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Plaintiff who seeks to
piggyback on another employee's timely-filed EEOC charge must attempt to
opt-in the lawsuit of the plaintiff who exhausted her administrative
remedies as opposed to filing a separate lawsuit.
Price v. Choctaw Glove &
Safety Co., Inc., 459 F.3d 595 (5th Cir. August 3, 2006) - Rita Price timely
filed an EEOC charge and brought this lawsuit alleging sex discrimination
against female employees. After her motion for class certification was
denied the second time, thirty-six plaintiffs (referred to as the
"Cleveland" plaintiffs) filed a separate lawsuit that was later consolidated
with the Price lawsuit. None of the Cleveland plaintiffs had exhausted their
administrative remedies. The district court granted Choctaw's motion for
summary judgment against the Cleveland plaintiffs. The Fifth Circuit
affirms. In the Fifth Circuit three conditions must be satisfied before a
plaintiff can invoke the single filing (or piggyback) rule:
First, the plaintiff must
be similarly situated to the person who actually filed the EEOC charge.
Second, the charge must have provided some notice of the collective or
class-wide nature of the charge. Finally, a prerequisite – implicit to
be sure - for piggybacking under the single filing rule is the
requirement that the individual who filed the EEOC charge must actually
file a suit that the piggybacking plaintiff may join.
The Cleveland plaintiffs met
these three requirements, but the single filing rule only allows the
plaintiffs to attempt to opt-in to the lawsuit brought by the plaintiff who
exhausted her administrative remedies. The single filing rule does not allow
the Cleveland plaintiffs to rely on Price's exhaustion of her administrative
remedies for purposes of filing a separate lawsuit. Therefore, the single
filing rule does not apply and the claims of the Cleveland plaintiffs are
dismissed. Click
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see actual case.