Catherine Jones v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued February 14, 2025 Decided September 5, 2025
No. 23-7157
CATHERINE JONES,
APPELLANT
v.
WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY,
APPELLEE
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 1:21-cv-01952)
Donna Williams Rucker argued the cause and filed the
briefs for appellant.
Michael K. Guss argued the cause and filed the brief for
appellee.
Before: SRINIVASAN, Chief Judge, KATSAS and GARCIA,
Circuit Judges.
Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge SRINIVASAN.

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SRINIVASAN, Chief Judge: This case concerns the proper
reading of an agreement settling claims brought by a union
against an employer in a union grievance process. The union’s
grievance charges asserted bullying and unfair performance
evaluation on an employee’s behalf. The employee separately
filed a Title VII discrimination suit against her employer in the
district court based on some of the same underlying factual
allegations.
The district court held that the settlement agreement in the
union grievance process barred the employee’s Title VII suit
and so granted summary judgment to the employer. We hold
that the agreement resolved only the union grievance claims
under the collective bargaining agreement and did not purport
to affect the employee’s Title VII action. We therefore vacate
the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the employer
and remand for further proceedings.
I.
Catherine Jones, the plaintiff in this case, began working
at Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
(WMATA) in 2006. Jones is part of the Office and
Professional Employees International Union, Local 2, and is
covered by Local 2’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA)
with WMATA. When Local 2 alleges a violation of the CBA
on behalf of an employee, the union’s claim proceeds through
a grievance process with WMATA.
In 2020 and 2021, Local 2 brought two grievances on
behalf of Jones of relevance here. First, in Grievance
GMS2020-464, Local 2 charged WMATA with unsatisfactory
and improper performance evaluations of Jones. Second,
Grievance GMS2020-465 charged WMATA with “Bullying
by Manager”—specifically, bullying of Jones by her
supervisor, Steven Segerlin.

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In July 2021, as the union grievance process went forward
on those two charges, Jones filed this lawsuit against WMATA
in the district court, bringing claims under Title VII and 42
U.S.C. § 1981. She alleges “discrimination based on her race
(African-American), hostile work environment, and retaliation
for engagement in protected EEO [Equal Employment
Opportunity] activity.” Complaint ¶ 1 (J.A. 809). Her suit
generally contends that, from 2017 to 2020, WMATA’s
management (including Segerlin) subjected her to
discrimination and harassment based on her race and to
retaliation for raising complaints about her treatment. Several
of the specific allegations of conduct that she contends was
discriminatory or retaliatory in her lawsuit involve the same
conduct that Local 2 alleged was in breach of the CBA in the
two union grievances it brought on her behalf.
On December 2, 2021, Local 2 reached a settlement
agreement with WMATA in the union grievance process. The
one-page agreement states in pertinent part:
This letter is written to document a
Settlement Agreement entered into by the
parties to address the issues raised in the
Local 2 grievances, GMS2020-464
(Untimely Performance Evaluation) and
GMS2020-465, (Bullying by her Manager)
on behalf of Senior Transit Planner,
Facilities, Catherine Jones ID# 007741,
regarding her concern about her being
unfairly treated by her current management.
The parties (WMATA and Local 2) on
behalf of Ms. Jones . . . have agreed to
resolve this grievance in the following
manner:

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1. The parties agree that Ms. Catherine Jones
ID#007741 will be allowed to transfer her
current position [to a different office]. . . .
2. The parties agree that as part of this
settlement, Ms. Catherine Jones ID#007741
withdraws any and all outstanding contract
grievances including GMS2020-464 and
GMS2020-465, with prejudice. . . .
3. The parties agree that this agreement
satisfies all claims of the grievances
GMS2020-464 and GMS2020-465 raised by
the Union on behalf of Ms. Catherine Jones’
ID#007741 and does not set any precedent
for any other grievance for any other
employee.
J.A. 1099. The signatures of a representative of each of the two
“parties (WMATA and Local 2)” specified in the agreement—
the Vice President of Labor Relations of WMATA and the
Assistant Chief Shop Steward of Local 2, respectively—are
affixed to the bottom of the agreement. Id. The agreement
does not provide for (or contain) Jones’s signature.
The following day, December 3, 2021, the same WMATA
official who signed the settlement agreement sent a two-page
memorandum to Jones, attaching the agreement. The
memorandum states that Jones would be transferred pursuant
to the settlement agreement and specifies when she should
report to her new position. In closing, the memorandum
requests that Jones sign the document to acknowledge her
receiving the information provided in it, which she did three
days later, on December 6, 2021. Id. at 1098.

