Jorge v. Rumsfeld

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit

No. 04-1772

MIRIAM JORGE ET AL.,

Plaintiffs, Appellants,

v.

DONALD H. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY, UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE,

Defendant, Appellee.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

[Hon. Jaime Pieras, Jr., Senior U.S. District Judge]

Before

Torruella, Selya and Lynch,

Circuit Judges.

Marie Elsie López-Adames, with whom González-López & López-
Adames was on brief, for appellants.
Fidel A. Sevillano Del Rio, Assistant United States Attorney,
with whom H. S. Garcia, United States Attorney, and Miguel A.
Fernandez, Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief, for
appellee.

April 21, 2005
 SELYA, Circuit Judge. Plaintiff-appellant Miriam Jorge

brought a discrimination suit against her government employer.1

The district court ruled that Jorge's cause of action under the Age

Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634, was

time-barred and that her claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights

Act of 1964 (Title VII), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1), was foreclosed

because she had not exhausted her administrative remedies. After

careful perscrutation of the briefs and record, we affirm the

judgment below.

I. BACKGROUND

This appeal follows a dismissal for failure to state a

claim upon which relief can be granted. See Fed. R. Civ. P.

12(b)(6).2 Consequently, we accept the well-pleaded facts as true

1
Jorge's husband, the couple's conjugal partnership, and
Jorge's ward are also plaintiffs and appellants. Because their
claims are purely derivative, we treat Jorge as if she were the
sole plaintiff and appellant. Our decision is, of course, binding
on all parties.
2
In the district court, the government originally filed a
hybrid motion to dismiss "pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) and Rule 56(c)
of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure." Its reply to Jorge's
opposition confirmed this ambivalence, requesting that "this entire
action be dismissed, or in the alternative, that [the district
court] grant summary judgment to defendants." In ruling on the
motion, the district court treated it as a motion to dismiss. See
Jorge v. Rumsfeld, Civ. No. 03-1224, slip op. at 1 (D.P.R. Mar. 9,
2004) (unpublished). Before us, the government has briefed the
case in terms of the Rule 12(b)(6) standard. Because that standard
is more favorable to Jorge than the Rule 56 standard, see Collier
v. City of Chicopee, 158 F.3d 601, 602-03 (1st Cir. 1998), we
follow the district court's lead and apply the jurisprudence of
Rule 12(b)(6).

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and indulge all reasonable inferences therefrom in the plaintiff's

favor. LaChapelle v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., 142 F.3d 507, 508

(1st Cir. 1998). We augment those facts with facts extractable

from documentation annexed to or incorporated by reference in the

complaint and matters susceptible to judicial notice. See In re

Colonial Mortg. Bankers Corp., 324 F.3d 12, 14 (1st Cir. 2003); see

also Beddall v. State St. Bank & Trust Co., 137 F.3d 12, 17 (1st

Cir. 1998) ("When, as now, a complaint's factual allegations are

expressly linked to — and admittedly dependent upon — a document

(the authenticity of which is not challenged), that document

effectively merges into the pleadings and the trial court can

review it in deciding a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6).").

Moreover, the district court appropriately may consider the whole

of a document integral to or explicitly relied upon in a complaint,

even if that document is not annexed to the complaint. See Clorox

Co. P.R. v. Proctor & Gamble Comm'l Co., 228 F.3d 24, 32 (1st Cir.

2000).

Applying these tenets to the instant record enables us to

mine certain additional nuggets of information. The correspondence

between Jorge's attorney and the Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission (EEOC) — most notably, the right-to-sue letter upon

which Jorge predicates her claim of exhaustion — falls within this

parameter. So to does Jorge's notice of retirement. With this in

mind, we rehearse the relevant facts.

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 Between 1973 and 2001, Jorge worked for the Army and Air

Force Exchange Services (AAFES), a commissary program for military

personnel administered by the Department of Defense. In 1979, she

became the retail manager of Toyland, an AAFES-operated store on

the premises of Fort Buchanan (which is located in Guaynabo, Puerto

Rico). Jorge remained in this position for nearly two decades

until, at the age of fifty-one, she elected to make a lateral

transfer to the Base Muñiz Shoppette (which is located at a

National Guard installation some twelve miles away). Jorge claims,

and the defendants do not contest, that she was a model employee

who, both at Toyland and at the Shoppette, consistently exceeded

sales and performance targets set by senior management.

