Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05091/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05091-0/pdf.json

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 8, 1997 Decided October 10, 1997 

No. 96-5091

GERALDINE HARRIS,

APPELLANT

v.

SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS,

AND 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 92cv01785)

Karl W. Carter, Jr. argued the cause and filed the briefs 

for appellant.

Marina Utgoff-Braswell, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued 

the cause for appellees, with whom Eric H. Holder, Jr., U.S. 

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Attorney at the time the brief was filed, and R. Craig 

Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, were on the brief.

Before: EDWARDS, Chief Judge, WALD and GARLAND, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge EDWARDS.

EDWARDS, Chief Judge: This case requires the court to 

decide what course the District Court should take when a 

party raises the affirmative defense of statute of limitations 

for the first time in a dispositive motion, rather than in a 

responsive pleading as required by Rule 8(c) of the Federal 

Rules of Civil Procedure. Appellant Geraldine Harris (Geraldine Harris Coombs at the time of the events in question) 

sued Appellee Department of Veterans Affairs ("Department") for racial discrimination under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. 

§ 2000e et seq. (1994). She filed her complaint in District 

Court ninety-one days after the date on the certified mail 

return receipt attached to the notice of final agency decision 

against her, one day beyond the statutory limit. See 42 

U.S.C. § 2000e-16(c) (1994). The Department did not raise 

the defense of untimeliness in any of its answers. After 

discovery, during which the Department made inquiries about 

the date Harris received notice, the Department filed for 

summary judgment on untimeliness grounds. Although Harris contended that the date on the mail receipt was in error, 

the District Court rejected her explanation, granted summary 

judgment in favor of the Department, and then dismissed 

Harris's reprisal claims for want of jurisdiction.

We reverse and remand. Rule 8(c) means what it says: 

affirmative defenses must be raised in a responsive pleading, 

not a dispositive motion. This requirement permits the parties to chart the course of litigation in advance of discovery 

and motions thereon. Because the Department did not raise 

the defense in a responsive pleading and did not apply to the 

District Court for leave to amend its answer under Rule 

15(a), the Court should not, without more, have considered 

the defense of untimeliness. However, this procedural error 

need not necessarily cause loss of the defense. On remand, 

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the government may seek leave to amend its answers. We 

also reverse and remand the District Court's dismissal of 

Appellant's reprisal claims. Because untimeliness is not a 

jurisdictional defense under Title VII, the District Court had 

discretion under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c) (1994) to retain jurisdiction over supplemental reprisal claims even if it dismissed the 

underlying Title VII claim for untimeliness.

I. BACKGROUND

By a complaint filed on July 31, 1992, Appellant brought 

suit in District Court charging the Department with discrimination under Title VII. During her deposition on June 23, 

1993, Harris initially stated that she received a copy of the 

agency's final decision on May 2, 1992. Deposition of Geraldine Harris Coombs, Appendix for Appellees ("App. for Appellees") 13. The Assistant U.S. Attorney ("AUSA") conducting the deposition showed Harris her signature on a certified 

mail receipt dated May 1, 1992; Harris then stated that she 

received the notice on May 1, and that her mistake resulted 

from her noting "May 2" on the envelope. Id. at 14. Her 

testimony also suggested that she erred in counting the days 

by assuming that each month had thirty days. Id. at 17.

Harris twice moved to amend her complaint to include 

allegations that the Department engaged in reprisal against 

her by changing her job duties and denying her requests for 

leave. The District Court granted those motions to amend. 

