Full opinion text
SEYMOUR, Circuit Judge. Gina L. Miller filed suit against AAA New Mexico, alleging disparate treatment on the basis of gender and age, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. (Title VII), and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. (ADEA), and retaliation under Title VII, the ADEA, and New Mexico state law. She also asserted a claim under the Equal Pay Act, 29 U.S.C. § 206(d)(EPA), along with state law claims for breach of an implied employment contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The district court dismissed Ms. Miller’s discrimination, retaliation, and EPA claims on summary judgment. Her implied contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing claims proceeded to trial, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict. The court declared a mistrial, and subsequently entered judgment as a matter of law on behalf of AAA New Mexico. Ms. Miller appeals the district court’s rulings. We affirm. I Ms. Miller’s two basic contentions on appeal are that the district court erred in granting summary judgment and judgment as a matter of law to AAA New Mexico on her various claims. Our standards of review of these two judgments are highly similar and require that we view the facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. See Coldesina v. Estate of Simper, 407 F.3d 1126, 1130-31 (10th Cir.2005) (reviewing grant of summary judgment de novo, and construing facts in light most favorable to non-moving party); Tyler v. Re/Max Mountain States, Inc., 232 F.3d 808, 812 (10th Cir.2000) (reviewing judgment as matter of law de novo, and viewing evidence and inferences drawn therefrom in favor of non-moving party). Under these required standards, the record reflects the following. Ms. Miller began working for AAA New Mexico in August 1996 as a part-time traffic reporter. Her position was officially classified as “senior clerk” and she was paid on an hourly basis. Ms. Miller reported directly to Brenda Yager, manager of the Public and Government Affairs (PGA) department. At the start of her employment, Ms. Miller received a copy of the AAA New Mexico Handbook which detailed that her employment was at-will. The handbook also contained a disclaimer stating in part: “This at-will employment relationship may not be modified by any oral or implied agreement. No provision of this employee handbook, including the Involuntary Termination section ... or of any Club policies shall create any contractual obligations inconsistent with the at-will nature of the employment relationship.” App., vol. VII at 1369-70. About three months after Ms. Miller began working for AAA New Mexico, Ms. Yager asked if she would be interested in working extra hours performing public relations duties at her current rate of pay. Ms. Miller agreed. Acknowledging the extra duties Ms. Miller had assumed, Ms. Yager gave her permission to call herself a “Public and Government Relations Specialist.” Ms. Yager also had Ms. Miller distribute a memorandum to the rest of the AAA New Mexico staff indicating she had taken on additional duties, in conjunction with her traffic reporting duties, in the department. Sometime during the early part of 1997, Ms. Miller asked Ms. Yager whether she was working outside the scope of her official job description as a part-time traffic reporter/senior clerk, and whether she was being paid appropriately. As Ms. Miller eventually testified at trial, Ms. Yager agreed that she was “working outside [her] job description at the time, and ... agreed that the position should be graded higher, classified at a higher rate of pay.” Id., vol. Ill at 640. In response to Ms. Miller’s query as to how or whether this could be rectified, Ms. Miller testified Ms. Yager told her not to worry, because the company was going through some changes and they were actually getting ready to evaluate positions throughout the company and that there was a good chance that the position was going to be reclassified, in fact, would be reclassified at that time and graded at a higher ... rate. Id. at 642. In April 1997, Ms. Yager had Ms. Miller fill out two different job questionnaires for a job study. One questionnaire was for her position as part-time traffic reporter, and the other was to detail her public affairs duties. Ms. Yager stated that the questionnaires were to be used by human resources in the California main office to evaluate and reclassify positions. She expected the review and reclassification process would take “a few weeks ... maybe two to three months at the most.” Id. at 643. Ms. Miller anticipated that when the job study reclassification process was complete, she would receive increased compensation for her work. The job study was completed in September 1997, but to both Ms. Miller’s and Ms. Yager’s dissatisfaction, the study did not “actually take the information that Ms. Miller provided and determine whether or not her title was correct or she was being paid correctly.” Id., vol. IV at 868. Rather, the study used the job questionnaires to perform a comparison between the different state AAA offices under the auspices of the Automobile Club of Southern California to ensure the current positions in the state offices were similarly ranked. It was not the type of “true job study” Ms. Yager had expected or what she “was originally told ... was going to happen.” Id. at 867. Ms. Yager was unhappy with the results of the study, and continued to affirm to Ms. Miller that she thought Ms. Miller was performing duties outside of her job classification, and should be better compensated. Ms. Yager promised Ms. Miller she was going to follow up with human resources and look into the problem. On January 9, 1998, Ms. Yager sent a letter to her then direct supervisor, Steve Lenzi, urging the review of the staffing needs in her department, especially Ms. Miller’s position. Referring to the work Ms. Miller was performing as both a public relations assistant and a traffic reporter, she wrote that “[t]wo positions exist in the public and government affairs department ... that need to [be] evaluated for correct title and salary grade.” Id. at 874; id., vol. VI at 1279. She informed Mr. Lenzi she believed the current titles and grades were inappropriate and asked that the positions be upgraded. She also noted that an upgrade of the two positions would impact Ms. Miller, who was then working about thirty-five hours a week. Mr. Lenzi gave Ms. Yager permission to contact human resources to request they perform an evaluation of her department’s needs as well as the positions for possible upgrading. Ms. Miller further testified that during the winter of 1998, Ms. Yager assured her she was continuing her conversations with human resources and that Ms. Miller “would receive an upgrade and be reclassified based on the information that [Ms. Yager] had received from her management.” Id., vol. Ill at 657-58. Ms. Miller testified she believed an “upgrade” meant “a new job title, the correct job description,” id. at 658, and a “regular” position with full benefits, in which she worked thirty-five hours a week. Id. at 657-58. She further testified that Ms. Yager stated the upgrade would happen “soon, within a few weeks or a few months.” Id. at 659. However, Ms. Miller was unable to testify as to the exact date of the upgrade, or the exact salary she would receive upon that date. Id. In the meantime, Ms. Yager’s supervisors