Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-16-02058/USCOURTS-ca7-16-02058-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Thomas M. McCarthy
Appellant
Thomas J. Vilsack
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted October 31, 2016*

Decided November 1, 2016

Before

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 16-2058

THOMAS M. MCCARTHY,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

THOMAS J. VILSACK, Secretary, 

United States Department of Agriculture,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.

No. 15-cv-312-bbc

Barbara B. Crabb,

Judge.

O R D E R

Two years after he was not interviewed for two positions with the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture, Thomas McCarthy brought this employment-discrimination 

suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e–2000e-17, and the 

Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621–634. The district court granted 

summary judgment for the government after concluding that McCarthy had not 

contacted an equal employment opportunity counselor with the agency in a timely 

 

* We have unanimously agreed to decide the case without oral argument because 

the briefs and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral 

argument would not significantly aid the court. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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No. 16-2058 Page 2

manner—a prerequisite for filing suit—and that equitable tolling was not warranted. We 

affirm.

McCarthy, a former USDA employee who had retired in 2006, applied in 2011 for 

two loan-specialist positions (in Wisconsin and Minnesota) that would have allowed 

him to rejoin the department’s Office of Rural Development. Despite receiving emails 

that he was among the “best qualified” applicants and had been “referred” to 

interviewing officials, he was not offered an interview for either job. In late June 2011, he

was notified that the jobs had been filled.

According to McCarthy, he did not suspect at that time that he had been subjected 

to discrimination, but his view changed in July 2013, when he came across the old emails 

acknowledging his “best qualified” status. He alleged that he then learned that his 

application may have been undermined by a former supervisor from his previous job

with the USDA in Wisconsin (and with whom he had clashed, leading to his 2006 

retirement). McCarthy says that this supervisor was working in 2011 at the USDA office 

in Minnesota where he had applied, and he believed that this supervisor must have 

influenced the decisions not to interview him for the Minnesota and Wisconsin 

positions.

McCarthy contacted an equal employment opportunity counselor in September 

2013 and complained that the decisions not to interview him in 2011 were based on his 

race and sex (as a white male), his age (62 at the time), and past complaints that he had 

brought when he used to work with the agency. The USDA denied McCarthy’s EEO 

complaint after concluding that he had failed to initiate contact with an EEO counselor 

within 45 days of the alleged discriminatory action, as required under 29 C.F.R.

§ 1614.105(a)(1), and that there were no circumstances justifying an extension of that 

time limit.

McCarthy then brought this suit, but the district court granted summary 

judgment for the government after concluding that his attempt to exhaust his 

administrative remedies was untimely. The court considered whether this 45-day time 

limit should be equitably tolled based on McCarthy’s assertion that he did not learn 

about the alleged discrimination until 2013, but it concluded that McCarthy had not 

shown that he was diligent in investigating a potential claim of discrimination. He did

not describe any actions he took before 2013 to look into a possible claim, nor did he 

allege that any of the purportedly relevant information about the former supervisor’s 

employment in 2011 was not public or could not have been uncovered earlier. Nor did 

he suggest how the supervisor’s employment with the Minnesota office was relevant, 

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since McCarthy offered no reason to believe that the former supervisor was even

involved in hiring for either of the two open positions. 

On appeal McCarthy generally challenges the district court’s decision not to 

equitably toll the 45-day time limit to contact an EEO counselor about alleged 

discrimination. He disputes the court’s conclusion that he did not investigate his claim 

with due diligence because it did not occur to him until seeing the old emails in 2013 that 

his former supervisor may have discouraged the USDA offices from interviewing him.

The 45-day time limit under 29 C.F.R. § 1614.105(a)(1) is not a jurisdictional 

prerequisite and may be equitably tolled, see Lapka v. Chertoff, 517 F.3d 974, 981 (7th Cir. 

2008), but the district court properly concluded that McCarthy did not demonstrate due 

diligence. Equitable tolling applies “when the plaintiff, exercising due diligence, was 

unable to discover evidence vital to a claim until after the statute of limitations expired.” 

Sidney Hillman Health Ctr. of Rochester v. Abbott Labs., Inc., 782 F.3d 922, 931 (7th Cir. 2015)

(quoting Moultrie v. Penn Aluminum Int’l, LLC, 766 F.3d 747, 752 (7th Cir. 2014)). As the 

district court explained, McCarthy did not describe taking any steps to uncover evidence 

of discrimination upon not being interviewed in 2011 or explain why reasonable 

diligence would not sooner have turned up information about his former supervisor’s 

employment. Nor did McCarthy identify any evidence to support his theory that the 

supervisor played a role in the hiring process for the two positions. Indeed, evidence in 

the record shows that the supervisor actually applied at the same time as McCarthy for 

the Wisconsin position and had never even worked at the Minnesota office. 

AFFIRMED.

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