MARY A. SLOOP, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MEMORIAL MISSION HOSPITAL, INCORPORATED, a North Carolina nonprofit corporation, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 98-2610
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
Corrected Opinion Filed: January 7, 2000
CORRECTED OPINION PUBLISHED
Argued: October 27, 1999
Decided: December 15, 1999
Before LUTTIG, WILLIAMS, and KING, Circuit Judges.
CORRECTIONS MADE IN REFERENCES TO THE EEOC
ARGUED: Allan Paul Root, ROOT & ROOT, Weaverville, North Carolina, for Appellant. Richard Samuel Daniels, PATLA, STRAUS, ROBINSON & MOORE, Asheville, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: John Richard Sutton, Sr., SUTTON & EDMUNDS, Candler, North Carolina, for Appellant.
OPINION
LUTTIG, Circuit Judge:
Appellant Mary Sloop appeals from the district court‘s grant of summary judgment to her former employer, appellee Mission Memorial Hospital, Inc. (“Hospitаl“), which resulted in the dismissal with prejudice of her claim that her discharge by the Hospital constituted an unfair employment practice under Title VII оf the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
I.
Mary Sloop attended a sexual hаrassment seminar held by the Hospital on November 7, 1996. At the seminar, several participants voiced concerns about the Hospital‘s aрproach to sexual harassment issues. Sloop‘s remarks concerned the Hospital‘s treatment of accused harassers. She felt that a Hospital policy specifying procedures that could protect accused harassers was not being implemented, thus creаting a hostile environment wherein one employee could damage another‘s career merely by raising a harassment charge agаinst him.
Apparently, the tenor of the seminar bothered many participants. The Hospital launched an investigation, as a result of which Sloop
The next day, Sloop filed a charge with the EEOC, claiming that her termination constituted age discrimination in violation of the Age Discriminаtion in Employment Act (ADEA),
After the EEOC dismissed Sloop‘s claim and issued a right-to-sue letter, she filed suit in the district court, аlleging that she was unlawfully terminated in retaliation for conduct protected under Title VII, rather than the ADEA. On August 28, 1998, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of thе Hospital, finding that the activity that Sloop alleged was the basis for the Hospital‘s decision to terminate her was not protected under Titlе VII.
II.
It is axiomatic that a claimant under Title VII must exhaust his administrative remedies by raising his claim before the EEOC. See Dennis v. County of Fairfax, 55 F.3d 151, 156 (4th Cir. 1995) (“Where . . . claims raised under Title VII excеed the scope of the EEOC charge and any charges that would naturally have arisen from an investigation thereof, they are procеdurally barred.“). This requirement is variously referred to as a jurisdictional prerequisite to adjudication in the federal courts, a procedural prerequisite to bringing suit, and a requirement that a claimant exhaust administrative remedies. Though the Hospital argued below that summary judgment should be granted in its favor because Sloop failed to meet this requirement, the district court made no mention of this argument in its summary judgment order, ruling instead on the merits of Sloop‘s Title VII argument.1
In the present case, it is indisputable that Sloop‘s EEOC charge failed to raise a retaliation claim or, for that mattеr, to make any reference to Title VII. The one sentence in Sloop‘s charge that alleges unlawful activity against the Hospital reаds, “I believe that I was discharged because of my age (52) in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act as amended.” J.A. 105. In addition, in the section of the form in which Sloop was required to check a box next to each unlawful basis on which she believed she was discriminated against, she cheсked only “AGE,” leaving blank the boxes next to each of the Title VII prohibited classifications. See id.
Sloop nevertheless asserts that she properly brought her Title VII retaliation claim before the EEOC. In support of this argument, she relies on the sole mention of a retaliation claim in her EEOC file -- a letter, from Sloop to the EEOC, written more than two months after her initial charge had been filed. In that letter, Sloop stated, “I am now aware thаt I need to add a charge of retaliation to my complaint.” J.A. 145. Even if we were to read this sentence as having effectuated an amendment to Sloop‘s initial charge, there is nothing in the sentence, or in the letter as a whole, to suggest that Sloop wanted to raise a Title VII rеtaliation argument, as opposed to an ADEA claim. In fact, Sloop reiterated in the letter her view that “the real reason for [her] dismissаl” was her age. Id. Moreover, Sloop took no action to amend her charge subsequent to sending the letter, and it is evident from the letter itsеlf that Sloop did not believe she had done so by sending the letter: the sentence following the one quoted above reads, “Please let mе know what I need to do in order to do this.” Id. Even if Sloop had subjectively believed she had amended her charge by sending the letter, it would be objectively illogical to view a private letter from a complaining party to the EEOC as constructively amending a formal charge, given that one of the purposes of requiring a party to file charges with the EEOC is to put the charged party on
We therefore conclude that Sloop‘s letter did not operate to rectify the deficiency in her initial EEOC charge.
For the reasons stated herein, we conclude that Slooр failed to exhaust her administrative remedies before the EEOC, and therefore dismiss her Title VII retaliation claim. We thus do not consider the merits of thаt claim, and vacate the judgment on the merits of Sloop‘s claim below.
VACATED AND DISMISSED