Kathleen Mulligan v. Victoria A. Lipnic ( 2018 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
APR 30 2018
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
KATHLEEN MULLIGAN, an individual, No. 16-56770
Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No.
2:15-cv-00712-DDP-AJW
v.
VICTORIA A. LIPNIC, Acting Chair of MEMORANDUM*
the United States Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Dean D. Pregerson, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted April 9, 2018
Pasadena, California
Before: SCHROEDER and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and DRAIN,** District
Judge.
Plaintiff Kathleen Mulligan appeals the District Court’s grant of summary
judgment to the Defendant Victoria A. Lipnic, Acting Chair of the United States
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable Gershwin A. Drain, United States District Judge for
the Eastern District of Michigan, sitting by designation.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), on Mulligan’s failure to
accommodate, retaliation, and hostile work environment claims. See 42 U.S.C.
§§ 12203(a), 12112(a), (b)(5)(A), 2000e-2(a)(1), 2000e-3(a); 29 U.S.C. § 794a(2).
We affirm.
Mulligan first contends that the EEOC should be estopped from many of its
arguments, because the EEOC’s administrative decisions, manual, and guidance
contradict its positions here. The EEOC contends that there is no inconsistency
and that Mulligan cannot establish estoppel in any event. Even assuming the
EEOC’s positions in its 2005 manual and 2002 guidance materially differ from its
position in this case, the government would be barred by estoppel only if there
were affirmative misconduct. This requires a showing of “affirmative
misrepresentation or affirmative concealment of a material fact by the
government.” Watkins v. U.S. Army, 875 F.2d 699, 707 (9th Cir. 1989) (en banc)
(citation omitted). Inconsistency is not sufficient, and therefore the EEOC is not
estopped.
Mulligan next argues that her failure to accommodate and retaliation claims
were timely even though filed more than 45 days after the claimed adverse action.
Retaliation and failure to accommodate claims are discrete claims that must be
timely filed. See Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 113–14
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(2002) (retaliation); Cherosky v. Henderson, 330 F.3d 1243, 1246–47 (9th Cir.
2003) (failure to accommodate). Mulligan was required to consult an Equal
Employment Opportunity (“EEO”) Counselor “within 45 days of the date of the
matter alleged to be discriminatory.” 29 C.F.R. § 1614.105(a)(1); see also Vasquez
v. County of Los Angeles, 349 F.3d 634, 644 (9th Cir. 2003). She contends her
delay may be excused because she learned later that retaliatory animus adversely
affected her earlier accommodation requests. Nevertheless, she was required to
bring her claims within 45 days of the alleged adverse employment action, not 45
days from when she became aware that the action was based on retaliatory intent.
See Lukovsky v. City and County of San Francisco, 535 F.3d 1044, 1051 (9th Cir.
2008).
The District Court did not err in sua sponte granting summary judgment on
Mulligan’s failure to accommodate claims that were timely, because the record was
sufficiently developed, there was no genuine dispute of fact, and she had
reasonable notice that the sufficiency of her claims would be at issue. See Albino
v. Baca, 747 F.3d 1162, 1176 (9th Cir. 2014) (en banc).
Mulligan argues that she has established a prima facie failure to
accommodate claim, but she has not shown that the EEOC intentionally
discriminated against her. See 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(a); Duvall v. County of Kitsap,
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260 F.3d 1124, 1138 (9th Cir. 2001) (citation omitted). She acknowledges that
some of her accommodation requests were eventually fulfilled, and there is no
indication that the delays were the result of anything other than negligence. As for
the EEOC’s failure to provide permanent staff to escort participants to Mulligan’s
hearings, Mulligan’s request was speculative as she had not asserted that she could
no longer perform that duty. As for her request for assistance with taking notes
during hearings, Mulligan had access to transcripts from the hearings, and she
never explained what accommodation the EEOC should have provided her. See
Barnett v. U.S. Air, Inc., 228 F.3d 1105, 1115 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc) (“An
appropriate reasonable accommodation must be effective, in enabling the employee
to perform the duties of the position.”), vacated on other grounds, 535 U.S. 391
(2002).
Next, Mulligan claims that she has established a prima facie claim of
retaliation. Mulligan must show a causal link between her employer’s action and
her protected activity, but she has not alleged that the employees responsible for
fulfilling her accommodation requests had any retaliatory motive. See Ray v.
Henderson, 217 F.3d 1234, 1240 (9th Cir. 2000). Mulligan’s retaliation claims
based on her allegations of her supervisor’s profane remark and breach of her
medical privacy are not actionable because they are based on only a limited
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number of hostile remarks. See Hardage v. CBS Broad., Inc., 427 F.3d 1177, 1189
(9th Cir. 2005) (collecting cases), amended on other grounds, 433 F.3d 672 (9th
Cir. 2006). Further, the record does not suggest that the supervisor revealed
Mulligan’s medical information. And as for Mulligan’s retaliation claim based on
the EEOC’s delay in reclassifying her position, she admittedly did not exhaust her
administrative remedies. See Karamanos v. Egger, 882 F.2d 447, 449–51 (9th Cir.
1989) (affirming dismissal of plaintiff’s claims seeking review of agency’s
“reclassification decision on the ground that he failed to exhaust his administrative
remedies”).
Mulligan next asserts that we should for the first time recognize a per se
theory for retaliation claims. We decline to do so. Such a theory would run
counter to the principle that the “antiretaliation provision protects an individual not
from all retaliation, but from retaliation that” is materially adverse to a reasonable
employee. See Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 67–68
(2006).
Finally, Mulligan asserts hostile work environment claims under Title VII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
(“ADA”), as amended by the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. For purposes of this
appeal, we assume, without deciding, that a claim under the ADA may exist, but
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Mulligan has not shown that she was discriminated against on the basis of her
membership in a protected class under either statute. See 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a)
(prohibiting discrimination “on the basis of disability”); 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1)
(prohibiting discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin”).
Discrimination on the basis of prior EEO activity would constitute a claim for
retaliation, not hostile work environment. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 12203(a), 2000e-3(a).
Moreover, she cannot establish a pervasive or severe atmosphere sufficient to
constitute an actionable hostile work environment claim. See Meritor Sav. Bank,
FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 67 (1986) (“For . . . harassment to be actionable, it
must be sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s
employment and create an abusive working environment.”) (citation, alterations,
and internal quotation marks omitted).
AFFIRMED.
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