indicated to her that it would be easier to provide wage increases to her employees than to go through the process of creating regular posts. Ms. Yager testified she was informed that in order to create regular posts in her department “a job study would have to be done, and that it was a very lengthy process, and if I was looking at providing increased compensation immediately, [a pay raise] was the way to do it.” Id., vol. II at 282. Ms. Yager would rather have gone through the process of obtaining regular positions, but she nonetheless increased Ms. Miller’s wage to $10.00 an hour. Upon determining that one of the employees who also received a raise had just joined the company and had been trained by Ms. Miller, Ms. Yager increased Ms. Miller’s hourly rate to $10.50, retroactive to the date of the $10.00 wage increase. All of Ms. Miller’s male colleagues in the PGA department were also classified as “clerk, intermediate” and worked in hourly part-time positions. There only appears to be one instance, during a three month period in 1997, when a male co-worker earned eight cents an hour more than Ms. Miller. Between 1998 and the spring of 2000, however, no male in Ms. Miller’s department received an hourly wage that surpassed hers. In November or December 1998, Leigh Matthewson, Ms. Miller’s mother, began working in the PGA department as a contract employee doing public affairs work. Ms. Yager eventually hired her in May 1999 in a hourly position with the official classification of “clerk, intermediate.” At the time she was hired, Ms. Matthewson said she was interested in a position with benefits but Ms. Yager informed her she did not have a regular benefitted position to offer her. At trial, Ms. Matthewson testified she agreed to work for AAA New Mexico because of her understanding that the position she would be filling was in the process of being upgraded to a regular post. She was unable to identify a specific date upon which the position would in fact be upgraded, or a date on which she would start receiving benefits. In February 1999, Ms. Yager informed Ms. Miller she was still working on obtaining the upgrade. Ms. Miller testified Ms. Yager “had promised that the upgrade process was ongoing and that [the upgrade] would happen.” Id., vol. Ill at 675. Ms. Yager, Ms. Miller, and Ms. Mat-thewson participated in a number of brainstorming sessions during which they discussed how they hoped the department might be reorganized in light of the potential upgrades. Throughout this process, Ms. Yager testified she told the two women “you know, I don’t know how much input, how much say I’m going to have. But certainly, let’s talk about some things that might be workable. And if I have input, then that’s good. Then I’m armed with better information and with how we think things might work best [for our department].” Id., vol. IV at 946. In May of that year, Ms. Yager included two regular positions in her 2000 budget proposal. In submitting her budget request to her general manager, she noted that “[i]n the 2000 budget, I’ve upgraded [Ms. Miller’s] and [Ms. Matthewson’s] positions to regular employees rather than hourly. They already are working the hours (35 and 40 respectively) but they are not currently getting benefits. This is the one item that I would like to protect above others.” Id. at 891; id., vol. VI at 1285. Ms. Yager testified that her manager agreed to honor her request. On July 1, 1999, Ms. Yager again met with Ms. Miller and Ms. Matthewson to discuss the status of the 2000 proposed budget which included the two regular positions. Ms. Miller’s trial testimony indicated Ms. Yager informed the women “[t]he upgrades were imminent. They were going to come through any time.... ” Id., vol. Ill at 678-79; id., vol. IV at 892. Ms. Yager testified that “I didn’t say that was the final word. But yes, I said it was looking good, that at least at this juncture, we had a long ways to go in the budget, but at least as of this juncture, they were in the budget.” Id., vol. IV at 891-92. She also testified that “human resources temporarily approved for the use of [the titles of Public Affair Specialists] on business cards. And I actually said to them that they may not be the job titles that we end up with, but for right now, they’re fine.” Id. at 892; id., vol. Ill at 678-79. Ms. Miller and her mother were “absolutely elated because [Ms. Yager] said the positions were approved or going to be approved, just within a short period of time.... ” Id., vol. IV at 991. Around this time, Ms. Miller raised the question of whether she would receive retroactive pay for the public affairs work she had already performed for the PGA department. She testified Ms. Yager was not clear on the answer to this question, but would look into it for her. Ms. Miller said Ms. Yager “believed I should receive retroactive compensation for the time that I have worked outside of my job description; that I had clearly been working out[side] of my job description for years ... and that she believed I should receive retroactive compensation.” Id., vol. Ill at 681, 772. However, at trial Ms. Miller also made clear she had “never testified that anyone told me I was going to receive retroactive compensation.” Id. at 773. Ms. Yager also testified that upon being asked by Ms. Miller whether she would receive retroactive pay, Ms. Yager responded it “was highly unlikely that the company would consider that, but [she] wasn’t going to discount anything....” Id., vol. IV at 950. Despite Ms. Miller’s and Ms. Matthew-son’s belief that the position upgrades would occur soon after their July meeting with Ms. Yager, nothing happened. Later that month, Ms. Miller contacted a member of the human resources department in California and inquired as to the status of the job review process. She was informed the process had not yet begun, but that “[a]ll positions in New Mexico (as well as Texas and Hawaii) are going to be evaluated hopefully this year.” Id., vol. VI at 1287; id., vol. Ill at 683. Ms. Miller was “shocked and dismayed” at this response because it was her understanding that the upgrades “were just around the corner.” Id., vol. Ill at 683. Ms. Miller testified that in asking Ms. Yager about the delay, Ms. Yager assured her that “there was no problem at all with the upgrade. The upgrade was going to take place. It was simply a matter of the timing....” Id. at 684. Ms. Yager met with Ms. Miller and her mother again in late September 1999. She said she was sorry the process was taking so long, but “[s]he was not clear about a time line ... because she couldn’t get a time line from human resources.” Id. at 687. In an effort to garner more information about the job evaluation process, Ms. Matthewson contacted human resources in October. The response from the human resources staff member indicated that [a]s far as I know, those positions are being looked at and it is expected that they will be upgraded to reflect more of your current duties. Those positions will not be even looked at until next month sometime, and should be completed prior to January. When the study is done it is expected that they will include the items you mentioned including job description, status and compensation .... Since they have not even been started yet, it is hard for me to give you much more info. Our compensation department will be working on them along with your local management and Public Affairs management here in