Opinion ID: 29035
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: miller’s claims based on retaliation

Text: Miller also asserts that he suffered unlawful retaliation for participating in an act protected by the ADA. On this claim, we find it important to delve into issues that are more procedural in nature than those discussed by the district court. SWBT has asserted both at the trial level and on appeal that Miller failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as to his 13 claim for retaliation. Throughout the course of this litigation, Miller, for reasons unknown to this court, has completely disregarded this line of argument. Miller’s failure to articulate some modicum of rebuttal argument on this point proves injurious to his cause, as the failure to exhaust administrative remedies serves as an independent basis to affirm summary judgment. See Randel v. United States Dep’t of Navy, 157 F.3d 392, 395 (5th Cir. 1998) (stating that a plaintiff asserting racial discrimination must exhaust his administrative remedies on the claim before seeking review in federal court). The trial court did not rule on this issue, instead opting to evaluate the substantive requirements of Miller’s retaliation claims, concluding eventually that he failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact on one element of his prima facie case. Since we conclude that the district court lacked jurisdiction to consider Miller’s retaliation claim on the merits, we need not address the merits. The jurisdictional problem here relates to the fact that in the charge Miller filed with the EEOC, he did not check the box corresponding with “retaliation,” but did so for “age” and “disability.” From a procedural standpoint, SWBT argues, Miller only properly raised allegations of intentional discrimination under the ADA and the ADEA. Citing a number of cases, SWBT asserts that because the alleged retaliation in the instant case occurred before Miller filed the initial EEOC charge, Miller 14 should have exhausted his administrative remedies on that claim prior to filing. Given this argument, directly at issue is whether Miller’s failure to fill in the appropriate box for retaliation, when he already marked the box for disability and age discrimination, compels the conclusion that he failed to exhaust his administrative remedies before filing a lawsuit under the ADA. A review of this case using the same standards as the lower court produces the same exact outcome, but on a dissimilar basis: Summary judgment is appropriate because Miller failed to exhaust his administrative remedies on his claim for retaliation. There are several reasons why we believe this the correct outcome in this matter. First, the federal anti-discrimination statutes, most notably, Title VII have consistently required claimants to fill in the appropriate corresponding boxes when filing their claim for unlawful employment action. See, e.g., Price v. Harrah’s Md. Heights Operating Co., 117 F. Supp. 2d 919, 921-22 (E.D. Mo. 2000) (granting summary judgment on failure to exhaust administrative remedies grounds for employer because plaintiff did not check the box for retaliation and did not specifically allege retaliation in the text of the charge); McCray v. DPC Indus., Inc., 942 F. Supp. 288, 294 (E.D. Tex. 1996) (informing that when asserting a claim for discrimination under Title VII, it is necessary for the appropriate box be 15 checked in the EEOC claim).5 By simply checking the box corresponding to the alleged basis for unlawful employment action, a plaintiff sufficiently exhausts his administrative remedies prior to a Title VII lawsuit. See, e.g., id. Second, the same procedural requirements for Title VII have been interpreted to apply to EEOC charges filed under the ADA as well. This court has also held that the ADA incorporates by reference the administrative procedural requisites found in Title VII, Dao v. Auchan Hypermarket, 96 F.3d 787, 789 (5th Cir. 1996), and that adherence to these prerequisites is necessary prior to commencing an ADA action in federal court against an employer, id. Although this court has not addressed the issue of whether an ADA case cab be dismissed for failure to fill in the appropriate box, other courts encountering this issue support the granting of summary judgment. See, e.g., Talbot v. U.S. Foodservice, Inc., 191 F. Supp. 2d 637, 640 (D. Md. 2002) (“Where a litigant has neither checked the box for discrimination, nor mentioned disability discrimination or the ADA anywhere in his 5 It is well-established that summary judgment may be granted against a non-movant solely on the basis of failure to exhaust administrative remedies. E.g., Inst. for Tech. Dev. v. Brown, 63 F.3d 445, 447 (5th Cir. 1995). The Supreme Court has held that a plaintiff may not bring claims in a lawsuit that were not included in the filed EEOC charge. Alexander v. GardnerDenver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 47 (1974). This requirement serves to enhance the administrative enforcement process by ensuring that the EEOC can conduct a full investigation while also providing the employer with advanced notice of the claim and an opportunity to resolve the dispute. See Harper v. Godfrey Co., 45 F.3d 143, 148 (7th Cir. 1995). 16 charge of discrimination, the EEOC cannot reasonably have been expected to have investigated disability discrimination.”); cases cited infra. Hence, the “box filling” requirement cited by SWBT appears to arise in the ADA context as well as the Title VII context. Third, one of our sister circuits has indicated that in the ADA context, a plaintiff’s failure to fill in the appropriate box in the filed charge, coupled with the inability to describe the general nature of the claim in the narrative section of the charge, forms a sufficient basis for summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit decided that when a plaintiff fails to mark the appropriate box for “retaliation” but continues to seek relief for disability discrimination and retaliation, the plaintiff has nevertheless failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as to the retaliation claim. Cable v. Ivy Tech State College, 200 F.3d 467, 477 (7th Cir. 1999).6 The Cable court observed that the body of the plaintiff’s EEOC charge did not even “hint at retaliation, much less develop [a] factual basis for the claim.” Id. Even when viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the statement of discrimination did not implicate the behavior that plaintiff asserted to be the basis of his retaliation claim. Id. The Seventh Circuit deemed the 6 In his EEOC charge, Cable checked the “Other” box only, but did not write in the narrative portion of the claim that he was discriminated against on the basis of his disability. 17 plaintiff’s narrative to have given insufficient indication to the EEOC or the employer that he was also seeking redress for unlawful retaliation. Id. In affirming summary judgment on plaintiff’s retaliation claim, the Cable court found that there was no indication from the EEOC charge boxes, narrative, or supplemental material that the plaintiff sought redress for the retaliation claim, or even, for the matter, that the alleged retaliation “was like or reasonably related to” his statutory rights stemming from the ADA. Id.; see also Thompson v. KN Energy, Inc., 177 F. Supp. 2d 1238, 1254-55 (D. Kan. 2001) (granting summary judgment against plaintiff for failing to exhaust administrative remedies under the ADA when marked boxes for “sex” and “disability” but not “retaliation”). The similarity between Cable and the instant case is marked, particularly with the absence of narrative or other supplemental EEOC materials indicating that Miller was seeking redress for unlawful retaliation. The information, or lack thereof,7 included on Miller’s filed EEOC charge creates a 7 The entirety of Miller’s narrative reads as follows: