Opinion ID: 782203
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Discriminatory Transfer Claims Under Title VII

Text: 20 Under Title VII, a plaintiff in a deferral jurisdiction such as Puerto Rico must file a charge with the EEOC within 300 days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1)(2000). Rosario filed her charge with the EEOC on September 19, 1997, more than 300 days after the July 1996 transfer. Rosario argues that her Title VII claim based on this transfer is nonetheless timely under the continuing violation doctrine, which would allow her to recover for the July 1996 transfer notwithstanding the limitations period if the transfer is sufficiently related to acts alleged in a timely charge. 21 The continuing violation doctrine does not preserve Rosario's claim. The Supreme Court has recently elaborated on the meaning of the term continuing violation, holding that a discrete discriminatory act transpires only at the time it takes place, even if it was related to acts that were timely filed. National R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 2073, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002). Each discrete discriminatory act starts a new clock for filing charges alleging that act. The charge, therefore, must be filed within the 180- or 300-day time period after the discrete discriminatory act occurred. Morgan, 122 S.Ct. at 2072. The Court made plain that [d]iscrete acts such as termination, failure to promote, denial of transfer or refusal to hire ... constitute[] a separate actionable unlawful employment practice. Id. at 2073 (emphasis added). The July 1996 transfer is therefore a time-barred discrete act. See id.; see also Miller v. N.H. Dep't of Corr., 296 F.3d 18, 22 (1st Cir.2002). 22 The March 1998 transfer is also a discrete act constituting a separate and actionable unlawful employment practice. Morgan, 122 S.Ct. at 2073. Yet Morgan does not address whether a previously filed EEOC complaint must be amended to encompass subsequent discrete acts in order to render such acts susceptible to judicial review. We have held that a judicial complaint can encompass discrete acts of retaliation reasonably related and grow[ing] out of the discrimination complained of to the agency ... Clockedile v. N.H. Dep't of Corr., 245 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir.2001). But in Clockedile we declined to decide whether a judicial complaint also may encompass non-retaliatory but related discrete acts which took place after the discrimination described in the charge if the plaintiff failed to amend her charge or to file a new one detailing the new acts. Id. 23 We do not need to decide that question here. The defendants articulated a non-discriminatory reason for the transfer — the facilitation of the transition to PSG supervision — and Rosario has not presented any evidence from which a reasonable fact finder could conclude that this explanation is a pretext masking religious discrimination. See, e.g., McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-05, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). Thus, even if we assume arguendo that Rosario was not required to first present the agency with her allegation that the 1998 transfer was discriminatory, Rosario's discrimination claim under Title VII fails insofar as it is based on the 1998 transfer. 24