Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-11-05120/USCOURTS-caDC-11-05120-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Vernard Evans
Appellant
Kathleen Sebelius
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 22, 2013 Decided May 17, 2013

No. 11-5120

VERNARD EVANS,

APPELLANT

v.

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:08-cv-01077)

Ellen K. Renaud argued the cause for appellant. With her 

on the briefs was David H. Shapiro.

Alan Burch, 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: TATEL, Circuit Judge, and WILLIAMS and 

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

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Opinion concurring in part and concurring in the 

judgment filed by Senior Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.

TATEL, Circuit Judge: Appellant alleges that her 

employer, the United States Department of Health and Human 

Services, denied her a promotion and a transfer in violation of 

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age 

Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. The district court 

granted summary judgment for the government. For the 

reasons set forth below, we reverse in part and affirm in part.

I.

At the start of President George W. Bush’s

Administration, plaintiff Vernard Evans, a fifty-four-year-old 

African American, worked as a GS-13 Developmental 

Disabilities Program Specialist in the Administration on

Developmental Disabilities (ADD), a division of HHS’s 

Administration for Children and Families (ACF). At all times 

relevant to this litigation, Evans’s direct supervisor was Leola 

Brooks. Until July 27, 2001, Commissioner Sue Swenson, a 

holdover from the Clinton Administration, managed ADD. 

After Swenson left ADD, Deputy Commissioner Reginald 

Wells served as Acting Commissioner until Bush 

Administration appointee Patricia Morrissey became 

Commissioner on August 27, 2001.

Immediately upon entering office, the Bush 

Administration imposed a hiring freeze. Then, when Tommy 

Thompson became HHS Secretary in February 2001, he 

issued a memorandum requiring managers to “defer decisions 

to fill positions at the GS-13 through SES levels until I have 

had the opportunity to review staff deployment throughout the 

Department.”

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Despite the hiring freeze, in March 2001, outgoing 

Commissioner Swenson recommended the creation of a GS14, non-supervisory Lead Developmental Disabilities 

Specialist (LDDS) position. Shortly thereafter, Evans applied 

for and was interviewed for that position. On July 17, Brooks 

selected Evans and another African American for two LDDS 

positions. But because of the hiring freeze, neither selectee

was promoted. Swenson declined to push for formal approval 

of the LDDS position, believing that her successor should 

make the final decision.

Over the next few months, the new Administration 

replaced the hiring freeze with a series of hiring “controls.”

Specifically, in October 2001, Assistant Secretary for 

Administration and Management Ed Sontag published a 

memorandum requiring his approval for any promotions to 

positions at GS-14 and above. In November 2001, Assistant 

Secretary for Children and Families Wade Horn issued a 

memorandum rescinding the requirement that Assistant 

Secretary Sontag approve promotions for all non-supervisory 

GS-14 and GS-15 positions. The memo nonetheless required 

Horn’s approval for promotions to GS-13 and above. And in 

March 2002, Horn announced at an “All Hands Meeting” that 

the hiring freeze was no longer in effect.

Despite the relaxation of the hiring controls, Evans was 

never promoted to the LDDS position, and she retired in April 

2002. The record reveals that no official—Clinton holdover or 

Bush newcomer—gave final authorization for the LDDS 

position. The record is unclear as to who, if anyone, made the 

affirmative decision to cancel the position.

Both before and after her retirement, Evans sought to find 

out why she had not been promoted. She claims that HHS 

human resources officials told her that her promotion would 

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be pushed through after the hiring controls were removed. 

Evans’s union representative was told that the promotion 

never occurred because of the hiring controls and that the 

LDDS position was “officially cancelled” in March 2002.

Evans also sought the assistance of United States Senator Paul 

Sarbanes, and in response to an inquiry from the Senator’s

office, Assistant Secretary Horn stated that “Evans could not 

be placed in the [LDDS] position because ACF was under 

Departmental and agency hiring controls and the position 

could not be filled. ADD subsequently elected to cancel the 

vacancy announcement, thereby nullifying the selection 

recommendation.” Finally, responding to Evans’s Freedom of 

Information Act request, HHS revealed that at least three 

white employees were promoted notwithstanding the hiring 

controls.

Significantly for this case, one of those white employees,

Faith McCormick, was detailed as a GS-15 Executive 

Assistant to incoming Commissioner Morrissey. Morrissey

hand-selected McCormick for the detail, doing so without a

competitive-selection process or opportunity for anyone else 

to apply. McCormick’s detail lasted for 154 days, after which 

she was permanently selected for the position, this time

following a competitive process.

After exhausting her administrative remedies, Evans filed 

suit in the United States District Court for the District of 

Columbia under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 

U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq., and the Age Discrimination in 

Employment Act of 1967, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621 et seq. As 

relevant to this appeal, Evans alleged that two personnel 

actions—HHS’s failure to promote her to the newly created 

LDDS position and Morrissey’s selection of McCormick for a 

detail as her Executive Assistant—were infected by race and 

age discrimination. The district court granted summary 

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judgment to the government on all claims. Regarding the 

LDDS position, the district court found that Evans failed to 

establish a prima facie case of discrimination, but following

this Circuit’s directive in Brady v. Office of Sergeant at Arms, 

520 F.3d 490 (D.C. Cir. 2008), it went on to address the 

ultimate question of discrimination and held that Evans failed 

to rebut the government’s legitimate, non-discriminatory 

reason for not promoting her—that the LDDS position was 

cancelled administratively. Regarding the Executive Assistant 

position, the district court concluded that the denial of the 

detail did not qualify as an adverse employment action. See

Stewart v. Ashcroft, 352 F.3d 422, 426 (D.C. Cir. 2003)

(explaining that an adverse action is a prerequisite for a Title 

VII claim).

Evans now appeals. Because her briefs make no effort to 

advance her age discrimination claims, they are waived. See 

Ark Las Vegas Restaurant Corp. v. NLRB, 334 F.3d 99, 108 

n.4 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (noting that arguments not raised in 

briefs are waived).

II.

We review the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment de novo, viewing the evidence in the light most 

favorable to Evans and drawing all reasonable inferences 

accordingly. See Salazar v. Washington Metropolitan Area 

Transit Authority, 401 F.3d 504, 507 (D.C. Cir. 2005). We 

will affirm only if no reasonable jury could find in Evans’s 

favor. See id.

In Title VII cases, we traditionally follow the McDonnell 

Douglas burden-shifting framework. See McDonnell Douglas

Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). But where, as here, the 

employer has put forward a legitimate, non-discriminatory 

explanation for its decision, the McDonnell Douglas inquiry 

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distills to one 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 . . . ?” 

Brady, 520 F.3d at 494; see also Adeyemi v. District of 

Columbia, 525 F.3d 1222, 1226 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (explaining 

that “the prima-facie-case aspect of McDonnell Douglas is 

irrelevant when an employer has asserted a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its decision”). “We consider this 

question ‘in light of the total circumstances of the case,’ 

asking ‘whether the jury could infer discrimination from the 

combination of (1) the plaintiff’s prima facie case; (2) any 

evidence the plaintiff presents to attack the employer’s 

proffered explanation for its actions; and (3) any further 

evidence of discrimination that may be available to the 

plaintiff . . . or any contrary evidence that may be available to 

the employer.’ ” Hamilton v. Geithner, 666 F.3d 1344, 1351 

(D.C. Cir. 2012) (quoting Aka v. Washington Hospital Center, 

156 F.3d 1284, 1289, 1291 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (en banc)).

Employees may cast doubt on the employer’s proffered

reason by, among other things, pointing to “changes and 

inconsistencies in the stated reasons for the adverse action; 

the employer’s failure to follow established procedures or 

criteria; the employer’s general treatment of minority 

employees; or discriminatory statements by the 

decisionmaker.” Brady, 520 F.3d at 495 n.3.

A.

We start with Evans’s claim that she was denied the 

LDDS position because of her race. In support, she argues

that the government’s proffered reason is pretext because

HHS “has given different explanations for the cancellation at 

different times,” because “[n]o one admits to making the 

decision to cancel the promotion,” and because “the evidence 

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shows that . . . several white employees (and no AfricanAmericans) were promoted” during the hiring controls.

Appellant’s Br. 13. Evans also cites record evidence of 

allegedly racially insensitive remarks. For its part, the 

government argues that the LDDS position went unfilled 

because it never found a champion in the new Administration. 

The position therefore “died a quiet administrative death, due 

directly to the hiring controls.” Appellee’s Br. 22. The 

government further contends that the Secretary’s varying 

explanations are attributable to the gradual shift from a hiring 

freeze to hiring controls. Despite the government’s

protestations, we believe that Evans has produced sufficient 

evidence that, when taken together, could lead a reasonable 

jury to conclude that the Secretary’s proffered reason for 

cancelling the LDDS position was pretext for racial 

discrimination. See Lathram v. Snow, 336 F.3d 1085, 1088 

(D.C. Cir. 2003) (“[T]o survive summary judgment the 

plaintiff must show that a reasonable jury could conclude 

from all of the evidence that the adverse employment decision 

was made for a discriminatory reason.” (emphasis added)).

To begin with, as Evans points out, the government has 

given shifting reasons for the non-promotion. For example,

Evans testified that she was told she would be promoted once 

the hiring freeze was lifted, only to learn later that the position

had been administratively cancelled after the hiring freeze 

ended. See Geleta v. Gray, 645 F.3d 408, 413 (D.C. Cir. 

2011) (commenting that “shifting and inconsistent 

justifications are probative of pretext” (internal quotation 

marks omitted)). Evans also points out that Horn’s letter to 

Senator Sarbanes explaining that Evans could not be 

promoted because of the hiring controls omits a key fact—

that Horn could have approved Evans’s promotion. See 

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

147 (2000) (explaining that a jury “can reasonably infer from 

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the falsity of the explanation that the employer is dissembling 

to cover up a discriminatory purpose”). Moreover, record 

evidence indicates that the relevant decision-makers have 

taken different views on who precisely cancelled the LDDS 

position. Acting Commissioner Wells testified that he 

discussed the LDDS position with Morrissey and that she 

expressed no interest in creating the position. Morrissey, by 

contrast, testified that she had no role in the final cancellation 

of the LDDS position because all GS-14 positions were 

“removed” from her consideration and “no longer existed.” 

Indeed, as the Secretary implicitly concedes, it is unclear who 

cancelled the LDDS position. See Appellee’s Br. 9 (“The 

proposed positions were eventually cancelled 

administratively, though the record does not provide much 

detail on precisely how that happened.”).

To be sure, as the government argues, there may well be

a benign explanation for these shifting rationales: HHS’s 

reasons changed as the hiring freeze morphed into hiring 

controls. And it may even be, again as the government argues, 

that the omission from the Sarbanes letter was immaterial. But

we need not decide whether these shifting and inaccurate 

explanations are, by themselves, sufficient for Evans to 

survive summary judgment because documents released in 

response to her FOIA request revealed that the hiring controls 

the government claims prevented her elevation to the LDDS 

position posed no barrier to the promotion of at least three 

white employees.

On this point, Cones v. Shalala, 199 F.3d 512 (D.C. Cir. 

2000), is instructive. There, an African American plaintiff

was denied a promotion that went to a white employee who 

was lateralled into the position. The Secretary relied on an 

Executive Order mandating a reduction in the number of GS14 and GS-15 employees as its legitimate, non-discriminatory 

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rationale. But despite the Executive Order, white GS-14s—

including the white employee selected for the position sought 

by the plaintiff—were promoted during that period. Given 

this, we concluded that “a jury could infer that HHS 

deliberately misread the Executive Order to favor [the white 

employee] because it preferred not to promote an African 

American.” Id. at 520. So too here. Once the hiring freeze was 

lifted in late 2001, Horn or Sontag could have approved the 

LDDS position and promoted Evans. Instead, as in Cones, 

HHS promoted whites, but not African Americans.

The government has no direct response to Cones—

indeed, its brief fails to even cite the decision. Instead, the 

government argues that the promoted whites were not 

similarly situated to Evans. This misses the point. As to this 

claim, Evans cites the promotion of white employees as 

evidence that the hiring controls were not insurmountable, not 

that she was discriminatorily denied one of those positions. 

Thus, while the government may be correct that the LDDS 

position met a “quiet administrative death,” Appellee’s Br. 