California. Hope this helps — currently I don’t have more definitive answers. Id., vol. VI at 1289; id., vol. Ill at 689. Ms. Miller and her mother were “shocked [and] upset,” id., vol. Ill at 689, by the response, and could not understand why the process was taking so long “especially when [Ms. Yager] had adamantly said that she had submitted all the paperwork necessary and that the job upgrade was just around the corner....” Id. at 690. Ms. Yager was equally “devastated” to learn the upgrade review process was so delayed. Id., vol. IV at 894. She testified it was her “understanding, at least in the fall of 1999, that [human resources] was, in fact, working on [the] positions,” id. at 893, and it was her belief that completion of the process “was imminent.” Id. at 894. Her perception from speaking with staff in the human resources department was that “everything was on track for the job study to be completed by the end of the year.” Id. at 947. Hence, she was “upset” to learn that the process “had not even been started yet.” Id. at 894. It was very important to her that the regular positions be created because she had “been telling Ms. Matthewson and Ms. Miller that the process was happening and it would be soon” and “that the job study would be completed by the end of the year.” Id. Ms. Yager had another meeting with Ms. Miller and her mother during the first week of November to further discuss the upgrade process. Ms. Yager confirmed that at the meeting Ms. Miller stated she “thought the company was not treating her equitably ... it wasn’t fair ... [and] was discriminatory.” Id., vol. II at 289. In an affidavit, Ms. Miller also stated she knew that the traffic reporters were paid nearly the same that [she was], but the traffic reporters did not perform any “lead” traffic reporting duties and did not perform public affairs specialist duties. It seemed very unfair and [she] could not find any other explanation for these differences except [her] sex.... [She] complained to [Ms. Yager] that [she] thought what the company was doing was discriminatory, that it was not right, and that it was unfair. Id. at 340; see also id. at 289-90 (Ms. Miller stated her “pay was unfair compared to the men in the department”). Ms. Yager informed the Human Resources department that Ms. Miller “thought she was being treated unfairly, that she was being discriminated against, and that she thought she was being treated differently than male employees.” Id. at 290. On November 17, Ms. Yager met with Alice Bisno, her then direct supervisor, and two other members of the human resources department, to discuss her request to create two new regular positions in her department. While Ms. Yager had previously discussed the upgrade requests with Ms. Bisno, the meeting “was the first time [they] actually talked about possible ways to reorganize” the department. Id., vol. IV at 896. Ms. Yager testified that her understanding of the purpose of the meetings, as well as her request for upgrades, was to move the jobs from “hourly position[s] to ... regular position[s].” Id. at 897. She did not recall ever directly engaging in a conversation about eliminating Ms. Miller and Ms. Matthewson’s hourly positions, nor was a “conscious decision” ever made in this regard. Id., vol. I at 156. Rather, she and her colleagues “looked at what the business needs of the operation were and we decided that those two part-time positions were not serving the needs of the department and that we needed two full-time positions. And it was my understanding that that’s what the two employees were requesting as well.” Id.; see also id., vol. II at 298-300; id., vol. IV at 898-99. On December 15, 1999, Ms. Miller and her mother again met with Ms. Yager to inquire as to the status of the review process, and whether they would be classified as regular employees by Christmas so that they could take paid vacation over the holidays. Ms. Yager “told [them] there was no news ... that the upgrade process had still not been completed, and it would be maybe sometime in January before ... she could give [them] a final [report] on the upgrade completion.” Id., vol. Ill at 694. Ms. Yager apologized to the women for length of time it was taking to complete the process. Ms. Miller testified that “she said, T believe what the company is doing is morally wrong, and I don’t agree with it, and I’m really sorry. And if you can just hang on a little bit longer, it’s ’ ” Id. at 696. After the holidays, Ms. Miller testified that Ms. Yager was unable to provide the two women with any further information about the job evaluation process. Ms. Miller stated that upon asking Ms. Yager “when [she and her mother] could expect the upgrade ... her response ... was 1 have no idea. I have no idea.’ ” Id. at 702. On January 31, 2000, Ms. Miller again met with Ms. Yager. At that meeting, Ms. Yager indicated that she didn’t have any further answers for me at that time. She told me, encouraged me to talk to human resources about all of my concerns, because she didn’t feel like she could answer those questions. She still told me that the upgrade was a certainty. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was when it was going to be completed.... And then ... we talked about the retroactive compensation .... [a]nd she said that she thought that I should receive the retroactive compensation. Id. at 706. Soon after that meeting, Ms. Miller and her mother learned they would be meeting with Ms. Yager and Ms. Bisno to address their employment concerns. In preparation for the meeting, Ms. Miller sent a memorandum to Ms. Bisno stating she hoped Ms. Bisno could “provide a detailed status report on our forthcoming job upgrades.” Id., vol. II at 379. She noted that while she understood the new job title for the upgraded position would be “Public Affairs Specialist II,” she still had “no idea of the job responsibilities and parameters” of the position. Id. She further inquired as to what the “ ‘grade’ classification and salary band” was for the proposed new post. Id. She also stated “[i]n that it is illegal to do so, how am I to continue performing daily job duties outside of my classification, as I’ve done for over three years, without any promise of good faith or compensation on the part of the company?” Id. at 380. Ms. Bisno, along with Ms. Yager, met with Ms. Miller and her mother in New Mexico on February 10, 2000. Ms. Bisno informed the women that as a result of the job study, their current part-time hourly positions were being eliminated, and replaced by two new full-time regular positions. At that time, neither Ms. Bisno nor Ms. Yager knew “what the compensation for the positionfs] would be.” Id., vol. Ill at 714. Pursuant to AAA New Mexico policy, the new positions had to be posted and Ms. Miller and her mother would have to apply for them. They were encouraged to apply for the new positions, but were also told there were no absolute guarantees they would be selected. The women were informed they would not receive any retroactive pay for the public relations duties they had performed under their “clerk, intermediate” titles. Id. at 717. Nonetheless, Ms. Miller stated that Ms. Bisno “said she would promise to investigate our concerns and our complaints about discrimination.” Id., vol. II at 347. Ms. Yager was involved in drafting the job descriptions for the new positions. She maintained that they were not written with any one person in mind