Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05156/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05156-0/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 January 14, 2015 Decided July 7, 2015

No. 12-5334

RHONDA N. BAIRD,

APPELLANT

v.

JOSHUA GOTBAUM, DIRECTOR, PENSION BENEFIT GUARANTY 

CORPORATION,

APPELLEE

Consolidated with 13-5156

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:09-cv-01091)

(No. 1:11-cv-00669)

Rhonda N. Baird, pro se, argued the cause and filed briefs 

for the appellant.

Jane M. Lyons, Assistant United States Attorney, argued 

the cause for the appellee. Ronald C. Machen Jr., United 

States Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence and Alexander D. 

Shoaibi, Assistant United States Attorneys, were with her on 

brief.

USCA Case #13-5156 Document #1561190 Filed: 07/07/2015 Page 1 of 10
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Before: HENDERSON, Circuit Judge, and WILLIAMS and 

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: Rhonda 

Baird is a lawyer for the Pension Benefit Guarantee 

Corporation (PBGC). She is the former president of the 

employees’ union and a frequent filer of Title VII claims on 

behalf of herself and others. Baird claims that, in retaliation 

for her Title VII activities, the PBGC made her work 

environment a hostile one. Her two complaints recount

several instances of rude emails, name-calling, lost tempers 

and unprofessional behavior—all of which the PBGC failed to 

investigate or remediate. Although Baird paints an unpleasant

picture, she does not allege that the PBGC has done anything 

illegal. See Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 

U.S. 53, 68 (2006) (“Title VII . . . does not set forth a general 

civility code for the American workplace.” (quotation marks 

omitted)). We therefore affirm the dismissal of her two

complaints.

I.

Title VII prohibits a federal employer from discriminating 

against an employee based on his race, sex, religion or 

nationality. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–16(a). It also contains an 

anti-retaliation provision, barring an employer from taking an 

adverse action against an employee “because he has opposed 

any practice made unlawful by [Title VII], or because he has 

made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner 

in an investigation, proceeding or hearing under [Title VII].” 

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Id. § 2000e–3(a).

1

 To prove retaliation, a plaintiff must show 

that “(1) [he] engaged in protected activity; (2) he was 

subjected to an adverse employment action; and (3) there was a 

causal link between the protected activity and the adverse 

action.” Hairston v. Vance-Cooks, 773 F.3d 266, 275 (D.C. 

Cir. 2014). An adverse action must be “material”—i.e., 

“harmful to the point that [it] could well dissuade a reasonable 

worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.” 

Burlington N., 548 U.S. at 68, 57.

We have recognized a special type of retaliation claim 

based on a “hostile work environment.” See Hussain v. 

Nicholson, 435 F.3d 359, 366 (D.C. Cir. 2006). A hostile 

environment consists of several individual acts that “may not 

be actionable on [their] own” but become actionable due to 

their “cumulative effect.” Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. 

Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 115 (2002). The constituent acts must 

be “adequately linked” such that they form “a coherent hostile 

environment claim.” Baird v. Gotbaum (Baird I), 662 F.3d 

1246, 1251 (D.C. Cir. 2011). For example, they might 

“involve the same type of employment actions, occur relatively 

frequently, and [be] perpetrated by the same managers.” Id.

(alterations omitted). In addition, the acts must be “of such 

severity or pervasiveness as to alter the conditions of . . . 

employment and create an abusive working environment.” 

Hussain, 435 F.3d at 366 (quotation marks and alterations 

omitted). Severity and pervasiveness are determined by 

reference to “all the circumstances,” including “the frequency 

of the discriminatory conduct; its severity; whether it is 

physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive 

utterance; and whether it unreasonably interferes with an 

 1

 The anti-retaliation provision applies to the PBGC by virtue 

of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–16. See Taylor v. Solis, 571 F.3d 1313, 1320

(D.C. Cir. 2009).

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employee’s work performance.” Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 

510 U.S. 17, 23 (1993). The standard is an objective one. Id.

at 21.

II.

This consolidated appeal is the culmination of six years of 

litigation involving two complaints, four district court 

decisions, an appeal and a remand. Below, we outline the 

facts and procedural history behind each appeal.

2

A. No. 12-5334

Baird filed her first amended complaint in February 2010. 

In it, she alleged Title VII claims based on various run-ins with 

her coworkers between 2002 and 2009. In November 2002, 

for example, John Paliga verbally assaulted Baird and 

advanced ominously into her office. In Spring 2005, Dwayne 

Jeffers sent an email calling Baird “psychotic” and, in January 

2007, Raymond Forster circulated an email suggesting she 

experienced “litigation induced hallucinations.” Baird was 

falsely accused by Richard Lattimer and another human 

resources officer of disseminating anonymous flyers in June

2005. In January 2006, Baird was temporarily blocked from 

sending emails to Jeffers and Robert Perry. Baird learned in 

November 2006 that Jeffers had sent an arbitration file 

containing her confidential information to a private lawyer. 

