United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 17-1512 

MARTHA ISABELLE BONILLA-RAMIREZ, 

Plaintiff, Appellant, 

v. 

MVM, INC., d/b/a MVM Security, Inc., a/k/a MVM International 

Security, Inc.; CHRISTOPHER MARTIN MCHALE, 

Defendants, Appellees, 

JEH CHARLES JOHNSON, acting in his individual capacity; LORETTA 

E. LYNCH, acting in her individual capacity; KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, 

acting in her official capacity; ELPIDIO NUNEZ; JEFFERSON B. 

SESSIONS, III, acting in his official capacity; UNITED STATES 

DEPTARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION AND 

CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT; UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 

Defendants. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO 

[Hon. Pedro A. Delgado-Hernández, U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Howard, Chief Judge, 

Selya and Barron, Circuit Judges. 

 Humberto Cobo-Estrella, with whom Cobo Estrella Law 

Office was on brief, for appellant. 

 Ana B. Rosado-Frontanés, with whom Schuster Aguiló LLC 

was on brief, for appellees. 
September 14, 2018 
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BARRON, Circuit Judge. Martha Bonilla-Ramirez 

("Bonilla") is a former employee of MVM, Inc. ("MVM"), which is a 

private security company that is based in Puerto Rico and provides 

security services to the United States Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement ("ICE"). Following Bonilla's termination from MVM in 

2014, she brought a variety of federal and Puerto Rico law claims 

against her former employer and other defendants in the United 

States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. The 

District Court dismissed all but her claims against MVM under Title 

VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000, et seq., 

and related Puerto Rico laws, and then granted summary judgment to 

MVM as to those claims. Bonilla now appeals that summary judgment 

ruling, which we affirm. 

I.

While working for MVM, Bonilla was assigned to the Luis 

Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico (the 

"airport"). Her responsibilities included providing security for 

detainees in ICE custody at ICE's detention facility in the 

airport. 

On June 14, 2014, Bonilla reported to her supervisor an 

incident at the airport that occurred that same day and that 

involved a dispute between her and another MVM employee, Abraham 

Ortiz ("Ortiz"). Bonilla's supervisor asked her to produce a 

written account of what had occurred. In her written statement to 
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her supervisor, which she submitted on June 20, Bonilla complained 

that Ortiz was ordering her around, requesting that she do all of 

their work, "calling [her] out for using her [personal] cellphone," 

and generally acting like her supervisor. Ortiz, for his part, 

sent a letter on June 18 to a supervisor at MVM in which he 

complained, among other things, about Bonilla having directed foul 

language toward him during the June 14 incident. 

On June 24, three supervisors met with Bonilla and Ortiz 

about the incident. One of the supervisors wrote a report 

following that meeting, and MVM then looked further into the 

complaints that Bonilla and Ortiz had lodged against each other. 

MVM asserts that it determined from its inquiry that immediately 

prior to the June 14 incident between Bonilla and Ortiz, Bonilla 

had "[abandoned her post] for approximately two hours" with another 

MVM employee, Alexandra Rodriguez ("Rodriguez"), who was off duty. 

MVM also asserts that through this inquiry it determined, based on 

its analysis of an airport security video, that while away from 

her post with Rodriguez, Bonilla had engaged in conduct known as 

"piggybacking," which involves following another person through a 

secured door without both swiping one's airport badge and entering 

one's personal code on a keypad. Finally, MVM asserts that its 

inquiry showed that Bonilla had used her personal cellphone during 

work hours. 
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On June 24, 2014, MVM reported these findings to ICE. 

On July 10, 2014, MVM cited Bonilla for committing multiple 

"security violations," which included abandoning her post, using 

her personal cell phone, and engaging in piggybacking. That same 

day, MVM gave her a verbal warning, took away her airport badge, 

and notified her that she was being reassigned to another post, 

not at the airport. 

On August 12, 2014, Bonilla filed a charge of gender 

discrimination and retaliation against MVM with the United States 

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). Bonilla's EEOC 

charge was faxed to MVM that same day. That evening, ICE sent an 

email to Jay Vergel ("Vergel"), MVM's Operations Manager, 

requesting that Bonilla be immediately removed from providing 

services for ICE under its contract with MVM. Minutes after Vergel 

received that email, he instructed his team to make sure that she 

was "removed" that day. That same evening, MVM called Bonilla and 

asked her to report to work the next day, August 13, 2014. Bonilla 

did not do so, but she did report to work on August 14, when she 

was informed that she was terminated, effective August 13. 

