Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-10-05421/USCOURTS-caDC-10-05421-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Rhonda N. Baird
Appellant
Joshua Gotbaum
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 1, 2011 Decided December 13, 2011

No. 10-5421

RHONDA N. BAIRD,

APPELLANT

v.

JOSHUA GOTBAUM, DIRECTOR,

PENSION BENEFIT GUARANTY CORPORATION,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:09-cv-01091)

Rhonda Baird, appearing pro se, argued the cause and 

filed the briefs for appellant.

Michelle Lo, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause 

for appellee. With her on the brief were Ronald C. Machen 

Jr., U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. 

Attorney. 

Before: ROGERS and GARLAND, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

WILLIAMS. 

USCA Case #10-5421 Document #1347265 Filed: 12/13/2011 Page 1 of 12
2

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: Appellant Rhonda N. 

Baird, an African-American female attorney in the Office of 

the Chief Counsel of the Pension Benefit Guaranty 

Corporation (“PBGC”), filed suit in district court against the 

PBGC, claiming employment discrimination and retaliation in 

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

§ 2000e. The district court dismissed all her claims under 

FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6). Baird v. Snowbarger, 744 F. Supp. 

2d 279 (D.D.C. 2010). We discuss only those that she 

appeals. They fall into two categories: first, claims of race 

and gender discrimination (Counts III and V), and of unlawful 

retaliation (Count I), arising out of four discrete episodes; 

second, a claim of a retaliatory hostile work environment 

(Count II) arising not only out of the four discrete episodes

but also out of various other events as to which she raised 

claims that were time-barred (apart from their potential role in 

her hostile environment claim). 

As always, of course, the allegations of plaintiff’s 

complaint are presumed true, and all reasonable factual 

inferences must be drawn in her favor. Maljack Prods., Inc. v. 

Motion Picture Ass’n of Am., 52 F.3d 373, 375 (D.C. Cir. 

1995). To the extent that the Supreme Court’s decisions in 

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009), and 

Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), may 

qualify these principles, the qualifications are not pertinent to 

the issues immediately before us. 

We affirm the district court’s dismissal of the claims that 

rely on the four discrete episodes standing alone but vacate

and remand as to the claim of retaliatory hostile work 

environment. 

USCA Case #10-5421 Document #1347265 Filed: 12/13/2011 Page 2 of 12
3

* * *

Discrete episodes claims. The four discrete episodes are 

the following: (1) In a dispute within the PBGC over the 

agency’s scan of its email system, some fellow workers

circulated emails calling Baird “psychotic.” (2) The Human 

Resources Department singled out Baird in securing her 

signature acknowledging receipt of an email-related office 

memorandum. (3) PBGC litigation counsel Raymond Forster 

sent an email to several employees advising “the 11th floor 

OGC [Office of General Counsel] staff in the area of 

conference room 11E to use caution about what they say in 

halls or open offices,” for “[c]ertain people who will be in 

11E have a way of twisting and publicizing their litigation 

induced hallucinations.” (4) One Ruben Moreno had shouted 

and pounded the table at Baird while she deposed him during 

a proceeding involving Equal Employment Opportunity 

complaints. See Baird, 744 F. Supp. 2d at 283-85. 

In dismissing the claims arising out of these events, the 

district court relied on the absence of “an adverse employment 

action.” See, e.g., Stella v. Mineta, 284 F.3d 135, 145 (D.C. 

Cir. 2002). For discrimination claims, an action must, to 

qualify, be “a significant change in employment status, such 

as hiring, firing, failing to promote, reassignment with 

significantly different responsibilities, or a decision causing 

significant change in benefits.” Douglas v. Donovan, 559 

F.3d 549, 552 (D.C. Cir. 2009). An employee must 

“experience[] materially adverse consequences affecting the 

terms, conditions, or privileges of employment or future 

employment opportunities such that a reasonable trier of fact 

could find objectively tangible harm.” Id. In the retaliation 

context the “adverse action” concept has a broader meaning. 

