Fourth Circuit Wary of Job Clauses Limiting Time for Bias Suits

A rifle scope manufacturer faced a skeptical Fourth Circuit on Tuesday in arguing employers are allowed to contractually shorten the time certain federal job bias laws grant workers to sue.

Former EOTECH LLC employee Natalie Thomas says a lower court wrongly found she was bound by a 180-day period to sue for race, sex, and age discrimination set in the company’s employee handbook. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act—two of the laws she sued under—designate their own time limits and processes for bias suits. Those deadlines are unchangeable because they created ...