Young v. Chao

Background

Cheryl Young, proceeding without a lawyer, sued Peter Buttigieg in his official capacity as Secretary of Transportation. The opinion explains that Buttigieg automatically replaced former Secretary Elaine Chao as the defendant while the case was pending. Young asserted claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which prohibits discrimination against workers age 40 and older.

Young alleged that the Department of Transportation reassigned her from the Office of Airline Information to the Office of Geospatial Information System in 2008, where she performed work she considered below her experience and salary grade. She alleged that a younger Caucasian employee took over her prior TranStats responsibilities. She also alleged a pattern of race- and age-based harassment, retaliation after she filed an employment discrimination complaint, and constructive retirement after she accepted a Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment offer in 2015.

Young further alleged that the Department failed to place her in a GS-15 information-technology position in 2016 and 2017, instead giving the position to younger employees. Earlier administrative proceedings before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had found discrimination and ordered corrective relief. After a prior dismissal, the Ninth Circuit allowed Young to amend her complaint to seek a new review of the administrative decision if she could allege that she timely received the Commission’s corrected final decision. Young then filed the operative second amended complaint.

Claims and arguments

Young’s five claims alleged: (1) discriminatory reassignment; (2) a hostile work environment; (3) retaliation for protected employment-discrimination activity; (4) constructive retirement; and (5) race- and age-based discrimination in the 2016 and 2017 job selection.

The Secretary moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal when a complaint does not adequately state a claim for relief. The Secretary argued that the claims were insufficiently pleaded and that the constructive-retirement and job-selection claims had not satisfied administrative presentment requirements. The court considered Young’s factual allegations as true for this motion and did not decide disputed factual issues.

Court’s analysis

Reassignment claim. The court denied dismissal of the age-discrimination part of Young’s reassignment claim. Although Young did not expressly allege in the complaint that she was at least 40, the complaint’s exhibits and the parties’ undisputed information established that she was well over that age when the reassignment occurred. The court held that her allegations—that she received good performance reviews, was moved to underutilized work, and was replaced in her prior responsibilities by a substantially younger employee whom she alleged was less qualified—plausibly supported an inference of age discrimination. The Secretary had not sought dismissal of the Title VII race-discrimination component of this claim.

Hostile work environment. The court denied dismissal of Young’s hostile-work-environment claim under Title VII and the ADEA. Young alleged several incidents, including being denied access to meetings or information, being mocked for her English, being accused of violating security procedures, and hearing a statement about a “high moral” after Asian American managers left the office. The court concluded that, viewed together and in light of Young’s other allegations, these incidents plausibly described a repeated pattern of harassment based on race and age. The court stated that disputes about how severe or widespread the conduct was would be better considered after development of an evidentiary record.

Retaliation claim. The court denied dismissal of Young’s Title VII retaliation claim. Young alleged that she filed an employment discrimination complaint, that a supervisor learned of it, and that several months later he stopped her from working on the SharePoint project and returned her to entry-level work. The court found that filing the complaint was protected activity and that removal from the project could qualify as an adverse employment action. Although the time between the complaint and the alleged retaliation made causation a closer question, the court found the claim plausible based on the surrounding allegations and the prior administrative finding that the supervisor’s action was retaliatory.

Constructive-retirement claim. The court denied the Secretary’s motion to dismiss Young’s constructive-retirement claim. Constructive discharge is a legal theory under which an employee leaves because working conditions have become intolerable to a reasonable person. The court held that Young had adequately shown administrative exhaustion because her theory was reasonably related to her earlier administrative claims and had also been addressed during the ongoing administrative proceedings. The court further held that her allegations—that she was underutilized, blocked from performing work within her skills, and not restored to the position ordered by the administrative agency—made the claim plausible at the pleading stage. The court did not decide whether she would ultimately prove constructive discharge.

2016 and 2017 job-selection claim. The court found that Young had sufficiently exhausted administrative remedies for her job-selection allegations. It also held that she plausibly alleged age discrimination because she claimed she was qualified for the position, the Department had initially offered it to her, and younger employees later received it.

The court reached a different conclusion about race discrimination under Title VII. Young did not allege that the employees selected for the position were not Asian. Without that allegation, the court held that it could not reasonably infer that she was denied the position because of her race. The court therefore granted the Secretary’s motion as to that Title VII race-discrimination claim and dismissed it with leave to amend.

Disposition

The Secretary’s motion to dismiss was denied except as to Young’s Title VII race-discrimination claim concerning the Department’s failure to place her in the position later given to other employees. The court granted the motion as to that claim and dismissed it with leave to amend no later than April 9, 2021. The order allowed Young’s other claims, including the age-discrimination component of the 2016 and 2017 job-selection claim, to proceed. The court did not make final findings on the underlying facts or decide whether Young would ultimately prevail.