regard to
distribution of work, both in regards to
workload and quality of assignment.
k. Failure to provide accurate
Performance Appraisals, such as PMPs
(Performance Management Programs) or its
predecessors, for class members and non-class
members, thereby creating a false discrepancy
in the abilities of class members when
compared to non-class members.
African-Americans’ PMPs are deflated and
non-African-Americans’ PMPs are inflated as a
systematic practice.
[l.] Failing and refusing, and continuing
to fail and refuse, to promote Complainants on
the basis of race.
11
All of these allegations were affirmed in individual counseling
sessions. Class agents corroborated most of them with relevant
examples of personal discrimination. 5
Barbara Carter specifically addressed allegations (a), (d),
(i), and (k). She told a counselor she was compensated less
than comparable white employees because she had been
“redlined since the early 70’s.” Carter also said her
performance appraisal was deflated in the years 1993–1996
and she was not permitted to take the classes she was told were
necessary to achieve an outstanding rating. Carter said her
supervisor, Joyce Zigler, failed to provide her with equal
personal leave when Carter was working in the Research and
Statistics Division.
Donna Dorey specifically addressed allegations (e), (i),
(k), and (l) in her individual counseling session. She alleged
that “Karen See, a white female, was preselected for a
position” and groomed for it even though she lacked a college
degree, which the job posting purported to require. According
to Dorey, the job posting’s degree requirement, which was
waived for preselected white candidates like Karen See,
discouraged Dorey from applying because she lacked a degree.
Dorey also alleged specific incidents of discrimination by her
supervisor, McKosh. She said McKosh denied her request to
change her work hours so she could attend college courses, but
5
The only general allegations that were not directly corroborated by
the specific allegations of class agents in counseling were (b), (f),
(g), and (j), relating to the amount of money awarded in bonuses to
class members, segregated facilities, discriminatory telephone usage
policies, and unfair distribution of work. This appeal does not
require us to decide whether these four claims are sufficiently related
to others for which the secretaries exhausted administrative remedies
such that they are proper subjects of the civil action. See Payne v.
Salazar, 619 F.3d 56, 65 (D.C. Cir. 2010).
12
allowed a white employee to change her hours to join a
vanpool. Dorey also claimed her leave requests are treated
differently from those of white employees. She said McKosh
once “humiliated her in front of the Board” by describing the
circumstances of one particular request for leave. Dorey says
her managers discussed her leave requests with human
resources and shared personal information with other
employees including Rena Carlton, an employee relations
specialist. Dorey also claimed that the Board’s EEO Director,
Sheila Clark, and EEO Counselor, Millie Wiggins,
discouraged her from filing a previous EEO complaint alleging
discrimination in her performance rating.
Donna Love-Blackwell specifically addressed allegations
(c), (e), and (l). She claimed she had never received a cash
award as white secretaries had, despite her excellent
performance ratings. Love-Blackwell also said she had applied
without success for other positions and that “this type of
movement is easier for nonminorities” who are “primped for
positions.”
Yvette Williams specifically addressed allegation (h). She
claimed she was permitted to work out only within a prescribed
lunch hour, while non-minorities were allowed to take their
lunch break at any time. 6
6
The secretaries also argue statements secretary Kim Hardy
allegedly made at the January 15, 1997 group counseling session
should have been included in a counseling report and would confirm
that she satisfied the counseling requirement. The district court did
not abuse its discretion in refusing to consider Hardy’s 2007
declaration. Her recollection was previously available to the
secretaries, so her declaration was not an appropriate basis for a
motion to alter or amend the judgment. See Messina v. Krakower,
439 F.3d 755, 758 (D.C. Cir. 2006).
13
Despite this evidence in the notes of the Board’s own
counselors, the district court found the secretaries “fail[ed] to
provide any meaningful information about specific instances
of discrimination.” 474 F. Supp. 2d at 19. To the contrary, the
secretaries argued consistently that they “counseled fully and
completely to the extent allowed by the Board.” Dist. Ct.
Docket No. 42, at 7. Their response to the Board’s motion to
dismiss incorporated by reference the previously filed
counselors’ reports. Id. at ii. In a motion for reconsideration,
the secretaries directed the district court’s attention to
individual counseling reports, including those of Carter,
Dorey, Love-Blackwell, and Williams, and quoted them at
length. Dist. Ct. Docket No. 72, at 2–3, 17–28. As the Board
admitted in response to that motion, “[t]hese reports . . . have
previously been filed with [the district court] by both plaintiffs
and defendant on numerous occasions and their contents have
been exhaustively discussed in the parties’ pleadings.” Dist.
Ct. Docket No. 73, at 2. The Board therefore conceded that the
evidence of successful counseling that is now before us was
properly before the district court.
Considered together, the secretaries’ written description
of their class allegations and their individual anecdotes of
disparate treatment were sufficient to give the Board an
opportunity to investigate and try to resolve their claims.
