Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. __, No. 95-1376 (Feb. 18,
1997)
(Slip Opinion: 519 U.S.)
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in
connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of
the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience
of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321,
337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
ROBINSON v. SHELL OIL CO.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the
fourth circuit
No. 95 1376. Argued November 6, 1996 Decided February 18, 1997
After he was fired by respondent, petitioner filed an employment discrimination charge with the
Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under Title VII of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964. While that charge was
pending, petitioner applied for a job with another company, which
contacted respondent for an employment reference.
Claiming that respondent gave him a negative reference in retaliation
for his having filed the EEOC charge, petitioner
filed suit under §704(a) of Title VII, which makes it unlawful
"for an employer to discriminate against
any of his employees or applicants for employment" who have
availed themselves of Title VII's protections. The
District Court dismissed the action, and the en banc Fourth Circuit
affirmed, holding that the term
"employees" in §704(a) refers only to current
employees and therefore petitioner's claim was not
cognizable under Title VII.
Held: Because the term "employees," as used in §704(a) of Title VII,
includes
former employees, petitioner may sue respondent for its allegedly
retaliatory postemployment actions. Pp. 3 9.
(a) Consideration of the statutory language, the specific context in which it is
used, and the broader context of
Title VII as a whole leads to the conclusion that the term "employees" in
§704(a) is ambiguous
as to whether it excludes former employees. First, there is no temporal qualifier in
§704(a) such as would make
plain that it protects only persons still employed at the time of the retaliation. Second,
§701(f)'s general definition
of "employee" likewise lacks any temporal qualifier and is consistent with
either current or past employment.
Third, a number of other Title VII provisions, including §§706(g)(1), 717(b),
and 717(c), use the
term "employees" to mean something more inclusive or different than
"current employees." That
still other sections use the term to refer unambiguously to a current employee, see,
e.g., §703(h),
§717(b), at most demonstrates that the term may have a plain meaning in the
context of a particular section not
that it has the same meaning in all other sections and in all other contexts. Once it is
established that "employ-
ees" includes former employees in some sections, but not in others, the term
standing alone is necessarily ambiguous
and each section must be analyzed to determine whether the context gives the term a
definite meaning. Pp. 3 8.
(b) A holding that former employees are included within §704(a)'s
coverage is more consistent with
the broader context provided by other Title VII sections and with §704(a)'s primary
purpose of maintaining
unfettered access to Title VII's remedial mechanisms. As noted, several sections of the
statute plainly contemplate that
former employees will make use of Title VII's remedial mechanisms. These include
§703(a), which prohibits
discriminatory "discharge." Insofar as §704(a) expressly protects
employees from retaliation for filing
a "charge," and a charge under §703(a) alleging unlawful discharge
would necessarily be brought
by a former employee, it is far more consistent to include former employees within the
scope of "employees"
protected by §704(a). This interpretation is supported by the arguments of
petitioner and EEOC that exclusion
of former employees from §704(a) would undermine Title VII's effectiveness by
allowing the threat of
postemployment retaliation to deter victims of discrimination from complaining to EEOC,
and would provide a perverse
incentive for employers to fire employees who might bring Title VII claims. Pp. 8 9.
70 F. 3d 325, reversed.
Thomas, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal
revision before publication in the preliminary
print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify
the Reporter of Decisions,
Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543, of
any typographical
or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made
before the preliminary print goes to
press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 95 1376
CHARLES T. ROBINSON, Sr., PETITIONER v. SHELL OIL COMPANY
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the fourth circuit
[February 18, 1997]
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 704(a) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964 makes it unlawful "for an employer to discriminate against any of his
employees or applicants for employment" who have either availed themselves of Title
VII's protections or assisted others in so
doing. 78 Stat. 257, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000e 3(a). We are asked to decide
in this case whether the term "employees," as used in §704(a), includes
former
employees, such that petitioner may bring suit against his former employer for
postemployment actions
allegedly taken in retaliation for petitioner's having filed a charge with the Equal
Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit,
sitting en banc, held that the term "employees" in §704(a) referred only
to
current employees and therefore petitioner's claim was not cognizable under Title VII.
