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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 11, 2013 Decided June 21, 2013

No. 12-7078

EVELYN PRIMAS,

APPELLANT

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND CATHY L. LANIER, CHIEF OF 

POLICE, IN BOTH HER OFFICIAL AND INDIVIDUAL CAPACITIES,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:09-cv-02317)

Leslie Deak argued the cause for appellant. With her on 

the briefs was Ted J. Williams. 

Stacy L. Anderson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of 

the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the 

cause for appellees. With her on the brief were Irvin B. 

Nathan, Attorney General, Todd S. Kim, Solicitor General, 

and Donna M. Murasky, Deputy Solicitor General.

Before: TATEL and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges, and 

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

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TATEL, Circuit Judge: Evelyn Primas, an AfricanAmerican woman, served for years as a Commander in the 

District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department 

(“MPD”). But soon after taking office, Chief of Police Cathy 

Lanier, allegedly in connection with a Department-wide 

reorganization, informed Primas that, though her 

responsibilities would remain the same, she would be 

demoted two ranks. When Primas opted to retire instead of 

accepting the demotion, Lanier hired a white man to serve in 

Primas’s position at one rank higher than the rank Lanier had 

offered Primas. Primas then sued the District of Columbia and 

Chief Lanier, charging them with race and sex discrimination. 

The district court granted summary judgment in Defendants’ 

favor. On appeal, Primas challenges that decision, as well as 

the district court’s denial of her motion to unseal certain 

records designated “confidential” during discovery. Because 

Primas produced sufficient evidence of race and sex 

discrimination to get to a jury and because the district court 

failed to state its reasons for keeping the records sealed, we 

reverse and remand for further proceedings. 

I.

Appellant Evelyn Primas joined the Metropolitan Police 

Department in 1978 and, after working her way up through the 

ranks, was appointed to serve as Director of the Court Liaison 

Division at the rank of Commander. In that position, she was 

responsible for overseeing interactions between the MPD and 

the courts, the U.S. Marshals, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Primas’s case traces its roots to September of 2007, when 

newly appointed Chief of Police Cathy Lanier, a white woman, 

undertook a major reorganization of the MPD. Seeking to 

“streamline[ ] the [Department] to better serve the District,” 

Lanier overhauled the MPD’s organizational structure and, after 

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reviewing the resumes of all high-ranking officials and 

conducting several interviews, made numerous personnel 

changes. Some officials were demoted, others were transferred, 

and a few received promotions. Neither Primas’s division nor 

her position emerged from the reorganization unscathed: Lanier 

decided to relocate the Court Liaison Division into a new 

bureau and to reduce the rank of Primas’s Director position.

According to Lanier, the rank of Commander was no longer 

appropriate “given the size of the Court Liaison Division and 

the responsibilities thereunder.”

On September 13, 2007, Lanier called Primas into a 

meeting and informed her that her position was to be 

downgraded two ranks—from Commander to Captain. Primas, 

who intended to spend another two years at the MPD, maintains 

that Lanier also asked her how long she planned to stay on with 

the Department, advising her to speak with her family about 

whether she was ready to retire. Lanier gave Primas a week to 

decide: stay on as Director of the Court Liaison Division at the

lower rank of Captain or retire early. Five days later, on 

September 18, Primas informed Lanier that she had decided to

retire effective September 29 because she could not afford the 

reduction in salary and pension benefits that would accompany 

the change in rank and because she believed explaining the 

change to judges, court personnel, and attorneys who addressed 

her as “Commander” would be humiliating.

Just a few days later, on September 21 or 22, Lanier 

selected Captain Marcus Westover, a slightly younger white 

man, to fill the position Primas was leaving vacant. Critically 

for our purposes, however, Lanier offered Westover the 

position at the rank of Inspector—one rank higher than the 

Captain rank that she had offered Primas. Lanier testified that 

she chose Westover, the most senior MPD Captain, because she 

believed him to be the most qualified candidate for the job. In 

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particular, Lanier pointed to Westover’s experience in

reforming practices regarding “papering”—the process of 

presenting a case to a prosecuting attorney for a charging 

decision. As for why she offered him the position at the rank of 

Inspector, Lanier explained that she had realized “at the last 

minute” that the Director of the Court Liaison Division needed 

the authority that accompanies the higher rank to deal 

effectively with judges, attorneys, and agencies who might be 

reluctant to go along with reforms.

On September 25, having learned of Westover’s selection 

at a higher rank, Primas delivered a letter to Chief Lanier

claiming that she had been unlawfully discriminated against and 

was retiring under duress. Although Lanier maintains that she 

was taken aback at the accusation, she nonetheless declined to 

offer Primas her old position at the rank of Inspector because 

she had already given it to Westover and thought him the best 

person to implement papering reforms. Instead, Lanier directed

one of her Assistant Chiefs to offer Primas a different 

Inspector-level position—as commanding officer of the Sixth 

District substation. Primas emphasizes, however, that the Sixth 

District position was not vacant at the time the offer was made. 