The Department did not raise the affirmative defense of 

untimeliness in any of its answers to the initial complaint or 

the amendments. It was not until after discovery when the 

Department moved for dismissal of the case as untimely in a 

motion for summary judgment. On April 24, 1995, the Magistrate Judge recommended dismissal. Harris excepted to the 

Magistrate's recommendation, supporting her exception with 

a new affidavit, dated May 4, 1995. There, she stated that 

she had in fact received the notice on Saturday, May 2, 1992, 

and had so noted on the envelope. She further stated that 

she was at work on May 1, 1992, from 10:00 a.m. until 5:30 

p.m. according to her time sheet, which she submitted. She 

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added that she could not have received the letter on May 1, 

because according to a postal supervisor with whom she had 

spoken, mail was not delivered before 10:00 a.m. and after 

5:30 p.m. She further asserted that the "May 1" date 

stamped on both the postal delivery notice and return receipt 

was in error. Plaintiff's Affidavit in Support of Her Exception to the Magistrate's Report and Recommendation, Appellant's App. 47-48. The delivery notice, which Appellant 

submitted as evidence, was dated April 30, and said "You may 

pick up your mail after 8:30 a.m. [on] 5/1." Delivery Notice, 

reproduced in Appellant's App. at 50. It was stamped May 1, 

1992, and signed "Geraldine H. Coombs." Id. The return 

receipt was also stamped May 1, 1992 and signed "Geraldine 

Harris Coombs." Domestic Return Receipt, reproduced in 

Appellant's App. at 51.

The District Court granted the Department's motion, which 

it treated as one for summary judgment. Coombs v. Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, No. 92-1785, slip 

op. at 2 n.1 (D.D.C. July 20, 1995), reprinted in Appellant's 

App. at 21. The District Court judge found that there was no 

genuine issue of material fact as to the timeliness of Harris's 

filing. Id. at 5-7. He noted that the time sheet made no 

specific showing that Harris did not leave work, and that the 

postal supervisor's statement did not address 1992 practices 

and was in any case hearsay. Id. at 6-7. He further 

observed that a delivery notice left at Harris's home on April 

30 indicated that she could pick up mail at the post office on 

May 1 any time after 8:30 a.m., allowing Harris time to pick 

up the notice and then arrive at work by 10:00 a.m. Id. at 7 

n.2. Next, he found that there was no basis for equitable 

tolling of the statute. Id. at 7-9.

Finally, the District Court rejected Harris's contention that 

the Department had waived the statute of limitations defense 

by failing to plead it in any of its three answers to Harris's 

initial complaint and two subsequent amended complaints. 

Citing caselaw from other circuits, the District Court held 

that a party could raise an unpled affirmative defense by 

motion if the late raising did not prejudice the opposing party 

by denying it notice. Id. at 10. The District Court noted 

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that Harris did not claim prejudice and found that Harris did 

not suffer prejudice as a result of the late raising of the issue, 

because she had two opportunities to respond to the claim: 

one in her exception to the Magistrate's report, the other in 

her opposition to the Department's motion for summary 

judgment. Id. at 10-11.

Subsequently, the District Court dismissed Appellant's reprisal claims. The court explained that it lacked supplemental jurisdiction because the original claim was never properly 

before the court. Coombs v. Secretary of the Department of 

Veterans Affairs, No. 92-1785, order at 2 (D.D.C. Feb. 23, 

1996), reprinted in Appellant's App. 58. Appellant appealed 

the summary judgment and dismissal of the reprisal claims to 

this court.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Timeliness of Affirmative Defenses

The issue in this case regarding the timeliness of affirmative defenses requires construction of Rule 8(c). Because this 

is a legal issue, we review the District Court's interpretation 

of Rule 8(c) de novo. Harbeson v. Parke Davis, Inc., 746 

F.2d 517, 520 (9th Cir. 1984).1 This court has not heretofore 

decided whether a defendant may raise an affirmative defense 

__________

1 Appellee suggests that the standard of review should be 

abuse of discretion, citing a case in which the Third Circuit held 

that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by considering an 

affirmative defense raised for the first time on dispositive motion. 

Brief for Appellees 7 n.3 (citing Kleinknecht v. Gettysburg College,

989 F.2d 1360, 1374 (3rd Cir. 1993)). Although the court in Kleinknecht apparently analyzed the waiver issue in terms of abuse of 

discretion, it did not have to determine afresh the legal question of 

whether Rule 8(c) permitted unpled defenses to be raised on 

dispositive motion, because the Third Circuit had already decided 

the issue. See Charpentier v. Godsil, 937 F.2d 859, 863-64 (3rd Cir. 

