UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-2515
MAUREEN HILL,
Plaintiff – Appellant,
v.
CHUCK HAGEL, Hon. in his official capacity as Secretary,
U.S. Department of Defense,
Defendant – Appellee,
and
MIKE MULLEN, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; MARTIN E.
DEMPSEY, GENERAL – Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
Defendants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Liam O’Grady, District
Judge. (1:12-cv-00350-LO-JFA)
Argued: January 28, 2014 Decided: March 21, 2014
Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and MOTZ and WYNN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Richard Talbot Seymour, LAW OFFICES OF RICHARD T.
SEYMOUR, PLLC, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. David
Moskowitz, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria,
Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Gary M. Gilbert, Kevin Lee
Owen, Ari M. Wilkenfeld, LAW OFFICES OF GARY M. GILBERT &
ASSOCIATES, PC, Silver Spring, Maryland; John J. Rigby, MCINROY
& RIGBY, LLP, Arlington, Virginia, for Appellant. Neil H.
MacBride, United States Attorney, Bernard G. Kim, Assistant
United States Attorney, R. Joseph Sher, Deputy Chief, Civil
Division, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria,
Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
Maureen Hill appeals a district court order granting
judgment against her in her employment discrimination action.
Finding no error, we affirm.
I.
Hill, who is an African-American woman, was hired in
January 2005 by the Defense Department Joint Staff to be a
Supervisory Technical Information Specialist in its Information
Management Division. Hill’s time with the Joint Staff was
contentious, and she filed and litigated four separate Equal
Employment Opportunity (“EEO”) complaints beginning in 2005,
giving rise to four EEO reports of investigation. She was
terminated in August 2007.
Hill appealed her termination to the Merit Systems
Protection Board (“MSPB”). An administrative law judge (“ALJ”)
upheld the termination, and the MSPB subsequently issued a final
order affirming the ALJ’s decision. Hill then appealed the
MSPB’s final order to the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, which affirmed the MSPB’s decision and upheld Hill’s
termination.
Hill subsequently filed suit in federal district court
challenging the MSPB’s decision as arbitrary, capricious, and
unsupported by substantial evidence and asserting a claim of a
hostile work environment based on race and gender as well as
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claims of race and gender discrimination and retaliation.
Hill’s claims concern many actions allegedly taken against her
during her employment, including, among others, unfair
evaluations; issuance of a performance improvement plan; removal
of her supervisory duties; proposed and actual suspensions;
leave restrictions; determinations that she was absent without
leave; revocation of her security clearance; and her
termination.
The government moved to dismiss, for lack of subject-matter
jurisdiction, Hill’s retaliation claim to the extent that it
concerned the revocation of her security clearance. See Fed. R.
Civ. P. 12(b)(1). The government also moved for judgment on the
pleadings on her hostile work environment claim and another
portion of her retaliation claim. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c).
And, the government moved for summary judgment on the entire
action. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56.
The district court ruled in the government’s favor on all
claims. The district court dismissed for lack of subject-matter
jurisdiction Hill’s retaliation claim to the extent it
challenged the revocation of her security clearance. The court
also granted judgment on the pleadings against Hill on her
hostile-work-environment claim. Additionally, the court granted
summary judgment against Hill on her discrimination claims and
the remaining portion of her retaliation claim. The court
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specifically ruled that Hill’s challenges to her termination
were time-barred and that Hill had failed to demonstrate that
she was entitled to equitable tolling. As for the other race-
and gender-based discrimination claims, the district court
concluded that Hill failed to create a genuine factual issue
concerning whether there was any causal nexus between her race
or gender and any of the complained-of actions. And concerning
Hill’s retaliation claim, the district court concluded as a
matter of law that with regard to each complained-of action,
either Hill failed to exhaust her administrative remedies, the
actions were not materially adverse, the actions were not
causally related to the alleged protected conduct, or the
actions were supported by legitimate reasons.
II.
Having reviewed the parties’ submissions, the district
court’s memorandum opinion, and the applicable law, and having
considered the parties’ oral arguments, we find no error and
conclude that the district court properly disposed of all of
Hill’s claims.
AFFIRMED
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