but instead were based on the business needs of her department. As she testified at trial, she and her colleagues looked at the needs of the department and wrote the job description around that. And when [she eventually] shared the job description with [Ms. Miller], [she] told her ... “We can’t write this job description specifically for you, because when you leave the company, then we have a job description that fits you but not the needs of the business. And so what we have to do is write the job description so it fits the need of the business and choose the most qualified candidate.” Id., vol. IV at 925. She also testified that if Ms. Miller had applied for job, she would have considered her for the position because she “was the most qualified candidate.” Id. at 927. She commented that [e]ven though ... there were additional things in the job description that [Ms. Miller] hadn’t done before, I felt that it was something that she could do. She could learn many of those things that she hadn’t done in the past, and even though we were changing the focus of the job from ... the primary focus before was traffic reporting and we were actually changing that to become a very minor part of the job and the public affairs piece was the greater piece, I felt [Ms. Miller] could do the job. Id., vol. II at 300. Ms. Yager also noted that while the new position required some heavy lifting, she had previously made accommodations for Ms. Miller in this respect in her hourly position and would do the same in the new job. The new jobs were not merely reclassified positions representing the work previously being performed by Ms. Miller and her mother. Rather, they included “everything they were doing plus things.” Id., vol. IV at 903, 918. Ms. Yager noted that her department’s needs included positions in which the employees could devote more hours to their tasks as well as perform additional job duties. For example, she needed someone to act as an advocate on behalf of the company. Ms. Yager commented that “[w]e analyze information, and based on the information we analyze, propose legislation. So I certainly wanted [someone doing legislative advocacy work].” Id., vol. II at 294. She also stated she needed “someone to be able to synthesize, research and be able to come up with programs based on research.” Id. In regard to the position best suited for Ms. Miller, Ms. Yager testified there were several aspects of the new job Ms. Miller did not perform as an hourly employee. In reviewing the job description for the new post, Ms. Yager noted Ms. Miller wasn’t developing strategic approaches to project assignments. She was doing limited research and investigation. She was not providing technical authoritative information resource. She was not ... [c]omp[iling] and synthesizing] information. ... [S]he was not evaluating “research findings and interpreting] for policy development.” She was not tailoring “research results to become [an] advocacy tool in [the] public forum.” She was not recommending “strategies and issues to management for policy development.” She was doing very limited “influencing] and persuading] policy of affiliate organizations.” ... She was not ... [acting as an] “advocate within coalitions to further organizations, member and insured interests.” She was not interpreting and refining “policy incorporating affiliate and organizational feedback.” Id. at 294-95. None of these tasks had previously been assigned to Ms. Miller in her hourly position. Rather, Ms. Yager had been performing the tasks herself. Likewise, there were duties inherent to a regular public relations position, like being on-call for the company, that Ms. Miller was not performing. Ms. Miller and her mother sent a memorandum to Ms. Bisno soon after the February 2000 meeting outlining their understanding of what transpired and asking a series of follow-up questions. Id., vol. VI at 1298-1300. Nothing in the memorandum alleged discrimination based on protected status. On February 24, Ms. Bisno informed Ms. Yager and the other human resources staff members involved in the restructuring of Ms. Yager’s department that she did not intend to respond to the memo ... it’s all the same issues discussed at our meeting in New Mexico. The employees simply do not like the answers they got and, until we come to some resolution, I don’t intend to change them and don’t see much value in repeating them. Id., vol. II at 381; see also id. at 332. In early March 2000, Ms. Miller had a meeting with Clarence Sandy, the human resources staff person assigned to AAA New Mexico, to “address some of [her] concerns over departmental inequities as they relate to job title, description, status, compensation and benefits.” Id. at 384. In a follow-up memorandum memo to Mr. Sandy, Ms. Miller noted that all the male traffic reporters hired in the PGA department had started at higher rates of pay than her starting rate of pay, even though they came to the job “with little or no broadcast experience.” Id. at 385. She further asserted that I currently make a few cents more per hour than the two other Traffic Reporters I trained and continue to manage, both men. I perform “LEAD Traffic Reporter” operational duties while wearing the second hat of “Public Affairs Specialist,” while these other employees do nothing more than come and go to report traffic on a part-time or back-up basis. Id. While she understood that “club policy on compensation and benefits can vary widely from department to department within the company,” id. at 386, she nonetheless believed that “this type of arbitrary allocation [where she was working 35 hours a week, but still being paid as a part-time hourly employee] appears unusual in [her] experience and because it is arbitrary — inherently discriminatory.” Id. She also stated that as a result of the company’s “inequities and inconsistencies ... in compensation,” she felt particularly exploited. It’s led me to believe, after having forthrightly expressed my concerns to [Ms. Yager] over the years about compensation, lack of communication and direction, etc., that the treatment I’ve received in this department as to compensation and the denial of benefits, is egregiously unfair, retaliatory and discriminatory. Id. at 385. In response, Mr. Sandy testified that “none of [Ms. Miller’s] statements ... would fit ‘discriminatory’ because hourlies don’t have benefits unless you became a regular employee.” Id., vol. I at 214. He also testified that in response to Ms. Miller’s allegation as to discriminatory payment practices in the PGA department, he examined the departmental file but found Ms. Miller was making more than any of the other men in her department. Hence, he determined there was “really nothing there to support [a] discrimination [charge].” Id. Ms. Yager usually met with her staff for annual employee evaluations in the early spring, but she did not engage in a performance review with Ms. Miller in February 2000. She testified that Ms. Miller’s performance had not been good, but I certainly understood, and wanted to be fair to her. She was very upset about the situation and I understood her being upset with [the new job creation process]. It took longer than any of us had ever anticipated, and I didn’t think it would be fair to her to do an evaluation at that point.... [S]he had spent all of her time writing all of these memos [regarding the position evaluation process] and doing all this stuff ... [so] I didn’t think that [it] was fair to review her in this time period. Id., vol. II at 304-05. She also noted that within a week of the meeting with Ms. Bisno, Ms. Miller protested being evaluated in light of her unresolved questions regarding the reorganization of the department and the new public affairs position. Ms. Yager did perform an evaluation, however, for one of the men in the department, who subsequently received a wage increase. Ms. Miller declined to apply for the new position. At trial, she explained I knew that they wanted me out, and they were going to get rid of me no matter what. So I knew they had already made up their minds, that no matter what hoops I jumped through to apply for this position, I was not going to get the position. But beyond that ... I would have not been eligible for the position by a couple of criteria. Id., vol. Ill at 738-39. In particular, Ms. Miller contended she did not meet two of the qualifications listed for the new post: a minimum of five years experience and a lifting requirement. Therefore, she thought that even if she applied for the post, it would not have been offered to her. Ms. Yager testified to the contrary that Ms. Miller was “way over” qualified for the position in light of her work experience prior to joining AAA New Mexico. Id., vol. IV at 923. Moreover, as referenced earlier, the company had already made accommodations to Ms. Miller regarding her lifting limitations, and would have done the same for her in the new post. In light of Ms. Miller’s decision not to apply for the new position, Ms. Yager contacted Mr. Sandy, who informed her that “once the full-time position was filled ... the other position ... would end.” Id., vol. II at 310. After a number of conversations between Ms. Miller and Ms. Yager, it was decided that Ms. Miller’s last day of work would be May 5, 2000. Ms. Miller ended her employment with AAA New Mexico on that day. After screening applicants for the newly-created position, AAA New Mexico offered the job to a female applicant. That applicant declined the company’s offer. AAA New Mexico then offered the position to a male, Dan Ware, who accepted the job at an annual starting salary of $35,000. Ms. Miller filed this action in federal district court against AAA New Mexico. As relevant to this appeal, she claimed the company discriminated against her in violation of Title VII and the EPA. She specifically alleged AAA New Mexico did not adequately pay her for the work she was performing as compared to the compensation of men in her department, and that the company paid the man who was offered the new position substantially more than she had been earning doing the same job. She also asserted she suffered retaliatory discharge under state and federal law when the company, in response to her allegations that she was being discriminated against on the basis of her sex, eliminated her position and forced her to apply for the newly created position. Finally, she brought New Mexico state law claims for breach of implied contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and dealing. These claims were premised on her assertion that AAA New Mexico promised she would automatically be placed in the upgraded position, but had, in bad faith, failed to do so. A magistrate judge handled the initial stages of Ms. Miller’s litigation, including the discovery process during which Ms. Miller and the company had some disputes. AAA New Mexico eventually moved for summary judgment on all of Ms. Miller’s claims. The district court granted summary judgment on Ms. Miller’s Title VII and EPA discrimination claims as well as her federal and state retaliation claims. The remaining claims proceeded to trial. After both parties presented their evidence, AAA New Mexico moved for judgment as a matter of law. The district court reserved its ruling on this matter and the case was submitted to the jury. The jury was unable to reach a verdict, and the court declared a mistrial. The company renewed its motion for judgment as a matter of law, which the district court subsequently granted. Ms. Miller now raises a host of challenges to the district court’s rulings. II In order to address Ms. Miller’s challenge to the district court’s grant of summary judgment on her discrimination and retaliation claims, we must also disentangle a knotty discovery issue Ms. Miller raises. She requests that we reverse a ruling of the magistrate judge denying her motion to compel AAA New Mexico to produce specific documents and answer interrogatories. On appeal, she contends the evidence denied to her by the magistrate judge’s ruling undermined her ability to sufficiently challenge AAA New Mexico’s motion for summary judgment. Ms. Miller’s appeal of the magistrate judge’s ruling is thus inextricably intertwined with her challenge to the district court’s summary judgment ruling. As we discuss in more detail throughout this section, we determine the district court implicitly rejected Ms. Miller’s challenge to the magistrate judge’s ruling. So doing, and in the course of concluding the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to AAA New Mexico, we also conclude the district court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting Ms. Miller’s challenge to the magistrate judge’s decision. Because our resolution of Ms. Miller’s discovery claim is best understood in light of our examination of the district court’s grant of summary judgment, we will address her challenges to the summary judgment ruling and intersperse within onr analysis the relevant aspects of her discovery issues. As mentioned earlier, “we review a grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same legal standard as the district court.” Coldesina, 407 F.3d at 1131 (citation omitted). Summary judgment is appropriate “if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.CivP. 56(c). “When applying this standard, we view the evidence and draw reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” Steele v. Thiokol Corp., 241 F.3d 1248, 1252 (10th Cir.2001). A. Title VII discrimination claim Pursuant to Title VII, Ms. Miller alleged she was compensated worse than similarly situated male employees. We apply the McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), framework for evaluating Title VII claims. See Garrett v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 305 F.3d 1210, 1216 (10th Cir.2002); Bullington v. United Air Lines, 186 F.3d 1301, 1315 (10th Cir.1999), overruled on other grounds sub nom. by Boyler v. Cordant Techs., Inc., 316 F.3d 1137, 1140 (10th Cir.2003). Under McDonnell Douglas, Ms. Miller is required to first establish & prima facie case of discrimination. In this context, we have stated “a female Title VII plaintiff establishes a pri-ma facie case of sex discrimination by showing that she occupies a job similar to that of higher paid males.” Sprague v. Thom Ams., Inc., 129 F.3d 1355, 1363 (10th Cir.1997) (citing Meeks v. Computer Assocs. Int’l, 15 F.3d 1013, 1019 (11th Cir.1994)). The district court determined Ms. Miller failed to make out a prima facie ease. We agree. Ms. Miller contends there was a disparity in pay between what she received and how the other men in the PGA department were compensated. She also claims there was a disparity in compensation between what she was paid for doing public affairs duties and what was paid to the man who was hired for the new position. She has not