We affirmed the dismissal in Artis I because the four
named plaintiffs each belonged to a single division of the
Board and therefore could not establish commonality with the
Board-wide class or “identify any agency-wide discriminatory
personnel practices . . . despite the division-level decision
making.” Artis I, 158 F.3d at 1308. We noted that “[i]f
secretaries (perhaps even one secretary) outside of the Legal
Division had agreed to pursue counseling, the ALJ might have
had a basis on which to find specific facts that are common to
14
the class.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). That case is now
before us. The secretaries’ class status is relevant to counseling
only in that it allows a representative plaintiff to satisfy the
counseling requirement on behalf of similarly situated class
members. See 12 C.F.R. § 268.204(b) (“An employee or
applicant who wishes to file a class complaint must seek
counseling and be counseled in accordance with § 268.104.”).
Like any other plaintiff, a class representative must simply
provide “sufficient information to enable the agency to
investigate the claim.” Artis I, 158 F.3d at 1306 (quoting
Wilson, 79 F.3d at 164). Thus, the entire class exhausted
administrative remedies by virtue of the class agents’
successful completion of counseling.
C
On appeal, the Board argues that whatever counseling did
occur was untimely. Under the Board’s regulations, “[a]n
aggrieved person must initiate contact with a Counselor within
45 days of the date of the matter alleged to be discriminatory
or, in the case of a personnel action, within 45 days of the
effective date of the action,” unless she was unaware of the
time limits or unable to meet them. 12 C.F.R. § 268.104(a).
The Board now contends the secretaries’ complaint is based on
events that took place more than 45 days earlier or events for
which the secretaries failed to “provide any time period.”
Appellee’s Br. 27. Although we are skeptical of this defense
given the nature of the secretaries’ claims, we need not decide
the issue because the Board waived the time limitation by
failing to raise it in the district court. “A defense that has not
been raised in a pleading, by motion, or at trial normally will be
considered waived and cannot be heard for the first time on
appeal.” Nat’l Treasury Emps. Union v. IRS, 765 F.2d 1174,
1176 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 1985) (quotation marks and alteration
omitted). Contrary to the Board’s representation at oral
15
argument, Oral Arg. Recording 25:12–26, 25:47–53, the Board
did not raise the time bar in its opposition to the secretaries’
motion for reconsideration, see Dist. Ct. Docket No. 73. The
Board failed to raise this defense in spite of the secretaries’
explicit argument that individual secretaries, including Carter,
Dorey, Love-Blackwell, and Williams, provided sufficiently
specific information to satisfy the counseling requirement. See
Dist. Ct. Docket No. 72, at 2–3.
D
The Board suggests another basis for concluding the
secretaries failed to exhaust administrative remedies: their
alleged failure “to engage in counseling in good faith.”
Appellee’s Br. 10. The Board cites several instances of
obstruction of the counseling process by the secretaries and
their lawyer that it attributes to bad faith: Some if not all the
secretaries refused to discuss personal experiences of
discrimination in group counseling sessions. Some also
refused to give specific examples of discrimination in their
individual counseling sessions, despite the Board’s request for
details. Finally, the secretaries’ counsel refused to agree to an
extension of the 30-day counseling period so the Board could
consider his request for statistical data and “obtain the
information if appropriate.” Assuming the Board accurately
perceives a lack of good-faith cooperation in this conduct, the
secretaries nevertheless satisfied the administrative counseling
requirement.
The counselees’ alleged bad faith is relevant only to the
extent it “completely frustrat[ed] the agencies’ ability to
investigate complaints.” Blackmon-Malloy, 575 F.3d at
713–14; see Wilson, 79 F.3d at 165. As we have explained, the
Board was not so stymied. Despite their lawyer’s
counterproductive advice, the secretaries managed to convey
16
much more than “bare ‘notice’ of the basis of [their]
complaint.” Artis I, 158 F.3d at 1306. Doubtless other class
agents were not as forthcoming as Carter, Dorey,
Love-Blackwell, and Williams. But this is irrelevant to the
administrative exhaustion issue, since a single class agent may
satisfy the counseling requirement as to the entire class. See
Blackmon-Malloy, 575 F.3d at 704 (“Under the doctrine of
vicarious exhaustion, each individual plaintiff in a class action
need not exhaust his or her administrative remedies
individually so long as at least one member of the class has.”).
III
As the Board admits, the administrative counseling
requirement is “not a difficult burden to meet.” Appellee’s Br.
13. The secretaries fulfilled the purpose of 12 C.F.R.
§ 268.104(a) by advising the Board of the specific nature of
their claims and offering corresponding allegations of
discrimination against individual class agents. This was
enough to permit the Board to investigate and try to resolve
their claims. Therefore, we vacate the district court’s order
dismissing the secretaries’ complaint and remand for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.