Opinion ID: 2809783
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of Time-Bar

Text: Next, Ms. Martinez challenges the district court’s determination that her hostile work environment claims were time-barred. As the district court recognized, -8- both Title VII and the NMHRA require a plaintiff to file a charge of discrimination within three hundred days of an alleged unlawful employment practice. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1); N.M. Stat. Ann. § 28-1-10(A). Ms. Martinez filed her charge of discrimination on July 6, 2011, meaning that conduct that occurred more than three hundred days prior to that date, i.e., September 9, 2010, would not be actionable unless “‘an act’ contributing to [the] hostile work environment took place” within the filing period, Duncan v. Manager, Dep’t of Safety, City & Cnty. of Denver, 397 F.3d 1300, 1308 (10th Cir. 2005) (quoting Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 117 (2002)). But as the district court explained, before any pre-filing period acts may be considered, a “Court must . . . determine whether the acts outside the filing period and the acts within the filing period ‘are sufficiently related to constitute the same employment practice.’” Aplt. App. at 55 (Dist. Ct. Op. dated July 10, 2014) (quoting Tademy v. Union Pac. Corp., 614 F.3d 1132, 1140 (10th Cir. 2008)). “Factors [used] in making that determination include whether ‘the pre- and post-limitations period incidents involved the same type of employment actions, occurred relatively frequently, and were perpetrated by the same’ employees.” Id. (quoting Duncan, 397 F.3d at 1309). Here, almost all of the alleged misconduct occurred before September 9, 2010, including Mr. Romero’s September 2008 grabbing and embarrassment of Ms. Martinez, his harassment of other women before his departure in July 2009, and Ms. Martinez’s complaints in her August 2010 grievance letter, which resulted in -9- SWC’s September 7, 2010 disciplinary action against her. Although Ms. Martinez attempts to avoid the time-bar by tying Mr. Romero’s pre-filing period conduct to Mr. Stuart’s acts of exposing himself, which apparently occurred in October 2010, the district court correctly explained that no reasonable jury could conclude that Mr. Stuart’s conduct was part of the same hostile work environment because it was not the same type of conduct, i.e., indecent exposure, it occurred infrequently, and it was committed by a different perpetrator. Cf. Duncan, 397 F.3d at 1309 (distinguishing “frequent instances of threatening physical and psychological harassment” from “off-color comments and rumor-spreading perpetrated by a completely different set of actors”). Although Ms. Martinez attempts to predicate her claims on the alleged misconduct of Mr. Stuart and another coworker, Gilbert Baca, she failed to exhaust her administrative remedies regarding these individuals. See Jones v. Runyon, 91 F.3d 1398, 1399 & n.1 (10th Cir. 1996); Luboyeski v. Hill, 872 P.2d 353, 355-56 (N.M. 1994). Indeed, she did not mention Mr. Stuart or Mr. Baca in her original charge of discrimination, an affidavit attached to it, or her amended charge of discrimination. Moreover, there was no reference to either person in her complaint, and, as the district court noted, Ms. Martinez’s summary judgment response merely cited authority for this theory without actually arguing that the pre-September 9, 2010 conduct was related to acts that occurred during the filing period. Under these circumstances, Ms. Martinez’s claims were time-barred, and we affirm the grant of summary judgment on her hostile work environment claims. - 10 -