Jorge began working at the Shoppette in 1998. Soon

thereafter, AAFES assigned Debra Baynard to oversee its operations

in the region. The relationship between Baynard and Jorge quickly

turned frosty. From Jorge's point of view, Baynard altered the

workplace by insisting upon, and rigorously enforcing, an English-

only policy and by undermining Jorge's managerial authority in

insidious ways. When Jorge complained about Baynard's policies and

practices, Baynard allegedly made derogatory comments about her

age.

The situation came to a head early in 2000 when, during

Jorge's vacation, Baynard unilaterally transferred her back to her

former position at Toyland and filled the position she had occupied

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at the Shoppette with a younger, less experienced man who spoke

only English. After Jorge's vacation ended on March 4, 2000, she

met with Baynard, who served formal notice of the job shift without

offering Jorge any explanation for it.

Jorge refused to report for duty at Toyland. Instead,

she exhausted her accrued vacation time and sick leave while trying

to get herself reinstated at the Shoppette. Even after her efforts

proved unsuccessful, she refused to assume her duties at Toyland.

In due course, AAFES informed her that, pursuant to settled agency

regulations, her extended absence had led to the forfeiture of any

right she may have had to regain her position at the Shoppette.

Jorge was given two options at that juncture: return to Toyland or

take early retirement. She chose the latter option and, on April

17, 2001, submitted a notice of "involuntary early retirement,"

retroactive to March 30, 2001.

II. TRAVEL OF THE CASE

Jorge did not let sleeping dogs lie. Her first

initiative came in the form of a notice letter, dated May 8, 2001,

sent on her behalf to the EEOC. That letter announced her

intention to sue for age discrimination. Following the expiration

of a thirty-day waiting period, the agency granted Jorge leave to

sue under the ADEA. See 29 U.S.C. § 633a(d). Several months then

passed with no further action.

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 On April 1, 2002, Jorge commenced an action in the

federal district court, seeking relief under, inter alia, the ADEA

and Title VII. In her complaint, Jorge alleged that she was

humiliated both by Baynard's ageist comments and by the English-

only requirement, and that the involuntary transfer to Toyland

exacerbated this state of affairs. She also characterized her

early retirement, for the first time, as a constructive discharge.

Jorge's complaint named a bevy of defendants, including

the Secretary of Defense, AAFES, Baynard, two other AAFES managers

who had assisted Baynard in facilitating the transfer, the spouses

and conjugal partnerships of the individual defendants, and four

unidentified defendants (apparently sued as place-holders). Jorge

experienced difficulty in serving the individual defendants (other

than Secretary Rumsfeld). She discussed this problem with the

Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) who was handling the case.

The AUSA suggested that she dismiss the action without prejudice,

see Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1), get her ducks in a row, and then

refile. Eventually, Jorge embraced that suggestion and moved to

dismiss the complaint without prejudice. The government consented,

and the district court granted the motion on September 27, 2002.

Jorge commenced a new action, identical to the first in

all respects, on March 4, 2003. That action ended in the order of

dismissal that undergirds this appeal. We pause to explicate the

district court's reasoning.

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 The court first determined that Jorge's supplemental

claims were not cognizable because the ADEA and Title VII comprised

the exclusive remedies for claims of age, gender, and national

origin discrimination. Jorge v. Rumsfeld, Civ. No. 03-1224, slip

op. at 4 (D.P.R. Mar. 9, 2004) (unpublished). The court then

concluded that the Secretary of Defense was the only proper

defendant in regard to the ADEA and Title VII claims and dismissed

the action as to all the other defendants. Id. at 5. These

rulings are not contested on appeal, and we do not discuss them.

With respect to Jorge's Title VII claim against the

Secretary, the lower court noted that Jorge's sole contact with the

EEOC was her letter indicating an intent to sue under the ADEA.

Id. at 6. It thereupon dismissed her Title VII claim without

prejudice for failure to "initiate[], much less exhaust[]," her

administrative remedies. Id. at 7. Finally, the court noted that

Jorge's ADEA claim was subject to a two-year statute of

limitations. See Rossiter v. Potter, 357 F.3d 26, 27 (1st Cir.

2004). In light of that limitations period, the district court

held that Jorge, who had instituted the operative action a full

three years after her involuntary transfer, had sued too late.

Jorge, slip op. at 8. For that reason, the court dismissed the

ADEA claim with prejudice. Id. This appeal followed.

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III. ANALYSIS

On appeal, Jorge limits her assault to the district

court's disposition of her ADEA and Title VII claims. We consider

these lines of attack separately.

A. The ADEA Claim.

The district court held that Jorge's ADEA claim was time-

barred. Id. That holding rested on a determination that the cause

of action accrued at the time of the involuntary transfer rather

than at the time of Jorge's retirement. See id. (concluding that

the transfer constituted "the gravamen of plaintiff's ADEA claim").

Jorge assigns error to that determination. We consider her

argument, mindful that when, as now, an order of dismissal is

premised on the running of the applicable limitations period, we

may affirm only if the Rule 12(b)(6) record "leave[s] no doubt that

[the] asserted claim is time-barred." LaChapelle, 142 F.3d at 509.

The ADEA requires that personnel actions affecting most

employees who are forty years of age or older be free from age-

based discrimination. 29 U.S.C. § 633a(a). In one sense, the ADEA

treats federal employees as a class apart from other employees.

See Rossiter, 357 F.3d at 28-29 (discussing the statutory scheme).

That difference implicates the ADEA's enforcement mechanism:

whereas most employees must first exhaust administrative remedies

before instituting an ADEA action, see 29 U.S.C. § 626(d), a

federal employee has the option of bypassing administrative

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remedies entirely and suing directly in the federal district court.

Id. § 633a(c). A federal employee who wishes to avail himself of

this bypass option must notify the EEOC of his intent to sue within

180 days following the occurrence of the allegedly unlawful

practice and then observe a thirty-day waiting period before filing

suit. Id. § 633a(d). The EEOC is required to notify the putative

defendant of the employee's intent to sue, but it has no authority

to forestall the litigation. Id.

In this instance, it is beyond peradventure that Jorge

gave notice of her intent to sue and that the thirty-day cooling-

off period elapsed. But because an action prosecuted pursuant to

29 U.S.C. § 633a(c) is subject to a two-year limitations period,

Rossiter, 357 F.3d at 34-35, it is less clear whether Jorge brought

her action within the prescribed time. The uncertainty arises out

of a difference of opinion about the accrual date.

On the one hand, the government posits — and the district

court agreed — that the last independent act of alleged age

discrimination occurred when Baynard unilaterally transferred Jorge

to Toyland. On the other hand, Jorge argues that her retirement

should be treated as an independent act of discrimination. The

choice of an accrual date makes a dispositive difference here.

Jorge commenced this action on March 4, 2003. If the accrual date

is the date of the transfer, which occurred during, or just after

the end of Jorge's vacation (for simplicity's sake, we shall use an

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approximate date of March 4, 2000), her ADEA claim is time-barred.

If however, the accrual date is the date of her retirement (which

took place on April 17, 2001, retroactive to March 30, 2001),3 her

ADEA claim is timely.

Jorge's argument proceeds on the basis of a supposed

constructive discharge. That is theoretically feasible: a

constructive discharge can constitute an adverse employment action

under the ADEA. See, e.g., Suarez v. Pueblo Int'l, Inc., 229 F.3d

49, 54 (1st Cir. 2000) (explaining that a charge will lie if the

employer has "engag[ed] in a calculated, age-inspired effort to

force an employee to quit"). By the same token, an offer of an

early retirement package sometimes can be a vehicle for a

constructive discharge: a worker who is presented with such a

package can be said to be constructively discharged if her refusal

to accept the offer will result in work or working conditions so

onerous or disagreeable that a reasonable person would feel

compelled to forsake employment rather than to submit herself to

manifold indignities. Vega v. Kodak Caribbean, Ltd., 3 F.3d 476,

480 (1st Cir. 1993). The rationale behind this rule is rooted in

a desire to ensure that an employer bent on dismissing an employee

for age-related reasons cannot skirt Congress's clear prohibition

on such discrimination by indirection. See Suarez, 229 F.3d at 54.

3
Because the former date is potentially more helpful to Jorge,
we assume arguendo that it was the date of her retirement.

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 Although Jorge would have us believe that the employer's

offer of early retirement here was tantamount to a constructive

discharge (and, thus, an independent act of discrimination giving

rise to her ADEA claim), her complaint — even when read with full

deference to its factual allegations — fails to bear out this

assertion. Jorge's troubles evidently stemmed from the sequence of

events exemplifying the harassing behavior of her new supervisor.

That sequence of events began in 1998 and culminated in the order

transferring her to Toyland. Jorge refused to accept that

transfer, even though it entailed no loss of pay, benefits, status,

or the like.4 Because that transfer entailed no tangible

diminution, it did not, without more, sink to the level of

indignity necessary to make out a prima facie case of constructive

discharge. See Suarez, 229 F.3d at 56. Here, there is no "more";

Jorge's complaint is devoid of any allegations indicating that, by

accepting the transfer, she would have been subjected to the kind

of indignities against which the ADEA stands guard.

Nor does Jorge allege a discriminatory motive behind

AAFES's directive that she report to Toyland or take early

retirement. When Jorge refused to accept the transfer, she did not

resign, but remained nominally in AAFES's employ, drawing salary

4
In her appellate briefs, Jorge asserts for the first time
that AAFES had been planning to close the Toyland store and that
her transfer was thus merely an opening gambit en route to the
eventual elimination of her job. We decline to consider this
previously unraised and inherently speculative assertion.

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and benefits from her accumulated vacation time and sick leave

while protesting the transfer administratively. By all accounts,

it was the refusal to report for work and the passage of time that

led to AAFES's ultimatum, and Jorge does not suggest that this

action was anything other than standard operating procedure. Thus,

the Toyland transfer constituted the last independent

discriminatory act visited upon her — in the district court's

phrase, it constituted the "gravamen of [p]laintiff's complaint,"

Jorge, slip op. at 8 — and the employer's ultimatum that she accept

the transfer or retire early was merely an inevitable consequence

of that action. It follows that the ADEA limitations period runs

from the date the transfer order was made.

The most pertinent authority for this proposition is the

Supreme Court's decision in Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449

U.S. 250 (1980). There, a college denied tenure to a faculty

member who alleged that the denial was attributable to national

origin discrimination. Id. at 252-54. The administration then

offered the faculty member a one-year contract, not subject to

renewal. Id. at 253. The offer was accepted and, after the year

had run, the faculty member left the school's employ. He then

sued. The Court deemed the case time-barred, rejecting the faculty

member's contention that his employment discrimination claim

accrued from the expiration of his terminal contract. Id. at 257-

58. The Court held that the plaintiff had neither alleged nor

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proved "that the manner in which his employment was terminated

differed discriminatorily from the manner in which the College

terminated other professors who also had been denied tenure." Id.

at 258. Absent such an allegation, the plaintiff's loss of

employment was merely an "inevitable consequence" of the earlier

(time-barred) tenure decision, and could not constitute a

separately actionable event. Id. at 257-58. In short, "the

critical datum is the point in time at which the discriminatory act

occurred," not the point at which its effects became most

injurious. Morris v. Gov't Dev. Bank, 27 F.3d 746, 749 (1st Cir.

1994).

We find the same deficiency in Jorge's complaint. She

has not pled that the choice ultimately given her by AAFES differed

discriminatorily from the way in which the organization handled

personnel matters involving other, similarly situated employees

(i.e., those who had refused to accept lateral transfers and who

had exhausted their vacation and sick leave time). Nor has she

explained how the employer's return-or-retire ultimatum differed in

any respect from the employer's standard response to younger,

similarly situated employees. Here, as in Ricks, the mere

continuity of the employment relationship, in and of itself, is not

enough "to prolong the life of a cause of action." Ricks, 449 U.S.

at 257; accord Campbell v. BankBoston, 327 F.3d 1, 11 (1st Cir.

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2003); Am. Airlines, Inc. v. Cardoza-Rodriguez, 133 F.3d 111, 123

(1st Cir. 1998).5

Jorge makes a last-ditch effort to resuscitate her ADEA

claim by arguing that the operative tolling date was April 1, 2002

(the date when she filed her first action, later dismissed) rather

than March 4, 2003 (the date when she commenced the action

presently on appeal). This argument is hopeless: March 4, 2003

was the correct tolling date for the statute of limitations

calculation.

