IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
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No. 00-31482
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EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
SOUTHERN FARM BUREAU CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY
Defendant-Appellee.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Louisiana
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November 5, 2001
Before GARWOOD and WIENER, Circuit Judges, and CLEMENT,* District
Judge.
WIENER, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiff-Appellant Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(the “EEOC”) appeals the district court’s refusal to enforce the
EEOC’s subpoena because the EEOC failed to meet its burden of
proving that the information sought, regarding the sex of employees
of Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company (“Southern
Farm”), was relevant to the racial discrimination charge filed by
*
Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Louisiana sitting by designation.
the EEOC against Southern Farm based on a complaint of a black male
employee, or to the EEOC’s investigation of that complaint. We
affirm the district court’s ruling and hold that, under the
particular facts of this case, the EEOC at this stage of these
proceedings cannot expand its racial discrimination investigation
to procure evidence of sex discrimination as well.
Complainant L.C. Thomas (“Thomas”) filed a charge with the
EEOC alleging that Southern Farm violated Title VII1 by
discriminating against him because of his race. He further alleged
that Southern Farm practiced class-wide discrimination against
African Americans when hiring insurance claims representatives. In
the course of the EEOC’s investigation of Thomas’s charge, Southern
Farm provided the EEOC with a list of employees by name, position,
and race. From this information, the EEOC became concerned that
Southern Farm may have discriminated on the basis of sex as well as
race, and advised Southern Farm in a letter that it was expanding
the scope of its investigation “to include the issue of the failure
to hire females as Claims Representatives/Claims Adjustors.” The
EEOC then requested information regarding the sex of Southern
Farm’s employees in various job positions, but Southern Farm
refused to provide such information. It contended that the EEOC
could not expand its racial discrimination investigation into a sex
discrimination investigation based on nothing more than Thomas’s
1
42 U.S.C. § 2000 et seq.
2
charge.
After Southern Farm refused to provide the requested
information, the EEOC attempted to obtain it by subpoena, but
Southern Farm refused to comply with the subpoena, prompting the
EEOC to file an enforcement proceeding in district court. The
district court reasoned that the information sought by the EEOC was
irrelevant to the charge for which the EEOC had authority to
investigate — racial discrimination based on the charge filed by
Thomas — and therefore denied the EEOC’s request for enforcement.
The district court first noted that, even though the EEOC is
the agency with primary responsibility for enforcing Title VII, it
does not possess plenary authority to demand information that it
considers relevant to all of its areas of jurisdiction.2 Instead,
the court observed, information requested by the EEOC must be based
on a valid charge filed by either an aggrieved individual or by the
EEOC itself.3 After a valid charge is filed, the EEOC may obtain
only “evidence of any person being investigated ... that relates to
unlawful employment practices ... and is relevant to the charge
under investigation.”4 The district court will enforce the EEOC’s
subpoenas when the EEOC carries its burden of demonstrating that
2
42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(a); EEOC v. Shell Oil Co., 466 U.S. 54,
61-62 (1984); EEOC v. Hearst Corp., 103 F.3d 462, 464 (5th Cir.
1997).
3
42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-5(b), 2000e-6(e).
4
42 U.S.C. § 2000e-8(a).
3
the information requested is relevant to the charge filed against
the employer.5 Here, the district court found that the EEOC had
not met its burden of demonstrating relevance and therefore denied
enforcement.
The district court’s determination of relevance, as it
pertains to Title VII investigations, is reviewed for either “legal
error” or “clear error.”6 Here, as in Packard, the district
court’s determination was based on the particular facts of the case
and the interrelation of those facts, so we must uphold that
determination unless it is clearly erroneous.
We conclude that the district court’s ruling, based on the
discrete facts and circumstances before it, was not clearly
erroneous. Thomas’s charge specified racial discrimination only.
When the EEOC discovered what it considered to be possible evidence
of sex discrimination by Southern Farm, the EEOC could have
exercised its authority under 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-5(b), 2000e-6(e)
5
New Orleans Steamship Ass’n v. EEOC, 680 F.2d 23, 26 (5th
Cir. 1982).
6
EEOC v. Packard Electric Div., 569 F.2d 315, 317-18 (5th
Cir. 1978)
The ‘relevance’ of documents ... is a mixed question
of law and fact, which implies that our standard of
review of such determinations should look either to
‘legal error’ or to ‘clear error,’ depending on the
circumstances.
....
Since the question of relevance in this instance is
essentially a factual determination concerning the
interrelation or lack thereof of different groups of
facts, we must uphold the district court’s determination
unless it is clearly erroneous.
4
to file a commissioner’s charge alleging sex discrimination,
thereby freeing the EEOC to demand information relevant to Southern
Farm’s employment of women. Instead, nineteen months into its
investigation of Thomas’s racial discrimination charge, the EEOC
simply began requesting information about the sex of Southern
Farm’s employees. Given this timing, together with the
availability of a statutory avenue for pursuing other
discrimination charges and the EEOC’s inability to demonstrate
relevance in this case, we perceive no clear error in the district
court’s determination.
As per the district court’s order, the denial of the EEOC’s
enforcement request is
AFFIRMED.
5