Tonia Smith v. Des Moines Water Works

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA _______________ No. 25-0742 Filed October 7, 2026 _______________ Tonia Smith, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Des Moines Water Works, Defendant–Appellee. _______________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, The Honorable Scott J. Beattie, Judge. _______________ AFFIRMED _______________ Marrissa Pasker (argued) (until withdrawal) and Christopher Stewart of Boles Witosky Stewart Law PLLC, Des Moines, attorneys for appellant. Spencer M. Willems (argued) and Sarah K. Franklin of Dentons Davis Brown PC, Des Moines, attorneys for appellee. _______________ Heard at oral argument by Greer, P.J., and Ahlers and Sandy, JJ. Opinion by Ahlers, J. 1 AHLERS, Judge. Tonia Smith appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of her employer, Des Moines Water Works (DMWW), dismissing her claims of racial harassment, failure to promote, and retaliation. We affirm. I. Background Facts and Prior Proceedings Smith began working for DMWW in 1991 as a mail clerk. Two years later, she became a customer service support representative. She met her now husband while working for DMWW. They married in 1999. He worked as a service worker for DMWW until his retirement in 2024. The customer service department of DMWW has three main divisions, each headed by a supervisor: the “customer service supervisor,” the “field customer/meter/ARM supervisor,” and the “field ops./customer collections supervisor.” Smith works under the supervision of the customer service supervisor, and her husband worked under the supervision of the field customer/meter/ARM supervisor. So, while both Smith and her husband worked within the DMWW customer service department, they were in different divisions. In 2006, Smith received a promotion to become a customer service coordinator, which is the position she currently holds. In 2020, she applied for a promotion to the position of customer service supervisor. In addition to regularly supervising one of the three main divisions, the customer service supervisor also rotates “on call” duties with the other division supervisors to cover all three divisions. That means that the customer service supervisor at times would supervise the division where Smith’s husband worked. In addition to splitting on-call duties, the three main supervisors also discuss 2 personnel matters with each other and have access to confidential information about all employees within the customer service department of DMWW. Because the customer service supervisor at times would serve in a supervisory role to Smith’s husband, Smith was informed that she was ineligible for the position under DMWW’s nepotism policy. The nepotism policy states, It is company policy not to hire close relatives of employees or board members in full-time, internships, part-time or seasonal/temporary positions. Close relatives include spouses, children, stepchildren, parents, stepparents, brothers/sisters, stepbrothers/sisters, brothers/sisters-in- law, mothers/fathers-in-law, sons/daughters-in-law, grandparents, and grandchildren. Employees who marry or become related by marriage will not be allowed to supervise their spouse or any close relative created by the marriage. If this situation arises, DMWW will work with the impacted employees to determine what, if anything, can be done so that all affected employees may remain as DMWW employees. DMWW promoted another person to fill the position for which Smith applied. Smith contends that the real reason she was not considered for the position is because she is African American. When the position became available again in 2021, Smith did not apply because she still believed she would not be considered due to her race. On August 26, 2021, Smith filed her first complaint with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission. She claimed she suffered harassment and failure to promote on the basis of her race. Smith applied for the supervisor position again in November 2022 and was again informed that she was ineligible because her husband still worked in the customer service department of DMWW. The next month, she filed a 3 second complaint with the commission, this time claiming failure to promote based on her race and retaliation for filing her first complaint. Smith eventually brought this action in district court. She made three claims: (1) “race and color harassment and discrimination in violation of Iowa Code chapter 216 [(2023)]”; (2) “violation of Iowa Code chapter 216— retaliation”; and (3) “violation of Iowa Code chapter 216—failure to promote.”1 DMWW filed a motion for summary judgment on all counts. It argued that Smith’s claims stemming from her 2021 civil rights complaint are time barred under chapter 216 because she cannot show that any wrongful act occurred within the 300 days preceding her first complaint. See Iowa Code § 216.15(13) (limiting claims related to discriminatory or unfair practices to those occurring within the prior 300 days). And DMWW contended Smith’s harassment claims relating to conduct occurring after the filing of her first complaint cannot continue because she failed to exhaust administrative remedies because she never filed a subsequent complaint with the commission alleging harassment. As for Smith’s retaliation claim and failure- to-promote claim stemming from her second complaint to the commission, DMWW argued that Smith failed to present any supporting factual basis to sustain the claims. Following a hearing, the district court granted the motion for summary judgment and dismissed Smith’s petition. Smith appeals. 1 The petition included another plaintiff who was later dismissed from the proceedings. 