Background
Andria Borsody filed a pro se complaint against Frontier Heritage Communities alleging discrimination under Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act. She had previously filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC against a different entity, The Michaels Organization. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to exhaust administrative remedies and denied her motions for default judgment and Rule eleven sanctions.
The court’s reasoning
The court affirmed the dismissal because the plaintiff failed to name Frontier Heritage Communities in her EEOC charge. The court applied the identity-of-interest test from Romero v. Union Pacific Railroad and found the plaintiff did not meet the four factors. Specifically, the plaintiff could not show she could not have discovered Frontier’s role, that Frontier’s interests were identical to Michaels for conciliation purposes, that Frontier was not prejudiced, or that Michaels represented the relationship would be through Frontier. The court also found no abuse of discretion in denying leave to amend because the plaintiff failed to explain how she would plead facts to cure the exhaustion defect.
Because Ms. Borsody did not name Frontier in her EEOC charge and there is no clear identity of interest between Frontier and Michaels, we must affirm the district court’s dismissal of Ms. Borsody’s complaint for failure to exhaust her Title VII and ADA claims.
Opinion at 17
What it means going forward
Employment discrimination plaintiffs must ensure the specific defendant they intend to sue is named in their initial administrative charge to the EEOC or state agency. Failure to do so generally bars the lawsuit unless a narrow identity-of-interest exception is met with specific factual allegations.