900 Age Bias Cases Botched by U.S. Agency

Mismanagement by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission allowed 900 age discrimination complaints nationwide--including more than 100 filed in Los Angeles--to languish while a deadline passed for bringing court action against employers accused of bias, Chairman Clarence Thomas acknowledged Thursday.

The delays were “absolutely inexcusable” and “tantamount to a dereliction of duties,” Thomas said in a harshly worded memo sent to the agency’s district offices last month, adding that he would “not tolerate such mishandling of even one case.”

Though the commission is continuing to investigate the 900 cases and may negotiate settlements in some, the lapses effectively denied most of the victims of alleged discrimination any hope for legal recourse against their former employers, according to congressional analysts and senior citizens advocates.

Called Unconscionable

“This is unprecedented,” said Christopher G. Mackaronis, manager of advocacy programs for the American Assn. of Retired Persons. “A deprivation of statutory rights of this magnitude is unconscionable.”

Thomas, in a telephone interview, said he had given seven of the agency’s 23 district directors poor performance evaluations for mishandling the complaints and warned them that further delays would lead to their firing. However, he praised Los Angeles District Director Judith A. Keeler, who assumed her post in August and has sliced the tally of lapsed cases to fewer than 30.

The 900 complaints--most were filed in district offices in Dallas, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York and Birmingham, Ala., as well as Los Angeles--represent about one out of every 40 age discrimination charges lodged with the commission over a two-year period.

Thomas, who has battled Democratic congressional leaders throughout his nearly six-year tenure at the commission, accepted personal responsibility for the mismanagement. But he said Congress’ failure to approve President Reagan’s budget recommendations for the agency had hampered the commission’s efforts to manage its growing caseload.

The Administration proposed a $193.4-million budget for the 3,000-worker agency this year--up from $169 million the year before--but Congress approved just $179 million in spending, scuttling staff and systems enhancements in Los Angeles and other field offices.

“The people doing the complaining participated in the mugging and in tying our hands and in putting millstones around our necks, and then complain when we can’t run the mile in four minutes,” Thomas said. “When they had the opportunity, they did not help and would not help.”

Congressional leaders said Thomas had consented to reductions in the agency’s budget in prior years and had steered the commission away from vigorous enforcement of anti-discrimination laws.

“Unless he’s had a change of heart, this outrage and indignation he’s showing, I think, is probably political posturing,” said Rep. Matthew G. Martinez (D-Monterey Park), chairman of the House subcommittee on employment opportunities, which has oversight responsibility for the commission.

Sen. John Melcher (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, charged that Thomas and the commission had “stonewalled” Congress by refusing to provide information about the problem, despite Melcher’s inquiries into complaints of delays--making no mention of it, for instance, in a submission to the committee dated two days after Thomas’ memo to the field.

Under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, workers who believe they have been subjected to age bias must file complaints with the commission before they can sue their employer. After the agency investigates a charge, it can find it unfounded, negotiate a conciliation between the worker and employer or--in less than 1% of all instances--file a suit against the employer.

Individuals can file suit themselves 60 days after lodging a complaint regardless of whether the commission concludes that the charge has merit. But as a practical matter, lawyers say, nearly all workers wait for the commission to finish its inquiries before going to court. Of the workers affected by the delays, many may have been unaware of the deadline or that their cases were mired in the commission’s bureaucracy, agency critics said.

In any event, the act requires that most lawsuits be filed within two years after the alleged discriminatory act. It was that deadline that the agency missed in the 900 lapsed cases. The law provides a longer, three-year statute of limitations in cases alleging willful discrimination, but senior citizen advocates and congressional lawyers say court decisions have made it nearly impossible to meet the higher legal standard.

As a result, most of the 900 workers who complained of discrimination effectively have been barred by the delays from suing, commission critics said.

“These individuals essentially have been foreclosed by the agency that’s supposed to enforce their rights from ever having their rights enforced, let alone reviewed,” said Roger Thomas, chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Aging, which has scheduled a hearing later this month on the commission’s handling of age discrimination complaints.

Thomas insisted that the problem was not as large as the numbers would suggest. It was likely, he said, that no more than 50 of the 900 cases would have been found to have sufficient merit to prompt the filing of a court case by either the commission or an individual worker, based on the commission’s experience.

In addition, commission staff members are continuing to investigate the 900 cases and may be able to resolve some of the complaints--winning reinstatement, back pay or other relief for workers--through negotiations with employers, Thomas said.

But critics said that cases charging systematic discrimination by companies against all their older employees may be included among the 900 lapsed complaints--a possibility that would multiply the number of individuals denied legal recourse by the commission’s foul-up.