Leah Brownlee Taylor, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor and Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in Law360 Employment Authority, in “Fruits of UPenn's Resistance Seen at Margins of EEOC Win,” by Anne Cullen. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
The U.S. Supreme Court gives the EEOC significant latitude when it comes to investigating charges of discrimination. In 2017, for example, in a ruling called McLane Co. Inc. v. EEOC, the justices reaffirmed case law establishing broad boundaries for the EEOC's subpoena power.
The justices said in McLane that a court's decision whether to enforce a subpoena "will turn either on whether the evidence sought is relevant to the specific charge before it or whether the subpoena is unduly burdensome in light of the circumstances." …
Six years after McLane, in a previous subpoena fight between UPenn and the EEOC, the Supreme Court rejected the school's arguments that access to confidential peer review materials would contravene its academic freedom under the First Amendment.
Judge Pappert cited all three precedents on Tuesday, concluding that its subpoena for UPenn's staff information "easily" clears the low bar courts have set for evaluating the agency's investigative demands.
"The decision reinforces the EEOC's broad statutory subpoena power, and aligns with existing Supreme Court precedent," said management-side attorney Leah Brownlee Taylor, a member at Epstein Becker Green PC and former longtime government litigator.
