Opinion ID: 3064040
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: Smith, an employee of the Service since 1981, was assigned to a position in the Service’s Customer Relations Department in Birmingham, Alabama in 1997. April Williams, the Customer Relations Coordinator (“CRC”) and Smith’s supervisor, was promoted to a new position in April 2003. Notice of the vacant CRC position was posted on October 28, 2003 and sixteen employees, including Smith, applied for this position. A recommendation committee was established to review the applications and to submit a list of the “three best qualified” candidates to Paul T. Barrett, Postmaster of the Birmingham Post Office. Barrett was to select the new CRC from that list. The committee interviewed the top eight applicants in February 2004 and submitted a list of the final three applicants to Barrett. Smith’s name was not included in the final three. According to Smith, in late February she received 2 notice that she was not selected for the position. Smith alleges that she thereafter contacted the members of the recommendation committee to inquire as to why her name was not given to Barrett and each told her she was not selected because she was never “detailed”1 to CRC position. Barrett had detailed Kristy White, who is approximately twenty years younger than Smith, to the CRC position from April through November 2003. Smith was later detailed to the CRC position after she had received her rejection for the permanent position. According to Smith, the committee members told her that had she been detailed to the CRC position prior to their review of her application, her name would have been among the three submitted to Barrett. Smith alleges that she then had a conversation with Barrett on July 16, in which Barrett told her that White would be the new CRC because she was “young and could grow with the job.” Barrett allegedly expressed his disappointment with Smith for questioning his decision and gave her three choices: (1) continue working in her current position; (2) retire because she had reached age fifty-five, as required for eligibility; or (3) look for a new assignment outside of Barrett’s department. Barrett’s selection of White received official approval on August 5, 2004, and on August 9, Smith contacted an Equal Employment Opportunity 1 A “detail” is a temporary assignment into a position that is not the individual’s assignment of record. 3 (“EEO”) counselor about her non-referral and non-selection. Smith thereafter filed suit in district court under the Age Discrimination Employment Act (“ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et. seq., alleging that her nonselection for the CRC position was based on her age.2 Following discovery, the Service moved for summary judgment and the matter was referred to a magistrate judge. The magistrate judge recommended summary judgment in favor of the Service. The magistrate judge noted that Smith was required to timely exhaust her administrative remedies, which includes filing an EEO claim “within 45 days of the effective date of [the personnel] action,” prior to filing an ADEA claim. 29 C.F.R. § 1614.105(a)(1). The magistrate judge concluded that this “45-day time limit began to run from the moment that Smith learned that had she been detailed to the position of Customer Relations Coordinator she would have been one of the three final candidates.” The magistrate judge reasoned that the 45-day period began to run in March 2004 because “at this time Smith [] knew or reasonably should have known that she had been discriminated against, since she knew that White was twenty years younger and White had been detailed to the Customer Relations Coordinator position for months leading up to the formal posting of the 2 Smith also brought a claim alleging that the decision not to promote her was made in retaliation for a prior suit that she filed against the Service. On Smith’s motion, the district court later dismissed the retaliation claim. 4 position.” The magistrate judge further concluded that equitable tolling of the 45- day time period was inappropriate under the circumstances because Smith did not promptly contact an EEO counselor, despite personally knowing of the 45-day requirement and having the benefit of counsel. Smith did not object to the magistrate judge’s recommendation. The district court adopted the recommendation and granted summary judgment in favor of the Service. This appeal followed.