IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
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No. 96-21070
Summary Calendar
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ALBERTO J. SANCHEZ, JR.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
GENERAL GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMPANY,
Defendant-Appellee.
_________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Texas, Houston
(H-95-CV-3795)
_________________________________________________________________
January 23, 1998
Before KING, HIGGINBOTHAM, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Plaintiff-appellant Alberto J. Sanchez, Jr., appeals the
district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the
defendant-appellee, General Growth Management, Inc. (“General
Growth”), in Sanchez’s Title VII suit. Sanchez alleged that
General Growth discriminated against him on the basis of his race,
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that
this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except
under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
constructively discharged him and created a hostile work
environment. Sanchez also asserted state-law claims for
intentional infliction of emotional distress and breach of the
covenant of good faith and fair dealing. In a thorough Memorandum
and Order of Summary Judgment, the district court set out the
requirements for proving each of the claims asserted by Sanchez,
reviewed Sanchez’s pleadings and the summary judgment evidence
offered by both sides and provided reasons for its decision to
grant summary judgment in favor of General Growth.
On appeal, Sanchez argues at length that he has provided
adequate summary judgment evidence that he was constructively
discharged because of his race and that he was the victim of a
hostile working environment. As the district court pointed out,
however, Sanchez’s EEOC charge alleged only discrimination in the
acceptance of his resignation, specifically that General Growth
accepted his resignation but did not accept the resignation of a
white security director. The EEOC charge did not set out a
constructive discharge claim or a hostile working environment
claim. Having failed to include those claims in his EEOC charge,
Sanchez did not exhaust his administrative remedies as to them and
the district court correctly concluded that it lacked subject
matter jurisdiction over them.
Out of an excess of caution, the district court looked at the
summary judgment evidence on Sanchez’s constructive discharge and
hostile working environment claims and concluded that even if the
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court did have jurisdiction over them, Sanchez had failed to
satisfy his burden of proof on either claim. To support a claim
for constructive discharge, the working conditions must have been
so difficult or unpleasant that a reasonable person in the
plaintiff’s shoes would have felt compelled to resign. McKethan
v. Texas Farm Bureau, 996 F.2d 734, 741 (5th Cir. 1993). In
support of this claim, Sanchez adduced only vague statements that
he had been verbally attacked, belittled and “nick-pick[ed]” by
his supervisors, together with his subjective belief that race
discrimination was at the root of it all. The evidence does
reflect considerable unpleasantness between Sanchez and his
supervisors, but it does not add up to a constructive discharge on
the basis of his race. Nor does the evidence that Sanchez adduced
add up to a hostile work environment actionable under Title VII,
i.e., a workplace permeated with discriminatory intimidation,
ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to
alter the conditions of Sanchez’s employment and create an abusive
working environment. Sanchez can point to no concrete evidence of
racially motivated conduct, only to personality conflicts and
strong differences of opinion of the sort that workplaces commonly
feature.
As for Sanchez’s claim for intentional infliction of emotional
distress, on appeal Sanchez points to his high blood pressure and
shattered nerves. As the district court recognized, the level of
“outrageous” and “extreme” conduct required to sustain a claim
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under Texas law for intentional infliction of emotional distress is
very high. It requires conduct “so outrageous in character, and so
extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency,
and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a
civilized community.” Twyman v. Twyman, 855 S.W.2d 619, 621 (Tex.
1993). The district court correctly held that, as a matter of law,
the alleged acts of General Growth and its employees did not meet
that test.
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
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