At the conclusion of its investigation, OCR will determine, with regard to each allegation, whether:. Letters of Findings contain fact-specific investigative findings and dispositions of individual cases. Letters of Findings are not formal statements of OCR policy and they should not be relied upon, cited, or construed as such. If the recipient agrees to resolve the complaint, the recipient will negotiate and sign a written resolution agreement that describes the specific remedial actions that the recipient will undertake to address the area s of noncompliance identified by OCR.
The terms and obligations of the resolution agreement, if fully performed, will remedy the identified violation s in compliance with applicable civil rights law s. If the recipient does not agree to correct its noncompliance with the civil rights law s by entering into a resolution agreement, OCR may initiate proceedings to suspend, terminate, or refuse to grant or continue Federal financial assistance to the recipient, or may refer the case to the Department of Justice.
Facilitated Resolution Between the Parties FRBP allows the parties the complainant and the recipient which is the subject of the complaint an opportunity to resolve the complaint allegations quickly; generally, soon after the complaint has been opened for investigation. If both parties are willing to try this approach, and if OCR determines that FRBP is appropriate, OCR will facilitate settlement discussions between the parties and work with the parties to help them understand the legal standards and possible remedies.
However, if the recipient does not comply with the terms of the agreement, the complainant may file another complaint with OCR within days of the date of the original discrimination or within 60 days of the date the complainant learns of the failure to comply with the agreement, whichever date is later. The provisions of the resolution agreement must be tied to the allegations and the evidence obtained during the investigation, and will be consistent with applicable regulations.
OCR will monitor a resolution agreement reached with the recipient before the conclusion of an investigation. After the recipient signs the resolution agreement, OCR will issue a Resolution Letter, which will address all allegations in the case resolved pursuant to CPM Section An appeal can be filed electronically, by mail, or fax.
The complainant must either submit electronically a completed appeal form or submit a written statement of no more than ten 10 pages double-spaced, if typed to the Office for Civil Rights, U. The filing date of an appeal submitted by mail is the date the appeal is postmarked or submitted electronically or by fax. In the appeal, the complainant must explain why he or she believes the factual information was incomplete or incorrect, the legal analysis was incorrect, or the appropriate legal standard was not applied, and how correction of any error s would change the outcome of the case; failure to do so may result in dismissal of the appeal.
An appeal must be submitted within 60 calendar days of the date indicated on the letter of finding or the dismissal. If a complainant alleges discrimination prohibited by the Age Discrimination Act of , a civil action in Federal court can be filed only after the complainant has exhausted administrative remedies.
Administrative remedies are exhausted when either of the following has occurred:. A recipient under the jurisdiction of the Department of Education may not intimidate, threaten, coerce, or retaliate against anyone who asserts a right protected by the civil rights laws that OCR enforces, or who cooperates in an investigation. Anyone who believes that he or she has been intimidated or retaliated against should file a complaint with OCR.
In order to investigate a complaint, OCR may need to collect and analyze personal information such as student records or employment records. The Privacy Act of , 5 U. The Privacy Act protects individuals from the misuse of personal information held by the Federal government.
Complainants must request a hearing directly from the Commission's field office that has jurisdiction over the geographic area in which the complaint arose, as set forth in Appendix N of this Management Directive. In an agency's written acknowledgment of receipt of a complaint or an amendment to a complaint, the agency shall advise the complainant of the Commission's office and address where a hearing request is to be sent as well as the agency office to which the copy of the request should be sent.
The complainant has the right to appeal a dismissal, final action, or decision. Partial dismissals are not immediately appealable. C of this Chapter for further guidance. Box Washington D C The complainant has the right to file a civil action in a U.
District Court on EEO discrimination claims raised in the administrative process:. The fragmentation, or breaking up, of a complainant's legal claim during EEO complaint processing has been a significant problem in the federal sector. For complainants, fragmented processing can compromise their ability to present an integrated and coherent claim of an unlawful employment practice for which there is a remedy under the federal equal employment statutes.
For agencies and the Commission, fragmented processing substantially increases case inventories and workloads when it results in the processing of related matters as separate complaints. The fragmentation of EEO claims must be prevented at all levels of the complaint process, including pre-complaint EEO counseling. This section is designed to promote understanding of the concept of fragmentation and to provide guidance on avoiding fragmented complaint processing.
