A federal court has denied the U.S. Postal Service’s attempt to dismiss claims brought by a transgender former employee who alleged discrimination and retaliation.
In a decisive ruling, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California rejected all of the defendant’s arguments to partially dismiss the complaint filed by A.S., a former postal worker who presented as male at work while undergoing gender transition.
The case highlights significant issues around workplace discrimination based on gender identity, disability accommodation, and the complex administrative requirements for federal employees pursuing discrimination claims.
Background of the case
A.S., who began her career as a City Carrier Assistant in Chicago in 2020 before transferring to Los Angeles in 2021, had been diagnosed with depression and was hospitalized for three days in March 2021.
According to court documents, A.S. “presented as male and used a different name in the workplace” during the period in question but was “undergoing a gender transition process” in private. She was allegedly reluctant to present as a woman at work due to an “anti-LGBTQ+ environment” created by other employees.
The plaintiff claimed she “constantly” heard offensive remarks about gay people and gay stereotypes at work. In one instance, the Postmaster reportedly told her, “I’m not a f****t but you smell amazing.”
After receiving a promotion to Carrier Technician and taking on supervisory responsibilities, A.S. was “outed as transgender” at work in August 2022 when a co-worker discovered and shared pictures of her appearing as a woman from an online messaging application.
Alleged harassment and discrimination
Court documents state that following the disclosure of her gender identity, “different employees constantly approached Plaintiff while she was working to comment and ask questions about Plaintiff’s genitalia, sexual acts, and more.” Some comments were described as “outright and explicitly derogatory.”
After initiating an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaint process, A.S. alleged that management became aware of her transition, and the Postmaster, who had previously praised her work, “started to act distant and cold” before removing her from her supervisory detail in November 2022.
A.S. transferred to a position at another post office, and in December 2022, reached a settlement in her first EEO case. The agreement stated that management “will not impede on the Counselee’s… upward mobility; however, management cannot guarantee the Counselee will be promoted or given other supervisory opportunities outside of the Culver City Post Office.”
In May 2023, A.S. informed her second-line supervisor of her mental disability and requested accommodation for therapy sessions. Shortly thereafter, she was ordered to return to the original post office location, which she claimed “had a tremendous impact on [her] mental and physical health and exasperated her depression symptoms.”
After presenting a letter from her therapist requesting leave as an accommodation, A.S. alleged that her request received no response. She subsequently alleged breach of the settlement agreement, missed work, and was charged with being Absent Without Leave (AWOL) before ultimately resigning in September 2023, claiming constructive discharge.
Court rejects administrative exhaustion arguments
The postal service sought to dismiss portions of A.S.’s complaint, arguing she failed to exhaust administrative remedies for certain claims, that discrete acts of discrimination could not support hostile work environment claims, and that interactions with an EEO counselor could not constitute retaliation.
In rejecting these arguments, the court addressed several important legal principles:
Timeliness of EEO counseling
Federal employees must generally consult an EEO counselor within 45 days of alleged discrimination. The defendant argued that claims regarding incidents from May and June 2023 should be dismissed because A.S. did not contact an EEO counselor until August 23, 2023.
However, the court found that these incidents “were actually investigated by the EEOC,” noting that “subject matter jurisdiction extends over all allegations of discrimination that either ‘fell within the scope of the EEOC’s actual investigation or an EEOC investigation which can reasonably be expected to grow out of the charge of discrimination.'”
Administrative abandonment
The defendant also claimed A.S. had administratively abandoned two disability discrimination claims. The court dismissed this argument, stating the postal service failed to adequately explain or point to evidence showing abandonment, noting that “the burden of representation lies upon Defendant, not the Court” and that it would not “hunt for truffles buried in the administrative record.”
Discrete acts in hostile environment claims
In a significant finding for employment discrimination cases, the court rejected the argument that discrete acts of discrimination cannot support hostile work environment claims.
Citing recent Ninth Circuit precedent in Lui v. DeJoy, the court stated that while a notice of proposed downgrade “could constitute a discrete adverse employment action… that does not mean that the notice could not also have been part of the series of actions that cumulatively constituted a hostile work environment.”
EEO counselor interactions as retaliation
Finally, the court addressed whether interactions with an EEO counselor could constitute retaliation under Title VII. The plaintiff alleged the counselor failed to process her allegations, encouraged withdrawal of her case, and expressed negative opinions about the merits of her claims.
The court concluded that “a reasonable worker ‘well might’ be dissuaded from pursuing a charge of discrimination if an EEO counselor failed to process the worker’s allegations, encouraged the worker’s former lawyers to withdraw a case and expressed a (negative) opinion of the merits of an employee’s claim.”
The ruling allows A.S. to proceed with all seven causes of action: sex-based hostile work environment, sex-based disparate treatment, retaliation under Title VII, disability-based disparate treatment, failure to reasonably accommodate, disability-based hostile work environment, and retaliation under the Rehabilitation Act.
For more information, see https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25915710/031144758190.pdf
