Opinion ID: 704068
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: ----Failure to promote me.

Text: 33 .... 34 Brazil answered by checking selection B--Termination of my employment. By this he could have meant revocation of his security clearance, as no other choice seems to better capture that possibility. He could also have meant that he was indeed complaining of his final termination. Finally, he could have intended to complain of both actions. If we were forced to judge from the rather ambiguous answer to question Four alone, we might liberally construe Brazil's pleading in favor of the pro se litigant, United States v. Ten Thousand Dollars, 860 F.2d 1511, 1513 (9th Cir.1988), and find that he had intended to complain of his ultimate termination. However, we do not decide the question in a vacuum; the pleadings as a whole lead us to a different conclusion. 35 Question Seven on the form complaint asks, The alleged discrimination occurred on or about, and then leaves a short space for the plaintiff to fill in. Brazil answered by entering the date May 1989, the month that Butterfield paid him off the Kilauea and recommended that his PRP certification be revoked. That date is fully fourteen months before Brazil was terminated from employment. 36 Question Six on the form asks the plaintiff to state the basic facts surrounding his claim. Brazil's response deals entirely with the revocation of his PRP certification and his administrative battle to regain it. Nowhere in the response is his final termination mentioned. Finally, in his Response to Defendant's Answer, Brazil addressed only incidents surrounding his shipboard discipline and PRP revocation. Again, he did not mention his ultimate termination. 37 Although a pro se litigant like Brazil may be entitled to great leeway when the court construes his pleadings, those pleadings nonetheless must meet some minimum threshold in providing a defendant with notice of what it is that it allegedly did wrong. Brazil's complaint, fairly read, gave the Navy no inkling that he wished to bring his ultimate termination before the district court for review. We therefore find that the issue was not raised below; it is waived on appeal. 38 AFFIRMED.