Opinion ID: 2750728
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: district manager promotion

Text: Holmes claimed that the Board denied him the September 2011 District Manager promotion—the one awarded to Chambers—based on race. The district 18 Case: 14-11330 Date Filed: 11/13/2014 Page: 19 of 22 court concluded that Holmes had failed to exhaust this race-based failure-topromote claim in the EEOC. We agree. Before a plaintiff may file a Title VII action, he must first exhaust his administrative remedies by filing a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. Gregory v. Ga. Dep’t of Human Res., 355 F.3d 1277, 1279 (11th Cir. 2004). While we must liberally construe an EEOC charge that was prepared without assistance of counsel, a plaintiff’s civil complaint remains “limited by the scope of the EEOC investigation which can reasonably be expected to grow out of the charge of discrimination.” Id. at 1280 (quotation marks omitted). We have cautioned “that allegations of new acts of discrimination are inappropriate” for a post-charge judicial complaint. Id. at 1279-80. Here, Holmes’s raced-based District Manager claim did not fall within the scope of his EEOC charge for two reasons. First, this claim alleged a discrete act of discrimination—a promotion—that occurred after Holmes filed his EEOC charge. See Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 114, 122 S. Ct. 2061, 2073 (2002) (“Each incident of discrimination . . . constitutes a separate actionable ‘unlawful employment practice.’”); Gregory, 355 F.3d at 1279 (stating that it is inappropriate to allege new acts of discrimination). Specifically, Holmes filed his charge on August 9, 2011, but Chambers’ promotion did not occur until one month later, on September 13, 2011. 19 Case: 14-11330 Date Filed: 11/13/2014 Page: 20 of 22 Second, Holmes’s communications with the EEOC emphasized only age discrimination with regard to District Manager promotions, and not race discrimination. For example, in the two pre-charge letters Holmes sent to the EEOC, he advised, inter alia, that he had recently interviewed for two District Manager positions, but that two white males who were younger and had less experience had been selected for these positions. Holmes stated that “therefore, I am making another claim of age discrimination.” In his formal EEOC charge, Holmes checked the boxes for discrimination based on race, color, sex, and age, but he claimed African-American candidates were selected over him only with respect to the Senior Officer position. As to the District Manager position, Holmes’s charge stated, “I was also denied a promotion to the position of district manager and a less experienced, less educated, younger officer was promoted.” Later, in a September 8, 2011 post-charge letter, Holmes again discussed the District Manager promotions, stating that since July 2011, he was passed over four times, and that “[a]t least two of these recent promotions to District Manager were to less educated, less experienced, and younger candidates than me .” With respect to Roderick Chambers’s promotion in particular, Holmes stated that Chambers “happens to be black,” but also claimed Chambers was “less educated, less experienced, and younger than me.” Holmes asserted that “in the absence of clear 20 Case: 14-11330 Date Filed: 11/13/2014 Page: 21 of 22 definitive promotional policy, my employer promotes those younger, less educated, and less experienced than myself.” Holmes further pointed out that Chambers’s promotion to District Manager discriminated against both him and an African-American female officer in her fifties, signifying that age, not race, was the alleged discriminatory motive in the decision. Given that Holmes’s own communications with the EEOC stressed age, not race, discrimination in the District Manager promotions, we cannot say a race discrimination claim could reasonably be expected to arise from his complaints about the District Manager promotions. Accordingly, the district court correctly concluded that any race discrimination claim as to the District Manager position was outside the scope of Holmes’s EEOC charge and properly declined to consider such a claim.
However, even assuming arguendo that Holmes’s passing reference to Chambers’s race in his September 8, 2011 letter exhausted Holmes’s race discrimination claim, the district court still properly granted summary judgment on this claim because Holmes did not present evidence that he was “qualified for” the District Manager position Chambers received. To establish a prima facie claim of failure to promote, the plaintiff must present evidence that he “applied for and was qualified for” the promotion. Brown, 597 F.3d at 1174. An employee is “qualified 21 Case: 14-11330 Date Filed: 11/13/2014 Page: 22 of 22 for” a promotion if the employee “offers evidence that [he] satisfied an employer’s objective qualifications.” Kidd, 731 F.3d at 1204 (quotation marks omitted). In Holmes’s case, it is undisputed that to be eligible for promotion to an open District Manager position, a probation and parole officer must take the District Manager test and appear on the State Personnel Board’s promotional register, or “certificate of eligibles.” In his deposition, Holmes admitted he took the District Manager test only once, but he could not remember when he did so. Holmes submitted a printout from the State Personnel Board’s website indicating that he was on a “current” District Manager promotional register on August 18, 2010. The decision to promote Chambers, however, did not occur until September 2011, one year later. And, District Manager promotional registers are closed rather than continuous, meaning they do not remain open to fill later vacancies. Therefore, Holmes did not present evidence that he was listed on the particular promotional register used to fill, and thus was eligible for, the District Manager position that Chambers received. For all these reasons, we affirm the district court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of the Board on Holmes’s failure to promote claims. AFFIRMED. 22