PITTSBURGH – A federal judge dismissed an age discrimination lawsuit from a former employee of the University of Pittsburgh, finding that the plaintiff missed his 300-day deadline to file a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
“Beginning in 2014, William A. Congelio worked at the University’s law school as the director of its Family Law Clinic. In this role, he served as a Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor of Law. In May 2019, the University re-appointed Congelio to the same visiting professor role for the 2019- 20 academic year. In doing so, however, the University also informed Congelio that his visiting professor position was being eliminated following the 2019-20 academic year, pursuant to the University’s policy of limiting visiting faculty appointments to three years,” U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan said.
“The University thus decided to hire a full-time faculty member to serve as Director of the Family Law Clinic for the 2020-21 academic year and beyond – Congelio applied for the position. In September 2019, the University’s search committee interviewed Congelio for the position. During the interview, one of the search committee members stated that ‘a number of young people’ had applied, which Congelio construed as ‘the expression of the Law School’s desire to have the plaintiff retire when plaintiff’s contract expired’ at the end of that academic year. The next month, the search committee informed Congelio it was not going to recommend him for the job.”
Seven months later, on May 6, 2020, Congelio received an email from the Vice Dean of the University’s law school, telling him that someone had been hired for the director position, and asking him to help introduce the new hire to local contacts and to help her prepare to lead the Family Law Clinic in the upcoming academic year. Following the expiration of his one-year contract, Congelio’s last day of employment with the University was May 31, 2020.
According to Congelio, he felt that the University discriminated against hiring him for the role due to his age and filed suit against the school, citing the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The University, in response, argued that Congelio failed to timely exhaust his administrative remedies.
Ranjan noted that the 300-day deadline associated with EEOC filings is calculated “from the time the employee is notified of the discriminatory adverse action, not when the employee actually suffers the adverse action.” As a result, Ranjan said that Congelio had not brought his discrimination charge, filed on March 18, 2021, in time to meet the deadline.
“Thus, Congelio had to file a Charge of Discrimination with the EEOC by March 2, 2021, i.e., within 300 days of May 6, 2020. But Congelio did not file his Charge with the EEOC until March 18, 2021. Congelio therefore did not timely exhaust his administrative remedies, making dismissal of his ADEA claim appropriate,” Ranjan said.
The federal judge also dismissed the plaintiff’s notion that the COVID-19 pandemic factored into not meeting the timeliness requirement needed to have a valid EEOC discrimination charge filing.
“The Court disagrees. Any uncertainty caused by COVID-19 does not change the fact that Congelio learned of the University’s discrimination against him on May 6, 2020. As discussed above, it does not matter when the adverse action actually comes to fruition,” Ranjan stated.
“What matters is when Congelio learned of the discriminatory adverse employment decision – that is, when the University decided not to hire Congelio for the director position because of his age. At that point, the 300-day deadline was triggered. Thus, Congelio’s subsequent speculations that he may not ultimately suffer the adverse employment action because of COVID-19 is unpersuasive.”
Ranjan further found that equitable tolling did not apply to Congelio’s EEOC filing and that dismissal of his case with prejudice was appropriate.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania case 2:21-cv-00902
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com