McLane Co. v. Equal Emp't Opportunity Comm'n
The Supreme Court ruled that when an appeals court reviews a trial judge's decision to enforce or block an EEOC subpoena, it must use the deferential "abuse of discretion" standard rather than starting over from scratch.
The decision resolves a split among the appeals courts and sends the case back so the Ninth Circuit can re-examine, under the correct deferential standard, whether the trial court was wrong to shield certain employee information from an EEOC investigation.
How it got here: A federal trial court refused to enforce the EEOC's subpoenas; the Ninth Circuit reviewed that decision from scratch and reversed; McLane asked the Supreme Court to fix the review standard.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Damiana Ochoa, a longtime warehouse worker, was fired by McLane Co. after failing a physical fitness test required for employees returning from medical leave, including her maternity leave. She filed a sex discrimination charge with the EEOC. When the EEOC's investigation expanded and it subpoenaed personal identifying information about other tested employees, McLane refused to comply, leading to a court fight over enforcing the subpoenas.
The question before the Court
When a company fights an EEOC subpoena in court and loses, should the appeals court double-check the trial judge's call from scratch, or just check for a clear mistake?
Why it matters
Businesses facing EEOC subpoenas, and the EEOC itself, now know that once a trial judge decides whether to enforce a subpoena, that decision is hard to overturn on appeal unless the judge clearly abused their discretion. This gives more finality and predictability to subpoena fights and reduces the odds that appeals courts will second-guess trial judges' fact-heavy calls about relevance and burden.
What changes now
The case goes back to the Ninth Circuit, which must now re-review the trial court's refusal to enforce the subpoenas using the deferential abuse-of-discretion standard instead of starting from scratch. The Ninth Circuit may also consider McLane's arguments that the subpoenas were overly burdensome. This is a final ruling on the standard of review, though the underlying subpoena dispute is not yet finally resolved.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the trial court was actually right or wrong to block the subpoenas — only which standard the appeals court must use to review that decision. That merits question goes back to the Ninth Circuit to decide under the correct standard.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent in part — Justice Ginsburg
“Because the District Court erred as a matter of law in demanding that the EEOC show more than relevance in order to gain enforcement of its subpoena, I would not disturb the Court of Appeals' judgment.”Ginsburg's reason for wanting to affirm the Ninth Circuit outright instead of remanding.
Justice Ginsburg agreed that abuse-of-discretion review generally applies to these subpoena decisions, but she would have affirmed the Ninth Circuit's judgment outright rather than sending the case back. She reasoned that the trial court's refusal to enforce the subpoena rested on a legal error — wrongly requiring the EEOC to show more than mere relevance — and that legal errors are reviewed independently on appeal, so there was no need for a remand.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court asked which of two familiar factors should control how closely an appeals court checks a trial judge's call: the long-standing practice among appeals courts, and which court is functionally better suited to make the decision.
- Looking at appellate practice, the Court found that for decades before and after Title VII adopted the same subpoena rules used for labor board subpoenas, nearly every appeals court reviewed a trial judge's enforcement decision only for abuse of discretion — a deferential standard that asks whether the judge made a clear error, not whether the appeals court would have decided it the same way.
- Turning to institutional capacity, the Court reasoned that deciding whether subpoenaed material is relevant or overly burdensome is a fact-heavy, case-specific judgment call that trial judges are well positioned to make, given their hands-on familiarity with the case and their experience making similar calls in other proceedings, such as deciding what evidence is relevant at trial.
- The Court also noted that deferential review saves appellate resources by avoiding the need for appeals courts to reweigh facts the trial judge already considered, which matters especially in a subpoena dispute that is only a side proceeding meant to help an agency investigate, not resolve the underlying discrimination claim.
- The Court rejected the court-appointed amicus's argument that the trial judge's task was purely legal and therefore undeserving of deference, explaining that abuse-of-discretion review can apply even to decisions with legal components, and that a trial judge who gets the law wrong has, by definition, abused their discretion.
- The Court also rejected the argument that the Fourth Amendment's role in subpoena law required stricter review, noting that other subpoena and search-related decisions touching on the Fourth Amendment are routinely reviewed only for abuse of discretion or with similar deference.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Shell Oil (466 U. S. 54)
The Court relied on Shell Oil's generous reading of 'relevant' evidence as still good law guiding subpoena enforcement.
Reaffirms Pierce v. Underwood (487 U. S. 552)
The Court applied Pierce's two-factor framework for choosing between deferential and searching appellate review.