Question

Damiana Ochoa worked for eight years in a physically demanding job for petitioner McLane Co., a supply-chain services company. McLane requires employees in those positions—both new employees and those returning from medical leave—to take a physical evaluation. When Ochoa returned from three months of maternity leave, she failed the evaluation three times and was fired. She then filed a sex discrimination charge under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Equal Employment Opportunity (EEOC) began an investigation, but McLane declined its request for so-called “pedigree information”: names, Social Security numbers, addresses, and telephone numbers of employees asked to take the evaluation. After the EEOC expanded the investigation’s scope both geographically (to cover McLane’s national operations) and substantively (to investigate possible age discrimination), it issued subpoenas, as authorized by 42 U. S. C. §2000e–9, requesting pedigree information relating to its new investigation. When McLane refused to provide the information, the EEOC filed two actions in Federal District Court—one arising out of Ochoa’s charge and one arising out of the EEOC’s own agediscrimination charge—seeking enforcement of its subpoenas. The District Judge declined to enforce the subpoenas, finding that the pedigree information was not relevant to the charges, but the Ninth Circuit reversed. Reviewing the District Court’s decision to quash the subpoena de novo, the court concluded that the lower court erred in finding the pedigree information irrelevant. Held: A district court’s decision whether to enforce or quash an EEOC subpoena should be reviewed for abuse of discretion, not de novo.

Do you think EEOC has the right for the information they were asking for? Do you think the information was relevant to their case. Why or why not.

Answer 1