McLane Co., Inc. v. EEOC: Subpoena Enforcement and Appellate Review

In McLane Co., Inc. v. EEOC, the Supreme Court held that appellate courts review a district court’s decision to enforce or quash an EEOC subpoena for abuse of discretion. The Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s judgment and remanded for application of that standard. It did not decide whether the subpoena ultimately had to be enforced or whether the employee proved discrimination.

The investigation behind the subpoena

Damiana Ochoa had worked for eight years as a cigarette selector in a physically demanding distribution-center role. McLane required employees entering demanding positions or returning from medical leave to pass a physical evaluation. After three months of maternity leave, Ochoa failed the evaluation three times and was discharged. She filed an EEOC charge alleging sex discrimination. McLane, 581 U.S. at 77.

McLane provided basic information about the evaluation and an anonymous employee list containing gender, role, score, and reasons for testing. It refused to provide identifying information that would allow the agency to contact the tested employees. The EEOC expanded the inquiry geographically and also investigated age discrimination, issuing subpoenas for the requested information. Id. at 77–78.

The district court refused enforcement of the identifying-information requests as irrelevant. The Ninth Circuit reversed after reviewing the matter anew, or de novo, consistent with its circuit precedent. The Supreme Court took the case to resolve disagreement over the appellate standard of review. Id. at 78–79.

The enforcement proceeding was not a discrimination trial

Title VII gives the EEOC access to evidence relevant to a charge under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-8(a). Section 2000e-9 incorporates the National Labor Relations Act’s subpoena procedures, 29 U.S.C. § 161, including judicial enforcement. A district court considering enforcement does not decide the merits of the underlying discrimination complaint. It evaluates the charge’s legal validity and the requested material’s relevance, recognizing the agency’s broad investigative access; an employer may also establish undue burden. Id. at 75–77.

This procedural distinction explains why a request can be relevant before the agency knows exactly what it will prove. An employee’s identity may allow an interview that casts light on how a test operates or how a policy is applied. Investigative relevance is not identical to the eventual admissibility or persuasive value of evidence at a discrimination trial.

Conversely, enforcement does not itself establish that the employer discriminated. The agency’s request, a court’s enforcement order, and the final merits determination occur at different stages and answer different questions.

Why appellate review was deferential

The Court considered both the history of appellate practice and institutional capacity. Courts had long reviewed enforcement of administrative subpoenas for abuse of discretion, including before Congress incorporated comparable subpoena authority into Title VII. Most circuits followed that standard; the Ninth Circuit was the outlier. Id. at 79–81.

The functional reason was equally important. Relevance depends on the relationship between particular documents and the charge being investigated. Burden depends on the material sought and the actual difficulty of producing it. District judges are better situated to evaluate those factual applications and close calls. Deferential review also avoids a second wholesale weighing of the same record in an ancillary proceeding meant to facilitate an investigation. Id. at 81–82.

The result makes the district court record consequential. Parties should explain how the requested information connects to the charge and substantiate any claimed production burden. A general assertion that the information is unnecessary or inconvenient is less useful than evidence addressing the governing relevance and burden standards.

Abuse of discretion still reaches legal errors

The standard does not insulate an incorrect legal rule. The Court identified legal questions embedded in enforcement, including whether the charge is legally sufficient and whether the district court used the correct relevance standard. A ruling based on an erroneous legal view necessarily abuses discretion. Id. at 81–82 n.3.

The Court also rejected the idea of automatic double deference from the appellate court to the district court and then to the agency. The district court must apply the broadly understood relevance standard, rather than simply defer to the EEOC’s own conclusion. Id. at 83–84. The district court independently applies the relevance standard; an employer cannot defeat relevance merely by arguing that the requested information is unnecessary.

The remand and Justice Ginsburg’s narrower disagreement

The United States argued that the Ninth Circuit’s result could be affirmed because the district court had abused its discretion. The majority left that evaluation to the court of appeals in the first instance, including consideration of McLane’s burden arguments as appropriate. It vacated and remanded rather than deciding enforcement itself. Id. at 85.

Justice Ginsburg agreed that abuse of discretion generally applied but regarded the district court’s necessity requirement as a legal error already sufficient to affirm the reversal. In her view, the EEOC needed to show relevance, not a heightened particularized necessity. Id. at 85–86 (Ginsburg, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Her disagreement concerned the disposition, not a competing general standard of review.

What the decision means for the evidence record

For employers contesting a subpoena, the decision underscores the need to build the relevance and burden record at the district court level while distinguishing a legal-standard error from a factual application disagreement. For employees, it explains why identifying relevant documents and witnesses can help an investigation even before the merits are resolved.

It does not provide the rules for an employee’s response to an employer’s position statement. That procedure comes from the EEOC’s own guidance, discussed in our position statement response guide. Evidence preservation and privilege questions involving EEOC requests likewise require their own analysis.

A careful reading therefore preserves both sides of the holding: Subpoena-enforcement decisions receive deferential appellate review, and legal errors remain reviewable within that standard.