Williams v. Nielsen

Background

I. Carol Williams, a paralegal specialist employed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and working in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection office, alleged race discrimination and retaliation under federal employment-discrimination law. She alleged that she was denied training, temporary assignments, and promotion opportunities; received negative workplace reviews, reprimands, and instructions; was assigned more difficult work; and was later investigated for alleged misconduct. Williams alleged that she is African American, the only African American employee in her office, and that other paralegals who were white or Asian received some opportunities or a promotion that she did not receive.

Williams contacted the agency’s Equal Employment Opportunity counselor three times and pursued agency complaints concerning various events. Her second amended complaint included claims based on events occurring before and after those administrative proceedings. The Secretary argued that the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because some allegations exceeded the scope of Williams’s agency complaints. He also argued that Williams had not timely contacted an Equal Employment Opportunity counselor about some events and had not alleged enough facts connecting the challenged actions to race or protected activity.

Jurisdiction and administrative exhaustion

The court held that the requirement that a federal employee first pursue discrimination or retaliation claims through the agency’s administrative process is mandatory, but it is not jurisdictional. Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Fort Bend County v. Davis, the court concluded that failure to satisfy that requirement does not deprive a federal court of authority to hear the case. The court therefore denied the motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

The court treated the Secretary’s argument about the scope of Williams’s administrative complaints as an argument that Williams failed to state a claim, rather than as a jurisdictional challenge. The court granted the motion and dismissed any claims based on assigning Williams more difficult work or criticizing her dress code because Williams did not contend that she had raised those matters with the agency. The court stated that the alleged events might still be used as evidence of discriminatory intent concerning other claims.

The court denied the motion as to the June 2019 notice that Williams was under investigation. Although that event occurred after the agency’s investigation, the court held that a later event may satisfy the administrative-exhaustion requirement when it is sufficiently similar to the earlier administrative allegations and consistent with the original theory of the case.

Timeliness

The court granted the motion and dismissed without prejudice any claims based on discrete adverse actions occurring in September 2016 or earlier, to the extent the complaint could be read to assert such claims. The court explained that a federal employee generally must contact an Equal Employment Opportunity counselor within 45 days of an alleged discriminatory event.

The court declined to dismiss as untimely Williams’s claim based on the November 6, 2018 decision not to create a GS-12 position in her San Francisco office. Williams alleged that she contacted an Equal Employment Opportunity counselor within 45 days of that decision. The court also stated that Williams could use earlier, untimely conduct as background evidence for a timely claim, but she could not treat a series of separate discrimination or retaliation acts as one continuing violation on that theory. The court noted that she could seek leave to add a hostile-work-environment claim if she believed she could plead facts supporting one.

Failure-to-promote claim

The court dismissed with leave to amend Williams’s claims based on the failure to promote her to GS-12. The court did not decide the ultimate merits of those claims. It found that the complaint left important matters unclear, including whether requests for new GS-12 positions were based on office needs or on employees’ entitlement to greater responsibility and compensation, whether such requests were usually granted, and whether Holsopple failed to request a position for Williams.

Race-discrimination and retaliation allegations

The court granted the motion to dismiss the race-discrimination claim with leave to amend. Williams alleged that non-African American paralegals received better opportunities, work assignments, or promotions, but the court found that the complaint generally did not say whether those employees were similarly situated in relevant respects, such as job performance or seniority. The court stated that the allegations could potentially be amended without extensive changes.

The court also dismissed the retaliation claim with leave to amend. It found that Zeng’s statement that she would not support Williams for promotion because Williams had filed a grievance could support an inference of retaliatory animus. But Williams did not allege that Zeng had a role in deciding whether she would be promoted, particularly when no GS-12 position was available. Williams also did not allege facts suggesting that the reprimands were pretexts for race discrimination or retaliation rather than responses to genuine disagreements about performance or workplace rules.

Disposition

The Secretary’s motion under Rule 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim, was granted. Williams’s second amended complaint was dismissed with leave to amend. The court ordered that she could file a third amended complaint no later than December 16, 2019. The motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction was denied.