1991). Unlike the court here, which must interpret Rule 8(c) for 

itself and hence reviews de novo, the court in Kleinknecht merely 

had to apply the Third Circuit's analysis to see if the District Court 

had abused its discretion.

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for the first time in a dispositive motion, or whether failure to 

raise the defense in pleadings constitutes forfeiture under 

Rule 8(c). The language of Rule 8(c) itself requires that the 

defense of statute of limitations be raised affirmatively in "a 

pleading to a preceding pleading." FED. R. CIV. P. RULE 8(c). 

Although the Rules do not explicitly mention waiver or forfeiture as the consequence of failure to follow Rule 8(c), it is 

well-settled that "[a] party's failure to plead an affirmative 

defense ... generally 'results in the waiver of that defense 

and its exclusion from the case.' " Dole v. Williams Enterprises, Inc., 876 F.2d 186, 189 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (emphasis in 

original, quoting 5 CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT & ARTHUR R. MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 1278 (1990)). More 

specifically, "[r]eliance on a statute of limitations is an affirmative defense and is waived if a party does not raise it in a 

timely fashion." Banks v. Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co., 802 F.2d 1416, 1427 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (citations 

omitted).2

The Supreme Court has explained that the purpose of the 

pleading requirement of Rule 8(c) "is to give the opposing 

party notice of the plea of estoppel and a chance to argue, if 

__________

2 Although the courts appear uniformly to use the term "waiver" to describe the consequence of failure to plead an affirmative 

defense, the more precise term "forfeiture" better captures the 

courts' meaning: "Whereas forfeiture is the failure to make the 

timely assertion of a right, waiver is the intentional relinquishment 

or abandonment of a known right." U.S. v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 

733 (1993) (internal quotation and citations omitted). Failure to 

plead an affirmative defense under Rule 8(c) constitutes failure to 

make a timely assertion of the defense. The failure to plead need 

not be intentional for the party to lose its right to raise the defense. 

The possibility of subsequent recovery of the defense through 

formal or de facto amendment under Rule 15, see discussion infra,

supports the conclusion that loss of the affirmative defense under 

Rule 8(c) constitutes forfeiture, not waiver. A Rule 15 amendment, 

if allowed by the trial court, will cure any problem of timeliness 

associated with forfeiture. However, if a party "waives," i.e.,

intentionally relinquishes or abandons an affirmative defense, no 

cure is available under Rule 15.

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he can, why the imposition of an estoppel would be inappropriate." Blonder-Tongue Lab. v. University Found., 402 

U.S. 313, 350 (1971). The same rationale the Court invoked 

regarding collateral estoppel applies with equal or greater 

force to the defense of the statute of limitations, where a 

party may require notice and time not only to frame legal 

arguments, but to establish relevant facts that might affect 

the applicability of the statute of limitations. The pleading 

requirement of Rule 8(c) gives the opposing party notice of 

the defense of untimeliness and permits the party to develop 

in discovery and to argue before the District Court various 

responses to the affirmative defense. These responses could 

include, for example, facts and legal arguments that require 

the tolling of the statute, whether by action of law, by 

agreement of the parties, or by equitable means.

As its name implies, notice pleading relies on the principle 

of fair notice "to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive 

determination" of actions, FED. R. CIV. P. Rule 1. Where the 

old forms of action delimited the kinds of arguments that 

parties could make according to the forms they chose, notice 

pleading aims to produce a general chart of possible claims 

and defenses available to the parties before they embark on 

the voyage of litigation. Cf. Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 

(1957) (purpose of Rules is to give "fair notice of what the ... 

claim is"). A party must make strategic decisions about how 

to proceed, and can plot its course adequately only if it can 

anticipate which issues will dispose of the case. Failure to 

raise an affirmative defense in pleadings deprives the opposing party of precisely the notice that would enable it to 

dispute the crucial issues of the case on equal terms. The 

structure of the Federal Rules therefore demands notice 

pleading of affirmative defenses as a crucial element of its 

overall conception of the progress of a lawsuit.

