Walgreen Co. may have retaliated against a former pharmacy technician who had previously filed several U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges against it when it refused to hire her, says a federal appeals court in overturning a lower court ruling.

Regina Baines began working as a pharmacy technician at a store operated by Deerfield, Illinois-based Walgreens in Milwaukee in February 2005, according to Wednesday’s ruling by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in Regina Gwynn Baines v. Walgreen Co.

Ms. Baines, who is black, filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC in July 2007 and a retaliation charge in October 2007. Then, when she transferred to Atlanta and found no work, she filed a third charge of retaliation with the EEOC in January 2009, according to the ruling.

After the first charge was filed, there was a “tense” meeting with managers including Michelle Birch, the district manager in Milwaukee who supervised 20 to 30 stores for the company and generally did not focus on pharmacy management, said the ruling.

After Ms. Baines moved back to Wisconsin, she applied to be rehired as pharmacy technician in 2014. The person who was hired instead, Lisa Martin, had less experience than Ms. Baines and also happened to be her cousin. Ms. Martin told Ms. Baines she was told by her supervisor that Ms. