Cathy Walton v. Thomas Harker, 33 F.4th 165

Cathy Walton, an African American federal employee (born 1953), worked at SPAWAR since 1995 and was an Administrative Specialist (contracting officer duties) since 1999.
In January 2013 SPAWAR reorganized (shift from single- to multiple-award contracts) and reassigned Walton and six others from Contracts Administration to Task Orders; Walton’s pay/benefits were unchanged though she characterized the move as a demotion.
Walton previously filed EEOC charges in 2005 and 2007; she alleged retaliation/age bias in a 2013 EEOC charge focused on the 2013 reassignment and later sued under Title VII and the ADEA.
Walton attempted for the first time in district-court briefing to add claims about exclusion from a CPI Team and unspecified failures to promote; the Navy moved for summary judgment.
The district court granted summary judgment to the Navy; on appeal the Fourth Circuit affirmed, identifying four independent bases: failure to exhaust administrative remedies for the new claims, failure to plead them, lack of direct evidence tying animus to the 2013 reassignment, and insufficient causation/pretext under McDonnell Douglas.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Administrative exhaustion of CPI Team and failure-to-promote claims	Walton contends those are part of her retaliation case and reasonably related to her 2013 EEOC charge	Navy: Walton never raised those discrete claims to the EEOC; they are not reasonably related and thus are unexhausted	Claims are procedurally barred for failure to exhaust administrative remedies
Adequacy of pleading for new promotion/CPI claims	Walton sought to litigate them in response to summary judgment despite not pleading them	Navy: claims were not pled in the Amended Complaint and cannot be raised at summary judgment or on appeal	Claims were not pled and therefore cannot be pursued
Direct evidence of retaliatory animus	Walton points to Johnson’s comment about not putting Walton on a CPI Team and Burgsteiner’s affidavit	Navy: the comment did not concern the 2013 reassignment and Johnson was not the decisionmaker for the reassignment	No direct evidence linking retaliatory animus to the 2013 realignment was shown
Causation and pretext under McDonnell Douglas	Walton argues intervening animus (per Lettieri) and prior EEOC filings establish causation	Navy: six-year gap (2007–2013) defeats temporal inference; reassignment was a legitimate, non-discriminatory reorganization and Walton shows no pretext	No causal nexus established; temporal gap and lack of recurring animus or pretext warrant summary judgment

Calloway v. Lokey, 948 F.3d 194 (4th Cir. 2020) (standard of review for summary judgment on appeal)
Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317 (U.S. 1986) (summary judgment burden principles)
Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53 (U.S. 2006) (scope and purpose of Title VII anti-retaliation provision)
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (U.S. 1973) (burden-shifting framework for discrimination/retaliation claims)
Chacko v. Patuxent Inst., 429 F.3d 505 (4th Cir. 2005) (EEOC charge defines scope of subsequent suit; exhaustion/relatedness limits)
Stewart v. Iancu, 912 F.3d 693 (4th Cir. 2019) (claims in suit limited to those in charge or reasonably related)
Lettieri v. Equant Inc., 478 F.3d 640 (4th Cir. 2007) (where temporal proximity is lacking, courts may consider intervening evidence of recurring animus)
Fort Bend Cnty., Tex. v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 1843 (U.S. 2019) (Title VII exhaustion is a mandatory non-jurisdictional processing rule)