At the same time, the Rules "reject the approach that 

pleading is a game of skill in which one misstep by counsel 

may be decisive to the outcome and accept the principle that 

the purpose of pleading is to facilitate a proper decision on 

the merits." Conley, 355 U.S. at 48. For this reason, Rule 

15 provides a mechanism whereby a party who harmlessly 

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failed to plead an affirmative defense may find satisfaction. 

Rule 15(a) permits amendment of any pleading "as a matter 

of course" before a response or within twenty days for a 

pleading to which no response is appropriate. FED. R. CIV. P. 

Rule 15(a). This provision permits easy amendment in a 

situation where no significant developments in the case have 

occurred and where little time has passed. Subsequently, "a 

party may amend the party's pleading only by leave of court 

or by written consent of the adverse party; and leave shall be 

freely given when justice so requires." Id. Where a matter 

has gone to trial and parties have litigated the unpled issues 

by express or implied consent, Rule 15(b) may render a 

failure to amend irrelevant.3 Here, the case was decided on a 

motion for summary judgment, and so Rule 15(b) did not 

apply.

The provision of Rule 15(a) allowing amendment with leave 

of court gives the District Court discretion and direction. It 

instructs the District Court to determine the propriety of 

amendment on a case by case basis, using a generous standard:

In the absence of any apparent or declared reasonsuch 

as undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive on the part 

__________

3 Rule 15(b) applies "[w]hen issues not raised by the pleadings 

are tried by express or implied consent of the parties," and envisages a somewhat different scheme of burdens than Rule 15(a), commensurate with the later stage of the proceedings. Because a case 

decided on motion for summary judgment does not reach trial, Rule 

15(b) does not apply in deciding the question of whether a party has 

forfeited unpled affirmative defenses when it raises them for the 

first time in dispositive motion. See Crawford v. Gould, 56 F.3d 

1162, 1168-69 (9th Cir. 1995) ("The present case did not go to trial; 

it was decided on motions for summary judgment. Therefore, the 

situation which Rule 15(b) addresses simply did not arise in the 

present case.") But cf. Walton v. Jennings Community Hospital,

875 F.2d 1317, 1321 n.3 (7th Cir. 1989) ("[A]lthough the amendment 

was effected during consideration of a motion for summary judgment rather than at trial, it is fully consonant with the spirit of Rule 

15(b) and existing case law to view the pleadings as constructively 

amended here.").

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of the movant, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by 

amendments previously allowed, undue prejudice to the 

opposing party by virtue of allowance of the amendment, 

futility of the amendment, etc.the leave sought should, 

as the rules require, be "freely given."

Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962). The District 

Court possesses sufficient familiarity with the circumstances 

of a case to exercise its discretion wisely and determine 

whether any of the five enumerated Foman factors, or others 

implied by the Court's "etc.," apply in a given case.

We recognize that, rather than requiring amendment under 

Rule 15(a), some circuits permit parties to raise affirmative 

defenses for the first time in dispositive motions where no 

prejudice is shown. See, e.g., Blaney v. United States, 34 

F.3d 509, 512 (7th Cir. 1994) (unpled untimeliness defense 

could be raised in motion to dismiss); Camarillo v. McCarthy, 998 F.2d 638, 639 (9th Cir. 1993) (affirmative defense 

may be raised at summary judgment absent prejudice); 

Kleinknecht v. Gettysburg College, 989 F.2d 1360, 1374 (3d 

Cir. 1993) (affirmative defense may be raised at summary 

judgment absent prejudice); Moore, Owen, Thomas & Co. v. 