22, this still begs the Cones question of why Evans never 

found a champion and why only white employees found 

champions. According to our concurring colleague, the white 

employees’ promotions are not inconsistent with the 

government’s explanation that the hiring controls were “not 

an impermeable barrier” and “at most” demonstrate that “the 

government’s initial explanation [w]as imprecise.”

Concurring op. at 6. But the point of Cones is not that the 

white employees’ promotions establish that the government 

gave an imprecise explanation but rather that a reasonable 

jury could infer that the promotion of white employees—but 

not African Americans—during the hiring controls is 

evidence of pretext. See Cones, 199 F.3d at 520 (“Because the 

record contains evidence that downsizing had not prevented 

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the Department from promoting white GS-14s, a jury could 

conclude that downsizing was pretext for discrimination.”).

Finally, Evans has produced evidence regarding behavior 

by Morrissey and McCormick that a reasonable jury could 

interpret as racially insensitive. Debbie Powell, Morrissey’s 

highest-ranking African American subordinate, testified at her 

deposition that Morrissey frequently referred to the African 

American women on staff as “those sisters.” Cf. Ash v. Tyson 

Foods, Inc., 546 U.S. 454, 456 (2006) (per curiam) 

(explaining that use of the term “boy” to refer to African 

Americans can be evidence of racial animus under certain 

circumstances). And in her declaration, Powell recounts an 

incident in which McCormick implied that people from “the 

Hood” are liars and cheaters. After Powell and McCormick 

got into an argument over these comments, McCormick tried 

to explain her behavior by stating: “I’m a hot-blooded Italian 

and I get angry sometimes.” According to Powell, Morrissey 

failed to respond immediately to these remarks—though 

Morrissey eventually reprimanded McCormick. Powell also 

claims that she was involuntarily detailed out of ADD by 

Morrissey after she complained about McCormick’s behavior.

Given this additional evidence, Evans’s argument about 

the government’s shifting and inaccurate explanations 

becomes more salient. For example, a reasonable jury 

knowing that HHS promoted three whites notwithstanding the 

hiring controls could be quite suspicious about why the LDDS 

position was administratively cancelled even though Evans 

was initially told she would be promoted after the hiring 

freeze ended. Likewise, a jury, knowing not only about the 

white employees but also that Morrissey referred to African 

Americans as “those sisters,” could reasonably find that 

Morrissey was dissembling when she disavowed her 

involvement in the decision-making process.

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In the end, the record supports two plausible

interpretations of what happened. One view, urged by Evans,

is that Morrissey decided not to create the position because 

Evans and another African American had been selected to fill 

the two spots. The other view, urged by the government, is 

that no one in the incoming Administration championed the 

creation of the LDDS position. As an appellate court 

reviewing the district court’s grant of summary judgment, we 

have no authority to choose between these competing views.

Given our “obligation to draw reasonable inferences in 

[Evans’s] favor,” Salazar, 401 F.3d at 509, and given the

record evidence that HHS (1) promoted whites but not 

African Americans during the hiring controls, (2) offered 

inconsistent and inaccurate explanations, and (3) is unable to 

identify who cancelled the LDDS position, a reasonable jury, 

especially in light of Powell’s testimony about Morrissey’s 

and McCormick’s comments, could find the Secretary’s 

proffered explanation to be nothing more than a veil for racial 

discrimination. Ultimately, this is precisely the type of factual 

dispute that “must be resolved in a jury room rather than in 

the pages of the Federal Reporter.” Czekalski v. Peters, 475 

F.3d 360, 362 (D.C. Cir. 2007).

B.

This brings us to Evans’s second claim: that she was 

denied the detail to the Executive Assistant position because 

of her race. In granting summary judgment to the government, 

the district court concluded that the denial of the detail did not 

qualify as an adverse action. We need not address this issue, 

however, because, as the government urges, we can affirm on

an alternative ground, i.e., that Evans has failed to rebut the 

government’s proffered, non-discriminatory reason. See 

EEOC v. Aramark Corp., 208 F.3d 266, 268 (D.C. Cir. 2000) 

(explaining that “because we review the district court’s 

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judgment, not its reasoning, we may affirm on any ground 

properly raised”).