There, actions giving rise to claims are “not limited to 

discriminatory actions that affect the terms and conditions of 

employment,” Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 

USCA Case #10-5421 Document #1347265 Filed: 12/13/2011 Page 3 of 12
4

U.S. 53, 64 (2006), but reach any harm that “well might have 

dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a 

charge of discrimination,” id. at 68. See Baird, 744 F. Supp.

2d at 290-91, 292. The district court found that Baird’s 

allegations fell short of these threshold requirements, as to 

both discrimination and retaliation. 

Plaintiff’s claims here are relatively unusual in that she 

does not assert that discriminatory intention brought about the 

underlying acts (what we’ve called the discrete episodes), and 

even as to retaliation she soft-pedals her claim of retaliatory 

intent. Rather, she argues that such discriminatory and 

retaliatory intent caused the PBGC’s failure to respond to her 

complaints about them and to take corrective action against 

the employees who, as she sees it, had traduced or abused her. 

Thus the case is in important respects like Rochon v. 

Gonzales, 438 F.3d 1211 (D.C. Cir. 2006), where the plaintiff 

(an FBI agent) alleged that the FBI had received credible 

death threats against himself and his wife, made by an inmate 

in a federal prison, and that the FBI, out of discriminatory and 

retaliatory motives, had failed to investigate or take any steps 

to protect him. Id. at 1213-14. There was no suggestion that 

the FBI was responsible for the threatening inmate’s behavior, 

but (focusing on the retaliation) we found that allegations of 

an unlawfully motivated failure to investigate the threat or to 

protect the Rochons were sufficient to survive a motion under 

Rule 12(b)(6). Id. at 1219-20. 

Of course death threats are extreme, but we think the 

Rochon principle may be generalized, though slightly 

differently with respect to discrimination and retaliation. 

Stated in a form most favorable to plaintiff, a claim of 

discriminatory or retaliatory failure to remediate may be

sufficient if the uncorrected action would (if it were 

discriminatory or retaliatory) be of enough significance to 

qualify as an adverse action (under the relevant standard). 

USCA Case #10-5421 Document #1347265 Filed: 12/13/2011 Page 4 of 12
5

As to discrimination, the district court concluded that, 

even if unlawfully motivated, the actions taken by the PBGC 

would not rise to the level of “adverse employment actions,” 

because they “would not effect a ‘significant change’ in 

plaintiff’s employment status,” Baird, 744 F. Supp. 2d at 291 

(emphasis in original), and “[did] not rise to the level of 

objectively tangible harm,” id. We agree. Indeed, each of the 

four discrete episodes seems (at worst) akin to the sort of 

“public humiliation or loss of reputation” that we have 

consistently classified as falling below the requirements for an 

adverse employment action. We found in Stewart v. Evans, 

275 F.3d 1126, 1135-36 (D.C. Cir. 2002), for instance, that in 

the absence of accompanying effects on salary or other 

elements of employment status, plaintiff’s claim that 

supervisors “intentionally and perfidiously created the 

appearance that the plaintiff and her staff were involved in 

violations of court orders and obstruction of justice” did not 

amount to an adverse employment action. See also, e.g., 

Taylor v. Small, 350 F.3d 1286, 1292-93 (D.C. Cir. 2003) 

(supervisor’s delays in completing plaintiff’s performance 

evaluations and placement of plaintiff on Performance 

Improvement Plan were not adverse employment actions). 

Baird seeks to take the case out of the class of gardenvariety workplace tension by pointing to the PBGC’s 

Workplace Rules, which provide not only a code of civility 

among employees but also mechanisms for remediation of 

breaches. She argues passionately that the Rules are among 

the “terms, conditions, or privileges of employment” with 

respect to which Title VII affords protection, see 42 U.S.C. 