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In January 2023, WMATA filed a motion for summary
judgment in this case, contending that the settlement with Local
2 in the union grievance process foreclosed Jones’s lawsuit.
The district court agreed.
The court held that Jones’s action is “barred by the
settlement agreement” and that “the Court need not address the
merits of the plaintiff’s Title VII claims.” Jones v. Washington
Metro. Area Transit Auth., No. CV 21-1952 (RBW), 2023 WL
6621100, at *3 (D.D.C. Oct. 11, 2023). The court read the
language of the settlement agreement to constitute an
unambiguous release of all claims “arising from the relevant
grievances—i.e., all claims relating to the alleged (1)
unsatisfactory performance evaluations and (2) bullying by the
plaintiff’s manager.” Id. at *5. The court then compared the
allegations in the union grievances and those in this case and
found that they centered on the same facts and sought similar
forms of relief. Id. at *5–*7. As a result, the court
“conclude[d] that the Title VII claims raised in the plaintiff’s
Complaint arise from the relevant grievances” and are “barred
by the settlement agreement.” Id. at *7.
II.
We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment
de novo. See Katopothis v. Windsor-Mount Joy Mutual
Insurance Co., 905 F.3d 661, 667 (D.C. Cir. 2018). “Summary
judgment on a contract dispute is generally inappropriate
unless the dispute is controlled by unambiguous contract
language.” Feld v. Fireman’s Fund Ins. Co., 909 F.3d 1186,
1194 (D.C. Cir. 2018).
We reject WMATA’s argument that Jones’s Title VII
claim is included within the scope of the settlement agreement
between Local 2 and WMATA. Setting aside whether a union
could validly settle a worker’s Title VII claim without her

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affirmative participation and consent, the settlement agreement
in this case cannot be read to cover Jones’s Title VII claims, let
alone do so in the kind of “unambiguous” language necessary
to warrant granting summary judgment in WMATA’s favor.
Id.
We construe the settlement agreement like any contract,
under “general principles of contract law.” Dyer v. Bilaal, 983
A.2d 349, 354 (D.C. 2009) (citation omitted). The agreement’s
plain language is addressed specifically to settlement of the
union’s grievance claims for breach of the CBA, and it does
not purport to treat with Jones’s then-pending lawsuit alleging
a violation of Title VII. The two types of claims are
fundamentally distinct: “a grievance is designed to vindicate a
contractual right under a CBA, while a lawsuit under Title VII
asserts independent statutory rights accorded by Congress.”
Wright v. Universal Mar. Serv. Corp., 525 U.S. 70, 76 (1998)
(quotation marks omitted).
The key language of the settlement agreement states that:
it is “entered into by the parties to address the issues raised in
the Local 2 grievances, GMS2020-464 . . . and GMS2020-
465”; it “resolve[s] this grievance in the following manner”;
and it “satisfies all claims of the grievances GMS2020-464 and
GMS2020-465 raised by the Union.” J.A. 1099. In every
respect and at every turn, the terms are directed to Local 2’s
union grievances, not Jones’s Title VII suit: the language states
that the agreement “address[es] the issues raised in the Local 2
grievances” and then specifies the grievance numbers; it
reiterates that the agreement “resolve[s] this grievance”; and
then it provides that the “agreement satisfies all claims of the
grievances” and repeats the grievance numbers. Id. (emphasis
added). And in reinforcing its focus on “the grievances,” the
agreement, upon stating that it “satisfies” the “claims of the
grievances,” specifies that it “does not set any precedent for

