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Employment — Title VII — statute of limitations

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//November 30, 2012//

Employment — Title VII — statute of limitations

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//November 30, 2012//

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Employment — Title VII — statute of limitations

A statute of limitations defense in a Title VII action raises a factual question for the jury to decide.

“Title VII, in contrast, does not require exhaustion. It states that ‘a charge . . . shall be filed . . . within three hundred days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred,’ 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1), but not that an administrative proceeding shall have been conducted before the employee can file suit. Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 98 (2006); Doe v. Oberweis Dairy, 456 F.3d 704, 710 (7th Cir. 2006). The fixing of a filing deadline is what a statute of limitations does; requiring exhaustion of administrative remedies requires more. The filing deadline is just a defense in a Title VII suit, and there is no reason to distinguish it from other defenses and therefore exclude it from the jury trial. The legislative history of the deadline, reviewed in Zipes v Trans World Airlines, Inc., 455 U.S. 385, 393 (1982), supports our characterization of the deadline as effectively a statute of limitations defense.”

Reversed and Remanded.

12-1875 Begolli v. Home Depot, U.S.A., Inc.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, Crabb, J., Posner, J.

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