Coffey, 992 F.2d 1439, 1445 (6th Cir. 1993) (affirmative defense may be raised in response to summary judgment motion); Ball Corp. v. Xidex Corp., 967 F.2d 1440, 1443-44 (10th 

Cir. 1992) (raising affirmative defense in summary judgment 

motion preserved defense for trial three months later). This 

approach subtly alters the structure dictated by Rules 8(c) 

and 15(a) in two ways. First, it apparently relieves the 

moving party of the need to request amendment, and the 

District Court of the need to state and explain its grant of 

leave to amend, so long as the opposing party does not show 

prejudice. This change allows parties to omit affirmative 

defenses in pleadings strategically, in violation of the notice 

purpose. It will often prove difficult for a party to support a 

claim of prejudice in circumstances involving only inconvenience or surprise. And, by the time the opposing party 

raises the prejudice claim, a strategic advantage may already 

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have been gained by the party who failed to amend its 

pleading. By contrast, if the District Court systematically 

follows the procedural structure required by Rules 8(c) and 

15(a), it can conduct its own inquiry in every case into the 

circumstances of the delay, and need not rely solely on a 

convincing showing of prejudice by one party. It likely will 

articulate the basis for the amendment, and will not simply 

approve it as a matter of course.

Second, automatically permitting late raising of affirmative 

defenses where no prejudice has occurred reduces the multifarious reasons for denying leave to amend envisioned by the 

Court in Foman to the single, non-exhaustive factor of prejudice. Improper circumstances such as "undue delay, bad 

faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant, [or] 

repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed," Foman, 371 U.S. at 182, do not necessarily result 

in quantifiable prejudice to an opposing party. Nonetheless, 

taken collectively rather than individually, they may undercut 

the fairness and efficiency of litigation generally. Strategic 

or merely lazy circumventions of a legal process grounded in 

a sound policy have the effect of eroding the regularized, 

rational character of litigation to the detriment of practitioners and clients alike.

When an opposing party does receive notice of a previously 

unpled defense when a dispositive motion is filed, it lacks the 

advance notice required by Rule 8(c) that would have enabled 

it to develop factual and legal defenses fully. Although an 

opposing party may introduce affidavits in response to a 

motion for summary judgment, FED. R. CIV. P. Rule 56(c), as 

Appellant did in this case, affidavits will not always suffice to 

provide adequate evidence for the defenses proposed. Frequently, mounting a proper defense will necessitate further 

discovery, which may not be possible in the time allotted to 

respond to the motion. Rule 15(a) authorizes the District 

Court to allow amendment, but this does not mean it would 

be unduly formalistic for the District Court to deny amendment to a strategic litigant who intentionally neglected to 

plead a defense. To the contrary, denying leave to amend to 

such a litigant would serve, not impede, the interests of 

substantive justice.

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In order to preserve the notice purpose of Rule 8(c) and the 

discretionary structure of Rule 15(a), we hold that Rule 8(c) 

means what it says: a party must first raise its affirmative 

defenses in a responsive pleading before it can raise them in a 

dispositive motion. The Fifth Circuit has interpreted Rule 

8(c) similarly. See Ashe v. Corley, 992 F.2d 540, 545 n.7 (5th 

Cir. 1993); Funding Systems Leasing Corp. v. Pugh, 530 

F.2d 91, 96 (5th Cir. 1976) (unpled affirmative defense cannot 

be raised on summary judgment unless summary judgment 

motion is first responsive pleading). But cf. Lucas v. United 

States, 807 F.2d 414, 417-18 (5th Cir. 1986) (unpled affirmative defense not waived when raised at trial at "pragmatically 

sufficient time").

There is no reason to fear that procedural formalism will 

displace substantive justice here, because a party may request, and the District Court shall freely give, leave to amend 

the pleadings under Rule 15(a) when justice requires. The 

District Court must not simply consider the defense in deciding the summary judgment motion. The procedural requirement that the District Court await a request for leave to 

amend, and grant or deny leave based on the circumstances 

of the case, is not empty formalism but the logical consequence of a system of rules that strives to achieve fairness 

without rigidity. On its face and on its logic, Rule 8(c) 

requires that a party actually plead its affirmative defenses, 

not that it plead them only in those cases where failure to 

plead would result in prejudice to the opposing party.

