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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 April 8, 2014 Decided August 1, 2014

No. 12-5345

LISA V. MULRAIN,

APPELLANT

v.

JULIÁN CASTRO, SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN 

DEVELOPMENT,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:10-cv-01601)

Robert C. Seldon argued the cause for appellant. With 

him on the briefs was Lauren E. Marsh. Molly E. Buie entered 

an appearance.

Javier M. Guzman, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. 

Machen, Jr., U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant 

U.S. Attorney.

Before: GRIFFITH, KAVANAUGH, and PILLARD, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

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GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: Lisa Mulrain, an employee of 

the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD),

appeals a summary judgment order rejecting her claim of 

workplace racial discrimination under Title VII of the Civil 

Rights Act of 1964. Because Mulrain has failed to identify 

evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that her 

non-promotion was racially discriminatory, we affirm. 

I

Mulrain, an African-American, has worked as an attorneyadvisor in the Finance Division of HUD’s Office of General 

Counsel since 2000. The Finance Division serves as in-house 

counsel to the Government National Mortgage Association 

(“Ginnie Mae”), a government corporation within HUD that 

operates in the secondary mortgage market. In 2008, Mulrain 

applied for promotion to the newly-created position of Deputy 

Assistant General Counsel (DAGC) of the Finance Division. 

But partway through the interview process, department 

officials awarded the job to Maura Malone, an “outstanding” 

Caucasian employee then serving as a DAGC elsewhere in

the Office of General Counsel who was on the verge of taking 

a job outside of HUD.

The parties dispute the reason for Malone’s hiring. 

Mulrain contends that the job went to Malone so that it would 

not be given to her. In Mulrain’s view, Malone did not 

possess the specialized legal knowledge of Ginnie Mae issues 

necessary for the new DAGC position. In fact, Mulrain views 

herself as the only qualified candidate because she was the 

only applicant with Ginnie Mae experience. Mulrain claims 

that the qualification gap between Malone and her shows

HUD’s discriminatory intent.

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HUD counters that any alleged gap between the 

qualifications of Mulrain and Malone is irrelevant to this case 

because no HUD official ever compared Malone’s and 

Mulrain’s credentials. Rather, Linda Cruciani, a senior HUD 

official who had not yet been involved in the process of 

interviewing candidates for the DAGC position, made the 

decision to terminate the normal interview process and award 

the position to Malone in a bid to retain the “superstar” 

employee. In doing so, Cruciani never compared Malone’s 

credentials to Mulrain’s or to any other applicant’s. In fact, 

Cruciani testified that she did not even know that Mulrain had 

applied for the position. Moreover, HUD adds, there was no 

“qualification gap” between the applicants because GinnieMae-specific legal experience was not required for the 

position. Expertise in general HUD and mortgage issues, both 

of which Malone had in abundance, made her more than 

qualified, says HUD.

Mulrain initiated this Title VII action in September 2011, 

alleging discrimination based on race. The district court 

granted summary judgment to the defendant, concluding that 

HUD had articulated a legitimate reason for its reassignment 

decision—retaining Malone—and that Mulrain had not shown 

that HUD’s explanation was a pretext for racial 

discrimination. See Mulrain v. Donovan, 900 F. Supp. 2d 62 

(D.D.C. 2012). Mulrain now appeals. We have jurisdiction 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and review the district court’s 

judgment de novo. See Lathram v. Snow, 336 F.3d 1085, 1088 

(D.C. Cir. 2003). 

II

We affirm, although our approach is more straightforward 

than the district court’s. The district court concluded that 

Mulrain failed to demonstrate that HUD’s stated reason for 

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hiring Malone was pretextual. There was, the court 

concluded, no “qualification gap” between the applicants 

because no Ginnie-Mae-specific experience was required for 

the DAGC position. And, even if there had been a gap, 

Cruciani knew nothing of it. We need not determine whether 

there was any such gap. As we explain below, HUD was 

entitled to summary judgment because there is simply no 

basis to infer that Cruciani discriminated against Mulrain.

Cruciani believed that Malone was qualified and was unaware 

that Mulrain had applied for the position.

In a Title VII employment discrimination case, once the 

employer asserts a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for 

its decision, as HUD has done here by citing its desire to 

retain Malone, the plaintiff can avoid summary judgment only 

by “produc[ing] sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to 

find that the employer’s asserted non-discriminatory reason” 

for the decision is a pretext for unlawful discrimination. 

Brady v. Office of Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d 490, 493-94 

(D.C. Cir. 2008). A plaintiff can satisfy this burden through 

“evidence, direct or circumstantial, that permits an inference 

of discrimination.” Holcomb v. Powell, 433 F.3d 889, 899 

(D.C. Cir. 2006). 

Mulrain seeks to show discrimination mainly by 

contending that Malone was unqualified for the DAGC 

position. A qualification gap may support an inference of 

discrimination when an employer directly compares two 

candidates for a position and, recognizing that the minority 

applicant is more qualified, nonetheless selects the nonminority. See, e.g., Calhoun v. Johnson, 632 F.3d 1259, 1262-

63 (D.C. Cir. 2011); Lathram, 336 F.3d at 1088, 1091-92; Aka 

v. Washington Hosp. Ctr., 156 F.3d 1284, 1294 (D.C. Cir. 

1998) (en banc). But here, all of the evidence indicates that 

nothing like that happened. Instead, two independent 

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processes occurred simultaneously: Cruciani looked for a 

position for Malone to entice her to stay, and other staff

reviewed applications for the DAGC position, including 

Mulrain’s. The dispositive fact is that Cruciani ultimately 

decided to transfer Malone to the new DAGC position

without knowing that Mulrain had applied for it. Whether 

Mulrain was more qualified or not, Cruciani could not have 

intended to discriminate against someone she did not even

know wanted the job.

*

Accordingly, the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment is affirmed.

 * Mulrain also advanced two others bases for inferring

discrimination, but we adopt the district court’s reasoning in 

rejecting those inferences. 

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