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Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 24, 2012 Decided May 7, 2013

No. 11-7136

JUDITH BARNETT,

APPELLANT

v.

PA CONSULTING GROUP, INC.,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:04-cv-01245)

Richard A. Salzman argued the cause for appellant. With 

him on the briefs was Douglas B. Huron.

Elizabeth Lalik argued the cause for appellee. With her on 

the brief was Scott J. Preston.

Before: GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge, EDWARDS and 

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: Judith Barnett appeals the 

district court’s grant of summary judgment against her claims 

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that she was fired from her work because of her age and sex. 

The district court credited the defense of Barnett’s employer

that she was let go during a restructuring of the firm only 

because her expertise was not a good fit with the firm’s new 

business focus. Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to 

Barnett, we conclude that a reasonable jury could find her 

employer’s defense to be pretext for discrimination, and 

reverse.

I

Defendant PA Consulting Group, Inc. (PA), is a 

management consulting firm headquartered in London, with 

offices in approximately thirty countries, including the United 

States. The firm is organized into industry-specific practice 

groups led by partners who supervise managing consultants, 

principal consultants, and support staff.

From 2000 until 2003, Barnett worked as a managing 

consultant in the firm’s Transportation Group, which mainly 

advised clients in the airline industry. Unlike most of her 

colleagues in the Group, Barnett’s book of business was not 

focused on airlines and airports. Instead, she worked with a 

range of American companies seeking to open new markets for 

their products in the Middle East and North Africa. Barnett’s 

practice grew out of her prior work in government. From 1994 

through 1998, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

Commerce for the Middle East and Africa. Upon leaving 

government service in 1998, Barnett joined GKMG, a small 

firm whose other consultants chiefly advised airlines hoping to 

open new routes and airports looking for additional carriers. 

GKMG brought Barnett on board to diversify its business and 

help expand its presence in the Middle East. In 1999, Barnett 

and her colleagues at GKMG merged with Hagler Bailly and 

became that firm’s Transportation Group. When PA purchased 

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Hagler Bailly in the fall of 2000, the former GKMG 

consultants, including Barnett, became the new 

Washington-based Transportation Group at PA. For a few

months after joining PA, Barnett sought to switch into a 

different practice group, because she was concerned that her 

expertise was out of sync with the Transportation Group’s

focus on the airline industry. But James Miller, the head of the 

Group, convinced her to stay. Miller told Barnett that she was 

doing great work, making lots of money for the firm, and on 

track for promotion.

Barnett continued to impress her bosses at PA and 

received favorable performance reviews. For example, her

June 2003 review, written by Miller, described her overall 

performance as “very good!” In his deposition testimony, 

Miller remembered Barnett as a “tireless” consultant who 

“produced great work for the client.” The percentage of her 

work billed to clients was higher than that of any other 

managing consultant in the Transportation Group. 

Nevertheless, Barnett found herself part of a failing 

practice. Financial turmoil befell the aviation industry in the 

wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Because PA’s Transportation 

Group primarily served airlines and airports, its revenues 

plummeted in 2002. By early 2003, the Group was losing 

millions of dollars a year. PA’s top management in London, led 

by its chief executive officer Jon Moynihan and its chief 

operating officer Bruce Tindale, stepped in to try to pull the 

Group out of its tailspin. First, they commissioned an internal 

audit, completed in January 2003, which confirmed that the 

Transportation Group had too many employees billing too few 

hours to clients. The audit recommended laying off those who 

were not covering their costs. Next, Moynihan and Tindale 

convened a series of meetings of PA executives to discuss how 

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best to address the Group’s woes. Those meetings took place in 

February, April, and twice in September 2003.

Two major decisions emerged from the audit and 

meetings. First, effective at year’s end, the Transportation

Group would merge into the more successful Information 

Technology Infrastructure Group, which would continue to be 

led by PA partner Patrick Kelly. And second, not all of the 

members of the Transportation Group could be retained. Some 

would need to be fired. Firings in the Transportation Group had

already begun in early 2003, when Miller terminated a 

managing consultant and a principal consultant who he 

determined were unlikely to generate significant new revenue. 

During the September 2003 meetings, Miller identified four

more employees – two consultants and two support staff – who

could be fired immediately. The meeting participants also 

discussed trimming the Group’s work in China, including 

closing its office in Beijing. Nobody suggested firing Barnett. 

