Opinion ID: 216354
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Unemployment Proceedings Claim

Text: 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.