In Summer 2008, Scott Schwartz said that someone should 

“overthrow” Baird as union president and then falsely accused 

her of violating her ethical duties. In November 2008, Robert 

Moreno falsely accused Baird of spreading rumors and, in 

 2

 All facts come from Baird’s two complaints. Reviewing a 

motion to dismiss, “[w]e accept [her] factual allegations . . . as true 

and we draw all inferences in her favor.” Brown v. Sessoms, 774 

F.3d 1016, 1020 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (quotation marks omitted).

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February 2009, he yelled at her during a deposition. In 

September 2009, Michael O’Connell falsely accused Baird of 

sending a harassing email. That same month, Gilbert 

Martinez cut Baird out of certain work communications, 

stormed out of a meeting and refused to complete his work on 

time. Baird formally complained to the PBGC’s human 

resources department about many of these incidents but it

failed to investigate them. According to Baird, these actions

constituted discrimination, retaliation and a hostile work 

environment.

The PBGC moved to dismiss Baird’s complaint, which 

motion the district court granted in toto. See 744 F. Supp. 2d 

279, 296 (D.D.C. 2010). We affirmed in part and reversed in 

part. Baird I, 662 F.3d at 1253. We agreed that Baird failed 

to state a stand-alone claim of discrimination or retaliation 

because the incidents she identified were not materially 

adverse. See id. at 1249–50. We characterized Baird’s

allegations as “slights”—“the sort of ‘public humiliation or 

loss of reputation’ that we have consistently classified as 

falling below the requirements for an adverse employment 

action.” Id. As for her retaliatory hostile-work-environment 

claim, we reversed the district court on two points of law. 

First, the district court dismissed many of Baird’s allegations 

as untimely without first applying the special rules that govern 

hostile-work-environment claims. Id. at 1251. See generally

Morgan, 536 U.S. at 117–20 (hostile-work-environment 

claims are timely if constituent acts are adequately connected 

and at least one falls within filing period). Second, the district 

court held that the incidents supporting Baird’s stand-alone 

claims could not also support her hostile-work-environment 

claim. Baird I, 662 F.3d at 1252–53. We disagreed, noting 

that “plaintiffs are free to plead alternative theories of harm 

that might stem from the same allegedly harmful conduct.” 

Id. at 1252. Based on these legal errors, we remanded Baird’s 

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retaliatory hostile-work-environment claim to the district 

court. Id. at 1253. But we expressed “no opinion” on

whether the claim would ultimately survive a Rule 12(b)(6) 

motion. Id.

On remand, the PBGC again moved to dismiss and the 

district court again granted it. See 888 F. Supp. 2d 63, 78 

(D.D.C. 2012). The court concluded that Baird’s allegations, 

taken together, did not sufficiently allege a retaliatory hostile 

work environment. Id. at 73. Baird timely appealed.

B. No. 13-5156

In April 2011—before we issued our decision on 

appeal—Baird filed a second complaint, which was assigned to 

a different district judge. The complaint rehashed all of the 

allegations from Baird’s first complaint and added several new 

ones. Specifically, in February 2010, Schwartz falsely 

claimed that a federal judge had referred to Baird as a “cancer” 

and then verbally assaulted her while pounding his fists on a

table. In September and October 2010, the PBGC refused to 

settle a matter with Baird and refused to honor an earlier 

arbitral award. Around the same time, Martinez engaged in 

“hostilities” toward Baird. As before, Baird reported these 

incidents to the PBGC’s human resources department and it

failed to investigate or remediate them. Baird’s second 

complaint, like her first, alleged discrimination, retaliation and 

a hostile work environment. But once we issued our decision 

in Baird I, Baird voluntarily dropped all claims except the

retaliatory hostile-work-environment claim.

In the meantime, the district judge in Baird’s first suit

issued her remand decision. This prompted the judge in 

Baird’s second suit to dismiss a large swath of the allegations

therein. See Order at 11, No. 1:11-cv-00669 (D.D.C. Jan. 3, 

2013). He concluded that Baird was barred by issue 

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preclusion from relitigating the allegations his colleague had

already considered and rejected. Id. at 7–8. At a subsequent

hearing, he considered Baird’s remaining allegations and

dismissed them too for failure to state a retaliatory 

hostile-work-environment claim. Order at 11, No. 

1:11-cv-00669 (D.D.C. May 17, 2013). Baird timely 

appealed. We consolidated the appeal from the dismissal in

No. 13-5156 with the appeal from the remand decision in No. 

12-5334.

III.