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any other grievance.” Id. (emphasis added). Throughout, the
focus is on the union grievances, and on union grievances
alone.
That is understandable, as the parties to the agreement are
the parties to the grievances being settled: the union, Local 2,
and the employer, WMATA. The agreement itself makes that
clear, saying that “[t]he parties (WMATA and Local 2) . . . have
agreed to resolve this grievance in the following manner.” Id.
Those are also the parties to the CBA, and the grievances allege
breaches of that CBA, to be resolved through a union-employer
grievance process agreed to by those parties in the CBA. And
because the settlement agreement resolved grievances between
those two parties under the CBA, there is no reason to suppose
it would pertain to a different action (under Title VII) pending
in a different forum (district court) filed by a different party
(Jones).
To be sure, Local 2 brought its union grievances “on behalf
of” Jones, as the agreement states. Id. But that does not make
Jones herself a consenting party to the agreement between
Local 2 and WMATA. That is why the agreement is executed
by representatives of Local 2 and WMATA and contains no
place for Jones’s signature. To the contrary, Jones’s signature
is affixed to a separate, subsequent document: the
memorandum sent by WMATA to her the next day advising
her that she would be transferred pursuant to the attached (and
already executed) settlement agreement and requesting her to
acknowledge her receipt of it. And just as Jones is not a listed
party to the settlement agreement with WMATA (rather, Local
2 is because it’s Local 2’s grievance), Local 2 is not a party to
the Title VII action against WMATA (rather, Jones is, because
it’s Jones’s lawsuit).

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WMATA seeks to make much of the fact that the
agreement says it “satisfies all claims of the grievances
GMS2020-464 and GMS2020-465.” Id. To WMATA, that
language suggests resolution of all claims somehow connected
to those specific grievances, even encompassing claims in a
lawsuit that reference some of the same underlying facts
alleged in the grievances. There is no cause to read the
agreement to intend any such understanding. Had Local 2 and
WMATA in fact sought to reach and resolve a pending claim
brought by Jones in a lawsuit—even assuming they could do
so—they presumably would have specified as much through
language referencing that action. The reference to “all claims
of the grievances” cannot be read to suggest any such intent.
Those words again speak to the “claims of the grievances,” not
claims of a separate lawsuit in another forum. And they refer
to “all claims” simply to make clear that they resolve every
claim in the grievances rather than a subset of those claims—
not to suggest an intent to reach claims not “of the grievances”
but of a lawsuit asserting violations of Title VII. Indeed, while
the underlying conduct giving rise to the claims overlaps, the
grievances allege that the conduct works a breach of contract
(the CBA) without once mentioning that it constitutes
discrimination based on race.
Notably, when the agreement does speak to matters
beyond the specific union grievances at issue—“grievances
GS2020-464 and GMS 2020-465,” id.—it expressly says so;
and even then, it is confined to union grievances under the
parties’ CBA, not matters beyond grievances like a Title VII
action in court. In particular, the agreement states that “as part
of this settlement, Ms. Catherine Jones ID#007741 withdraws
any and all outstanding contract grievances including
GMS2020-464 and GMS2020-465, with prejudice.” Id. Local
2 thereby agreed to resolve any other pending union grievances
it may have brought on Jones’s behalf against WMATA

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asserting breach of the CBA. But there is no indication that the
parties contemplated Jones herself would withdraw her
pending Title VII action. Cf. Alexander v. Gardner-Denver
Co., 415 U.S. 36, 50 (1974) (“The distinctly separate nature of
these contractual and statutory rights is not vitiated merely
because both were violated as a result of the same factual
occurrence.”).
Finally, the specific context of a potential waiver of Title
VII rights further counsels against reading the settlement
agreement to reach beyond Local 2’s breach of contract claims.
The Supreme Court has said that a “clear and unmistakable”
standard applies to any potential union waiver of an
employee’s procedural “right to a judicial forum for claims of
employment discrimination.” Wright, 525 U.S. at 80. Insofar
as a union could waive an employee’s pending, substantive
claim of employment discrimination in a judicial forum, the
waiver would have to be at least as clear. The settlement
agreement in this case does not approach such a standard.
* * * * *
For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the district court’s
grant of summary judgment and remand for further
proceedings.
So ordered.

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