Employers, Beware: SCOTUS Ruling Creates Title VII Litigation Trap

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled today that Title VII’s administrative exhaustion requirement—whereby an aggrieved employee first must file a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) or a state agency before filing a lawsuit—is merely a claim-processing rule, rather than jurisdictional.  As a result, an employer who does not assert “failure to exhaust” as an affirmative defense to a lawsuit might waive the ability to seek dismissal on that basis. In light of today’s decision, employers must ensure they identify an employee’s failure to exhaust at the outset of any Title VII litigation to preserve their ability to dismiss the claims on that ground (Fort Bend County v. Davis).