Note that because the MSPB does not have jurisdiction to hear non-appealable matters, complaints not containing those matters should be processed by the agency under the process and not mixed with matters that are appealable to the MSPB through amendment, consolidation or held in abeyance.
See Complainant v. We note, however, that a proposed action merges with the decision on an appealable matter - for example, a proposed removal merges into the decision to remove.
See Wilson v. This section is not designed to address claims that include both a mixed and non-mixed matters. Where the complainant has or brings an amendment which contains a mixed issue one that can be appealed directly to the MSPB , fragmentation does not occur where the agency assigns a second complaint number and processes the non-mixed matters under the 29 C.
An African-American employee complains to the EEO Counselor that his supervisor is stricter about his time and attendance than with the unit's Caucasian employees. This is a legal claim of race-based disparate treatment in the terms and conditions of the complainant's employment with regard to time and attendance. In support of this claim, the complainant tells the EEO Counselor about a number of different occasions when the supervisor denied his request for annual leave or required him to use leave because he was tardy, while treating similarly situated Caucasian employees more favorably.
These specific incidents should be considered the evidence supporting the complainant's claim that the supervisor is treating him differently because of his race with regard to his time and attendance. Fragmentation would occur if each of these incidents were considered a separate claim and processed as a separate complaint. A female employee complains to the EEO Counselor that she is being subjected to a hostile work environment due to the ongoing sexual harassment by her male co-workers.
In support of this claim, the complainant tells the EEO Counselor of specific incidents of a sexual advance, a sexual joke and a comment of a sexual nature. These individual incidents are evidence in support of the complainant's claim and should not be considered as separate claims in and of themselves.
In defining a legal claim, the agency must exercise care where a series of incidents offered by a complainant initially seem different from one another. A complainant tells the EEO Counselor that she believes that the agency discriminated against her when she was not selected for a GS Engineer position, when she was not detailed to serve in a similar position, and when she was denied access to a particular training program.
All of these seemingly different incidents are part of the same claim of a discriminatory non-selection as the complainant has alleged that the detail and the training would have enhanced her qualifications for the GS Engineer position and, therefore, are relevant to the agency's failure to select her for that position.
Practice Tip: When defining a claim, two components must be identified. First, the claim must contain a factual statement of the employment practice or policy being challenged. As already discussed, it is critical that EEO Counselors, investigators, and other EEO staff members ensure that they understand the exact nature of the complainant's concerns so that the employment practice is defined broadly enough to reflect any allegation of a pattern of ongoing discrimination.
Particular attention should be given to claims involving terms and conditions of employment. In Example 1 above, the employment practice being challenged is: disparate treatment in terms and conditions of employment with regard to time and attendance polices. In Example 2 above, the employment practice is: the creation of a hostile work environment because of sexual harassment.
In Example 3 above, the employment practice might be defined as: management's failure to advance the complainant's career to a GS position. The second component of a legal claim is the identification of the basis because of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, reprisal, age, disability, or genetic information for a violation of an equal employment statute.
The answer is that an agency must consider, at least as background, all relevant evidence offered in support of a timely raised legal claim, even if the evidence involves incidents that occurred outside the day time limit. This is true of supporting evidence that the complainant offered during EEO counseling as well as later in the investigative stage.
During the investigation, the degree to which a certain piece of proffered evidence is relevant to the legal claim will determine what sort of investigation is necessary of that particular piece of evidence. For example, in a non-selection case, a selection decision made long before the one at issue, involving different agency officials, may have little relevance to the current claim. On the other hand, if the selecting official in the most recent non-selection also failed to select the complainant for a similar position six months before, that piece of evidence may be very relevant to the complainant's claim.
With regard to the timeliness of a claim of harassment, because the incidents that make up a harassment claim collectively constitute one unlawful employment practice, the claim is actionable, as long as at least one incident that is part of the claim occurred within the filing period.
Such a claim can include incidents that occurred outside the filing period that the complainant knew or should have known were actionable at the time of their occurrence. See Bulluck v. However, the Supreme Court has held that no recovery is available for discrete acts such as hiring, firing, and promotions that fall outside the filing period, even if they are arguably related to other discriminatory acts that occur within the filing period.