On May 14, 2015, Bonilla filed suit against MVM and other 

defendants in the District of Puerto Rico in which she brought a 

variety of claims under federal and Puerto Rico law. The District 

Court dismissed most of those claims, such that her only remaining 

claims were her Title VII claims against MVM and her discrimination 
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and tort claims against that same defendant.1 The District Court 

then granted MVM's motion for summary judgment on these remaining 

claims.

Bonilla now appeals the District Court's ruling granting 

summary judgment to MVM as to each of Bonilla's three distinct 

Title VII claims, which are for, respectively, creating a hostile 

work environment, gender-based disparate treatment, and 

retaliation, and as to each of her related Puerto Rico law claims. 

We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, affirming the grant 

of summary judgment where, drawing all inferences in favor of the 

nonmoving party, the record discloses no genuine issues of material 

fact and demonstrates that the moving party is entitled to judgment 

as a matter of law. See Delaney v. Town of Abington, 890 F.3d 1, 

5 (1st Cir. 2018). 

II. 

A. 

We start with Bonilla's challenge to the grant of summary 

judgment to MVM on her hostile work environment claim, which she 

 1 The previously dismissed claims include the federal and 

Puerto Rico law claims against U.S. Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. 

Department of Justice, various federal officials, and MVM's 

General Counsel Christopher McHale ("McHale"), as well as a

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act ("RICO"), 18 

U.S.C. §§ 1962, 1964, claim against MVM. 
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bases on the alleged conduct of Ortiz. We may dispose of this 

challenge quickly. 

The District Court gave a number of reasons for granting 

MVM summary judgment as to this claim, including that Bonilla had 

failed to exhaust her administrative remedies because she had not 

raised this claim in the charge that she filed with the EEOC on 

August 12, 2015. Bonilla, however, does not address this ground 

at all in her briefing to us, and so she has waived any challenge 

to it. See Sparkle Hill, Inc. v. Interstate Mat Corp., 788 F.3d 

25, 29 (1st Cir. 2015). Accordingly, we affirm the grant of 

summary judgment as to this claim. 

B. 

We next address Bonilla's challenge to the District 

Court's grant of summary judgment to MVM on her claim under Title 

VII that MVM unlawfully subjected her to disparate treatment 

because of her gender by disciplining her in the way that it did. 

Because Bonilla relies on circumstantial rather than direct 

evidence of discrimination to support this claim, the District 

Court applied the burden-shifting framework set forth in McDonnell 

Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 (1973), in ruling on 

MVM's summary judgment motion.2 

 2 Below, and in line with MVM's summary judgment briefing, 

the District Court also applied the McDonnell Douglas framework to 

assess whether summary judgment was appropriate. In applying this 

framework, the District Court noted that not only did Bonilla "not 
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The McDonnell Douglas framework requires a plaintiff, in 

order to survive summary judgment, to "first establish a prima 

facie case by showing that: (1) she belonged to a protected class, 

(2) she performed her job satisfactorily, (3) her employer took an 

adverse employment decision against her, and (4) her employer 

continued to have her duties performed by a comparably qualified 

person," Burns v. Johnson, 829 F.3d 1, 9 n.8 (1st Cir. 2016) 

(quoting Santiago-Ramos v. Centennial P.R. Wireless Corp., 217 

F.3d 46, 54 (1st Cir. 2000)). If the plaintiff establishes a prima 

facie case, then she is entitled to an inference of discrimination. 

Caraballo-Caraballo v. Corr. Admin., 892 F.3d 53, 57 (1st Cir. 

2018). And thus, at that point, "the burden of production then 

'shifts to the employer to state a legitimate, nondiscriminatory 

reason for the adverse employment action.'" Burns, 829 F.3d at 9 

n.8 (quoting Santiago-Ramos, 217 F.3d at 54). If the defendant 

meets that burden of production, then the plaintiff bears the 

ultimate burden of proof to show that the employer's proffered 

nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment action was a 

 

argue that any other test applies," see, e.g., Burns, 829 F.3d at 

9 n.9 (describing the "mixed-motives theory" that "applies to cases 

where multiple motives lie behind an adverse employment action"), 

but also "the record d[id] not evince multiple motives." On 

appeal, Bonilla cursorily suggests that another framework, which 

applies to a mixed-motives theory of discrimination, may also be 

applicable. However, as this argument was neither presented below, 

see United States v. Slade, 980 F.2d 27, 30 (1st Cir. 1992), nor 

developed on appeal, see Schneider v. Local 103 I.B.E.W. Health 

Plan, 442 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 2006), we do not consider it. 
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pretext and that the employer did intentionally discriminate 

against her because of her sex. See id.

