Tag Archive for: Morgan

Tenth Circuit confirms employees may “double file” EEOC charges

An employee filed an EEOC charge in 2009 for sexual harassment, but did not sue when he received his administrative right to sue. Instead, he continued to work, then filed another charge in 2011. When he sued for sexual harassment after the second charge, the employer challenged his claim as timely. The trial court held that he could not include in his claim any events preceding 300 days (the applicable statute of limitations) prior to the 2011 charge, in other words, all of the 2009 charge’s allegations (and potentially a period thereafter into 2010). The Tenth Circuit reversed. The Tenth Circuit said that, under the Supreme Court’s 2001 decision, Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, any events constituting the “the same actionable hostile work environment practice” are admissible in the lawsuit, irrespective of whether they occurred before the 2011 charge’s time period. In other words, a plaintiff is allowed to “double file” EEOC charges for the same conduct.

In so ruling, the court noted its 2005 precedent in Duncan v. City and County of Denver, outlining the relevant factors to determine if events do or do not constitute part of “the same actionable hostile work environment practice” under Morgan: They must be “related by type, frequency, and perpetrator” without any “intervening action by the employer” that might break the relationship.

The case is Hansen v. SkyWest Airlines, 844 F.3d 914 (10th Cir. 2016).