Key Points

  • The Eighth Circuit held that termination occurs where the employee is notified, so the state of notice sets whether the 180-day or 300-day EEOC charge-filing deadline applies.
  • Stephens learned in Arkansas that Harcros had withdrawn his conditional job offer, so Arkansas's 180-day limit applied, and his charge, filed in Kansas after 266 days, was untimely.
  • The court reasoned that keying the deadline to where the employer decides could be susceptible to manipulation by employers.
  • Stephens's Title VII and Section 1981 race claims were properly dismissed as conclusory under Ashcroft v. Iqbal.
  • The district court did not abuse its discretion in declining supplemental jurisdiction over the negligence claim against i3Logix after all federal claims were dismissed.

A federal appeals court ruled on Oct. 29 that the deadline for filing a job discrimination charge is set by the state where the worker learns of the decision, not the state where the employer made the decision. Under that rule, the court held, a rejected Arkansas job applicant waited too long to file his disability charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Donald Stephens's lawsuit against Harcros Chemicals Inc. and i3Logix Inc., the company that reported his drug test. Judge Erickson wrote the opinion for the panel, which also included Judges Loken and Benton. No judge wrote separately.

Federal law gives workers 180 days to file an EEOC charge, the required first step before an Americans with Disabilities Act suit. The window stretches to 300 days in states with their own agency empowered to remedy the discrimination. Arkansas has no such agency and Kansas does, so the choice of state decided whether Stephens's charge counted.

According to the opinion, Stephens applied to work as a warehouse driver at Harcros's Little Rock facility and received a conditional job offer. Harcros withdrew the offer after i3Logix reported that he had tested positive for "marijuana metabolite." Stephens told i3Logix and Harcros's hiring manager that he had not used marijuana but had eaten half of a CBD gummy for anxiety related to atrial fibrillation.

His complaint alleged that Harcros refused to consider whether the result was a false positive, did not answer his email asking the company to start its return-to-duty process, and never engaged in an interactive process to accommodate his disability. Harcros is headquartered in Kansas City, Kansas. Stephens filed his charge with the EEOC office there 266 days after he learned the offer had been withdrawn.

The EEOC dismissed the charge and issued Stephens a right-to-sue letter, and he sued in federal court in Arkansas. U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr. of the Eastern District of Arkansas granted judgment on the pleadings to Harcros, finding the charge untimely. He also granted i3Logix's motion to dismiss.

On appeal, Stephens argued that Kansas's 300-day limit applied because Harcros decided to withdraw the offer in Kansas. The panel rejected that argument. "Stephens's assertion is inconsistent with our precedent," Judge Erickson wrote.

The court relied on its 2009 decision in Hutson v. Wells Dairy Inc., which held that the limitations period starts when an employer notifies the employee of its termination decision. The panel extended that reasoning from timing to place. "Since termination is effective upon notice to the employee, it follows that termination occurs where the employee is notified," Judge Erickson wrote.

The opinion noted that Hutson applied Nebraska law to an employee who received notice of termination at the Omaha airport. It also cited a 1977 Eighth Circuit decision, Burns v. Union Pacific Railroad, which held that a wrongful termination claim filed in Missouri was governed by Kansas law because the employment and termination occurred in Kansas.

The panel added a practical reason for the rule. "Sound prudential reasons exist for using the site-of-the-notice test, as using the location of the decision to terminate could be susceptible to manipulation by employers," Judge Erickson wrote, citing decisions of federal trial courts in Tennessee and Florida.

Applying the test, the court found the facts settled. "That Stephens applied for a job in Arkansas and was notified of the withdrawal of the job offer in Arkansas is undisputed," the opinion said. Because the charge came more than 180 days after that notice, the panel held, "the charge was untimely and his disability discrimination claim is subject to dismissal."

The panel also affirmed the dismissal of Stephens's race discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 42 U.S.C. ยง 1981. Stephens, who is African American, alleged that Harcros discriminated against him "on the basis of his race when it failed to conduct a thorough investigation of his claim of a false-positive drug test and withdrew the offer of employment and hired a person outside of the protected class that was less qualified."

The court held that allegation too thin under Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Stephens did not describe the person Harcros purportedly hired or offer other facts showing discriminatory intent, the panel wrote. As for i3Logix, which Stephens alleged had "intentionally misrepresented" his explanation about the hemp product, the court wrote that "Stephens makes no mention of racial animus at all against i3Logix."

That left only a state-law negligence claim against i3Logix. The district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction once every federal claim was gone. The panel reviewed that choice for abuse of discretion and upheld it. "Stephens has not articulated a basis to find the district court abused its discretion by declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over his negligence claim, and we can find no basis," Judge Erickson wrote.

In a footnote, the court said the federal regulation listing Arkansas's 180-day deadline was in effect in 2024, when Stephens filed his charge. The regulation was repealed on July 16, 2026, and the opinion said filing deadlines now appear on the EEOC's website.

The panel affirmed the district court's judgment in full, ending Stephens's appeal and leaving every claim against both companies dismissed. Because the district court declined supplemental jurisdiction, neither court reached the merits of the negligence claim against i3Logix.