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The Supreme Court unanimously held 2/22/06 that satisfaction of the numerosity component of Title VII’s definition of “employer” is an element of a plaintiff’s claim for relief, not a prerequisite to federal subject-matter jurisdiction. Section 701(b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(b), limits the definition of “employer” to those having “fifteen or more employees.” The lower courts in this case held that the numerosity requirement is jurisdictional and thus required dismissal even though it had not been raised by the defendant until after a jury verdict for the plaintiff. Reversing, the Supreme Court analyzed the text and structure of Title VII’s jurisdictional provision, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(3), together with 28 U.S.C. § 1331, the general statute that confers federal-question jurisdiction. The Court concluded that the numerosity requirement contained in Title VII’s definition of “employer” is not a threshold jurisdictional requirement akin to the monetary floor clearly specified for diversity actions in 28 U.S.C. § 1332. In doing so, the Court articulated a bright-line rule: if Congress does not definitively state that a threshold limitation on the scope of a statute is jurisdictional in nature, the courts must treat the restriction as nonjurisdictional. The Court’s decision is important to employers with fewer than fifteen employees and to any business that may be involved in litigation under federal statutes with specifically limited scope.

Decision Below: 380 F.3d 219 (5th Cir. 2004)