Opinion ID: 216354
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Post-Employment Retaliation Claims

Text: In her amended and supplemental complaint, McDonald-Cuba raised a claim that SFPS retaliated against her by filing its counterclaims in this action. She did not file a new or amended charge of discrimination with the EEOC prior to asserting this claim. In Martinez v. Potter, 347 F.3d 1208, 1210-11 (10th Cir.2003), we held that conduct occurring after the filing of an employee's Title VII complaint in federal court involving discrete and independent [retaliatory] actions requires the filing of a new EEOC charge. The employee in that case was fired after he filed his Title VII complaint in district court, complaining of prior acts of alleged retaliation. He attempted to add a claim for retaliation based on the firing by including it in his summary judgment brief, but he did not exhaust this new claim before the EEOC and did not move to amend his complaint to include it. We upheld the district court's grant of summary judgment, reasoning that the firing was a discrete and independent action[] that should have been exhausted, even though it occurred after the filing of the judicial complaint. Id. at 1211 (applying exhaustion requirement for discrete and independent retaliatory acts expounded in National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 110-14, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002)). The question here is whether the rule in Martinez applies when the alleged retaliatory act occurs as part of the federal court proceedings themselves. [1] It is undeniable that a principal purpose of the exhaustion requirement is to permit the parties to resolve their dispute without resort to litigation. [R]equiring exhaustion of administrative remedies serves to put an employer on notice of a violation prior to the commencement of judicial proceedings. This in turn serves to facilitate internal resolution of the issue rather than promoting costly and time-consuming litigation.  Martinez, 347 F.3d at 1211 (emphasis added). Martinez nevertheless applied the exhaustion requirement to alleged retaliation that occurred after the plaintiff had commenced judicial proceedings. See id. The fact that the plaintiff had already resorted to litigation did not excuse the exhaustion requirement for later, discrete acts of retaliation. The only significant difference between Martinez which we are required to follow as binding circuit precedentand this case is that here the alleged retaliatory act involves an action taken in connection with federal proceedings themselves. McDonald-Cuba fails to supply a convincing rationale for distinguishing Martinez on this basis, however. We conclude that a plaintiff must exhaust administrative remedies as to discrete acts of alleged retaliation that involve the filing of a counterclaim in federal court. McDonald-Cuba's post-termination retaliation claim based on SFPS's filing of a counterclaim, then, falls within our general rule that exhaustion of administrative remedies is a jurisdictional prerequisite to a Title VII suit. Shikles v. Sprint/United Mgmt. Co., 426 F.3d 1304, 1317 (10th Cir. 2005). Federal courts lack jurisdiction to review Title VII claims that are not part of a timely-filed EEOC charge. Annett v. Univ. of Ks., 371 F.3d 1233, 1238 (10th Cir.2004). Accordingly, we remand with instructions to the district court to dismiss this claim without prejudice for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
We also affirm the grant of summary judgment on McDonald-Cuba's claim that SFPS made untrue statements to third parties, including the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions, about Plaintiff regarding her supposed conflict of interest and termination from employment with SFPS[.] Aplt.App. at 98, ¶ 27. In her complaint, McDonald-Cuba complained that SFPS made [retaliatory] statements about Plaintiff in a bad faith effort to retaliate against Plaintiff for her participation in protected activity. See id. ¶ 28. She failed to specifically identify the protected activity that sparked the alleged retaliation. The district court appears to have relied on her pre-termination activities and to have concluded that they were too temporally removed from SFPS's opposition to support a retaliation claim. We need not decide whether this analysis is correct or whether summary judgment was properly granted sua sponte on this basis. On appeal McDonald-Cuba has clarified matters by abandoning reliance on her pre-termination activities. In her opening brief in this court, she specifically identifies three forms of protected activity for which SFPS allegedly retaliated by its post-employment actions: filing a post-employment EEOC charge, seeking unemployment compensation benefits, and filing her Title VII lawsuit. Aplt. Opening Br. at 20. Neither the filing of her EEOC charge nor her filing of this suit can serve as protected activity for purposes of her retaliation claim, however, because neither of those activities occurred before she filed the EEOC charge mentioned in her complaint (No. 543-2008-00260). Had SFPS retaliated for either of these actions by opposing her application for unemployment benefits, McDonald-Cuba would have been obliged to file a second EEOC charge complaining of such retaliation in order to exhaust her retaliation claim. Nothing in her complaint, the record, or her submissions to this court indicates that she did so. See Celli v. Shoell, 40 F.3d 324, 327 (10th Cir.1994) (Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, and the presumption is that they lack jurisdiction unless and until a plaintiff pleads sufficient facts to establish it.). That leaves her third alleged form of protected activity: the filing of her claim for unemployment benefits. While she could potentially have exhausted a retaliation claim based on this activity as part of her EEOC chargeif both her unemployment benefits claim and SFPS's opposition took place before she filed the charge this allegation fails because it presents no protected activity in opposition to discrimination. Protected activity consists of activity opposing or complaining about discrimination by the employer based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2. While we have recognized that an employer's opposition to an unemployment benefits claim may represent an adverse employment action, see Williams v. W.D. Sports, N.M., Inc., 497 F.3d 1079, 1090-91 (10th Cir.2007), McDonald-Cuba fails to cite any authority recognizing an application for unemployment benefits, without more, as a form of protected activity under Title VII. McDonald-Cuba's retaliation claim therefore fails as a matter of law. She has identified no protected activity that could form the basis for a properly-exhausted retaliation claim.