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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 December 6, 2013 Decided April 15, 2014 

No. 12-5171 

PATRICIA A. BROOKS, 

APPELLANT

v. 

SUSAN TSUI GRUNDMANN, CHAIRMAN, MERIT SYSTEMS 

PROTECTION BOARD, 

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:08-cv-00100) 

Anne King argued the cause for appellant. With her on 

the briefs was Brian Wolfman. 

John G. Interrante, 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: BROWN and SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge. 

Opinion for the Court by Circuit Judge BROWN. 

USCA Case #12-5171 Document #1488359 Filed: 04/15/2014 Page 1 of 12
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BROWN, Circuit Judge. In a classic (and perhaps ironic) 

instance of quis custodiet ipsos custodes, we are presented 

with a case where the Merit Systems Protection Board—the 

entity charged with addressing the grievances of federal 

workers challenging discriminatory employment practices, 

see 5 U.S.C. § 2301(b)(2)—is itself accused of discrimination. 

A Board employee claims her supervisors engendered a 

hostile work environment, discriminating against her on the 

basis of her race and sex. We conclude that, while the 

supervisors’ actions may have been unprofessional, uncivil, 

and somewhat boorish, they did not constitute an adequate 

factual basis for the Title VII claims presented here. 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment. 

I 

 Patricia Brooks, an African-American woman, has 

worked at the Office of Information Resources Management 

(IRM) of the Merit Systems Protection Board since 1998. 

While we know little about her employment prior to 2005, we 

know she considers that particular year as the starting point of 

a series of unfortunate events. 

 Brooks’ chronology of woe began when her supervisor, 

An-Minh (Tommy) Hwang, expressed his disappointment 

with her demonstration of a new document migration project 

by yelling at her in front of co-workers, insulting and 

demeaning her, and flinging a heavy notebook which Brooks 

thought was aimed in her direction. That incident was 

followed later in the year by a performance appraisal by 

Hwang and his deputy, Nick Ngo, which, while deeming her 

“Fully Successful,” was highly critical of her management 

abilities and urged her to take a more proactive management 

approach. In turn, that disappointment was followed by a 

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dispute over a timesheet entry when Ngo accused Brooks of 

fudging the number of hours worked. Although a Board 

official intervened and Brooks received pay for the disputed 

hours, Brooks resented what she perceived as Ngo’s selective 

scrutiny. Meanwhile, her performance appraisals continued 

their downward spiral. By 2006, she was only rated as 

“Minimally Successful” and was given a laundry list of 

needed improvements: timely filing of weekly reports, 

participation in leadership meetings, and improvement of 

interpersonal, teamwork, and communication skills. 

 Brooks filed her first internal EEO complaint in February 

2007, claiming Hwang and Ngo had discriminated and 

retaliated against her. Despite regaining her “Fully 

Successful” rating that year, Brooks had a confrontation with 

another IRM Team Leader—Bill McDermott—who became 

visibly angry and insulted Brooks in front of other Team 

Leaders during a meeting. When Hwang e-mailed 

McDermott to discuss the latter’s conduct, McDermott replied 

to express some contrition but circulated his response to all 

the other Team Leaders. Brooks informally notified the 

Board’s EEO Director about the incident. 

 On January 28, 2008, Brooks filed a complaint in district 

court, alleging various violations of Title VII. A month later, 

she filed a second internal EEO complaint—once again for 

purported discrimination and retaliation—asserting Hwang 

and Ngo fostered a hostile work environment and engaged in 

disparate treatment. The two fired back during the course of 

the internal EEO investigation and expressed annoyance 

about Brooks’ EEO activities. 

 In May 2008, IRM was reorganized. Brooks remained a 

Team Leader but had no supervisory responsibilities—a 

marked departure from an earlier proposed plan. She filed a 

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third internal EEO complaint on August 13, 2008. Several 

months later, Brooks received an “Unacceptable” 

performance rating because of her alleged unwillingness to 

accept responsibility for administrative mishaps and her poor 

communication with IRM staff. Brooks was placed on a 

“Performance Improvement Plan,” which left her susceptible 

to “performance-based action, including possibly a reduction 

in grade or removal from the federal service,” but she 

eventually completed the Plan without incident. J.A. at 264, 

266–67. 

 On February 11, 2009, Brooks amended her district court 

complaint to allege the Board engendered a race-based, 

gender-based, and retaliatory hostile work environment. The 

Board filed what was effectively a motion for summary 

judgment. The district court granted the motion, determining 

“[n]o reasonable jury could find that [Hwang and Ngo’s] 

conduct was so severe and pervasive as to alter the conditions 

of Brooks’s employment.” Brooks v. Grundmann, 851 F. 

