Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Associated Dry Goods Corp.

Background

The dispute began after seven employees of a department store chain filed discrimination charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The company refused to turn over requested personnel records unless the EEOC promised never to disclose the materials to charging employees. The EEOC subpoenaed the records. A district court and the Court of Appeals agreed with the company, treating charging parties as members of the “public” who could not receive prelitigation information from the agency.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court addressed whether Title VII’s ban on “public” disclosure forbids the EEOC from giving a charging employee information in that employee’s investigation file before a lawsuit. The Court concluded that Congress could not have meant to treat the person who filed a charge as part of the “public” for purposes of that person’s own charge. The Court therefore upheld the EEOC’s practice of limited pre-suit disclosure to a charging employee of his or her own file, with safeguards: identifying details of other complainants are removed and requesters must sign confidentiality agreements. But the Court said charging parties remain members of the public with respect to other employees’ files, which the EEOC may not freely disclose.

Real world impact

The ruling lets the EEOC give charging employees the investigative materials they need to evaluate and pursue claims. Employers cannot demand absolute secrecy as a condition for compliance with an EEOC subpoena. The case was reversed and remanded so proceedings can continue under the Court’s limits on disclosure.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Blackmun would have applied a stricter “necessary to carry out duties” test and might have upheld the lower courts; Justice Stevens would have read the statute more strictly and would have barred such prelitigation disclosure.