''Johnson v Railway Express Agency, Inc'

(1975) is a

US labor law United States labor law sets the rights and duties for employees, labor unions, and employers in the US. Labor law's basic aim is to remedy the " inequality of bargaining power" between employees and employers, especially employers "organized in ...

case, concerning

discrimination Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sex ...

Facts

Willie Johnson claimed that his employer, the Railway Express Agency, Inc in Memphis, Tennessee discriminated against him in seniority and job assignments. He filed with the

EEOC The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination ...

a charge that the employer was discriminating against its Negro employees over seniority rules and job assignments. He also charged the labor unions, Brotherhood of Railway Clerks Tri-State Local and Brotherhood of Railway Clerks Lily of the Valley Local, were racially segregating memberships. Three weeks later he was fired, so Johnson added a claim of unlawful discriminatory termination. The EEOC issued reports around 2 years later favoring Johnson's complaint, but after this the District Court in Tennessee rejected the claim for being over the 1 year limit in its Statute of Limitations.

Judgment

Blackmun J held that he was out of time, although it conceded that the old Enforcement Act of 1870 provided a remedy against private parties. He said the following: Marshall J (Douglas J and Brennan J concurring) dissented with the following:

Facts

Judgment

See also