Both of Baird’s complaints are now before us and both 

allege a claim of retaliatory hostile work environment. The 

district judges dismissed many of Baird’s allegations on 

timeliness and preclusion grounds. We commend that 

approach. Although non-jurisdictional, issue preclusion and 

timeliness are mandatory requirements that serve important 

purposes. See N.Y. Shipping Ass’n, Inc. v. Fed. Mar. 

Comm’n, 854 F.2d 1338, 1352 (D.C. Cir. 1988); Mondy v. 

Sec’y of Army, 845 F.2d 1051, 1057 (D.C. Cir. 1988). And

despite Baird’s best attempts, “a plaintiff has no right to 

maintain two separate actions involving the same subject 

matter at the same time in the same court and against the same 

defendant.” Zerilli v. Evening News Ass’n, 628 F.2d 217, 222 

(D.C. Cir. 1980) (quotation marks omitted). Nevertheless, as 

an appellate court, we can “affirm the District Court on any 

valid ground, and need not follow the same mode of analysis.” 

Molerio v. FBI, 749 F.2d 815, 820 (D.C. Cir. 1984). We will 

therefore bypass the more difficult questions of timeliness and 

res judicata and consider instead whether Baird’s two 

complaints, taken together, state a claim of retaliatory hostile

work environment.

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As noted, the constituent acts of a 

hostile-work-environment claim must be “adequately linked”

to one another. Baird I, 662 F.3d at 1251. The intermittent 

spats identified in Baird’s complaints, however—spanning

eight years and involving different people doing different 

things in different contexts—have little to do with each other. 

Cf. id. Baird makes no serious attempt to tie them together. 

The one common thread she does identify is the repeated

failure of the PBGC’s human resources department to 

investigate or remediate her internal complaints.

This theory, however, suffers from a different problem. 

A retaliatory failure-to-remediate claim is not actionable

unless the underlying incident would itself be actionable. See

id. at 1249 (“a claim of . . . retaliatory failure to remediate may 

be sufficient if the uncorrected action would . . . be of enough 

significance to qualify as an adverse action”). In other words, 

if certain conduct would not “dissuade a reasonable worker 

from making or supporting a charge of discrimination,”

Burlington N., 548 U.S. at 57, neither would an employer’s

failure to investigate that conduct. A trivial incident does not 

become nontrivial because an employer declines to look into it. 

Title VII is aimed at preventing discrimination, not auditing the 

responsiveness of human resources departments.

Here, the incidents the PBGC failed to remediate would 

not themselves constitute a retaliatory hostile work 

environment. We already considered many of them in Baird I

and concluded they were immaterial “slights.” 662 F.3d at 

1250. Baird’s other allegations are more of the same. They 

consist of occasional name-calling, rude emails, lost tempers

and workplace disagreements—the kind of conduct courts

frequently deem uncognizable under Title VII. See 

Burlington N., 548 U.S. at 68 (“personality conflicts . . . are not 

actionable” under Title VII); Brooks v. Grundmann, 748 F.3d 

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1273, 1277–78 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (“the ordinary tribulations of 

the workplace, [i.e.,] a series of petty insults, vindictive 

behavior, and angry recriminations . . . are not actionable under 

Title VII” (quotation marks and citation omitted)); id. at 1277 

(“isolated expression of frustration” where employee “yelled,” 

“violently threw a book” and “slamm[ed] down his hand” did 

not support hostile-work-environment claim); Baloch v. 

Kempthorne, 550 F.3d 1191, 1199 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (“sporadic 

verbal altercations or disagreements do not qualify as adverse 

actions”); Forkkio v. Powell, 306 F.3d 1127, 1130–31 (D.C. 

Cir. 2002) (“public humiliation,” “loss of reputation” and loss 

of prestige are not actionable). To borrow from Baird I, “[w]e 

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.” 

662 F.3d at 1250. The sheer volume of Baird’s allegations 

does not change our conclusion: a long list of trivial incidents 

is no more a hostile work environment than a pile of feathers is 

a crushing weight.

Baird does not really argue to the contrary. Instead, she 

contends that the PBGC’s conduct was actionable because it

took a serious toll on her emotional and physical health. We, 

of course, assume this is true but the standard for severity and 

pervasiveness is nonetheless an objective one. Harris, 510 

U.S. at 21. Given the objectively immaterial nature of her 

allegations, the fact that Baird suffered subjective harm is

insufficient on its own. Baird further argues that the PBGC’s 

failure to investigate her internal complaints is actionable 

because it violated the agency’s own workplace rules. We 

already considered and rejected this argument in Baird I. See

662 F.3d at 1249–50.

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Accordingly, we affirm the district courts’ dismissals of 

Baird’s complaints in Nos. 12-5334 and 13-5156.

So ordered.

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