A voluntary dismissal without prejudice results in a

tabula rasa. It renders the proceedings null and void and leaves

the parties in the same position as if the action had never been

prosecuted. Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Int'l Ass'n of

Machinists, 915 F.2d 43, 48 (1st Cir. 1990); In re Piper Aircraft

Distrib. Sys. Antitrust Litig., 551 F.2d 213, 219 (8th Cir. 1977).

Consequently, "a prescriptive period is not tolled by filing a

complaint that is subsequently dismissed without prejudice."

Chico-Vélez v. Roche Prods., Inc., 139 F.3d 56, 59 (1st Cir. 1998).

5
Jorge's reliance on Flaherty v. Metromail Corp., 235 F.3d
133, 138-39 (2d Cir. 2000), in which an employee who had alleged a
constructive discharge was allowed to start the limitations clock
for her discrimination claim from the date that she submitted her
letter of resignation, misses the mark. There the plaintiff had
remained at work after being notified of her "looming termination"
and continued, up to the date of her resignation, to suffer
indignities attributable to a discriminatorily hostile work
environment. See id. at 138. In this case, the last act of
discrimination was the transfer order itself. Flaherty is,
therefore, inapposite.

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 Equally unavailing is Jorge's contention that the statute

of limitations should be equitably extended due to her attorney's

misplaced reliance on the AUSA's suggestion that she dismiss the

first action because of the difficulty she was experiencing in

locating some of the individual defendants. While the doctrine of

equitable estoppel may be invoked when "a defendant's conduct

causes a plaintiff to delay bringing an action or pursuing a claim

he or she was entitled to initiate by law," Kelley v. NLRB, 79 F.3d

1238, 1247 (1st Cir. 1996), this requires affirmative misconduct,

see id.; see also Lavery v. Marsh, 918 F.2d 1022, 1028 (1st Cir.

1990). Jorge makes no such claim — nor would the pleaded facts

support one.

To say more about the ADEA claim would be pointless. For

the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court's dismissal of

that claim as time-barred.

B. The Title VII Claim.

The district court dismissed Jorge's Title VII claim

without prejudice for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.

Jorge, slip op. at 7. Jorge assigns error to this ukase as well.

She is fishing in an empty stream.

Unlike the ADEA, Title VII does not spare federal

employees from running the administrative gauntlet. An individual

who has suffered discrimination at the hands of a federal employer

on account of race, color, religion, gender, or national origin

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must file an administrative complaint with the EEOC within 180 days

of the alleged unlawful employment practice. See 42 U.S.C. §

2000e-15(c)(1) & 16(c). The employee may commence a civil action

against her employer if, and only if, the EEOC has dismissed the

administrative complaint or has itself failed to begin a civil

action within 180 days of the original EEOC filing.6 Id. § 2000e-

5(f)(1). The employee then must sue within ninety days. Id. The

ninety-day period begins to run from the time that the Attorney

General notifies the employee either that the EEOC has dismissed

the charge or that the government has failed to address the

employee's grievance (by reaching a negotiated settlement or by

commencing litigation on her behalf). See id.; see also Clockedile

v. N.H. Dep't of Corr., 245 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 2001). It is thus

apparent that "[j]udicial recourse under Title VII . . . is not a

remedy of first resort." Morales-Vallellanes v. Potter, 339 F.3d

9, 18 (1st Cir. 2003).

In light of the statutory scheme, it is unsurprising

that, in a Title VII case, a plaintiff's unexcused failure to

exhaust administrative remedies effectively bars the courthouse

door. See, e.g., Duncan v. Manager, Dep't of Safety, 397 F.3d

1300, 1314 (10th Cir. 2005); Duncan v. Delta Consol. Indus., Inc.,

371 F.3d 1020, 1024-25 (8th Cir. 2004); Taylor v. Books A Million,

6
A federal employee may, of course, intervene in an action
brought by the EEOC on her behalf. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1).

-16-
Inc., 296 F.3d 376, 378-79 (5th Cir. 2002); see also Bonilla v.

Muebles J.J. Alvarez, Inc., 194 F.3d 275, 278 (1st Cir. 1999).

