30 Fair empl.prac.cas. 873, 30 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 33,214 Kay Burns v. The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, Eugene J. Goss v. The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States30 Fair empl.prac.cas. 873, 30 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 33,214 Kay Burns v. The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, Eugene J. Goss v. The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States
Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States (Equitable) appeals from two orders of the District Court for the Southern District of New York (Morris E. Lasker, Judge) denying Equitable‘s motions to dismiss private suits filed under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA),
In 1978 and 1979, Equitable terminated over 500 employees, of whom approximately 360 were over 40 years of age. In September 1979, plaintiff-appellee Kay Burns filed a complaint charging Equitable with violations of the ADEA. Over 100 of Equitable‘s former employees opted to join the Burns action.1 In January 1980, Eugene Goss, another employee fired in connection with Equitable‘s staff reduction program, filed an ADEA suit against Equitable in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, Goss v. The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States (No. 80-251), which was transferred to the Southern District of New York (No. 81 Civ. 4766).
Nearly two years after Burns and Goss began their actions, the EEOC filed an action against Equitable, alleging the same ADEA violations. The EEOC originally sought relief on behalf of a group of 434 former Equitable employees, some of whom were already participating in the Burns action. Two days after filing its complaint, however, the EEOC stipulated out of the liquidated damages claim of its lawsuit all of the Burns plaintiffs that it had originally named. Equitable subsequently moved to dismiss the Burns and Goss actions, relying on section 7(c)(1) of the ADEA,
Any person aggrieved may bring a civil action ... for such legal or equitable relief as will effectuate the purposes of this chapter: Provided, That the right of any person to bring such action shall terminate upon the commencement of an action by the [EEOC] to enforce the right of such employee under this chapter [second emphasis added].
Equitable argued that this section of the ADEA required dismissal of pending private actions whenever the EEOC filed its own complaint. Opposing the motion, Burns interpreted the statute to permit pending actions to continue, and to bar only the initiation of new lawsuits after filing of a complaint by the EEOC. The narrow issue posed was whether the statutory phrase “to bring” means “to commence or maintain,” or only “to commence.” The District Court, adopting the latter construction, denied Equitable‘s motion to dismiss the Burns suit, 530 F.Supp. 768, and certified that ruling for appeal pursuant to
The ADEA expressly incorporates the procedures originally fashioned by the 87th Congress to govern enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Section 7(b) of the ADEA,
The filing of the Secretary‘s complaint against an employer would not, however, operate to terminate any employee‘s right to maintain such a private suit to which he had become a party plaintiff before the Secretary‘s action.
Conf.Rep. No. 327, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. 20, reprinted in 1961 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 1706, 1714. Thus, if section 7(b) of the ADEA is understood to incorporate not only the procedural provisions of the FLSA, but also Congressional understanding of the broad scope of private enforcement of the FLSA under those provisions, independent of public enforcement, then a pending private suit under the ADEA is not preempted by an EEOC action.
When enacting “a new law incorporating sections of a prior law, Congress normally can be presumed to have had knowledge of the [judicial and administrative] interpretation[s] given to the incorporated law,” at least those concerning the new statute. Lorillard v. Pons, supra, 434 U.S. at 581, 98 S.Ct. at 870. The presumption is even stronger that Congress was familiar with the reported expressions of its own legislative intent regarding the provisions it has incorporated. Especially is this so where, as here, the incorporating and incorporated statutes are not distant in time, and the selectivity of the incorporation implies a detailed Congressional knowledge of the prior law that was borrowed.
Further inquiry into the legislative history of the ADEA reinforces the conclusion that section 7(c)(1) was intended to adopt the scheme of the FLSA in allocating enforcement authority between public and private plaintiffs. Particularly telling in this respect is the portion of the House Report discussing section 14,
The District Court noted that a rule permitting EEOC complaints to oust pending as well as later filed actions would have two unfortunate consequences. First, private counsel would be motivated to avoid the cases most urgently requiring remedial action, for such cases would also be most likely to invite preemptive public litigation. Second, private counsel willing to initiate ADEA suits would be motivated to delay as long as possible the filing of complaints to increase their opportunity to learn whether EEOC litigation will preempt their efforts. 530 F.Supp. at 771-72. This latter result would impede the achievement of a central goal of the ADEA‘s framers, who were concerned that delay would prejudice the claims of older plaintiffs, and who consequently sought to achieve expeditious enforcement.2 Against these concerns Equitable contends that permitting pending private ADEA suits to continue along side of a suit brought by the EEOC will deter conciliation and cause duplication of effort. We think the District Courts’ authority to control litigation can minimize delay and duplication,3 but however the competing policy concerns are to be weighed, we conclude that the statute does not say or mean that pending private ADEA suits are preempted by EEOC litigation.
The orders appealed from are affirmed.