To carry out the reduction in force, Kelly met with Miller 

on September 30 to discuss each member of the Transportation

Group. Kelly and Miller produced a chart that rated each of the 

Group’s employees in three areas: “Skill and Capability,” 

“Performance,” and “Commitment to PA.” Barnett received 

the highest possible rating, three check marks, for her 

“Performance” and her “Commitment to PA.” According to 

Kelly, “Skill and Capability” was meant to reflect “how 

valuable [the employee’s] skill set was, how relevant it was to 

what we’re trying to sell in the marketplace” relative to the 

work of the Transportation Group. Barnett received two check 

marks in the “Skill and Capability” category, with an 

accompanying note: “Trade.” Significantly, another of the 

Transportation Group’s managing consultants, George Gao,

who worked out of both the Washington and Beijing offices, 

earned similar, but less impressive, ratings: two checks for 

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“Skill and Capability” and “Performance,” and three checks 

for “Commitment to PA.” Like Barnett, Gao received a note 

next to his “Skill and Capability” rating: “China.” According to 

Miller, Gao’s consulting practice was “very China-focused” 

with minimal capabilities and experience in the aviation 

industry. Gao was forty-one years old.

Immediately following the September 30 meeting, Kelly, 

who was now in charge of personnel matters for the 

Transportation Group, accepted Miller’s recommendation to 

fire the four employees he had named. Miller directed Michael 

Fleming, a Transportation Group managing consultant, to draft 

a memorandum describing why Miller and Kelly had chosen to 

fire these employees. The memorandum, received by Miller 

and Kelly on October 7, states that the Group “had to downsize 

and eliminate non-core activity . . . to align more closely with 

the needs of the aviation market . . . .” The Group would 

henceforth emphasize six “focus propositions”: (1) “Airport

privatization”; (2) “Airport air service development”; (3) 

“Airport transformation”; (4) “Airline route profitability”; (5) 

“Airline labor”; and (6) “Airline transformation.”

On October 10, Kelly met individually with senior 

members of the Transportation Group, including Barnett.

Kelly testified that “the purpose of the meeting[s] was just to 

get to know people a little bit, get to know their views on what 

we needed to make a success of the unit.” Kelly met with 

Barnett for about fifteen minutes. By October 16, Kelly had

added her to the list of those to be fired. According to Kelly, he 

did so because Barnett’s practice was not focused on the 

aviation industry and thus fell outside the six “focus 

propositions” that would govern the Group’s work going 

forward. An updated version of the October 7 memorandum, 

dated October 16, is essentially unchanged except to include 

Barnett on its list of layoffs for the first time. The October 16 

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memorandum describes Barnett’s practice as a “non-core 

activity” and “essentially a standalone offering,” and 

concludes that “Barnett does not have the skills 

necessary . . . to support our current propositions, and 

therefore, cannot be utilized within the practice.” PA fired 

Barnett and the four other employees on October 17. Barnett 

was fifty-seven years old at the time.

Although PA closed its Beijing office in November 2003,

Gao remained at PA. Kelly reached an accommodation with 

Ken Rubin, head of a practice group focused on international 

development, that Gao would split his time between Kelly’s 

group and Rubin’s. Kelly asked Rubin whether Barnett could 

transfer into his group, but when Rubin balked at the idea, 

Kelly dropped it. Kelly never proposed to Rubin the idea of 

splitting Barnett’s work between their two groups, the 

accommodation reached for Gao. 

Barnett filed suit against PA on April 1, 2004, alleging age 

and sex discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination 

in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634, and the 

District of Columbia Human Rights Act (DCHRA), D.C. Code 

§ 2-1402.11. Following discovery, PA moved for summary 

judgment, which the district court granted. Barnett v. PA 

Consulting Grp., Inc., 818 F. Supp. 2d 159 (D.D.C. 2011). We 

have jurisdiction over Barnett’s appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1291.

II

We review a grant of summary judgment de novo. See, 

e.g., Salazar v. Wash. Metro. Area Transit Auth., 401 F.3d 504, 

507 (D.C. Cir. 2005). Summary judgment is appropriate when 

“the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, 

and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any 

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material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a 

matter of law.” FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c)(2). “Credibility 

determinations, the weighing of the evidence, and the drawing 

of legitimate inferences from the facts are jury functions, not 

those of a judge at summary judgment. Thus, we do not 

determine the truth of the matter, but instead decide only 

whether there is a genuine issue for trial.” Pardo-Kronemann 

v. Donovan, 601 F.3d 599, 604 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (internal 

quotation marks and citations omitted).

We consider Barnett’s age and sex discrimination claims 

in the same way we analyze Title VII claims. See Vatel v. 

