The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld the dismissal of a former employee’s sexual orientation discrimination and retaliation claims because he hadn’t exhausted administrative remedies with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) before filing suit. Although he mentioned sex discrimination and retaliation in the EEOC intake questionnaire, he hadn’t checked the boxes on the agency’s charge form, and his former employer hadn’t been put on notice of the claims. You should always consider whether an employee has properly and fully exhausted all claims, but keep in mind that charge-form boxes alone don’t always control an employee’s fate.
