Corporate Power to Limit Workers’ Window to Sue Faces New Test

Companies’ ability to reduce the time workers have to bring discrimination lawsuits will likely come into sharper focus in a case set to be heard Tuesday by the Fourth Circuit.

At issue is when employment applications, agreements, handbooks, and similar documents can cut a period set by law to sue alleging workplace bias. Such contractually shortened deadlines have gained popularity among employers. Businesses also use them in consumer contracts and other situations. The outcome in former EOTech LLC employee Natalie Thomas’ appeal could be influenced by and shape those other contexts.

The rifle scope maker discriminated against and fired the Black female controller after just seven months, according to her appellate brief. Thomas says it matters that her race, sex, and age discrimination claims were brought under laws containing their own specific statutes of limitations.

US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit cases cited by the lower court as binding precedent in ruling she sued too late under an EOTech handbook provision giving her just 180 days to do so are different than her case, she says. The Sixth Circuit took the right approach in holding the bias-suit processes in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act contain unchangeable deadlines, Thomas says.

Lawyers say the Fourth Circuit would be only the second one after the Sixth—under Title VII and then ADEA and Americans with Disabilities Act—to directly address whether these laws’ time limits are merely “procedural” and contractually waivable.

Thomas’ case could create a circuit split or bring needed uniformity on a question that’s dogged courts for years, lawyers say.

EOTech says the Sixth Circuit view that those self-contained deadlines are “substantive” rights hasn’t been widely adopted and was rejected by the Second Circuit—a view a Massachusetts federal judge recently seemed to echo. A 2020 unpublished Fourth Circuit decision the lower court relied upon passed on a chance to distinguish Title VII and ADEA allegations from other types of claims.

Circuit precedent establishes agreements shortening the time to sue are permissible, the company says.

Substantive or Procedural

When reviewing clauses shortening the time to sue under laws that don’t set their own deadlines, instead looking to other laws, courts generally use a reasonableness or fairness standard, including for race bias claims under 42 U.S.C. §1981.

But, it’s different when a law lays out a pre-suit administrative scheme and time to sue, as Title VII and the ADEA do, Shelby Leighton of Public Justice said.

Built-in deadlines reflect a congressional intent to create substantive protections. Title VII and the ADEA give workers the right to have Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges investigated and the agency power to try resolving claims without litigation, Leighton said.

Allowing employers to shorten those periods forecloses the administrative process, eroding worker rights and conflicting with the societal interest in eliminating job bias, Albany Law School’s Meredith R. Miller said.

Courts are inconsistent on whether statutes of limitations create procedural or substantive rights, but they seem to be coalescing around the view that they’re substantive when set right in the law the party’s suing under, the professor said.

The Sixth Circuit view is a principled one, Colter Paulson of Squire Patton Boggs said. But like Miller, he thinks it’s possible the Fourth Circuit could break ranks.

It may come down to how the court views congressional powers, Paulson said. Every employer would like a decision setting clear guidelines, he said.

These clauses can be a valid way to assess and plan for litigation risk, Hudson Cook LLP’s Julia K. Whitelock said. States can have statutes of limitations as long as six years for some claims, she said.

Context, Tolling

Courts have examined the issue in various contexts, including a First Circuit decision shielding a Massachusetts consumer protection law’s statute of limitations from contractual shortening, Leighton said.

Miller pointed to the Michigan Supreme Court’s August decision on shortened time limits, which overruled application of an insurance case to an employment contract. That shows “context matters,” the professor said.

The Fourth Circuit precedent the lower court cited in Thomas’ suit was an antitrust case, Miller said. That’s a fundamentally different scenario.

EOTech says the shortened suit window Thomas agreed to is binding because the 180-day period was tolled while her charge was being handled by the EEOC.

Contracts that don’t account for the EEOC review period are more likely to violate congressional intent, Paulson said.

Shortened-limitations clauses are also often in arbitration agreements, inviting risks for businesses.

If the reduced time-line is invalidated, that could lead to the whole agreement being thrown out in court, including class-arbitration and jury waivers, Whitelock said.

The case is Thomas v. EOTech, LLC, 4th Cir., No. 25-01094, oral argument 10/21/25.