Skip main navigation

Outdated or Unsupported Browser Detected
DWD's website uses the latest technology. This makes our site faster and easier to use across all devices. Unfortunatley, your browser is out of date and is not supported. An update is not required, but it is strongly recommended to improve your browsing experience. To update Internet Explorer to Microsoft Edge visit their website.

712 Parties, naming in complaint

An individual supervisor should not be named separately as a Respondent where the alleged violation of the law arose out of actions taken as an agent of the employer. Powell v. Salter (LIRC, 07/11/97).

Where there was no evidence that a named individual acted outside of his authority as an agent of the Respondent, that individual should not be named as a Respondent. Hoey v. County of Fond du Lac (LIRC, 07/09/97).

While secs. 111.321 and 111.325 of the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act provide that no “person” may engage in an act of employment discrimination, the Act also expressly provides for employer liability for any financial remedies ordered as a result of a violation of the law “by an individual employed by the employer.” Sec. 111.39(4)(c), Stats. Thus, individual supervisors acting as agents of the employer should not be named as separate Respondents in discrimination complaints. Yaekel v. DRS, Ltd. (LIRC, 11/22/96).

Even if the Complainant misnamed one of the parties in the complaint, the Equal Rights Division should not have dismissed the complaint on that basis because the Division caused the problem itself by initially “rejecting” the complaint and returning it to the Complainant with instructions to name a different entity as the Respondent. The Complainant followed the instructions given to her by the Equal Rights Division. For the Division to subsequently dismiss the complaint because it found fault with that description is contrary to notions of fundamental fairness. Johnson v. Cent. Reg’l Dental Testing Serv. (LIRC, 02/29/96).

Given the close statutory relationship between the Department of Regulation and Licensing and the Dentistry Examining Board, it would be highly artificial to insist that the Board had such a separate identity from the Department that an administrative complaint was defective in naming the Department rather than the Board, particularly when the allegations of the complaint identified the role of the Board in the alleged discrimination. Dismissal of the complaint for some perceived failure to correctly name parties would represent a hyper-technical approach to pleading that has no place in administrative litigation. Johnson v. Cent. Reg’l Dental Testing Serv. (LIRC, 02/29/96).

Failure to name a city as a party in a discrimination complaint did not deprive the Equal Rights Division of jurisdiction to investigate where the Complainant was unrepresented at the time of filing, the drafting of the complaint was done by the Equal Rights Division, the city had timely notice of the allegations and the city was named in an amended complaint. Jones v. Racine County (LIRC, 07/08/83).