On remand, if the Department petitions for leave to amend 

the pleadings, the District Court may consider that request 

within the framework specified by the Court in Foman in 

deciding whether to grant leave to amend under Rule 15(a). 

It may grant or deny leave, and thus permit or exclude the 

defense of untimeliness. Our holding requires only that the 

District Court await a request of leave to amend and consider 

that request in its good discretion.

B. Supplemental Jurisdiction

We review the District Court's dismissal for want of jurisdiction de novo, because the District Court dismissed on the 

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grounds that it lacked the original jurisdiction necessary for 

supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a), and not 

on the grounds that it was exercising its discretion to dismiss 

supplemental claims remaining after dismissal of original 

claims as authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3). Even if the 

District Court grants leave to amend the Defendant's answers 

to include the untimeliness defense, and accordingly grants 

summary judgment to the Department on untimeliness 

grounds, it may still retain supplemental jurisdiction over 

Appellant's reprisal claims. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a), the 

District Court has supplemental jurisdiction over related 

claims when it has original jurisdiction over the initial claim. 

Here, the District Court did not have original jurisdiction 

over Appellant's reprisal claims, for which administrative 

remedies had not been exhausted. Instead the District Court 

had supplemental jurisdiction over the reprisal claims, which 

arose out of the charge properly before the court. Nealon v. 

Stone, 958 F.2d 584, 590 (4th Cir. 1992); Gupta v. East State 

Univ., 654 F.2 411, 413 (5th Cir. 1981).

Although it did not invoke 28 U.S.C. § 1367, and cited only 

an unreported case which predated the statute, Johnson v. 

General Elec., 1987 WL 14821 (D.Mass. 1987), the District 

Court dismissed on the grounds that it lacked the original 

jurisdiction necessary for supplemental jurisdiction under 

§ 1367(a). It wrote that "[t]his Court cannot exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff's reprisal claims ... because 

the original Title VII claim was never properly before this 

court [sic]." Appellant's App. 59 (emphasis in original).

The District Court erred in this analysis. We have held 

that the statute of limitations in Title VII cases under 42 

U.S.C. § 2000e-16(c) is not jurisdictional. Mondy v. Secretary of the Army, 845 F.2d 1051, 1057 (D.C. Cir. 1988). Thus, 

when the District Court dismissed Harris's Title VII suit on 

untimeliness grounds, it did not follow that the original claim 

was never properly before the court. The claim was before 

the court as a jurisdictional matter, but purportedly failed on 

a substantive defense.

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When the District Court has dismissed claims properly 

before it, it retains discretion to decide whether or not to 

dismiss other claims as to which it may exercise supplemental 

jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3). It may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction if "the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction." Id.

The discretionary language of the statute makes it clear that 

the court may also choose to preserve its supplemental jurisdiction.

In remanding to the District Court, we note that if Appellant's underlying claim is dismissed for untimeliness, then the 

underlying claim will remain unlitigated. Under those circumstances, it would be appropriate for the District Court to 

weigh the fact that administrative remedies have not been 

exhausted on the reprisal claims in deciding whether to 

exercise its supplemental jurisdiction over them. Although 

the District Court has discretion to entertain unexhausted 

Title VII reprisal claims, and retains that discretion in this 

case, it will normally hear such claims alongside the underlying discrimination claim. Where the District Court will not 

hear the underlying discrimination claim, requiring exhaustion of administrative remedies may obviate the need to hear 

the case at all.

III. CONCLUSION 

For the foregoing reasons, the District Court's grant of 

summary judgment and dismissal of Appellant's reprisal 

claims are reversed and remanded for further proceedings 

consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

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