4 II. Standard of Review “We review summary judgment rulings for correction of errors at law.” Feeback v. Swift Pork Co., 988 N.W.2d 340, 346 (Iowa 2023) (citation omitted). We will affirm a ruling in favor of summary judgment if the movant has established that there is no genuine question of material fact and is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. When reviewing the record for purposes of summary judgment, we view it in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Id. III. Discussion Employment claims rooted in allegations of racial animus, like Smith’s, must first be filed with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission. Iowa Code §§ 216.5, .6, .15, .16. And the claims must relate to discriminatory or unfair practices occurring within the prior 300 days of that filing. Id. § 216.15(13). After the commission has investigated and provided the complainant with a release, sometimes referred to as a “right-to-sue letter,” the complainant may pursue the complainant’s identified claims in the district court.2 Id. § 216.16(2), (3)(a). A. The First Complaint Here, the district court determined that Smith could not pursue any claims raised in her first complaint to the commission, which alleged racial harassment and failure to promote based on her race, because she failed to present any evidence of wrongful conduct that occurred during the 300 days prior to her complaint. See id. § 216.15(13) (generally limiting complaints to 2 Complainants must file actions in the district court within ninety days of receiving a right-to-sue letter. Iowa Code § 216.16(4). Here, DMWW did not raise this as a basis for dismissing the claims relating to Smith’s first complaint. 5 wrongful conduct occurring in the past 300 days). Failure to promote is a discrete act. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 114 (2002). So each time DMWW did not promote Smith would amount to an actionable event.3 See id. And because failure to promote is a discrete act, that act must occur during the statutorily defined time period. Id. That time period is the 300 days preceding the filing of the complaint with the commission. Iowa Code § 216.15(13). The first time Smith was told she was ineligible for the supervisor position was more than 300 days before she filed her first complaint. So the district court correctly determined that Smith’s first complaint for failure to promote was not timely filed and was no longer actionable. As for Smith’s claim of racial harassment in her first complaint, we recognize that some claims allege ongoing harm in the form of a series of acts. In that instance, at least one discriminatory act must occur within the relevant time period. Hy-Vee Food Stores, 453 N.W.2d 512 at 528. The problem for Smith is that while she identified some troubling statements and events, such as seeing a noose hanging in a past supervisor’s office or overhearing coworkers question her ability to purchase her home or commenting on her appearance, she provides nothing to suggest any of these things occurred in the 300 days before her first complaint. In fact, she cannot say when those things happened. At best, she stated in her deposition that some of the harassing statements were made “in the last few years.” Nor would she commit to saying that it happened even monthly, so the frequency 3 To the extent that Smith, in an effort to avoid the time bar, now contends that DMWW’s failure to promote her was part of an ongoing system or policy to refuse to promote African Americans, see Hy-Vee Food Stores, Inc. v. Iowa C.R. Comm’n, 453 N.W.2d 512, 528–29 (Iowa 1990), she never claimed such an ongoing discriminatory system or policy existed in her complaint to the commission. 6 with which harassing statements were made remains uncertain enough that we cannot infer at least one statement was made within the relevant time period. As Smith is unable to identify a single harassing act occurring within the 300 days leading to her first complaint, the district court correctly determined that her first complaint alleging racial harassment was not timely filed. Accordingly, we limit our consideration to the claims Smith made in her second complaint to the commission. B. The Second Complaint Smith’s second complaint again raised a failure-to-promote claim and also alleged retaliation for filing her first complaint.4 We begin by addressing her failure-to-promote claim. 1. Failure to Promote At the summary judgment stage of a claim filed under Iowa Code chapter 216, we apply a burden-shifting test. Feeback, 988 N.W.2d at 347–48. First, Smith must show she is a member of a protected group, she was qualified for the position, and she faced an adverse employment decision that raises an inference of discrimination. See id. at 347. Then, the burden shifts to DMWW to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the employment decision. Id. And finally, the burden then shifts back to Smith to show DMWW’s stated reason is pretextual or not the only reason for the adverse employment decision. Id. at 348. The parties agree that Smith is a member of a protected group as an African American. They disagree as to whether she was qualified for the position. DMWW contends her marriage to her husband made her 4 Her second complaint did not raise any harassment claim. 