established a prima facie case of gender discrimination with respect to either of these claims. First, Ms. Miller has not shown that she was paid less than any of the other men in the PGA department. As noted earlier in the opinion, she and her male colleagues in the PGA department were all classified in the same manner and none of the men in the department ever earned more than she did barring a three month period in 1997 during which one man earned eight cents an hour more. Ms. Miller makes no effort to undermine these facts. Instead, she argues that because she was performing additional public affairs duties as well as serving as “lead traffic reporter” for the PGA department, her rate of pay should have been substantially higher than that paid to the men in her department, who were only performing traffic duties. While this may be true, her argument is not that she was working the same hours as these men during which time she was doing far more work but only getting paid marginally more. Instead, the record reflects she was working thirty-five hours a week while the men in her department were only working fifteen hours a week. While it is uncontested Ms. Miller performed more duties than the men in her department, she worked more hours than they did and was compensated at a slightly higher rate than they were. Hence, Ms. Miller has not shown she “occupied a job similar to that of higher paid males.” Id. Nor can Ms. Miller establish her prima facie case by arguing there was disparity in the pay she received and that paid to the man who accepted the new post. She essentially argues she was replaced by Mr. Ware, who then earned substantially more than she did for performing the same work. On these grounds, she appears to argue she was treated less fairly than a similarly situated employee. But Ms. Miller and Mr. Ware were not similarly situated employees because they held two different positions. First, Ms. Miller was an hourly part-time employee who performed a variety of traffic reporting and public affairs duties. Conversely, Mr. Ware filled a newly-created, full-time, regular position. Second, while there is no question Ms. Miller performed some of the duties that were included within the job description for the new post, the record indicates there were a number of central components of the new job that Ms. Miller did not perform in her capacity as “clerk, intermediate.” Her case is similar to the female employee in Sprague who took on some advanced duties similar to those performed by other higher paid men in her company, but could not show that she “de facto” held the same position as the men. Id. at 1359, 1363. In like fashion to the employee-in Sprague, Ms. Miller cannot show she was similarly situated with Mr. Ware such as to make out a discrimination claim. Her status as an hourly employee and the duties she performed in that position are not sufficiently similar to the position held by Mr. Ware. We therefore agree with the district court’s conclusion that Ms. Miller failed to make a prima facie case of gender discrimination. In order to so conclude, we must return to the thorny discovery question intertwined with. Ms. Miller’s summary judgment challenges. This requires us to detail some of the earliest stages of Ms. Miller’s litigation against AAA New Mexico. The majority of the pre-trial proceedings in Ms. Miller’s action were conducted before a magistrate judge. During the course of discovery, a dispute arose between Ms. Miller and AAA New Mexico. On November 15, 2002, Ms. Miller filed a Combined Motion to Compel Answers to Interrogatories and Production of Documents and Motion for Sanctions against the company. On December 2, AAA New Mexico filed its response. It asserted that Ms. Miller’s requests for discovery had been overly broad, and that it had long since objected to them. The company noted that five and a half months after it had objected to her discovery requests, on October 31, 2002, Ms. Miller sent a letter to AAA New Mexico outlining her specific disagreement with the company’s discovery objections and demanding a response in five days. By that point in time, the discovery cutoff date of October 25, 2002 had passed and the magistrate judge had denied a motion to extend discovery. The company had advised Ms. Miller that it intended to respond but could not do so in the stated time frame. It pointed out that it had responded to Ms. Miller’s letter on November 20, attempting to narrow or resolve the discovery disputes, but Ms. Miller had not replied to the letter. Given these circumstances, AAA New Mexico objected to Ms. Miller’s motion to compel and for sanctions as untimely. It then reiterated some of its prior objections regarding the breadth of Ms. Miller’s requests and also offered to produce some additional documents. In her Reply, Ms. Miller agreed to some of AAA New Mexico’s requested limitations regarding the breadth of a few of her requests but also continued to make certain objections to the company’s refusal to produce some information. On December 23, 2002, prior to entry of any decision on Ms. Miller’s motion to compel and for sanctions, AAA New Mexico moved for summary judgment. Ms. Miller filed an additional motion for sanctions on December 26. On January 21, 2003, the magistrate judge denied as untimely Ms. Miller’s motion to compel and for sanctions, as well as her second motion for sanctions. The court cited Local Rule 26.6, which requires a party to file a motion to compel within twenty calendar days after a response. That “[r]ule states that ‘failure to proceed within this time period constitutes acceptance of the objection.’ ” App., vol. II at 217. The magistrate judge also denied the motions for sanctions as untimely, pointing out the discovery cutoff date of October 25, 2002. Id. On January 30, 2003, Ms. Miller filed a motion with the district court pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(a) objecting to the magistrate judge’s denial of her motion to compel. The next day, she filed her brief in response to the company’s motion for summary judgment. That document included the following language: Ms. Miller has a motion to compel pending which seeks additional discovery responses, including the personnel files of the males [sic] traffic reporters and the public affairs specialist, which could create additional factual support for [t]his Response if granted. Ms. Miller requests supplemental briefing of these issues if her motion to compel is granted. Id. at 248. Throughout the rest of her summary judgment response, however, Ms. Miller never explicitly stated what additional evidence she needed from AAA New Mexico in order to sufficiently challenge its request for summary judgment. In February, AAA New Mexico responded to Ms. Miller’s objection to the magistrate judge’s ruling on her motion to compel and for sanctions, disputing her claims that she had acted diligently in seeking additional discovery from the company on an informal basis. Ms. Miller filed a reply. The record does not reflect anything further regarding this matter until June 24, 2003, when the court filed the final pre-trial order. The pre-trial order contained a section asking whether there existed any discovery matters of which the court should be aware. In response, the following appeared: “Yes, Plaintiff objects to the Magistrate’s denial of her motion to compel and motion for sanctions.... The additional discovery