Supp. 2d 1, 6 (D.D.C. 2012). Brooks appealed. 

II 

 We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment 

de novo. Grosdidier v. Broad. Bd. of Governors, 709 F.3d 19, 

23 (D.C. Cir. 2013). Summary judgment is appropriate when 

“the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any 

material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a 

matter of law.” FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a). “A genuine issue of 

material fact exists if the evidence, ‘viewed in a light most 

favorable to the nonmoving party,’ could support a reasonable 

jury’s verdict for the non-moving party.” Hampton v. Vilsack, 

685 F.3d 1096, 1099 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (quoting McCready v. 

Nicholson, 465 F.3d 1, 7 (D.C. Cir. 2006)). 

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 Much of Brooks’ appeal is devoted to her hostile work 

environment claims. To prevail, she “must first show that . . . 

she was subjected to ‘discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, 

and insult’ that [was] ‘sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter 

the conditions of [her] employment and create an abusive 

working environment.’” See Ayissi-Etoh v. Fannie Mae, 712 

F.3d 572, 577 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (quoting Harris 

v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21 (1993)). The strength of 

her various claims is determined by “the totality of the 

circumstances, including the frequency of the discriminatory 

conduct, its severity, its offensiveness, and whether it 

interferes with an employee’s work performance.” See 

Baloch v. Kempthorne, 550 F.3d 1191, 1201 (D.C. Cir. 2008). 

 The deficiency in Brooks’ case is her inability to 

demonstrate that the actions of her superiors were sufficiently 

severe or pervasive so as to constitute a hostile work 

environment. Severity and pervasiveness are complementary 

factors and often go hand-in-hand, but a hostile work 

environment claim could be satisfied with one or the other. 

Ayissi-Etoh, 712 F.3d at 579 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) 

(“The test set forth by the Supreme Court is whether the 

alleged conduct is ‘sufficiently severe or pervasive’—written 

in the disjunctive—not whether the conduct is ‘sufficiently 

severe and pervasive.’”). But here, we do not have enough of 

either. 

 In discerning severity and pervasiveness, we assess the 

timeline of events as a whole. See Baloch, 550 F.3d at 1201. 

Each event that Brooks identifies as an example of abusive 

conduct fails to add materially to the alleged aura of hostility. 

For instance, selective enforcement of a time and attendance 

policy does not necessarily indicate conduct giving rise to a 

hostile work environment claim. See Bhatti v. Trs. of Bos. 

Univ., 659 F.3d 64, 74 (1st Cir. 2011) (concluding the 

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selective enforcement of workplace rules and the failure to 

extend certain informal courtesies are part of conduct that is 

“far from severe [and] never physically threatening”). 

Brooks’ performance reviews also do little to evince abusive 

conditions—they were not uniformly negative and had some 

legitimate bases. See Baloch, 550 F.3d at 1201 (noting 

“legitimate reasons and constructive criticism offered in . . . 

letters of counseling and reprimand” undercut allegations of a 

hostile work environment). Moreover, her reviews 

recommended areas of improvement—hardly the stuff of 

severe or pervasive workplace hostility. See Darbha v. 

Capgemini Am. Inc., 492 F. App’x 644, 647 (7th Cir. 2012). 

 Brooks also suggests outbursts by a coworker and her 

supervisor prove she suffered a hostile work environment. 

We disagree. Certainly, her superiors and colleague may 

have been tactless and ill-mannered. But by her own 

admission, Brooks was of like rank and position as her 

colleague McDermott, and he had no supervisory authority 

over her. See J.A. at 310. Therefore, the Board cannot be 

deemed liable for his conduct unless Brooks “prove[s] that the 

employer was at least negligent in not preventing or 

correcting the [alleged] harassment.” See Ayissi-Etoh, 712 

F.3d at 577. Not only does Brooks fail to assert such a 

supervisory lapse, the record suggests her supervisor in fact 

met with McDermott to discuss the incident and indicated to 

him that his behavior was inappropriate. 

 That leaves the incident with Hwang. There is some 

dispute over what exactly occurred, but even taking the facts 

in the light most favorable to Brooks (as we must in 

reviewing a grant of summary judgment), we cannot conclude 

this outburst contributed much in the way of a hostile work 

environment. Compare J.A. at 208 (giving Hwang’s account 

of the meeting in which he admits to frustration and slamming 

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down his hand), with J.A. at 224 (recounting Brooks’ version 

of events in which Hwang “yelled at [her] and violently threw 

a book (thick notebook) on a table”). The incident, at its 

worst, was an isolated expression of frustration. That alone 

cannot rise to the level of severity indicating hostility or 

abuse. See Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 

788 (1998) (“[I]solated incidents (unless extremely serious) 

will not amount to discriminatory changes in the ‘terms and 

conditions of employment.’” (emphasis added and citation 

omitted)). 