7 unqualified for the position under the nepotism policy because she would sometimes have to supervise him. We bypass this question and assume without deciding that Smith was qualified for the supervisor position. As Smith did not receive the promotion, and it went to a white person who had less experience than Smith, Smith has generated a fact question by raising an inference of discrimination. So the burden then shifts to DMWW to show a nondiscriminatory reason for its decision not to award Smith the supervisor position. This is where the nepotism policy comes into play. Because the supervisor would sometimes supervise Smith’s husband and would discuss with the other division supervisors personnel issues within the division wherein Smith’s husband worked, the nepotism policy clearly applied to Smith. So DMWW had a nondiscriminatory reason for not promoting Smith to the supervisor position. As DMWW provided a nondiscriminatory reason for not promoting Smith, the burden shifts back to Smith to show that DMWW’s reliance on the nepotism policy to deny her the promotion was pretextual. She highlights that she sometimes fills in or provides coverage for the supervisor, so she reasons she is doing the job already anyway. But when providing that coverage, she does not cover the entirety of the supervisor role. She does not cover the supervisor’s on-call duties across the customer service department, nor does she take part in the personnel discussions. So this argument fails to show pretext. Smith also tries to meet her burden to show pretext by using comparators. See id. at 350 (noting that pretext is commonly shown by introducing evidence that the employer treated similarly situated employees differently). She points to other couples who worked at DMWW while one 8 spouse is a supervisor in an effort to show that the nepotism policy is not applied in the same manner to white couples. But the individuals identified as comparators did not work in the same departments as their partner, so neither would ever supervise the other.5 And she identifies siblings wherein one works for DMWW and the other completed an internship with DMWW. But she does not know what departments they worked in or whether one was in a supervisory role over the other. In short, Smith did not present evidence that DMWW’s application of the nepotism policy was not a legitimate basis for denying her the promotion. The district court correctly granted summary judgment as to this claim. 2. Retaliation Claim Finally, we address Smith’s retaliation claim. Section 216.11(2) prohibits any party from retaliating against a person for filing a claim under chapter 216. To establish a retaliation claim, Smith must show that she engaged in a statutorily protected activity, she suffered adverse consequences as a result, and there is a causal connection between the two. Selden v. Des Moines Area Cmty. Coll., 2 N.W.3d 437, 447 (Iowa 2024). “To establish a causal connection, [Smith] must show [her] protected activity was a motivating factor in [DMWW]’s subsequent adverse employment action.” Id. (citation omitted). And “temporal proximity is generally insufficient alone to establish the causal connection.” Id. (citation omitted). Smith argues that DMWW retaliated against her for filing her first complaint with the commission by rejecting her second application for the supervisor position and denying some of her requested vacation. As for her 5 As to one comparator, a woman was a customer service supervisor and her husband worked in the water distribution branch. As to another, the husband was a supervisor of field customer service, and his wife worked in IT. 9 claim relating to not getting the promotion, she cannot establish a causal connection. As previously discussed, DMWW denied her the promotion because its nepotism policy made her ineligible for the supervisor role so long as her husband continued to work in the customer service department. See id. at 448. And Smith provides no evidence that DMWW’s decision was motivated by anything other than its consistent application of its nepotism policy. As for her vacation request, DMWW challenges Smith’s contention that denying the request constitutes adverse employment action. We bypass that issue and assume without deciding that it was an adverse employment action. Nevertheless, Smith cannot establish a causal connection between filing her first complaint and the limitation put on her end-of-the-year vacation. Smith historically took time off at the end of every year. And she filed a request for time off from December 20, 2022, through January 6, 2023. It was not initially approved. Eventually, her request for time off was approved, less three days. She reasons that, because she made the initial time-off request a few months after her first complaint, she did not receive all of the time off she requested in retaliation for filing her complaint. But Smith concedes in her brief that temporal proximity alone generally is not enough to establish a causal connection. So she generally argues that the pushback on her vacation request “when combined with the circumstances surrounding each of the adverse employment actions, is sufficient to raise the inference that retaliation was a motivating factor.” But she does not elaborate as to what surrounding circumstances show animus toward her. As DMWW points out, the DMWW handbook provides that vacation requests covering more than two weeks require special approval. And Smith had never requested more than two consecutive weeks off before, explaining the difference in treatment between her 2022 request and prior requests. 10  Smith cannot establish a causal connection between her 2022 year-end vacation request and her filing of her first complaint with the commission. Her retaliation claim based on the partial denial of her vacation request fails accordingly. IV. Conclusion We have considered all of Smith’s appellate arguments and find them to be without merit, including those not expressly addressed herein. We conclude that the district court correctly granted summary judgment in favor of DMWW. AFFIRMED. 11