Meenakshi Venugopal v. Shire Laboratories, Incorporated

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 04-2201
MEENAKSHI VENUGOPAL,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
SHIRE LABORATORIES, INCORPORATED,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Greenbelt. Alexander Williams, Jr., District Judge.
(CA-02-3534-AW)
Argued: May 26, 2005 Decided: June 16, 2005
Before WILKINS, Chief Judge, and WILKINSON and GREGORY, Circuit
Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Marc Jonathan Smith, SMITH, LEASE & GOLDSTEIN, L.L.C.,
Rockville, Maryland, for Appellant. Steven William Ray, RAY &
ISLER, P.C., Vienna, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Edward L.
Isler, Jeffrey L. Rhodes, RAY & ISLER, P.C., Vienna, Virginia, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
See Local Rule 36(c).

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PER CURIAM:
Meenakshi Venugopal appeals a district court order granting
summary judgment to Shire Laboratories, Incorporated (Shire) on
Venugopal’s claims arising from her former employment with Shire.
We affirm.
I.
Shire is a pharmaceutical company based in Rockville,
Maryland. In early 1999, Shire hired Venugopal, who is of Indian
national origin, as its manager of preformulation sciences.
Thereafter, Venugopal received generally strong performance
evaluations and several salary increases. In addition, Venugopal
was promoted to assistant director of preformulation sciences,
resulting in an increase in compensation and change in title but no
change in job responsibilities.
In December 2000, Shire began advertising to fill the position
of head of preformulation sciences. Between October 2000 and
January 2002, Shire interviewed five candidates for this position.
Two of these candidates, the first of Chinese national origin and
the second of American national origin, were offered the position;
both declined. In January 2002, Shire interviewed Mark Ginski, who
is of American national origin, for the position. The day after
Ginski’s interview, Venugopal inquired whether she could apply for
the position; she was informed that she could apply. Venugopal
submitted her application the next day. Soon thereafter, Shire

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offered the position to Ginski, and he accepted it. A few months
later, Venugopal resigned.
Venugopal subsequently brought this action alleging that
(1) Shire’s decision not to promote her was motivated by national
origin discrimination, in violation of Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, see 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e-2(a)(1) (West 2003);
and (2) Shire constructively discharged her in violation of
Title VII, see id. Following discovery, Shire moved for summary
judgment. The district court granted summary judgment to Shire on
each of Venugopal’s claims. Applying the burden-shifting analysis
of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-05 (1973),
the district court determined that Venugopal had established a
prima facie case of national origin discrimination. The court
ruled, however, that Shire had provided a legitimate
nondiscriminatory reason for hiring Ginski instead of promoting
Venugopal--namely, that Ginski was more qualified for the position.
Further, the court determined that Venugopal had not presented
sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact
about whether Shire’s proffered reason was pretextual. The
district court also rejected Venugopal’s constructive discharge
claim, noting that Venugopal had failed to demonstrate that Shire’s
failure to promote her was discriminatory or that Shire otherwise
deliberately subjected her to intolerable working conditions.

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II.
After reviewing the parties’ briefs and the applicable law,
and having had the benefit of oral argument, we conclude that the
district court correctly decided the issues before it.
Accordingly, we affirm on the reasoning of the district court.
See Venugopal v. Shire Labs., 334 F. Supp. 2d 835 (D. Md. 2004).
AFFIRMED

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