National Railroad Passenger Corp. Morgan , U. July 21, However, as the Court recognized, an employee may use the prior discrete acts as background evidence in support of a timely harassment claim. Practice Tip: It is critical that agencies document their actions and the reasons for those actions in the record for Administrative Judge and Commission consideration later in the process.
At any time prior to the agency's mailing of the notice required by 29 C. See Braxton v. This situation most frequently occurs when an alleged discriminatory incident occurs after the filing of an EEO complaint. In the past, agencies usually made these subsequent incidents the basis of a separate EEO complaint.
A separate EEO complaint is not appropriate, however, if the new incident of discrimination raises a claim that is like or related to the original complaint.
Rather, the original complaint should be amended to include the new incident of discrimination. When a complainant raises a new incident of alleged discrimination during the processing of an EEO complaint, it must be determined whether this new incident:.
The EEO Director or designee shall review this request, determine whether a fair and impartial investigation of the new claims can be accomplished within days of the original filed complaint, and determine the correct handling of the amendment in an expeditious manner. If the EEO Director or designee concludes that the new incident s provides additional evidence offered in support of the claim raised in the pending complaint, but does not raise a new claim in and of itself, then the EEO Director or designee should instruct the investigator to include the new incident in the investigation.
A copy of this letter should be sent to the complainant unless they have provided notice that they have a representative. In such a case, the acknowledgment and all subsequent actions on the complaint should be mailed or delivered to complainant's representative with a copy to the complainant, unless the complainant has stated otherwise.
During EEO counseling and in her formal complaint, an agency employee has alleged that her co-workers were harassing her because of her gender, and she cites five examples of harassment. During the investigation, she provides an initial affidavit detailing these incidents. Shortly thereafter, the employee contacts the investigator and tells him of several new incidents of gender-based harassment by these same co-workers.
In this case, these new incidents are additional evidence offered by complainant in support of her pending claim of discriminatory harassment, and the investigator should be instructed to incorporate these new facts into his investigation of the pending claim.
In this instance, the investigative period is not extended beyond days, except with the consent of the complainant pursuant to 29 C. While a complaint is pending, a complainant may raise a new incident of alleged discrimination that is not part of the existing claim, but may be part of a new claim that is like or related to the pending claim.
In accordance with 29 C. Accordingly, and pursuant to 29 C. The EEO Director or designee should also send a copy of the letter to the EEO Investigator who is investigating the complainant's prior complaint with instructions to include the new incident s in the investigation. An agency employee files a race discrimination complaint alleging he was not selected for a particular supervisory position, despite his belief that he was the best qualified candidate for the job.
During the investigation into his complaint, the same selecting official does not select the complainant for another supervisory position. Complainant again asserts he was not selected because of his race.
This new claim of a discriminatory non-selection is sufficiently like or related to the original non-selection claim that the agency should amend the original complaint to include the subsequent non-selection. During the investigation into her claim that the agency is discriminating against her in the terms and conditions of her employment because her supervisor denied her developmental assignments that could lead to upward mobility in the agency, the complainant informs the investigator that her supervisor just issued her a letter of warning for attendance problems.
The complainant asserts that the supervisor took this action in retaliation for her complaint about the denial of development assignments. This new claim of retaliation is related to the pending claim because it grew out of the investigation into that claim. The agency should amend the original complaint to include this subsequent, but related, claim.
An agency employee files a complaint of discrimination when his request for a hardship transfer is denied. During the investigation into his complaint, the complainant sends a letter to the EEO office stating that he has decided to resign from the agency because of the agency's failure to transfer him and the resulting stress. He further states that he is no longer seeking the transfer as a remedy to his complaint, but asserts he is entitled to a compensatory damages award instead.
The EEO office should amend the original complaint to include the complainant's new like or related claim of constructive discharge. Pursuant to 29 C. If a complaint is amended, however, this deadline is adjusted so that the agency must complete its investigation within the earlier of days after the last amendment to the complaint or not more than days after the filing of the original complaint. A complainant retains the right to request a hearing, even in the case of an amended complaint, after days have passed since the filing of the original complaint, even if the agency's investigation has not been completed.
In such cases, fragmented processing of an EEO complaint is not at issue because there are two distinct and unrelated legal claims being alleged.
The postmark date of the letter from complainant requesting an amendment to the EEO Director or designee would be the date for time computation purposes used to determine if initial counselor contact was timely under 29 C.
