Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. SUPERVALU, INC., a Delaware corporation, and Jewel-Osco, an operating unit of SUPERVALU, INC.

Filing 199

WRITTEN Opinion entered by the Honorable Ronald A. Guzman on 6/5/2013: For the reasons stated below, Defendants' motion for reconsideration [192-1] is denied. Mailed notice (cjg, )

Order Form (01/2005)

United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois
Name of Assigned Judge
or Magistrate Judge

Ronald A. Guzman

CASE NUMBER

09 C 5637

CASE
TITLE

Sitting Judge if Other
than Assigned Judge

DATE

6/5/2013

EEOC v. Supervalu, Inc.

DOCKET ENTRY TEXT

For the reasons stated below, Defendants’ motion for reconsideration [192-1] is denied.

O[ For further details see text below.]

Docketing to mail notices.

STATEMENT
Paragraph 5 of the Consent Decree at issue states that the defendants are “hereby enjoined from
discriminating on the basis of disability by not providing reasonable accommodation(s) to persons desiring to
return to work from a disability leave.” (Dkt. # 148, ¶ 5.) In its motion for contempt, the EEOC contends that
it has identified three employees who were terminated or “forced to resign” during the first reporting period,
purportedly in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and ¶ 5. The EEOC seeks discovery,
including written discovery, up to three depositions, and a subsequent status to, if necessary, schedule an
evidentiary hearing and associated pre-hearing conferences and filings. In his Report and Recommendation
(“R&R”), the magistrate judge denied this aspect of the EEOC’s motion for contempt, concluding that to
allow it to pursue the requested relief in this action “would mean that the statute of limitations and
administrative exhaustion requirements under the ADA would effectively be abolished for any employee of
defendants seeking to challenge any accommodation decision made by defendants for the duration of the
Decree.” (R&R, Dkt. # 174, at 25.) This Court respectfully disagreed with the magistrate judge and
concluded in its March 19, 2013 order (“Order”) that the plain language of the Consent Decree as well as
Seventh Circuit caselaw provided for the relief the EEOC sought.
The defendants move for reconsideration of this aspect of the Court’s Order, arguing that it is the
EEOC’s burden to establish that the broad enforcement language cited above “permits it to disregard the
applicable statute of limitations and bypass the administrative process in every case,” and that the EEOC has
failed to cite to any authority supporting its position. (Defs.’ Reply. Dkt. # 198) (emphasis in original.) As
an initial matter, the defendants do not seek relief that is properly sought in a motion to reconsider an
interlocutory order. “[M]otions to reconsider are not at the disposal of parties who want to ‘rehash’ old
arguments.” In re Oil Spill by “Amoco Cadiz” Off Coast of France on March 16, 1978, 794 F. Supp. 261,
267 (N.D. Ill. 1992). The defendants already argued the point made here in their original objections as well
as in a brief discussing supplemental authority and simply contend that the Court got it wrong. The Court
09C5637 EEOC v. Supervalu, Inc.

Page 1 of 2

STATEMENT
denies the motion to reconsider on that basis alone.
Moreover, the Court denies the motion on the merits. As previously noted, in determining the scope
of a consent decree, the Court is to look to the plain language of the decree and if the language is
unambiguous, the inquiry is over. United States v. City of Northlake, 942 F.2d 1164, 1167 (7th Cir. 1991).
Based on this principle, this Court stated that:
The language [of ¶ 5 of the Consent Decree] is unambiguous; therefore, the Court finds that
the alleged violations complained of are within the scope of the Decree and the plaintiff
properly seeks relief pursuant to the Decree. Id. at 1168 (“If the defendant violates the terms
of the consent decree, the plaintiff's recourse is to bring an action to enforce the decree.”).
(Order, Dkt. # 191, at 10.) The defendants imply that they have been wronged since during settlement
negotiations, “the EEOC insisted that the consent decree contain a generic injunctive provision.” (Defs.’
Reply, Dkt. # 194, at 1.) But the defendants do not assert that they were duped or forced into signing the
Consent Decree. Moreover, they presumably could have included language addressing any limitations issues
or exhaustion procedures required for the precise situation currently pending before the Court, but they did
not nor do they argue that they tried to do so. The defendants are bound by their agreement to the language
in the Consent Decree. As another court has noted:
If, with the benefit of the illumination hindsight always provides, [defendant] neglected to
insist upon language in the Consent Order that would clearly prohibit the conduct about which
it now complains, it must look for succor elsewhere. Courts will no more rewrite a consent
decree than they will any other contract.
Autotech Techs. Ltd. P’ship v. Automationdirect.Com, Inc., No. 05 C 5488, 2006 WL 1304949, at *8 (N.D.
Ill. May 10, 2006). Moreover, as the Court previously stated, the defendants’ concerns with exhaustion of
administrative remedies is inapposite in this case because the EEOC is the plaintiff, not the individuals on
whose behalf they are suing. EEOC v. Caterpillar, 409 F.3d 831, 832-33 (7th Cir. 2005) (“[E]xhaustion of
administrative remedies is an issue when the suit is brought by a private party but not when the Commission
is the plaintiff.”). In bringing the instant suit and concomitant motion for contempt on behalf of individual
employees, the EEOC is acting as a law enforcement agency for a class of individuals and is “not merely a
proxy for the victims of discrimination.” Gen. Tel. v. EEOC, 446 U.S. 318, 326 (1980).
Nor is the defendants’ argument that ¶ 5 is an impermissible “obey-the-law” injunction persuasive.
Because the defendants agreed to this provision, the conduct which the EEOC seeks to investigate and
remedy is covered by the language of ¶ 5, and the Consent Decree has a geographical limitation and a set
termination date of January 5, 2014, the Court is unwilling to find that ¶ 5 amounts to an impermissible obeythe-law injunction. Cf. EEOC v. AutoZone, Inc., 707 F.3d 824, 841-44 (7th Cir. 2013) (noting that an
“injunction that does nothing more than order a defeated litigant to obey the law raises several concerns”
including overbreadth and vagueness and may be problematic if it has no geographic or temporal limit).

09C5637 EEOC v. Supervalu, Inc.

Page 2 of 2