We assume, as the District Court did, that Bonilla has 

successfully established a prima facie case for this claim under 

McDonnell Douglas. And, we conclude, as the District Court did, 

that MVM met its burden to assert a legitimate nondiscriminatory 

reason for the adverse employment actions that Bonilla contends 

that MVM took against her. To do so on summary judgment, MVM 

needed only to produce "enough competent evidence, taken as true, 

to enable a rational factfinder to conclude that there existed a 

nondiscriminatory reason for the challenged employment action[.]" 

Ruiz v. Posadas de San Juan Assocs., 124 F.3d 243, 248 (1st Cir. 

1997) (emphasis in original). And, as the District Court properly 

found, MVM asserted that Bonilla incurred several security 

violations while performing her duties, which included abandoning 

her post, using her cell phone while on duty, and piggybacking 

through secured airport doors. According to MVM, these violations 

were prohibited by both the MVM and ICE Standards of Conduct. 

Thus, MVM has met its burden under McDonnell Douglas to put forth 

a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its adverse employment 

actions against Bonilla. Vélez v. Thermo King de P.R., Inc., 585 

F.3d 441, 449 (1st Cir. 2009) (noting that code of conduct 

violations are "legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons" for 

termination). 
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There is still the question, though, whether Bonilla has 

shown that there is a genuine issue of triable fact as to whether 

MVM's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons for its actions are 

pretextual. And it is at this step that the District Court 

concluded that Bonilla came up short. We agree. 

In contending otherwise, Bonilla rightly points out that 

evidence of an employer's disparate treatment of similarly 

situated male employees can support a finding that a proffered 

nondiscriminatory basis for an employer taking an adverse 

employment action against a female employee is a pretext for sex 

discrimination. See Rodriguez-Cuervos v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 

181 F.3d 15, 21 (1st Cir. 1999) (quoting Mitchell v. Toledo Hosp., 

964 F.2d 577, 583 (6th Cir. 1992)). But, contrary to Bonilla's 

contention, the record simply does not provide a basis from which 

a reasonable jury could conclude that the three male employees 

whom Bonilla identifies as having been similarly situated to her 

but not similarly disciplined for their misconduct were in fact 

similarly situated to her. 

The record shows that Bonilla was terminated after ICE 

had requested that MVM prevent her from providing services to ICE 

under its contract with MVM. Nothing in the record indicates, 

however, that ICE made any similar request with respect to any of 

the three male comparators that she identifies. 
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Bonilla does also contend that she was subject to 

disparate treatment relative to these three male employees through 

other adverse actions that MVM took against her. In particular, 

she points to the fact that MVM removed her airport badge and 

reassigned her to another post under the ICE contract for her 

alleged misconduct. But Bonilla acknowledges MVM's contention 

that it removed her airport badge, and in consequence of that 

removal reassigned her to a post not at the airport, because of 

conduct by Bonilla that it had concluded constituted a "security 

violation," in the form of "piggybacking." Yet Bonilla identifies 

no evidence to indicate that the three male employees that she 

contends are similarly situated to her engaged in misconduct that 

constituted a "security violation." In fact, the only other 

employees in the record who were cited as engaging in conduct that 

ICE or MVM considered to be a "security violation" -- David 

Santiago ("Santiago"),3 a male, and Rodriquez, a female off duty 

detention officer involved in the same incident as Bonilla -- lost 

their airport badges and were terminated after ICE requested that 

they be removed from performing duties under the ICE/MVM contract 

due to these security violations.4 

 3 Santiago, who was also an MVM detention officer, was alleged 

to have failed to store his MVM-authorized weapon in a designated 

area before accessing a secured and restricted area while on duty 

and performing a transportation detail on June 14, 2014. 

4 In consequence of her conduct on June 14, which MVM described 

as "access[ing] airport security doors" while off-duty and 
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We thus conclude that Bonilla's challenge to the 

District Court's pretext ruling fails. And, accordingly, we 

affirm the grant of summary judgment to MVM as to Bonilla's 

disparate treatment Title VII claim. 

C. 

We turn, then, to Bonilla's remaining claim under Title 

VII, which is for retaliation. To demonstrate retaliation in 

violation of Title VII, "a plaintiff must show that (i) she 

undertook protected conduct, (ii) she suffered an adverse 

employment action, and (iii) the two were causally linked." 

Xiaoyan Tang v. Citizens Bank, 821 F.3d 206, 218–19 (1st Cir. 2016) 

(citing Noviello v. City of Bos., 398 F.3d 76, 88 (1st Cir. 2005)). 

