Case Information
*1 Before HULL, PRYOR and BLACK, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
James Francois appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of his former employer, the Miami Dade County Port of Miami (Miami), in his employment discrimination suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a), and the Florida Civil Rights Act (FCRA), § 760.07, Fla. Stat. Francois raises two issues on appeal, which we address in turn.
I.
Francois first argues the district court abused its discretion by denying his motion to amend his complaint to include a cause of action for retaliation. Even though he filed his motion 52 days after the deadline to amend pleadings as set by the scheduling order, he asserts the court erred by denying his motion before the deadline for filing his reply to Miami’s response. [1]
In order to amend a pleading after a court-imposed deadline, a party must
show good cause pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b).
Sosa v.
Airprint Sys., Inc.
,
II.
Second, Francois argues the court should not have granted summary judgment on his claim of national origin discrimination. Francois contends that even though his Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charge did *4 not include such a claim, he fulfilled the purposes of exhaustion by including the claim in his EEOC intake questionnaire which put Miami on notice of this claim. [2]
In order to file a judicial complaint under Title VII, a plaintiff must first
administratively exhaust any claims by filing a charge with the EEOC. 42 U.S.C.
§ 2000e-5(e);
Vason v. City of Montgomery, Ala.
,
The law is clear that a charge must be verified -
i.e.
, written under oath or
affirmation - in order to support a valid judicial suit. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(b);
Vason
,
§ 1601.12(a)(3)),
overruled on other grounds by Manders v. Lee
,
*5 Though we have never directly addressed the effect of an intake questionnaire for exhaustion purposes, we have considered the interrelationship between an EEOC charge and an intake questionnaire several times when assessing whether a charge has been timely filed. In Wilkerson v. Grinnell Corporation we held an intake questionnaire could be considered a charge for the purpose of satisfying the statute of limitations where: the questionnaire was verified; the questionnaire contained the basic information required by a charge; and the form’s language could have been interpreted to represent a charge. 270 F.3d 1314, 1320-21 (11th Cir. 2001).
This is not the general rule, however. In one case, we stated that, “as a
general matter an intake questionnaire is
not
intended to function as a charge.”
Pijnenburg v. West Georgia Health Sys., Inc.
,
Without definitively deciding whether an EEOC intake questionnaire may ever be considered when determining whether a plaintiff’s Title VII or FCRA claim has been exhausted, we hold the district court correctly granted summary judgment in this case. First, if only the EEOC charge itself should have been considered, Francois failed to administratively exhaust his national origin discrimination claim because he did not check the box for national origin, or allege any facts in the narrative section that could be construed to raise such a claim of discrimination.
Second, even if an intake questionnaire can be taken into account under
certain circumstances, the facts do not support doing so here. As in
Pijnenburg
,
undisputed evidence showed Francois’s intake questionnaire was not verified, and
the form language did not indicate it would be considered a charge when a
plaintiff also filed a timely charge, as Francois did. Furthermore, the fact Francois
*7
filed an actual timely charge suggests he did not intend his intake questionnaire to
function as a charge.
See Bost
,
Finally, none of the evidence demonstrated Miami was on notice of the
national origin claim. Moreover, the EEOC did not investigate the national origin
discrimination claim. Thus, the district court did not err when it concluded
Francois did not fulfill the purposes of exhaustion.
See Kilgo v. Bowman Transp.,
Inc.
,
AFFIRMED.
Notes
[1] We review a district court’s decision to enforce its pretrial order for an abuse of
discretion.
See Sosa v. Airprint Sys., Inc.
,
[2] We review
de novo
a district court’s grant of summary judgment.
Vason v. City of
Montgomery, Ala.
,