Velazquez-Ortiz v. Vilsack, No. 10-1787 (1st Cir. 2011)
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Plaintiff, an employee of the USDA since 1977, claimed discrimination based on age and gender and retaliation for having complained about discrimination in the past. The district court entered summary judgment against her on claims under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-16(a). The First Circuit affirmed. Having failed to raise a claim of sex-based discrimination in her 1997 EEOC complaint, plaintiff failed to exhaust administrative remedies. Her retaliation claim failed for lack of proof of causation. The passage of several years, coupled with the fact that the person in question merely had knowledge of plaintiff's prior complaints, made any inference of causation unreasonable. An age discrimination claim failed because no reasonable fact-finder could conclude that age was a motivating factor in the decision to promote another, rather than plaintiff.
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