In any event, Primas declined to accept it on the ground that the 

proffered position amounted to an unjustified one-level 

demotion in rank from her old Commander position.

Primas filed a timely complaint of discrimination with the 

EEOC and then filed suit in the United States District Court for 

the District of Columbia. She claims that the District and Lanier 

discriminated against her based on her race, sex, and age, in 

violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 

§§ 2000e et. seq., the Age Discrimination in Employment Act 

of 1967, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621 et seq., and the D.C. Human Rights 

Act, D.C. Code §§ 2-1401.01 et seq. After the district court

dismissed various parts of her complaint, see Primas v. District 

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of Columbia, 718 F. Supp. 2d 59, 61–62 (D.D.C. 2010), the 

remainder of the case proceeded to discovery.

The parties stipulated to a protective order governing 

disclosures made during discovery. Information a party 

designated as “confidential” would be filed under seal and

disclosed only to counsel, experts, and court personnel; a party 

could challenge a “confidential” designation by filing a motion 

with the court. Because portions of Chief Lanier’s deposition 

and some of the District’s answers to Primas’s interrogatories

contain information about the race, gender, and age of MPD 

officers not parties to this suit, the District designated them 

“confidential.” Primas filed a motion contesting these 

“confidential” designations, but the district court denied it 

without explanation.

After discovery, the District filed a motion for summary 

judgment on Primas’s remaining claims, and the district court 

granted that motion in full. See Primas v. District of Columbia, 

878 F. Supp. 2d 1, 4–8 (D.D.C. 2012). As to Primas’s sex and 

race discrimination claims, the court concluded that she had 

failed to rebut MPD’s legitimate, non-discriminatory 

explanation for her reduction in rank: the reorganization of the 

Department’s command structure. See id. at 4–7. The court also 

found that Primas had effectively conceded her age 

discrimination claim. See id. at 7–8. 

On appeal, Primas presses only her sex and race 

discrimination claims and also challenges the court’s denial of 

her motion to unseal records. We first tackle the summary 

judgment question and then turn to the records issue.

II.

We review the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment de novo, viewing the evidence in the light most 

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favorable to Primas, the non-moving party, and drawing all 

reasonable inferences in her favor. See Jones v. Bernanke, 557 

F.3d 670, 674 (D.C. Cir. 2009). We may affirm only if we 

conclude that no reasonable jury could reach a verdict in 

Primas’s favor. Id. 

In Brady v. Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d 490, 494 (D.C. Cir. 

2008), this Circuit laid out a simple form of inquiry for 

discrimination cases of this sort: “In a Title VII disparatetreatment suit where an employee has suffered an adverse 

employment action and an employer has asserted a legitimate, 

non-discriminatory reason for the decision, . . . the district court 

must resolve one central question: Has the employee 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 race, color, religion, sex, or 

national origin?” Id. Brady’s application here is straightforward. 

Although there was initially some question about the adverse 

action element—in particular, about whether Primas needed to 

show constructive discharge—the District now concedes that 

Primas suffered an adverse employment action when her 

position was reduced in rank and pay. And for her part, Primas 

concedes that the reorganization of MPD to reduce hierarchy 

constitutes a legitimate, non-discriminatory explanation for that 

action. Accordingly, the “central question”—whether Primas

produced evidence sufficient for a jury to find that the 

reorganization was mere pretext for sex or race 

discrimination—is all that remains. 

Without overt evidence of discriminatory intent, Primas’s 

case turns on her attempts to show “that the defendant’s 

explanation is unworthy of credence” and that a jury could 

“reasonably infer from the falsity of the explanation that the 

employer is dissembling to cover up a discriminatory purpose.” 

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Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 

147 (2000); see also Czekalski v. Peters, 475 F.3d 360, 366 

(D.C. Cir. 2007) (“[O]ne way for a plaintiff to show that an 

adverse employment decision was made for a discriminatory 

reason is to ‘show[ ] that the nondiscriminatory explanation the 

defendant proffered for its decision was false.’ ” (quoting 

Lathram v. Snow, 336 F.3d 1085, 1089 (D.C. Cir. 2003))

(alteration in original). Although record evidence demonstrates

that Lanier did in fact implement a large-scale reorganization of 

MPD at the time Primas’s rank was reduced, Primas makes 

numerous arguments in an effort to show that this very real 

reorganization was not the actual reason for her demotion. 

Some of these—like her allegations that Lanier’s subsequent 

offer of an Inspector position was a “sham offer” indicative of 

discriminatory intent, that the selection process for filling 

positions following the reorganization was so irregular as to 

suggest discrimination, and that members of her protected 

classes were treated worse during the reorganization as a 

general matter—are unpersuasive. Others hit closer to their

marks. But at its core, Primas’s best case is this: Lanier offered 

the Director position to Primas, an African-American woman, 

at the rank of Captain; then just a few days later, after Primas

retired, Lanier offered the same position to Westover, a white 

man, at the higher rank of Inspector.

Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to 

Primas, see Jones, 557 F.3d at 674, we believe a reasonable jury 

could conclude that Lanier was obscuring her true reason for 

offering Westover the same position at a higher rank than she 

had offered Primas. Lanier’s only explanation is that she 

realized “at the last minute” that a higher rank would lend the 

Director the authority necessary to carry out her responsibilities,

and a jury could well find that the timing of that alleged

realization—during those few days between Primas’s rejecting 

the position and Lanier’s offering it to Westover—was

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suspicious. Especially given Lanier’s testimony that Primas had 

been facing resistance even as a Commander, a jury hearing 

Lanier’s testimony could reasonably infer that Lanier knew 

from the start that the Captain rank would be inappropriate for 

the Director position. And given Lanier’s quick selection of a 

white man to replace Primas, the jury could go on to infer that 

race or sex discrimination motivated her actions. See Reeves, 

530 U.S. at 147. 

True, Lanier never actually removed Primas from the 

Director position. Instead, Lanier initially offered Primas the 

opportunity to stay on, albeit as a Captain. But especially 

because that two-level demotion would significantly affect 

Primas’s pension benefits, Lanier could well have expected that 

Primas would reject the offer, thus freeing Lanier to give the 

position to a white man at the Inspector rank. It is also true that

Lanier offered Primas a different Inspector-level position after 

Primas accused her of discrimination. But that offer fails to

demonstrate that Lanier’s decision to offer Primas the Director 

position at a lower rank than she offered it to Westover—the 

action challenged here—was not motivated by discriminatory 

intent.

All that said, a jury could reasonably view the evidence 

differently and conclude that Lanier is telling the truth or, even 

if not, that she had some other non-discriminatory reason for 

her actions. The point, however, is that this case hinges on the 

answer to a question that itself hinges on credibility 

determinations more appropriately made from a jury’s box than 

a judge’s bench: Is Lanier telling the truth when she says that 

she gave Westover the Inspector rank only because she 

belatedly realized that the Court Liaison Director would need 

the authority that goes with that rank? Or did Lanier instead 

plan to force Primas out of the Director position by offering it 

to her at a lower rank, freeing Lanier to give the position to a 

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white man at a higher rank? Because the record permits either 

inference, it is the jury’s job—not ours—to choose between

them. See Washington Gas-Light Co. v. Lansden, 172 U.S. 534, 

545 (1899) (“If different inferences might fairly be drawn from 

the evidence by reasonable men, then the jury should be 

permitted to choose for themselves.”); Metrocare v. Washington 

Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, 679 F.2d 922, 925 (D.C. 

Cir. 1982) (“It is the essence of the jury’s function to select, 

from among conflicting inferences and conclusions, that which 

it finds most reasonable.”). Accordingly, we shall reverse the 

district court’s grant of summary judgment and remand 

Primas’s sex and race discrimination claims for trial.

III.

“[T]he starting point in considering a motion to seal court 

records is a ‘strong presumption in favor of public access to 

judicial proceedings.’ ” EEOC v. National Children’s Center, 

Inc., 98 F.3d 1406, 1409 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (quoting Johnson v. 

Greater Southeast Community Hospital Corp., 951 F.2d 1268, 

1277 (D.C. Cir. 1991)). In United States v. Hubbard, 650 F.2d 

293 (D.C. Cir. 1980), we identified six factors “that might act to 

overcome this presumption”:

(1) the need for public access to the documents at 

issue; (2) the extent of previous public access to the 

documents; (3) the fact that someone has objected 

to disclosure, and the identity of that person; (4) the 

strength of any property and privacy interests 

asserted; (5) the possibility of prejudice to those 

opposing disclosure; and (6) the purposes for which 

the documents were introduced during the judicial 

proceedings.

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National Children’s Center, 98 F.3d at 1409 (citing Hubbard, 

650 F.2d at 317–22). We review a district court’s application of 

these factors only for abuse of discretion. See id.

But here we have nothing to review because the district 

court gave no reasons at all for denying Primas’s motion to 

unseal. “[I]t is imperative that a district court articulate its 

reasons for electing to seal or not to seal a record,” id. at 1410, 

and, as the parties now agree, see Appellees’ Br. 48–51; 

Appellant’s Reply Br. 33–35, the district court’s failure to 

explain itself leaves us “unable to review the . . . exercise of its 

discretion.” National Children’s Center, 98 F.3d at 1410. 

Accordingly, we shall remand for the district court to apply the 

Hubbard factors in the first instance. 

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s 

grant of summary judgment on Primas’s race and sex 

discrimination claims and remand for further proceedings

consistent with this opinion. 

So ordered.

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