 While Brooks heavily relies on Gowski v. Peake, 682 

F.3d 1299 (11th Cir. 2012) (per curiam), to make her case as 

to severity, that decision does little to help her cause. Gowski

involved supervisors of a hospital facility who engaged in 

retaliatory acts that cumulatively amounted to a hostile work 

environment. These actions included but were not limited to: 

(1) the revocation of privileges necessary for working in 

critical-care units; (2) a two-week suspension based on a 

dubiously substantiated allegation of unprofessional behavior 

with a nurse; (3) the rescinding of the employees’ medical 

committee membership; and (4) a two-year suspension from 

participating in research programs. See id. at 1305–08. To 

the Eleventh Circuit, these actions evinced “a workplace filled 

with intimidation and ridicule that was sufficiently severe and 

pervasive to alter [the two plaintiff-doctors’] working 

conditions.” Id. at 1313. 

In contrast, nothing resembling that level of malevolence 

is present here. Of course, the record shows the supervisors 

engaged in unprofessional conduct. But unlike the plaintiffs 

in Gowski, Brooks has not been shut out from her work 

because her privileges have been revoked and her duties 

eliminated; rather, she is continually assigned discrete tasks 

and performs them with mixed degrees of success. The facts 

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underlying Brooks’ claims seem more like the “ordinary 

tribulations of the workplace,” see Faragher, 524 U.S. at 788, 

a series of “petty insults, vindictive behavior, and angry 

recriminations” that are not actionable under Title VII, see 

Bhatti, 659 F.3d at 74. Considered in the aggregate, the 

episodes cited by Brooks do not sufficiently demonstrate the 

sort of severity or pervasiveness needed to prove a hostile 

work environment.1

III 

 Brooks’ discrete-acts retaliation claim fares no better. 

Indeed, the district court ignored it altogether, and, contrary to 

Brooks’ assertions, there was no error in the court’s omission. 

While she urges us to pass upon the merits of her retaliation 

claim, the inartful and inadequate state of Brooks’ pleadings 

prevents us from doing so. 

Unlike a hostile work environment claim, which 

“involves repeated conduct . . . [that] occurs over a series of 

days or perhaps years and . . . [where] a single act of 

harassment may not be actionable on its own,” Nat’l R.R. 

Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 115 (2002), a 

discrete-acts claim involves a single act of discrimination 

“such as termination, failure to promote, denial of transfer, or 

refusal to hire.” Id. at 114. “[A] plaintiff may not combine 

discrete acts to form a hostile work environment claim 

without meeting the required hostile work environment 

standard,” Baird v. Gotbaum, 662 F.3d 1246, 1252 (D.C. Cir. 

2011), but a hostile work environment claim is not rendered 

invalid “merely because it contains discrete acts that the 

 

1

 We therefore need not decide whether Brooks adequately satisfied 

the discrimination component of the hostile work environment 

analysis. 

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plaintiff claims (correctly or incorrectly) are actionable on 

their own.” Id. 

Brooks points to several discrete acts—e.g., her 2006 

“Minimally Successful” rating, her 2008 “Unacceptable” 

rating, etc.—that ostensibly serve as the bases for her prima 

facie retaliation claims. One problem: she neglected to allege 

a discrete-acts retaliation claim in her complaint. See J.A. at 

94–95. Tacitly acknowledging this inadequacy, Brooks 

points to various references hinting at a prima facie retaliation 

claim in her opposition to the defendant’s motion for 

summary judgment. See Appellant’s Br. at 43–46; see also 

J.A. at 298–302. 

Her position is not entirely without support. In Wiley v. 

Glassman, 511 F.3d 151 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (per curiam), we 

were confronted with an instance in which a plaintiff first 

raised a claim of retaliatory harassment in her opposition to 

the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. Id. at 159. 

The district court, acting on the defendant’s motion, struck the 

claim. See id. We, however, determined striking the claim 

was inappropriate, as “[t]he factual basis for [the] appellant’s 

‘new’ claim was substantially similar to the hostile work 

environment claim that [the] appellant had alleged in her 

original complaint, and [the defendant] did not demonstrate 

that allowing [the] appellant’s claim would cause undue 

prejudice.” Id. 

