Opinion ID: 53142
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Limitation of the Case to One Incident

Text: Merriman implicitly challenges the district court’s April 28, 2006 order limiting her claim to the single incident occurring on April 13, 2000. In her appellate brief, she makes a variety of claims, referring to “several incidents of violent behavior” and alleging that the harassment continued for a period of two years. As a general rule, EEO regulations require an employee to report discriminatory incidents within forty-five days. 29 C.F.R. § 1614.105(a)(1); Henrickson v. Potter, 327 F.3d 444, 447 (5th Cir. 2003) (affirming summary judgment in favor of Postal Service where plaintiff failed to contact an EEO counselor within forty-five days of the alleged discriminatory conduct). 7 No. 06-41400 Merriman argued that her prior claims should be covered under the “continuing violation” exception to the forty-five-day limitation. Abrams v. Baylor College of Med., 805 F.2d 528, 532 (5th Cir. 1986) (recognizing an exception to the limitation period “[w]here the unlawful employment practice manifests itself over time, rather than as a series of discrete acts”). The district court correctly rejected this argument. Under the continuing violation exception, a plaintiff must prove that a “‘persisting and continuing system of discriminatory practices’ produces ‘effects that may not manifest themselves as individually discriminatory except in cumulation over a period of time,’ and that one of the acts falls within the [] limitations period.” Davis v. Metwest, Inc., No. CIV.A. 3:97-CV-2831D, 1999 WL 102814, at  (N.D. Tex. Feb. 24, 1999) (quoting Messer v. Meno, 130 F.3d 130, 135 (5th Cir. 1997)). By contrast, the offenses against Merriman, as the district court described them, were “discrete and in some instances blatant.” The acts committed against Merriman thus did not require accumulation for their discriminatory character to be apparent. Her continuing violation argument is also weakened by her claim that she made multiple prior complaints to Postal Service supervisors about the alleged harassment. Allowing Merriman to assert individual claims older than forty-five days would defeat any effect of the limitations period. See Abrams, 805 F.2d at 533 (“This theory of continuing violation has to be guardedly employed because within it are the seeds of the destruction of statutes of limitation in Title VII cases.”). Therefore, the district court was correct in limiting Merriman’s claim.