Where an employee claims that his resignation resulted from discriminatory treatment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the limitations period for bringing a claim begins running after the employee resigns. In Green v. Brennan, the United States Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision dismissing a Postal Service employee's case as untimely because he had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies within the 45 day time limit established by Title VII. In so doing, the court ran the limitations period from the date that the employee agreed to resign, which was several months before his actual resignation date.
The employee, Marvin Green, had worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 35 years and served as postmaster for Englewood, Colorado when he made an internal complaint that he was denied a promotion to serve as postmaster of Boulder, Colorado because he was black. Subsequent to his complaint, his relationship with his supervisors deteriorated, and they ultimately accused him of the criminal act of intentionally delaying the mail. The parties agreed to resolve the issue in a December 16, 2009 document which stated that the Postal Service would not pursue criminal charges if Green agreed to retire or to accept a position in a remote Wyoming town with less pay. Green agreed to resign, which was reflected in the December 16 document he signed. Several months later, Green submitted resignation paperwork dated February 9. On March 22, he reported an unlawful constructive discharge to an agency Equal Employment Opportunity counselor, a necessary precursor to a lawsuit filing by a public servant. In his report, Green alleged that his supervisors threatened criminal charges and negotiated the December 16 agreement in retaliation for his original complaint, and that the choice that they gave him effectively forced his resignation in violation of Title VII. The report came 41 days after Green submitted his resignation paperwork and 96 days after he had agreed to resign to avoid criminal prosecution.
Green eventually filed a federal lawsuit, which was dismissed by the trial court as untimely on the basis that he did not exhaust his administrative remedies until 96 days after he had agreed to resign. The trial court decision was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on the same grounds. Green appealed, claiming that the proper date to begin running the limitations period was February 9, the date he submitted his resignation paperwork. The Supreme Court agreed.
In concluding that the lower court had erred in finding Green's Title VII claim untimely, the Supreme Court reasoned that the standard rule is that a limitations period for a constructive discharge case does not begin to run until a complete and present cause of action exists upon which the plaintiff can file suit to obtain relief. The court explained:
Applying this default rule, we are persuaded that the "matter alleged to be discriminatory" in a constructive discharge claim necessarily includes the employee's resignation for three reasons. First, in the context of a constructive-discharge claim, a resignation is part of the "complete and present cause of action" necessary before a limitations period ordinarily begins to run. Second, nothing in the regulation creating the limitations period here, ยง 1614.105, clearly indicates an intent to displace this standard rule. Third, practical considerations confirm the merit of applying the standard rule here. We therefore interpret the term "matter alleged to be discriminatory" for a constructive-discharge claim to include the date Green resigned.