posted on Thursday, September 29, 2005 6:22 PM
by
Lou Michels
Edit your state's statute of limitations
The Michigan Court of Appeals recently ruled that an employer is entitled to enforce a statute of limitations included in a job application form that sets six months as the amount of time employees have to file any employment related claims or lawsuits against the company. The case is Clark v. Daimler Chrysler Corp., and the opinion issued on September 13, 2005. The idea that an employer can short circuit federal and state civil rights statutes of limitation through contractual waiver is nothing if not surprising.
The Michigan court interpreted a recent Michigan Supreme Court opinion which stated that unambiguous contractual provisions that provided for a reduced statute of limitations are enforceable as written unless the provision violates law or public policy. The Court of Appeals notes that the employer provision at issue is not ambiguous, is not contrary to law because "there are no statutes explicitly prohibiting the contractual modification of limitation periods in the employment context," (I suspect that will be news to the Michigan and other state legislatures, which generally assume that their pronouncements are not to be violated unless they write a statute that explicitly allows it), and that Michigan has no general policy prohibiting contract modification of statutory limitations periods. Other than that sort of universal policy of following the law generally.
The ability of an employer to cut the three-year statutory period for filing discrimination claims under Michigan law down to six months is probably unique to Michigan. I would not expect judges in other states to allow their legislatures' statutory civil rights schemes to be modified by an employment application waiver. In other words, putting a Michigan choice of laws provision in your employment agreements or employment contracts, coupled with a shortened statute of limitations filing requirement, will probably not be enforceable anywhere outside of Michigan. I would expect most courts to simply strike the provision as void against the public policy of their own states.