Plaintiff seeks relates primarily to comparable and similarly situated employees.” Id. at 414. In a telephonic hearing on July 11, 2003, the district court addressed what it described as Ms. Miller’s Motion for Discovery Sanctions. The court stated it had “considered the materials submitted in support and opposition” to the motion. Aple.App. at 6. It then focused on AAA New Mexico’s belated production of two memorandums from Ms. Yager, which it characterized as “extremely relevant to the issue of breach implied employment contract.” Id. at 7. Concluding that AAA New Mexico did not intentionally delay in producing the Yager memorandums, the court declined to grant monetary sanctions but did order the company to produce Ms. Yager for a supplemental deposition. During the hearing, the court also indicated to the parties it was planning to grant summary judgment on the sex discrimination, retaliation, and EPA claims. At one point, the court addressed the parties and stated, “[i]f there are any discovery disputes, I do not want those matters to fester.... So do you have any questions of me?” Id. at 9. Ms. Miller’s attorney did not mention the motion to compel nor did she object to the court’s verbal indication of its intention to grant summary judgment to AAA New Mexico on the basis that she needed further discovery. On July 28, the district court issued its partial summary judgment ruling in favor of the company. On appeal, Ms. Miller requests that in light of the district court’s failure to respond to her Rule 72(a) objection, we reverse the magistrate judge’s denial of her motion to compel. For the following reasons, we decline to do so. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A), magistrate judges have the authority to enter discovery rulings. See Hutchinson v. Pfeil, 105 F.3d 562, 566 (10th Cir.1997). “Review of the magistrate judge’s ruling is required by the district court when a party timely files written objections to that ruling, and the district court must defer to the magistrate judge’s ruling unless it is clearly erroneous or contrary to law.” Id. Ms. Miller timely objected to the magistrate judge’s discovery ruling, but there is no indication the district court explicitly ruled on her objections to the denial of her motion to compel. Nonetheless, we may properly construe a district court’s failure to address arguments raised in a Rule 72(a) objection “as an implicit denial of those arguments” and a refusal to overrule the magistrate judge’s order. Hill v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 393 F.3d 1111, 1116 (10th Cir. 2004); see also Alpine View Co. v. Atlas Copco AB, 205 F.3d 208, 219-20 (5th Cir.2000). Based on our review of the record, we are convinced the district court implicitly denied Ms. Miller’s Rule 72(a) challenge. During the course of the district court’s telephonic hearing on Ms. Miller’s sanction requests, the court stated it had reviewed all the materials in support of and opposition to her requests for sanctions. The record indicates Ms. Miller’s initial motion for sanctions was combined with her motion to compel. The parties engaged in significant briefing in regard to this initial motion, as well in response to Ms. Miller’s additional sanctions request. The magistrate judge’s ruling addressed both of Ms. Miller’s requests for sanctions as well as her motion to compel. In her Rule 72(a) objection to this ruling, Ms. Miller challenged the denial of both her motion to compel and her motions for sanctions. She also mentioned her pending motion to compel in her response to AAA New Mexico’s motion for summary judgment, albeit in a very general manner. Likewise, the pre-trial order indicates Ms. Miller again raised her outstanding discovery issues. Taken together, we are convinced the district court was duly apprised of the scope of Ms. Miller’s arguments relating to both her motion to compel and her motion for sanctions. Given the court’s denial of her motion for sanctions in conjunction with its subsequent order granting AAA New Mexico summary judgment on a number of the claims implicated by her discovery requests, we conclude the district court’s silence on Ms. Miller’s motion to compel was a conscious and implicit denial of her discovery requests and a refusal to overrule the magistrate judge’s order. See Hill, 393 F.3d at 1116; Alpine View Co., 205 F.3d at 219-20. On appeal, Ms. Miller asks that we reverse the magistrate judge’s ruling. In light of our conclusion that the district court implicitly rejected her motion to compel, it is more appropriate for us to determine whether the district court abused its discretion in so doing. See Cummings v. Gen. Motors Corp., 365 F.3d 944, 952-53 (10th Cir.2004) (citing Motley v. Marathon Oil Co., 71 F.3d 1547, 1550 (10th Cir.1995)) (court of appeals will not set aside district court discovery rulings absent abuse of discretion). In this regard, “[s]uch an abuse will occur only when the judge renders ‘an arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable’ judgment.” Id. at 953 (quoting Coletti v. Cudd Pressure Control, 165 F.3d 767, 777 (10th Cir.1999) (further internal quotations and citations omitted)). We conclude the district court did not abuse its discretion in implicitly denying Ms. Miller’s Rule 72(a) objection. As discussed above, the court had before it all of the arguments and materials it needed to make this determination. Included within these materials was Ms. Miller’s response to AAA New Mexico’s motion for summary judgment, in which she included only a very limited statement indicating that the personnel files of the other male traffic reporters in the PGA department as well as the personnel file for Mr. Ware, the man who held the new job, might “create additional factual support” for her summary judgment response. App., vol. II at 248. The statement in the pre-trial order was similarly limited. See id. at 414. Ms. Miller provided no details in these materials regarding how her opposition to AAA New Mexico’s motion for summary judgment was undermined by the lack of additional discovery, nor did she file an affidavit pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(f). Under these circumstances, we cannot say the district court’s implicit rejection of Ms. Miller’s motion was “arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable.” Cummings, 365 F.3d at 953. B. EPA claim Ms. Miller contended AAA New Mexico violated the EPA because it paid her a lower wage than members of the opposite sex doing equal work. To make a prima facie case under the EPA, Ms. Miller has the burden of proving that (1) she was performing work which was substantially equal to that of the male employees considering the skills, duties, supervision, effort and responsibilities of the jobs; (2) the conditions where the work was performed were basically the same; (3) the male employees were paid more under such circumstances. Sprague, 129 F.3d at 1364 (quoting Tidwell v. Fort Howard Corp., 989 F.2d 406, 409 (10th Cir.1993) (further citations omitted)). We agree with the district court’s determination that Ms. Miller failed to make out a prima facie case. Ms. Miller’s EPA claims mirrored her Title VII claims. She asserted the men in the PGA department were better compensated than she, and that Mr. Ware was paid more than she was for a substantially similar position. As we discussed above, the evidence indicates Ms. Miller was paid a higher