Ekpe v. Patel
- Analisa Torres
- 1:20-cv-09143
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Ekpe v. Patel, Judge Torres held a motion to dismiss in abeyance and ordered briefing on whether the claims were timely.
Timmy Ekpe and the defendants, who were required to submit supplemental letters about the timeliness of Ekpe’s claims; the defendants’ motion to dismiss remained pending.
What happened
In Ekpe v. Patel, Timmy Ekpe relied on another worker’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charge under a rule that can let similarly situated workers avoid filing their own charge. The parties did not dispute that Ekpe was relying on that rule for his employment claims.
The court ordered the parties to file letters of no more than five pages addressing whether Ekpe’s claims met the deadlines for filing an agency charge within 300 days of the alleged unlawful employment practice and suing within 90 days after receiving a right-to-sue letter. The court did not decide whether the claims were timely or whether they could proceed.
Judge Analisa Torres held the defendants’ motion to dismiss in abeyance while awaiting the supplemental briefing and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the motion from the docket.
The detailed version
- Ekpe v. Patel · No. 1:20-cv-09143
- Analisa Torres
- Sept. 12, 2023
Background
Timmy Ekpe sued the City of New York, the Department for the Aging, and several individual defendants. The opinion states that Ekpe sought to rely on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charge filed by Eddy Toussaint under the “single filing” or “piggybacking” rule. That rule can allow a similarly situated plaintiff to rely on another plaintiff’s timely agency charge instead of filing a separate charge. The opinion states that the rule applies to claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
Issue
The parties’ papers addressed Ekpe’s reliance on the single filing rule but provided limited discussion of the procedural requirements for using it. The court directed the parties to address how two deadlines affected the timeliness of Ekpe’s claims: filing an agency charge within 300 days of the alleged unlawful employment practice, and filing suit within 90 days after receiving a right-to-sue letter.
Court’s Action
The court ordered the parties to file letters of no more than five pages by September 25, 2023, addressing those deadlines. It held the defendants’ motion to dismiss in abeyance pending the supplemental briefing. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the motion at ECF No. 119. The opinion did not grant or deny the motion to dismiss and did not decide the ultimate merits of Ekpe’s claims.
Classification Basis
This is a procedural order because the court requested additional briefing about administrative and filing deadlines without deciding the underlying employment claims.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.