§ 2000e-2(a)(1), evidently supposing that anything in that 

category ipso facto meets the adverse action test for unlawful 

discrimination. But “not everything that makes an employee 

unhappy is an actionable adverse action,” Douglas, 559 F.3d 

at 552, and the many workplace slights that we have in other 

cases found to fall below the requisite threshold all related to 

USCA Case #10-5421 Document #1347265 Filed: 12/13/2011 Page 5 of 12
6

conditions of employment. Although necessary for her 

discrimination claims, merely being such a condition in itself 

is plainly not sufficient. 

In a slight variation of this argument Baird points to 

Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69 (1984), where the 

Court held sufficient to withstand dismissal plaintiff’s 

allegations that a law firm discriminatorily breached its 

contractual promise to consider an associate for partnership. 

Because the firm’s promise was a “term” or “condition” of the 

associate’s employment, indeed “a key contractual provision 

which induced [the plaintiff] to accept employment,” id. at 74-

75, it was no defense for the firm to say that admission to 

partnership was not itself a term or condition of employment. 

Id. at 73-78. Baird of course does not face the technical 

obstacle that Hishon did—that of demonstrating the existence 

of any employment-related benefit in the first place; the 

behavior of which she complains indubitably had the requisite 

relation to employment for purposes of coverage by Title VII. 

But that is of no help to her in meeting the adverse action test, 

as the slights to which she objects are hardly in the same 

category as failing to consider one for advancement to 

partnership. 

Baird’s retaliation claims arising from the four discrete 

episodes differ from her discrimination claims only in that the 

concept of adverse action is somewhat broader and in that 

Rochon is directly applicable. The district court found that 

none of the acts, or the failure to remedy them, was sufficient 

under the controlling standard. Baird, 744 F. Supp. 2d at 293, 

294. Again, we agree. We do not believe that the PBGC’s 

failure to remedy the various critiques and epithets to which 

Baird’s fellow employees subjected her would have persuaded 

a reasonable employee to refrain from making or supporting 

charges of discrimination. See Baloch v. Kempthorne, 550 

F.3d 1191, 1199 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (“sporadic verbal 

USCA Case #10-5421 Document #1347265 Filed: 12/13/2011 Page 6 of 12
7

altercations or disagreements do not qualify as adverse actions 

for purposes of retaliation claims”).

Accordingly, as to all four discrete episodes, we affirm 

the district court’s dismissal of Baird’s claims of race and 

gender discrimination and of unlawful retaliation. 

Retaliatory hostile work environment. To prevail on a 

hostile work environment claim, “a plaintiff must show that 

his employer subjected him to ‘discriminatory intimidation, 

ridicule, and insult’ that is ‘sufficiently severe or pervasive to 

alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an 

abusive working environment.’” Baloch, 550 F.3d at 1201 

(quoting Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21 (1993)). 

We have previously found that “a hostile work environment 

can amount to retaliation under Title VII” if the conduct meets 

that standard. See Hussain v. Nicholson, 435 F.3d 359, 366 

(D.C. Cir. 2006); see also Singletary v. District of Columbia, 

351 F.3d 519, 526 (D.C. Cir. 2003). In evaluating Baird’s 

retaliatory hostile work environment claim, the district court 

analyzed the four discrete episodes and concluded that Baird 

“[could not] satisfy [the Harris] test, because none of the acts 

that she alleges, whether considered alone or cumulatively, 

meets ‘the demanding standards’ for a hostile work 

environment claim.” Baird, 744 F. Supp. 2d at 295 (quoting 

Sewell v. Chao, 532 F. Supp. 2d 126, 141-42 (D.D.C. 2008)).

Baird argues on appeal that the district court erred in 

excluding two categories of acts from her hostile work 

environment claim: (1) actions as to which she filed 

complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity 

Commission but which were time-barred, and (2) the 

underlying conduct that the PBGC allegedly failed to 

investigate and remedy. We discuss each in turn.

USCA Case #10-5421 Document #1347265 Filed: 12/13/2011 Page 7 of 12
8

(1) Time-barred acts. As we explained in Singletary v. 

