Fee Award

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: EEOC v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc.

Case No.: 17-1828

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and ROVNER and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Fee Award

On the surface, this appeal is about a fee award entered against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or Commission). But there is more than meets the eye. The award relates to a complaint that the Commission filed against CVS Pharmacy, Inc., alleging that CVS was using a severance agreement that chilled its employees’ exercise of their rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq. After an investigation, the Commission filed suit in 2014 against CVS. It contended that CVS’s use of the severance agreement constituted a “pattern or practice of resistance” to the rights protected by Title VII, in violation of section 707(a) of the statute. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-6(a).

The district court rejected this claim on summary judgment, and we affirmed in EEOC v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc., 809 F.3d 335 (7th Cir. 2015). After our decision, the district court awarded CVS $307,902.30 in attorneys’ fees. It reasoned that the EEOC should have realized even before filing the suit that EEOC regulations required initial conciliation before it could proceed with an enforcement action under section 707(a). But that was not at all clear at the time the EEOC acted. We conclude that the district court’s decision impermissibly rested on hindsight, and so we reverse.

Reversed and Remanded

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.