Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. GNLV Corp.

MEMORANDUM ***

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) appeals the district court’s dismissal of six individual class members’ employment discrimination claims against GNLV Corporation following a grant of summary judgment in favor of GNLV on EEOC’s pattern-or-practice claim. EEOC also appeals the district court’s prior order striking as untimely the inclusion of four additional class members and precluding the addition of new class members. Because the parties are familiar with the general facts of the case, we do not repeat them here.

A judgment in favor of an employer on a classwide pattern-or-practice claim does not preclude class members from bringing individual discrimination claims. Cooper v. Fed. Reserve Bank of Richmond, 467 U.S. 867, 878 , 104 S.Ct. 2794 , 81 L.Ed.2d 718 (1984). Thus, the district court erred in dismissing the six class members’ individual claims. We reverse and remand to allow the district court to consider whether summary judgment is appropriate as to any of the individual claims.

The district court did not abuse its discretion by striking the four class members EEOC identified in June 2008 and precluding the addition of new class…

concurring in part and dissenting in part:

The four proposed class members identified in June 2008 áre “claimants,” not “parties.” The actual parties’ (EEOC and GNLV) own joint Stipulated Discovery Plan and Proposed Scheduling Order entered by the district court on March 12, 2007 specifically distinguishes between the two terms, stating, “Due to the number of current claimants and potential class members, the parties do anticipate the need to alter the discovery limitations imposed under the Federal Rules ...” (emphasis added). Based on this, as well as that no appellate court has directly addressed the issue of whether the term “claimant” as used in a discovery order in an EEOC initiated Title VII case shares the same meaning as the term “party” and the relevant case law does not support equating the two terms, I see no grounds for treating the terms as identical in this context.

Although the majority does not conclude that the proposed class members are “parties,” it nonetheless holds that the district court’s decision precluding the addition of these potential class members was not an abuse of discretion. While I agree in the abstract with the majority’s proposition that at…