District of Columbia, the Supreme Court has made clear that 

“‘discrete discriminatory acts’ . . . ‘are not actionable if time 

barred, even when they are related to acts alleged in timely 

filed charges.’” 351 F.3d at 526 (quoting Nat’l R.R. 

Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 113 (2002)). “But 

‘[h]ostile environment claims . . . are different in kind from 

discrete acts’ because ‘[t]heir very nature involves repeated 

conduct.’” Id. (alterations in original) (quoting Morgan, 536 

U.S. at 115). “Such a claim . . . ‘is comprised of a series of 

separate acts that collectively constitute one unlawful 

employment practice,’” and accordingly “are subject to a 

different limitations rule . . . . ‘Provided that an act 

contributing to the claim occurs within the filing period, the 

entire time period of the hostile environment may be 

considered by a court for the purposes of determining 

liability.’” Id. at 526-27 (quoting Morgan, 536 U.S. at 117).

The Morgan principle is not, however, an open sesame to 

recovery for time-barred violations. Both incidents barred by 

the statute of limitations and ones not barred can qualify as 

“part of the same actionable hostile environment claim” only 

if they are adequately linked into a coherent hostile 

environment claim—if, for example, they “involve[] the same 

type of employment actions, occur[] relatively frequently, and 

[are] perpetrated by the same managers.” Morgan, 536 U.S. 

at 120-21. See also id. at 118 (excluding any incident that 

“had no relation to the [other] acts . . . or for some other 

reason, such as certain intervening action by the employer, 

was no longer part of the same hostile environment claim”);

Wilkie v. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., 638 F.3d 944, 951 

(8th Cir. 2011) (“[A]cts before and after the limitations period 

[that are] so similar in nature, frequency, and severity . . .

must be considered to be part and parcel of the hostile work 

environment . . . .” (alterations and emphasis in original));

Wheaton v. N. Oakland Med. Ctr., 130 Fed. App’x 773, 787

USCA Case #10-5421 Document #1347265 Filed: 12/13/2011 Page 8 of 12
9

(6th Cir. 2005) (Morgan requires inquiry into whether 

incidents “occurring outside the statutory period are 

sufficiently related to those incidents occurring within the 

statutory period as to form one continuous hostile work 

environment.” (emphasis in original)). These formulations are 

at best only rather general, but neither the Supreme Court nor 

any circuit seems yet to have offered anything more 

illuminating. 

Baird is clearly correct that the district court erred to the 

extent that it categorically excluded her time-barred 

complaints in considering the hostile work environment claim, 

thus failing to employ the Morgan analysis, including, of 

course, a determination of which acts exhibit the relationship 

necessary to be considered “part of the same actionable hostile 

environment claim.” 

(2) Underlying acts. Baird additionally argues that the 

district court erred in considering only the PBGC’s alleged 

failures to investigate various Workplace Rules violations,

and not the underlying, uninvestigated conduct itself (without 

conceding that the latter must have been retaliatory itself in 

order for her allegations to state a claim). See Baird, 744 F. 

Supp. 2d at 294. The district court did so because, in its view,

Baird failed to “allege that this underlying behavior (as 

opposed to defendant’s response to this behavior) was due to 

[her] race, sex, or activity protected under Title VII.” Id. 

(citing Franklin v. Potter, 600 F. Supp. 2d 38, 76 (D.D.C. 

2009); Na’im v. Clinton, 626 F. Supp. 2d 63, 73 (D.D.C. 

2009)). 

