In Weadd v. Thomas, 2023 WL 7385815 (E.D.La. Nov. 8, 2023), the court, inter alia, dismissed plaintiff’s sex discrimination claim, asserted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, due to her failure to exhaust administrative remedies at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
From the decision:
Here, Ms. Weadd’s EEOC charge only mentions “retaliation” in the section titled “Discrimination Based On.” Further, the particulars of her charge only describe retaliation. She alleges that she submitted a hostile work environment complaint to Sheriff Hutson verbally and in writing. But she describes only “harassment I received from Pearlina Thomas,” and does not indicate that she was experiencing harassment based on a category protected by Title VII or the LEDL. Ms. Weadd further alleges that she told the attorney investigating her complaint that she would move forward with her EEOC charge if she was not allowed to attend the interview with her attorney. She alleges she was discharged the next day. She alleges that although her discharge letter states she was discharged for poor job performance, she has never been disciplined.
The Court finds that Ms. Weadd’s EEOC charge does not even suggest that she was treated differently because of her sex. A sex discrimination charge could not be expected to grow out of the allegations in her EEOC filing. This case is like Thomas, Kebiro, and Parker, where the plaintiff later sought to assert a different Title VII claim than that raised in the EEOC charge. The Court finds that Ms. Weadd has failed to exhaust her administrative remedies as to any claim of sex discrimination against Sheriff Hutson. This claim must be dismissed.
The court reached the same conclusion as to plaintiff’s hostile work environment claims, reasoning that while plaintiff’s EEOC charge references a “hostile work environment” and “harassment,” she did not allege that the hostile work environment and harassment were “because of her race or sex.”