Alliance of Auto Mfrs., 627 F.3d 1245, 1246 (D.C. Cir. 2011) 

(DCHRA); Ford v. Mabus, 629 F.3d 198, 201 (D.C. Cir. 2010) 

(ADEA). “Once an employer has offered a legitimate reason 

for an employee’s dismissal, the question at the summary 

judgment stage is whether the employee has ‘produced 

sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that the 

employer’s asserted non-discriminatory reason was not the 

actual reason and that the employer intentionally discriminated 

against the employee’” on the basis of, in this case, age or sex.

Vatel, 627 F.3d at 1246 (quoting Brady v. Office of the 

Sergeant of Arms, 520 F.3d 490, 494 (D.C. Cir. 2008)). To 

answer this question, we look to see if there is evidence from 

which a reasonable jury could find that the employer’s stated 

reason for the firing is pretext and any other evidence that 

unlawful discrimination was at work. See, e.g., Hamilton v. 

Geithner, 666 F.3d 1344, 1351 (D.C. Cir. 2012) .

According to PA, Kelly fired Barnett because her

consulting practice did not fit the firm’s plans to narrow the 

work done by the Transportation Group to the six “focus 

propositions” set forth in the October 16 memorandum, all 

linked to “airports and airlines in business development.” 

Kelly denies considering any other factor in firing Barnett. We 

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must determine whether a reasonable jury could conclude this 

explanation is pretext.

Of course, we are conscious that a court must not act as “a 

super-personnel department that reexamines an entity’s 

business decisions[.]” Adeyemi v. District of Columbia, 525 

F.3d 1222, 1227 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (citation omitted). PA was 

entitled to restructure the Transportation Group to return it to 

profitability and to fire people to do so. PA was also entitled to 

fire Barnett if Kelly believed that her consulting practice did 

not “fit” within the restructured Group. But there is evidence in 

the record from which a reasonable jury could conclude that 

lack of “fit” was not why PA fired Barnett, and that unlawful 

discrimination was. Summary judgment is inappropriate 

where, as here, the most significant disputes between the 

parties are factual in nature. See Pardo-Kronemann, 601 F.3d 

at 604.

The most important factual dispute is why PA fired the 

fifty-seven year-old female, Barnett, but retained the forty-one 

year-old male, Gao. Different outcomes for Barnett and Gao 

matter because in nearly all respects material to PA’s 

explanation, Gao was similarly situated to Barnett. The most 

significant differences between the two are that Gao is male 

and younger than Barnett. Those are differences a jury should 

be allowed to consider.

The record is replete with evidence that PA partners, 

including Kelly, believed that Gao’s consulting practice did 

not “fit” in the Transportation Group. In the September 30 

chart created by Miller and Kelly, both Barnett and Gao 

received two check marks out of a possible three in the “Skill 

and Capability” rating. Each also received an accompanying 

notation: “Trade” in Barnett’s case, and “China” in Gao’s.

According to Miller, these ratings meant that Barnett and Gao 

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both had strong skills in their respective areas of expertise –

trade and China – but that neither was likely to make

meaningful contributions to the Group’s focus on the aviation 

industry.

There is further evidence that could lead a jury to believe 

that Kelly thought Gao no longer “fit” within the 

Transportation Group. Miller testified that he had the “same 

discussion” with Kelly about Gao as he did about Barnett, and 

that Kelly was “pretty much of the mind that [Barnett and Gao]

were going to move” out of his group. But Kelly worked out an 

accommodation with Rubin to split Gao’s time and salary 

“50-50” between their practice groups. By contrast, no one 

proposed splitting Barnett’s salary or making any similar 

arrangement to keep her at PA. And there is no evidence that

China, Gao’s niche, would be part of the Transportation

Group’s focus going forward. To the contrary, the decision to 

close the Beijing office is evidence that PA had decided to 

reduce the Group’s China operations.

According to Miller, Kelly was “very clear that he wanted 

to make sure [Barnett] was out of the practice.” If “fit” in the 

Transportation Group was the sole motivating factor in 

Barnett’s firing, a jury could reasonably question why Kelly 

was not similarly adamant that Gao leave the group entirely. At 

the very least, the efforts Kelly took to keep Gao at PA could 

raise a reasonable inference that “fit” was not the sole reason 

Barnett lost her job, and that PA partners found a way to keep a 

younger male consultant at the firm whose practice did not fit 

neatly into its new plans.

PA makes three arguments why Gao’s retention could not 

lead any reasonable jury to find pretext. First, PA points to 

Kelly’s deposition testimony that Gao took a pay cut to stay. 