An agency employee sought EEO counseling and filed a formal complaint concerning his allegation that the agency discriminated against him in the terms and conditions of his employment by requiring that he adhere to a specific work schedule while not imposing a similar requirement on a comparative employee.
During the investigation into this complaint, the complainant tells the investigator that he was recently not selected for a position in another facility and believes this occurred as a result of discrimination. In this case, the discriminatory non-selection claim is not like or related to the adherence to the work schedule claim, as it is factually distinct and cannot reasonably be said to add to or clarify the original claim.
As noted above, a new claim that is not like or related to a previously filed complaint provides the basis for a new, and separate, complaint. The complainant must present the new, unrelated claim to an EEO Counselor and the new claim is subject to all of the regulatory case processing requirements.
In order to address a different fragmentation concern, 29 C. In all instances, however, where an individual requests a hearing, the consolidated complaints should be heard by a single Administrative Judge; or where the complainant requests a final agency decision, the agency should issue a single decision. An agency must consolidate complaints filed by the same complainant before the agency issues the notice required by 29 C. When a complaint has been consolidated with an earlier filed complaint, the agency must complete its investigation within the earlier of days after the filing of the last complaint or not later than days after the filing of the original complaint.
See Section II. A complainant has the right to request a hearing, even in the case of consolidated complaints, after days have passed since the filing of the original complaint, even if the agency's investigation is not complete. If not already consolidated, an Administrative Judge or the Commission in their discretion may consolidate two or more complaints of discrimination filed by the same complainant.
Section Another method of addressing the fragmentation problem is 29 C. C of this Chapter for a more detailed discussion of partial dismissals. Partial dismissals will be preserved and decided within the context of the rest of the complaint.
To further avoid the fragmenting of EEO claims, Administrative Judges will not remand issues to agencies for counseling or other processing. Once a case is before an Administrative Judge, that Administrative Judge is fully responsible for processing it.
Chapter 7, "Hearings," in this Management Directive discusses more fully this provision. D of this Chapter. As already emphasized, the EEO Counselor and investigator have critical roles in identifying, defining, and clarifying an aggrieved employee's legal claims. Do I need to file a Civil Cover Sheet with my complaint? A Civil Cover Sheet is a simple form the plaintiff must submit at the start of a court case. The form identifies the type of case and the parties.
After I file my summons and complaint, what must I do? There are very specific requirements for service. To learn more, click to visit Serving Your Complaint. What if I need to change my complaint after I file it?
How you go about amending your complaint depends on whether the defendant has filed anything with the court. Use the complaint you already prepared as a starting point. Change whatever you want to change. File your new amended complaint with the court clerk. There will not be an additional filing fee. Click to visit Serving Your Complaint. Attach a copy of your proposed amended complaint to your motion to amend.
EDCR 2. The proposed amended complaint that you attach must be complete, include any exhibits, and be ready to file. File your motion and attached amended complaint with the court clerk.
The clerk will set the case for a hearing date. Mail a copy of your motion to all defendants who have filed in the case. Attend your hearing. If the judge grants your motion, the judge might order the clerk to remove and file the proposed amended complaint you already submitted. If not, you will need to file your amended complaint with the court. Use the generic order form below. Prepare it and submit it to the judge for signature. Once the judge signs your order, file it with the court clerk if not filed already.
Prepare the Notice of Entry of Order below. Attach the signed Order you received from the judge to the Notice of Entry of Order you prepared.
File the Notice of Entry of Order including the attached Order with the court clerk. Mail a copy of the Notice of Entry of Order including the attached Order to all other parties in the case. This website is intended to provide general information, forms, and resources for people who are representing themselves in a Clark County court without a lawyer.
The information on this website is NOT a substitute for legal advice. Talk with a lawyer licensed in Nevada to get legal advice on your situation. Filing A Complaint To Start Your Case Learn about the requirements for preparing and filing a civil complaint, including how to prepare a summons, along with some cautions about when filing a complaint could get you into trouble.
To do this, include at least two things in the body of your complaint: 1. This means that your complaint must set forth sufficient facts to establish all of the necessary elements of the claim for relief you are asserting. Hay v. Hay , Nev. For more information about claims for relief, click to visit Evaluating and Researching Your Case.
Your statement of claim should be broken into numbered paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Each of the numbered paragraphs should contain a single thought or set of circumstances.
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