hourly wage than all the men in her department. Her comparison of her work with Mr. Ware’s job is equally faulty. When addressing the “equal work” requirement of the EPA, we do not construe, it broadly. “[W]e have stated that failure to furnish equal pay for ‘comparable work’ or ‘like jobs’ is not actionable.” Id. (citations omitted). Instead, “in order to prevail in such an EPA action, the jobs must be substantially equal in terms of skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions.” Id. (internal quotations and citation omitted). Again, much like the employee in Sprague who performed some but not all of the duties of higher paid male employees, id. at 1364-65, the same can be said of Ms. Miller. As we have thoroughly discussed, the record makes clear that while Ms. Miller did perform some of the duties that were included in the newly created post, she did not perform all of those duties. She simply has not made a prima facie case that the jobs were substantially similar. As with the Title VII claim addressed above, we conclude the district court did not err in its summary judgment ruling, or abuse its discretion in impliedly rejecting Ms. Miller’s Rule 72(a) motion. C. Retaliation claim Finally, Ms. Miller claimed AAA New Mexico retaliated against her by eliminating her hourly position and forcing her to apply for the new post after she had complained of sex discrimination. In order to state a prima facie case of retaliation, a plaintiff must demonstrate that (1) she was engaged in protected opposition to discrimination; (2) she suffered an adverse employment action; and (3) a causal connection existed between the protected activity and the adverse employment action. Duncan v. Manager, Dep’t of Safety, City & County of Denver, 397 F.3d 1300, 1314 (10th Cir.2005); Stover v. Martinez, 382 F.3d 1064, 1070-71 (10th Cir.2004); see also Shovelin v. Central N.M. Elec. Coop., Inc., 115 N.M. 293, 850 P.2d 996, 1006 (1993) (setting out New Mexico state law requirements for retaliatory discharge claim). Once a plaintiff establishes her prima facie case, the burden shifts to the employer to offer a facially legitimate rationale for the adverse action. The burden then shifts back to the plaintiff to show the employer’s explanation is pretext. Stover, 382 F.3d at 1071. The district court determined that Ms. Miller failed to make her prima facie case because there was not a sufficient causal connection between her complaints of discrimination and the elimination of her position and application requirement for the new post. The court also held Ms. Miller had failed to show the company’s decision to perform a job study, create two new regular positions, and eliminate her hourly part-time position, was pretextual. We agree. We find no real contest regarding Ms. Miller’s assertions that she satisfied the first two prongs of the prima facie analysis for retaliation claims. The record indicates that in early November 1999, during a meeting with Ms. Yager, Ms. Miller first stated she “thought the company was not treating her equitably ... it wasn’t fair ... [and] was discriminatory.” App., vol. II at 289. Lodging a discrimination complaint is protected activity for retaliation claim purposes. See O’Neal v. Ferguson Const. Co., 237 F.3d 1248, 1255 (10th Cir.2001); Archuleta v. Colo. Dep’t of Insts., Div. of Youth Servs., 936 F.2d 483, 486 (10th Cir.1991); Martinez v. City of Grants, 122 N.M. 507, 927 P.2d 1045, 1053 (1996). Likewise, the elimination of Ms. Miller’s hourly position, along with the company’s failure to promote her as allegedly promised, constitute adverse employment actions. Burlington Indus., Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742, 761, 118 S.Ct. 2257, 141 L.Ed.2d 633 (1998) (“A tangible employment action constitutes a significant change in employment status, such as hiring, firing, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, or a decision causing a significant change in benefits.”); Duncan, 397 F.3d at 1314 (“An adverse employment action must be materially adverse to the employee’s job status. The adverse action must amount to a significant change in employment status, such as firing, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, or a decision causing a significant change in benefits.”) (quotation omitted). The evidence also indicates that soon after Ms. Miller stated she believed she was being treated in a discriminatory fashion, Ms. Yager and Ms. Bisno met, on November 17, 1999, to begin discussing how the PGA department might be reorganized to include two new full-time regular positions. During the course of these meetings and into January 2000, it was decided that Ms. Miller’s hourly position would be eliminated, and she would have to apply for the newly created position pursuant to AAA New Mexico policy. This decision was announced to Ms. Miller in early February 2000, three months after her first articulated allegations of discrimination. It was not until after Ms. Miller decided not to apply for the new position and it was determined her last day at AAA New Mexico would be May 5, 2000, however, that her hourly position was eliminated. The district court determined Ms. Miller failed to show a causal connection between her complaints of discrimination and the adverse employment actions she suffered. We agree, although on a slightly different timeline. The district court reasoned Ms. Miller began to complain of adverse treatment in March 1998, but it was not until May of 2000, nearly two years after her initial allegations of unfair treatment, that Ms. Miller’s position was eliminated. On these grounds, the court determined that a sufficient temporal proximity was lacking between Ms. Miller’s allegations of unfair treatment and her job termination. We draw a more narrow time frame. Ms. Miller certainly expressed discontent from at least March 1998, and throughout her employment at AAA New Mexico, regarding her compensation, job title, and work duties. But it was not until early November 1999 that she made any specific allegations regarding being treated in an unfavorable manner because of her sex. Within that same month, Ms. Yager and Ms. Bisno initiated a series of meetings to discuss how to restructure the PGA department and eventually settled on the elimination of Ms. Miller’s hourly position and the creation of a new post for which she could apply. Ms. Miller was informed of these facts in February 2000, and in May of that year her hourly position was eliminated at the conclusion of her employment with AAA New Mexico. Hence, instead of a two year window of time between Ms. Miller’s general complaints about her treatment and her departure from the organization, as found by the district court, there exists a six month window between Ms. Miller’s allegations of discrimination based on her sex and the elimination of her post. Even within this more narrowly circumscribed timeline, however, Ms. Miller failed to satisfy the causal connection prong of her prima facie case. We have held “[t]he causal connection may be demonstrated by evidence of circumstances that justify an inference of retaliatory motive, such as protected conduct closely followed by adverse action.” Burrus v. United Tel. Co. of Kan., Inc., 683 F.2d 339, 343 (10th Cir.1982). However, “unless the [adverse action] is very closely connected in time to the protected activity, the plaintiff must rely on additional evidence beyond mere temp