Kelly’s testimony, however, clashes with record evidence, a 

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document prepared by human resources staff at the firm in 

early 2003, that suggests Gao’s salary remained constant. 

Whether Gao suffered adverse professional consequences from 

the restructuring is a classic question of fact for the jury. PA 

also argues that Gao’s practice was marginally more profitable 

than Barnett’s in 2003. But Kelly testified that profitability had 

nothing to do with Barnett’s termination, and there is no 

evidence in the record to support PA’s claim that profitability 

played any role in the decision to keep Gao.

Finally, PA speculates that Kelly may have offered to split 

Gao’s salary with Rubin because Gao “had transportation 

experience” but Barnett did not. Appellee’s Br. at 57. PA cites 

Gao’s 2002 performance appraisal, which lists several projects 

Gao worked on that appear to be related to airports and the 

airline industry. But Miller, the partner who completed Gao’s 

2002 performance appraisal, also testified that Gao “was very 

China-focused. He had capabilities in aviation but really very, 

very small, still in the learning phase.” (Emphasis added).

Besides, Barnett had similar aviation industry experience. She 

had worked on a project for Khalifa Airlines, an Algerian 

carrier. Of course, a jury could choose to credit PA’s argument 

that its partners considered Gao’s aviation industry experience 

to be meaningfully distinguishable from Barnett’s. The issue, 

however, cannot be resolved at summary judgment.

In addition to the disputed facts regarding PA’s treatment 

of Gao, a jury could rely upon other record evidence to 

discredit the firm’s explanation for firing Barnett. PA makes 

much of Kelly’s broad mandate to restructure the ailing 

Transportation Group and “make it profitable” by limiting its 

focus to the airline industry. Appellee’s Br. at 2. But PA 

acknowledges that the four other employees fired on October 

17 were let go for other reasons. Miller had determined they 

were unlikely to bring in sufficient revenues or they presented 

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redundancies. Barnett, it turns out, seems to be the only 

employee PA terminated for lack of fit.

Barnett’s evidence rebutting PA’s explanation is 

sufficient to warrant reversal because “a factfinder’s disbelief 

of the reasons put forward by the defendant may support an 

inference of intentional discrimination.” Hamilton, 666 F.3d at 

1351 (internal quotation and citation omitted). Although “we 

do not routinely require plaintiffs to submit evidence over and 

above rebutting the employer’s stated explanation in order to 

avoid summary judgment,” id. (citation omitted), Barnett has 

done that here. She has introduced evidence that PA unlawfully 

considered age to be a relevant factor in deciding which 

Transportation Group employees to retain. Barnett points to a 

spreadsheet produced by COO Tindale’s secretary in February 

2003 for Tindale and CEO Moynihan in advance of the first 

meeting they convened about the Group. The spreadsheet 

includes comments from the authors of the internal audit about 

the productivity of each employee in the Group. The 

spreadsheet also reports the age of each employee, including 

Barnett. 

Neither Moynihan nor Tindale could recall why ages were

part of the spreadsheet, and PA asserts that there is no evidence 

of a link between the spreadsheet and Barnett’s firing. Kelly

testified that he did not see the spreadsheet and made the 

decision to fire Barnett on his own, without any prodding from

Moynihan or Tindale. The district court determined the 

spreadsheet “irrelevant” to Barnett’s discrimination claims, 

because “Kelly, alone, made the decision to terminate Ms. 

Barnett,” and credited Kelly’s testimony that his decision to 

fire Barnett was not influenced by Moynihan and Tindale. 

Barnett, 818 F. Supp. 2d at 170. 

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The district court was too quick to resolve this issue in 

PA’s favor. A reasonable jury could find the spreadsheet to be 

probative of discrimination, because the jury might infer that 

PA’s leadership included age as a factor in its personnel 

decisions. A jury could likewise refuse to credit Kelly’s 

testimony that he did not consult with Moynihan and Tindale

on firing decisions in October 2003, given evidence that PA’s 

CEO and COO led meetings discussing which Transportation 

Group employees to fire only a few weeks before.

Of course, a reasonable jury could draw the inference that 

including ages in the spreadsheet was a one-off case of 

mistaken initiative by the secretary. But so could it reasonably 

infer that Moynihan and Tindale wanted ages in the 

spreadsheet to help PA leadership decide whom to fire and 

whom to keep. Barnett was entitled to all reasonable inferences 

in her favor to be drawn from the record evidence. See Salazar, 

401 F.3d at 507. By resolving these fact-bound questions in 

PA’s favor, the district court committed error.

III

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the judgment of the 

district court and remand for further proceedings.

So ordered.

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