That could also be true here, but for two noteworthy 

differences. First, the obvious: unlike Wiley, the Board never 

filed a motion to strike and therefore we have no discrete 

procedural decision to review. Cf. Brooks, 851 F. Supp. 2d at 

5 & n.6. But that distinction merely scratches the surface of 

an even greater one—the opposition to summary judgment 

does not clearly lay out a prima facie retaliation claim. 

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Instead of identifying “discrete episodes” that constituted 

adverse employment actions, see Baird, 662 F.3d at 1248–49, 

the opposition conflated the purported discrete-acts retaliation 

claim with a retaliatory hostile work environment claim—two 

distinct theories of relief, see J.A. at 302 (“A reasonable jury 

could find that these intensifications of the hostile work 

environment were in retaliation for Ms. Brooks’ 

complaints.”). Both the defendant and the district court 

should have had fair notice of the legal theories behind a 

claim, see Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 

(2007), and neither the complaint nor the opposition 

sufficiently conveyed the discrete-acts claim in this instance. 

Therefore, we decline to conclude the district court erred by 

disregarding the inchoate claim. 

We are sympathetic to Brooks’ assertion that a similar, 

ongoing case cast a fog of uncertainty that made her secondguess whether she could plead a discrete-acts claim 

simultaneously with her hostile work environment allegations. 

But that uncertainty does not excuse her failure to present and 

preserve the claim. True, the district court in Baird v. 

Snowbarger, 744 F. Supp. 2d 279 (D.D.C. 2010), did seem to 

suggest discrete acts could not form part of a hostile work 

environment claim. See id. at 295–96. It was not until our 

decision in Baird v. Gotbaum, 662 F.3d 1246 (D.C. Cir. 

2011), that we were able to clear the air, noting the assertion 

of a discrete-acts claim did not bar per se the incorporation of 

such acts in a hostile work environment claim. See id. at 

1252. Perhaps in Brooks’ view, she could only rely on one 

theory or the other. 

But Title VII cases often involve multiple, sometimes 

mutually exclusive, theories of relief, and nothing prevents a 

plaintiff from pleading in the alternative, if only for the sake 

of preservation. Cf. Ponce v. Billington, 679 F.3d 840, 845 

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(D.C. Cir. 2012) (noting the alternative nature of “but-for” 

and “mixed-motive” Title VII cases and discussing the 

strategic implications of proceeding under one or both 

theories). To be sure, litigants need not be clairvoyant; they 

are not expected to augur future legal developments with 

exactitude. Nor do we expect them to run into a wall of 

futility by asserting an expressly barred claim—to the 

contrary, our rules forbid it. See generally FED. R. CIV. P.

11(b)(2). 

Here, however, there was some room to maneuver. At 

the time Brooks filed her complaint, nothing in our caselaw 

addressed the question of whether a plaintiff may assert both 

discrete-acts and hostile work environment claims. She was 

therefore free to question the wisdom of the district court 

decision in Baird. See Johnson v. Dist. of Columbia, 850 F. 

Supp. 2d 74, 79 (D.D.C. 2012) (“A District Court is 

comprised of individual judges who reach decisions that are 

not binding on any one else.”); see also Owens-Ill., Inc. v. 

Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 597 F. Supp. 1515, 1520 (D.D.C. 

1984) (“The doctrine of stare decisis compels district courts 

to adhere to a decision of the Court of Appeals of their Circuit 

until such time as the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court 

of the United States sees fit to overrule the decision.”). 

Indeed, the Baird plaintiff successfully did so on appeal. See 

Baird, 662 F.3d at 1252. 

Moreover, the law of this circuit prevents us from 

remanding this case to the district court so that Brooks may 

have an opportunity to amend her complaint in light of 

Baird’s clarification. The district court believed no discreteacts claim was raised. See Brooks, 851 F. Supp. 2d at 5 n.6 

(“Because Brooks does not assert that she has suffered a 

discriminatory or retaliatory adverse employment action, the 

Court need not and does not consider whether any of the 

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incidents described above might satisfy that element of a 

prima facie case.”). Brooks could have asked the district 

court for leave to amend her complaint so that she could more 

clearly establish a separate theory of relief. But she failed to 

do so, and her failure bars us from remanding this case to give 

her an opportunity to fix her complaint. Cf. City of Harper 

Woods Emps.’ Ret. Sys. v. Olver, 589 F.3d 1292, 1304 (D.C. 

Cir. 2009) (“When a plaintiff fails to seek leave from the 

District Court to amend its complaint, either before or after its 

complaint is dismissed, it forfeits the right to seek leave to 

amend on appeal.”). 

IV 

 The decision of the district court is 

Affirmed. 

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