But allegations of retaliatory intent are plainly present at 

least as to some of the underlying acts. For example, the 

complaint very plainly attributes the emails suggesting 

psychosis to an intent to retaliate. First Amended Complaint 

¶ 26. Moreover, the complaint’s retaliatory environment

USCA Case #10-5421 Document #1347265 Filed: 12/13/2011 Page 9 of 12
10

claim explicitly incorporates all prior allegations by reference, 

id. ¶ 66, and then says that “[t]he harassment and hostile work 

environment including PBGC’s failure to take appropriate 

corrective action was so severe and/or pervasive that it altered 

the terms and conditions of Plaintiff’s employment and 

created a very abusive atmosphere,” id. ¶ 68 (emphasis 

added). Given that this whole count is directed entirely to

retaliation, this language clearly asserts retaliatory purpose as 

to the underlying acts. We take no position as to the ultimate 

adequacy of the complaint under Iqbal and similar cases, but 

the categorical exclusion of the underlying acts was error. 

Baird also raises a closely related argument. The district 

court suggested that a “plaintiff cannot rely on the discrete 

acts upon which she bases her discrimination and retaliation 

claims to support her hostile work environment claim.” 

Baird, 744 F. Supp. 2d at 295; see also id. at 295-96 

(“Because plaintiff’s allegedly hostile events are the very 

employment actions she claims are retaliatory, she cannot so 

easily bootstrap allegedly retaliatory incidents into a broader 

hostile work environment claim.” (quoting Franklin, 600 F. 

Supp. 2d at 76, with alterations)). 

The district court and the cases on which it relies are 

correct to the extent they simply mean that acts giving rise to 

a hostile work environment claim must collectively meet the 

independent requirements of that claim (i.e., be “sufficiently 

severe or pervasive . . . ,” Harris, 510 U.S. at 21), and must be 

adequately connected to each other (i.e., “all acts which 

constitute the claim are part of the same unlawful employment 

practice,” Morgan, 536 U.S. at 122), as opposed to being an 

array of unrelated discriminatory or retaliatory acts. But we 

find no authority for the idea that particular acts cannot as a 

matter of law simultaneously support different types of Title 

VII claims, and of course, plaintiffs are free to plead 

alternative theories of harm that might stem from the same 

USCA Case #10-5421 Document #1347265 Filed: 12/13/2011 Page 10 of 12
11

allegedly harmful conduct. Thus, although a plaintiff may not 

combine discrete acts to form a hostile work environment 

claim without meeting the required hostile work environment 

standard, neither can a court dismiss a hostile work 

environment claim merely because it contains discrete acts 

that the plaintiff claims (correctly or incorrectly) are 

actionable on their own. 

In this connection, finally, we note an argument of the 

PBGC, invoking a footnote in the district court’s opinion, that 

“Baird ‘[did] not attempt to segregate those events she claims 

constitute a hostile work environment from discrete acts of 

discrimination and/or retaliation.’” Appellee’s Br. 42 

(quoting Baird, 744 F. Supp. 2d at 294 n.10). Although 

absence of segregation in the complaint doubtless complicates 

the court’s task, the complication can presumably be cured by 

insistence on suitably targeted briefing, and is not an 

independent ground for excluding time-barred claims from the 

hostile work environment analysis under Rule 12(b)(6). 

We therefore vacate the district court’s dismissal of 

Baird’s retaliatory hostile work environment claim and 

remand for a determination of which, if any, acts should have 

been included under Morgan (and of course whether those 

acts satisfy Morgan). We express no opinion on whether the 

PBGC’s motion to dismiss is ultimately meritorious or 

whether further proceedings involving discovery, etc., are 

appropriate. 

* * *

For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the district 

court correctly dismissed for failure to state a claim all the 

specific-act claims of discrimination and retaliation (Counts I, 

III, and V). As to the claim of retaliatory hostile work 

environment (Count II), we find that the district court 

USCA Case #10-5421 Document #1347265 Filed: 12/13/2011 Page 11 of 12
12

incorrectly excluded from its analysis acts by the PBGC that 

may have supported the claim. The judgment of the district 

court is therefore affirmed in part, vacated in part, and 

remanded. 

So ordered.

USCA Case #10-5421 Document #1347265 Filed: 12/13/2011 Page 12 of 12