One of my clients recently received a charge of discrimination which stated that no action was required on the part of the employer.  I tried calling the investigator a few times and left voice messages - no response from the EEOC.

I have never seen an EEOC charge that states that no action is required and it bothers me.  There are no allegations in the charge so we do not have any statement from the employee to investigate. 

Any recommendations on what to do - or do we just sit and wait - which is not in my character.

Thanks in advance for your help.

I’ve also never seen that type of charge, but I would imagine you have some notion regarding the nature of the allegations.  If it were me, I would sit down with the client and get the full story, making sure that I wasn’t going to lose any valuable evidence.  However, I don’t think I would submit anything until the EEOC made some type of request for a response.

I agree with Patrick.  I would not volunteer any information unless required.  Your client is entitled to know the nature of the claim regardless of the severity of the allegations.  I would consider pushing the issue to determine the nature claim.  The only reason that I could think for not needed to take actions is that the allegations were retracted.  I have had cases that were determined to be unsubstantiated, but a third party organization has gotten involved and to avoid additional controversy I have reached a settlement with that group, but I have never had a response like that from the EEOC.

Thanks for the information on this issue. Just to let you know, the EEOC never returned any of my many calls, but they issues a no cause finding the other day.

Some background - an employee who is the recipient of a heart transplant many years ago, went out on FMLA to have his heart checked out. His job is to drive to customer locations to service my client’s equipment. While on FMLA, client found that the employee was not following the prescribed routes and visiting customer a week or two later than he was supposed to. Upon return from FMLA, client gave the employee a poorly written warning about his job performance. Employee went to EEOC to claim race and disability discrimination.

However, before the client received the EEOC notice, I worked with the client to develop a clearly worded description of the importance of meeting the customers as scheduled. I understand that the employee is now doing well in his job now and the EEOC case went away.

This is the first time I ever did nothing and still won an EEOC charge.

I’ve received a few of those over the course of my career and agree it is a little disconcerting (sort of like your Mom saying “wait till your Father gets home” but not explaining what you did wrong..  ).  I always assumed that one or both of the following was likely, although I can’t confirm:

1. A claim is being made but the complainant/agency haven’t yet perfected the wording of the charge and just wants to put you on notice.

2. The clock is running on filing deadline and they are sending this as a “placeholder”

In some cases, received a more detailed charge/response request and in others, never heard another word.

Just to update on this.  The EEOC sent a no cause letter.  Of course, I have no idea what the complaint was about except to race and disability.  But the end result is positive.