Opinion ID: 785476
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Critical Evaluation

Text: 18 Plaintiff asserts that the adverse employment action in her case was the performance evaluation and its critical addendum. But she offered no proof that this evaluation had any effect on the terms and conditions of her employment. On the contrary, the negative evaluation remained in Sanders' file for only two weeks before being destroyed, and her promotion to the rank of Supervisor II was ultimately changed from provisional to permanent. A jury could therefore reasonably find that the evaluation did not, on its own, constitute a materially adverse action by her employer. Cf. Weeks v. New York State (Div. of Parole), 273 F.3d 76, 86 (2d Cir. 2001) (holding that a notice of discipline and a counseling memo by themselves were insufficient, as a matter of law, to constitute adverse employment action), abrogated on other grounds by Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 108-14, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002). 19 Further, appellant mistakenly puts reliance on two opinions from our sister circuits: Smith v. Secretary of Navy, 659 F.2d 1113, 1120-21 (D.C.Cir. 1981) and Hashimoto v. Dalton, 118 F.3d 671, 676 (9th Cir.1997). Not only are these cases factually distinguishable from appellant's, but they also come out of the District of Columbia Circuit and the Ninth Circuit, both of which have rejected our materially adverse standard in favor of a broader interpretation of adverse employment action. See Ray v. Henderson, 217 F.3d 1234, 1240-43 (9th Cir.2000) (discussing the circuit split on this issue). More importantly, while a negative job evaluation may constitute adverse employment action in certain circumstances even in this circuit, cf. Treglia v. Town of Manlius, 313 F.3d 713, 720 (2d Cir.2002), the question here is whether plaintiff's negative job evaluation must constitute adverse employment action as a matter of law. We do not think the employer's action reached that threshold.