We granted
certiorari, 517 U. S. ___ (1996), and now reverse.
I
Respondent Shell Oil Co. fired petitioner Charles T. Robinson, Sr., in 1991. Shortly
thereafter, petitioner filed a charge with the EEOC, alleging that respondent had
discharged him
because of his race. While that charge was pending, petitioner applied for a job with
another
company. That company contacted respondent, as petitioner's former employer, for an
employment
reference. Petitioner claims that respondent gave him a negative reference in retaliation
for his having
filed the EEOC charge.
Petitioner subsequently sued under §704(a),
alleging retaliatory discrimination.
On respondent's motion, the District Court dismissed the action, adhering to previous
Fourth Circuit
precedent holding that §704(a) does not apply to former employees. Petitioner
appealed, and
a divided panel of the Fourth Circuit reversed the District Court. The Fourth Circuit
granted
rehearing en banc, vacated the panel decision, and thereafter affirmed the District Court's
determination that former employees may not bring suit under §704(a) for
retaliation occurring
after termination of their employment. 70 F. 3d 325 (1995) (en banc).
We granted certiorari in order to resolve a
conflict among the Circuits on this issue.1
1The other Courts of Appeals to have
considered this issue have held that the term "employees" in §704(a) does
include former employees.
See Charlton v. Paramus Bd. of Educ., 25 F. 3d 194, 198 200 (CA3
1994), cert. denied, 513 U. S. 1022 (1994); Bailey v. USX Corp., 850
F. 2d 1506, 1509 (CA11 1988); O'Brien v. Sky Chefs, Inc., 670 F. 2d
864, 869 (CA9 1982), overruled on other grounds by Atonio v. Wards Cove Packing
Co., 810 F. 2d 1477, 1481 1482 (CA9 1987) (en banc); Pantchenko v. C.
B. Dolge Co., 581 F. 2d 1052, 1055 (CA2 1978); Rutherford v.
American Bank of Commerce, 565 F. 2d 1162, 1165 (CA10 1977). The Fourth Circuit
indicated that it joined the approach taken by the Seventh Circuit in Reed v. Shep-
ard, 939 F. 2d 484, 492 493 (CA7 1991). But the Seventh Circuit has since repudiated the
Fourth
Circuit's view of Reed. See Veprinsky v. Fluor Daniel, Inc.,
87 F. 3d 881, 886 (CA7 1996).
2Our recent decision in
Walters v. Metropolitan Ed. Enterprises, Inc., 519 U. S. ___ (1997), held
that the term "employees" in §701(b), 42 U. S. C. §2000e(b), referred to
those persons with
whom an employer has an existing employment relationship. See 519 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at
5). But
§701(b) has two significant temporal qualifiers. The provision, which delimits Title VII's
coverage, states that
the Act applies to any employer "who has fifteen or more employees for each
working
day in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar
year." 42 U. S. C.
§2000e(b) (emphasis added). The emphasized words specify the time frame in which the
employment relationship
must exist, and thus the specific context of that section did not present the particular ambiguity at
issue in the present case.
3Other sections also seem to use the term
"employees" to mean something other than current employees. Section 701(c)
defines "employment
agency" as "any person regularly undertaking . . . to procure employees for an
employer or to procure for
employees opportunities to work for an employer . . . ." 42 U. S. C. §2000e(c). This
language most
naturally is read to mean "prospective employees." Section 701(e) uses identical
language when providing that
a labor organization affects commerce if it "operates a hiring hall or hiring office which
procures employees for an
employer . . . ." 42 U. S. C. §2000e(e).
4Petitioner's examples of non-Title VII
cases using the term "employee" to refer to a former employee are largely irrelevant,
except to the extent they tend
to rebut a claim that the term "employee" has some intrinsically plain meaning. See,
e.g.,Richardson v. Belcher, 404 U. S. 78, 81, 83 (1971) (unemployed disabled
worker); Nash v. Florida Industrial Comm'n, 389 U. S. 235, 239 (1967)
(individual who had been fired); Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U. S. 603, 611
(1960) (retired worker).