Exhaustion has two key components: the timely filing of a charge

with the EEOC and the receipt of a right-to-sue letter from the

agency. See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 798

(1973); McKinnon v. Kwong Wah Rest., 83 F.3d 498, 504 (1st Cir.

1996).

Jorge says that she filed a charge with the EEOC within

the prescribed period and that the EEOC, in turn, sent her a right-

to-sue letter. But that is a half-truth. The charge was not a

charge at all, but, rather, a notice of intent to sue. Perhaps

more importantly, both the so-called "charge" and the subsequent

right-to-sue letter concerned only her ADEA claim; she never filed

a Title VII claim with the EEOC, and her attempt to piggyback a

non-existent Title VII filing on an ADEA filing does not hold

water.

A Title VII suit may extend as far as, but not beyond,

the parameters of the underlying administrative charge. See Fine

v. GAF Chem. Corp., 995 F.2d 576, 578 (5th Cir. 1993). This does

not mean that the scope of the suit is inevitably limited to the

allegations in the administrative complaint, but it is nonetheless

constrained by those allegations in the sense that the judicial

complaint must bear some close relation to the allegations

presented to the agency. Cf. Clockedile, 245 F.3d at 6 (holding

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that retaliation claims are preserved if the retaliation is

"reasonably related to and grows out of" the discrimination charged

in the administrative complaint). Jorge's filings do not pass that

test.

The ADEA and Title VII cover separate and distinct

subjects. See Lennon v. Rubin, 166 F.3d 6, 8 (1st Cir. 1999)

(explaining that age discrimination claims are not cognizable under

Title VII). Moreover, the two statutes operate in different

administrative universes vis-à-vis federal employees. Compare 29

U.S.C. § 633a(c), with 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(c). A merger of the

two schemes by judicial fiat would destroy the very purpose of

exhaustion by depriving the EEOC of the ability to resolve Title

VII disputes in the conference room rather than in the courtroom.

See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(b) ("[T]he Commission shall endeavor to

eliminate any such alleged unlawful employment practice by informal

methods of conference, conciliation, and persuasion.").

Accordingly, we hold that neither Jorge's ADEA filing nor the

ensuing right-to-sue letter exhausted her administrative remedies

for purposes of her Title VII claim.

Jorge has a fallback position. Even if the district

court was correct in holding that her administrative journey was

incomplete with respect to her Title VII claim, Jorge seeks to

persuade us that she nonetheless may find relief under the doctrine

of equitable tolling. We are not convinced.

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 To be sure, an employee's failure to follow the

administrative route to its due completion does not automatically

doom a Title VII claim. The charge-filing requirement is mandatory

but not jurisdictional; therefore, it is subject to a host of

equitable exceptions. Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 455

U.S. 385, 393 (1982); Bonilla, 194 F.3d at 278. In deference,

however, to Title VII's carefully crafted temporal limitations, we

invoke those exceptions sparingly and interpret them narrowly. See

Bonilla, 194 F.3d at 278; Jensen v. Frank, 912 F.2d 517, 521 (1st

Cir. 1990). Thus, an employee is generally not entitled to avail

herself of the doctrine of equitable tolling if the procedural flaw

that prompted the dismissal of her claim is of her own making. See

Bonilla, 194 F.3d at 279 ("Generally speaking — peculiar

circumstances may leave some wiggle room — equitable tolling is not

appropriate unless a claimant misses a filing deadline because of

circumstances effectively beyond her control (such as when her

employer actively misleads her, and she relies on that misconduct

to her detriment).").

Jorge pretty much ignored this issue in the proceedings

before the district court. She raises it in this court, but she

has offered no developed argumentation as to why her case should

not come within the general rule rather than within the long-odds

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exception to it. Consequently, she is not entitled to invoke the

equitable tolling doctrine here.7

IV. CONCLUSION

We need go no further. Discerning no error in the

district court's well-reasoned decision, we affirm the judgment

below.

Affirmed.

7
Jorge makes a feeble attempt to rely on the continuing
violation doctrine. See, e.g., Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v.
Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 115-17 (2002); Mack v. Great Atl. & Pac. Tea
Co., 871 F.2d 179, 182 (1st Cir. 1989). That doctrine relates to
statutes of limitations and has no bearing on relief from Title
VII's exhaustion requirements.

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