Once again, the parties disagree about whether the 

government has provided a consistent and legitimate 

explanation. Evans contends that Morrissey gave shifting 

explanations for selecting McCormick for the detail and 

emphasizes Morrissey’s admission that she sought a 

Republican “confidant” as her Executive Assistant. See 5 

U.S.C. § 2302(b)(1)(E) (prohibiting personnel actions based 

on “political affiliation”). Evans also asserts that proper 

protocols were not followed in McCormick’s selection.

But the government points to a key fact: Morrissey first 

met Evans in August 2001. Because Morrissey selected 

McCormick for the Executive Assistant detail prior to this 

date, the government’s argument goes, the record contains no 

evidence of racial discrimination. Thus, even though 

Morrissey gave conflicting and illegitimate reasons for 

selecting McCormick and even though proper protocols were 

not followed, Evans cannot establish that the Secretary’s 

proffered reasons were pretext for racial discrimination.

Evans has two responses. She first claims that this

argument is waived because, she says, the government failed 

to raise it in the district court. But the government did argue 

in the district court that Morrissey had never met Evans prior 

to August 2001. See, e.g., Defendant’s Memorandum in 

Support of Motion for Summary Judgment at 16 (“There is no 

evidence that Commissioner Morrissey even knew the 

plaintiff at all at the time she was considering accepting the 

appointment to ADD and filling the Executive Assistant 

position or asking Ms. McCormick to detail to the position.”). 

Second, Evans contends that nothing in the record “supports 

the idea that Morrissey did not know Evans’ race when she 

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selected McCormick as her Executive Assistant.” Appellant’s 

Reply Br. 21 n.5 (emphasis added). Of course, as Evans 

emphasizes, an individual could quite plausibly know another 

person’s race before meeting them. But here, the record 

contains no evidence that Morrissey selected McCormick 

because she was white or that prior to August 2001 Morrissey 

was even aware of Evans’s existence, much less her race.

Although Evans contends that McCormick’s selection as 

the Executive Assistant was procedurally flawed and infected 

with partisan motives, she must still provide sufficient 

evidence that the government’s proffered explanation is 

pretext for racial discrimination. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(a) 

(“All personnel actions affecting employees or applicants for 

employment . . . shall be made free from any discrimination 

based on race . . . .”). Because Evans has failed to make that 

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

judgment for the government on the Executive Assistant 

detail claim.

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse in part and affirm 

in part.

So ordered.

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 WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge, concurring in the 

judgment: I join the majority in finding that under the 

procedure originating in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 

411 U.S. 792 (1973), the government is not entitled to 

summary judgment on Evans’s claim regarding the LDDS 

position (and also in finding that it is so entitled regarding the 

“detail” as executive assistant to the Commissioner). My 

route to this conclusion is more direct than that of my 

colleagues. They find that while the government offered a 

legitimate, non-discriminatory explanation for its actions, the 

self-contradictions in its evidence were a sufficient basis for a 

jury reasonably to conclude that the explanation was 

pretextual and that in fact the actions were driven by 

discriminatory motives in violation of Title VII. See Reeves 

v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530 U.S. 133 (2000); 

Aka v. Washington Hospital Center, 156 F.3d 1284 (D.C. Cir. 

1998). I conclude that once we identify the critical 

government action, the government’s problem is that it has 

offered no explanation at all. 

The events culminating in Evans’s failure to secure the 

promotion involve two quite separate elements: a “hiring 

freeze,” which delayed but did not formally doom the 

promotion, and the cancellation of the position, which 

extinguished the possibility altogether. Evans indisputably 

suffered eight or nine months in limbo, from her selection for 

the LDDS position on July 17, 2001 to April 3, 2002, when 

she concluded that the government had in fact cancelled the 

position (which evidently occurred March 7). During all this 

time Evans remained interested in the position, so much so 

that she “unretired” in early March 2002 on the false premise 

that the position was still available and her promotion 

certificate was still valid. It was only after HHS told Evans 

that the position had been abolished that she assessed the 

situation as hopeless and retired permanently. See Evans Aff. 

at 4. 

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With respect to the delay (which Evans does not appear to 

identify as an independent violation of her rights), memoranda 

offered by the government document the existence and 

evolution of the hiring controls and unquestionably satisfy the 

requirement, elucidated by the Supreme Court in its 

applications of McDonnell Douglas, to “produc[e] evidence 

that the adverse employment actions were taken for a 

legitimate nondiscriminatory reason.” St. Mary’s Honor 

Center v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 507 (1993) (internal quotations 

removed); see also Texas Dep’t of Community Affairs v. 

Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 254-55 (1981). If accepted by a trier 

of fact, the memoranda would justify a finding that unlawful 

discrimination was not the cause of the eight-month window 

during which Evans waited in vain. 

 But while the government has spoken of the hiring freeze 

as the explanation for both the delay and the cancellation, it is 

hard to spot its relevance to the cancellation. One can 

imagine such a link. The government might, for example, 

have introduced evidence of an HHS policy under which 

vacancies are to be annulled whenever prolonged beyond 

some set period, or perhaps a rule automatically dispatching 

any newly created position (such as the one awaiting Evans) 

that goes unfilled too long. 

But the government has offered nothing of the sort. In 

fact, it seems unable even to provide a clear and coherent 

account of who ordered the cancellation, much less why. 

Surprisingly, in light of the standard bureaucratic practice of 

having a form for every action and at least a check-box for the 

reason, it has not even produced a contemporaneous written 

record establishing that the cancellation did in fact occur on 

March 7, 2002, much less a contemporaneous explanation. Of 

course contemporaneity is not required (though obviously it 

would add credibility), but the government has never, even in 

this proceeding, supplied evidence giving an explanation. The 

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best it seems to be able to do is to use its brief (not sworn 

evidence) to characterize the cancellation as “essentially 

ministerial” and say that the LDDS position “died a quiet 

administrative death,” Gov’t Br. 22, 25. But given the lack of 

evidence explaining what rules or actions generate such 

deaths, these are not explanations at all. The resulting 

deficiencies would seem to preclude a finding that the 

government has “clearly set forth, through the introduction of 

admissible evidence, reasons for its actions.” Hicks, 509 U.S. 

at 507 (internal quotations removed). 

* * * 

My colleagues take a different approach and view the 

case as turning on the sufficiency of Evans’s evidence of 

pretext. In pursuing this inquiry, they reason in the shadow of 

two decisions, Reeves and Aka, which they rightly regard as 

controlling their analysis. “Control” may not be quite the 

right word, however. The two decisions draw a line, but with 

a roller brush rather than a fine-line marker. This case seems 

to me to lie somewhere within that broad swath. 

Reeves and Aka hold that in a federal employment 

discrimination case, where the employee has the burden of 

establishing that the defendant’s action was motivated by the 

protected trait in question (e.g., race, sex, age), and the 

employer has offered an innocent justification, proof “that the 

defendant’s explanation is unworthy of credence is simply one 

form of circumstantial evidence that is probative of intentional 

discrimination, and it may be quite persuasive.” Reeves, 530 

U.S. at 147 (emphasis added). Indeed, it may be so persuasive 

that, where there is no evidence of reliance on the protected 

trait other than the undermining of the defendant’s 

explanation, the district court, at least sometimes, may not 

grant judgment as a matter of law against a jury finding of 

discrimination, id. at 148-49, or, more or less equivalently, 

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may not grant summary judgment for the defendant on the 

theory that there are no disputed issues of material fact, Aka, 

156 F.3d at 1288. 

Both the Reeves and Aka courts recognized that 

mendacity in the employer’s explanation strengthened any 

inference of reliance on the protected trait, but both indicated 

that evidence supporting a finding of mendacity was not 

essential. Reeves, 530 U.S. at 147; Aka, 156 F.3d at 1293-94. 

Both courts also recognized the existence of situations 

where the inference from impeachment of the employer’s 

explanation would not be enough, but the fact patterns given 

as examples, originally in Aka and adopted by the Court in 

Reeves, seem chosen for their improbability. One is the case 

where the plaintiff’s evidence undermines defendant’s 

proffered explanation, only to supplant it with another 

innocent explanation. The second is the case where the 

undermining evidence is “weak” and “there is abundant 

independent evidence in the record that no discrimination has 

occurred.” Id. at 1291; Reeves, 530 U.S. at 148 (following 

and citing Aka). 

