In National R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101 (2002), an African-American former employee brought action against a railroad for racial discrimination and retaliation under Title VII. The Court distinguished discriminatory acts based on discrete discriminatory acts from hostile work environment claims based on repeated conduct. The plaintiff alleged that during his employment, he had been continually subjected to discrete discriminatory and retaliatory acts and he had experienced a racially hostile work environment throughout his employment. (Id. at p. 2068.) As to the discrete discriminatory and retaliatory acts, the court held that the plaintiff was precluded from recovering for those acts that occurred outside the statutory time period, even though the time-barred acts were "related to acts alleged in timely filed charges." (Id. at p. 2072.) The court noted, however, "there may be circumstances where it will be difficult to determine when the time period should begin to run. One issue that may arise in such circumstances is whether the time begins to run when the injury occurs as opposed to when the injury reasonably should have been discovered." (Id. at p. 2073, fn. 7.) The court, however, did not need to determine when the time period began to run in the case before it because " 'Morgan believed that he was being discriminated against at the time that all of these acts occurred,' " thereby triggering the statute of limitations at the time each act occurred. (Ibid.) The Court held that only those discrete acts occurring within the law's statute of limitations were actionable; but that the continuing violation theory could be applied to an employee's claim of hostile work environment, as long as the acts were part of the same hostile work environment and at least one occurred within the statute of limitations period. (536 U.S. at 117.) A discrete discriminatory act is one that "occurs" on the day that it "happened." (Id. at 110.) What constitutes a "discrete act" has not been defined, although the Morgan Court cited such employment actions as termination, failure to promote, denial of transfer, and refusal to hire as "easy" examples of what constitutes a discrete act. (Morgan, 536 U.S. at 114.) In Morgan, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Ninth Circuit's finding that Morgan's hostile work environment claims were actionable noting that the Ninth Circuit conclusion that "'the pre and post-limitations period incidents involved the same type of employment actions, occurred relatively frequently, and were perpetuated by the same managers.'" (536 U.S. at 120.)