We begin with Bonilla's contention that she has met her 

burden at summary judgment to show that there is a genuine issue 

of triable fact as to whether MVM retaliated against her for her 

 

engaging in "piggybacking" by giving Bonilla "access through 

secured doors," MVM suspended Rodriguez from work for five days 

without pay and took away her airport badge. At the time, 

Rodriguez's disciplinary record included three disciplinary 

actions in the last year and a prior suspension from work related 

to one of those actions. Santiago, also based in part on his past 

disciplinary record which included one disciplinary action -- a 

written reprimand -- in the last year, was suspended by MVM from 

work for two days without pay and lost his airport badge. However, 

like Bonilla, both were eventually terminated (on the same day as 

Bonilla) after ICE informed MVM that, because of their conduct, 

Bonilla, Rodriguez and Santiago should all be "removed from the 

contract immediately." 
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EEOC filing. We agree, however, with the District Court's ruling 

that she has not. 

In arguing otherwise, Bonilla points to the fact that 

MVM decided to terminate her soon after she had filed her EEOC 

complaint. But MVM's decision to do so at that time is "readily 

explain[ed]" by the timing of ICE's request that she be removed 

from the contract, as MVM received that request on the same day 

that she filed her complaint and MVM then removed her the next 

day. See Micheo-Acevedo v. Stericycle of P.R., Inc., 897 F.3d 

360, 366 (1st Cir. 2018). And Bonilla identifies no evidence to 

provide a basis from which a jury could conclude that MVM prompted 

ICE to make the request at that time due to Bonilla's EEOC filing. 

Thus, we do not see how the proximity of that termination decision 

to her filing of the EEOC complaint, without more, can provide a 

basis for permitting this claim to survive summary judgment. 

Bonilla does also argue that MVM retaliated against her 

through adverse employment actions short of termination. She 

points in particular to MVM's July 10 citation stripping her of 

her security badge and reassigning her to a non-airport facility. 

Notably, however, her protected decision to file her EEOC complaint 

occurred after July 10. Thus, MVM's decision to strip her of her 

security badge and to reassign her could not have been retaliation 

for that protected conduct. 
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That leaves only, then, the question of whether her 

internal complaints to MVM that occurred on or before July 10 

constituted protected conduct, such that the adverse employment 

actions taken on July 10 could reasonably be deemed to have been 

taken in retaliation for that protected conduct. The District Court 

concluded, however, that the internal complaints that Bonilla 

allegedly made prior to July 10 did not constitute protected 

activity,5 and Bonilla does not develop any argument on appeal as 

to why those complaints may be properly characterized as having 

protested or opposed "statutorily prohibited discrimination" as 

opposed to merely workplace behavior of which she disapproved. 

Fantini v. Salem State Coll., 557 F.3d 22, 32 (1st Cir. 2009) 

(quoting Cruz v. Coach Stores Inc., 202 F.3d 560, 566 (2nd Cir. 

2000)). Thus, we view any argument that such complaints constitute 

protected activity to be waived for lack of development. See 

United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990) (noting 

that arguments undeveloped on appeal are waived). 

For these reasons, we affirm the District Court's ruling 

granting MVM summary judgment as to Bonilla's Title VII retaliation 

claim. 

 5 Specifically, the District Court pointed to the complaints 

that Bonilla raised about Ortiz during her June 24 meeting with 

three MVM supervisors. Bonilla alludes to earlier complaints in 

her brief, but similarly does not address why these complaints 

would qualify as protected activity. 
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D. 

Finally, Bonilla appears also to be appealing the 

District Court's grant of summary judgment for the Puerto Rico law 

claims that "correspond[]" to her Title VII claims.6 But, as 

Bonilla makes no argument that her Puerto Rico law claims survive 

if her Title VII claims do not, we affirm the District Court's 

summary judgment ruling dismissing Bonilla's claims against MVM 

pursuant to Puerto Rico Law 80 (Unjust Discharge Act), P.R. Laws 

Ann. tit. 29 §§ 185a, et seq.; Puerto Rico Law 100 (antidiscrimination statute), P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 29 §§ 146, et seq.; 

and Puerto Rico Law 115 (anti-retaliation statute), P.R. Laws Ann. 

tit. 29 §§ 194, et seq.7 

III. 

We, therefore, affirm the District Court's ruling 

granting MVM's motion for summary judgment. 

 6 Bonilla expressly does not contest the District Court's 

summary judgment ruling concerning her claims against MVM under 

Puerto Rico Law Articles 1802 and 1803, P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31 §§ 

5141-42. 

7 To the extent Bonilla also means to argue that her Puerto 

Rico law claims survive even if her Title VII claims do not, we 

deem any such argument waived for lack of development. See United 

States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990).