Thus at its potential outer edge, the principle allows the 

plaintiff to get to the jury so long as he or she can point to any 

snippet of evidence drawing the defendant’s explanation in 

question. Perhaps utterly trivial snippets are inadequate: a 

conflict among defendant’s witnesses over the color of tie 

worn by one of them at a critical meeting? But one hesitates 

to speak firmly on such a hypothetical; after all, comparable 

impeaching evidence is quite standard among criminal 

defense attorneys’ efforts to establish a reasonable doubt in 

jurors’ minds. 

The majority’s decision illustrates the range and 

variability of the Reeves-Aka framework. To meet her burden 

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of demonstrating that the government’s explanation was 

pretextual, Evans has drawn attention to omissions and 

inconsistencies among the statements of various HHS 

representatives about why her promotion stalled. Specifically, 

Evans points to HHS’s failure to clarify, both to her and to 

then-Senator Paul Sarbanes, that after November 2001 Evans 

could have been placed in the LDDS position had the 

responsible officials secured the approval of Assistant 

Secretary Wade Horn or Assistant Secretary Ed Sontag—an 

option created by a relaxation in the controls that permitted 

the promotion of the three white employees. Evans also notes 

that HHS has been unable to provide a clear and consistent 

account of who cancelled the LDDS position. Finally, Evans 

alleges that HHS human resources personnel promised her 

that she would be placed in the LDDS position after the hiring 

freeze had been lifted, and that multiple HHS employees gave 

false assurances that the LDDS position was still available and 

Evans’s promotion certificate still valid in the week prior to 

the date HHS now contends the position was canceled. 

The evidence Evans marshals does not paint a flattering 

portrait of bureaucracy. It demonstrates that scattered HHS 

officials were unable to speak with one voice about the 

precise relationship between the hiring controls and the LDDS 

position, and about the precise mechanism by which the 

position was cancelled. It also supports the (one would 

imagine uncontroversial) thesis that a capable attorney will 

have little trouble teasing out discrepancies in the accounts of 

various bureaucratic actors pertaining to personnel actions 

affecting non-managerial employees—actions that, while 

understandably of great concern to the affected employees, 

seem likely to be submerged among a host of similar or more 

vital issues demanding the attention of senior-level officials 

and human resources personnel. It is no accident that the “n” 

in snafu stands for “normal.” 

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What the evidence stressed by Evans does not establish is 

the falsity of the government’s basic account of the 

circumstances that delayed Evans’s expected promotion. For 

reasons already stated, there is no reason to doubt that had 

there been no hiring controls, Evans would have been placed 

in the LDDS position upon her selection in July 2001. Even 

in their relaxed form, the controls for a time created a 

presumption against promotions to GS-14 positions. (Evans 

has not advanced any contention that the three promoted 

women should be viewed as candidates for a post equivalent 

to the LDDS position.) The promotion of three white 

individuals does not, in and of itself, establish that by late 

2001 the controls had become a charade and had ceased to 

have any legitimate application. Rather, the promotions prove 

only that the restrictions were not an impermeable barrier—a 

fact which adds nuance, but which is nonetheless consistent 

with the government’s account. Evans’s evidence is at most a 

reason to regard the government’s initial explanation as 

imprecise; neither Reeves nor Aka gives a clue how grave an 

imprecision must be to qualify as “sufficient evidence for the 

trier of fact to disbelieve” the proffered explanation. Reeves, 

530 U.S. at 137. 

As for the cancellation of the position itself, the accounts 

of who cancelled the LDDS position conflict. As noted earlier 

in this opinion, the government never offered any affirmative 

reason at all for the cancellation; the conflict over exactly 

whose fingerprints may be on this unexplained event tells 

little one way or the other. 

Yet the majority finds that Evans is entitled to a jury trial 

under Reeves and Aka. That is because those two cases allow, 

but do not require, a court to find pretext on the basis of even 

the mildest inconsistency in the defendant’s explanation for its 

actions. The perverse effects of this doctrine should be plain: 

District courts are at risk of seeing summary judgments 

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reversed in all cases except those in which the defense 

witnesses and all documentary evidence sing in perfect 

harmony (which itself might, ironically, be cited as evidence 

of chicanery). Defendants, wary of jury trials and 

apprehensive of the cost of litigation, and commonly facing an 

appealing plaintiff and the prospect of a jury, may be inclined 

to settle even weak cases. Such a regime invites frivolous 

suits and rulings that defy harmonization. 

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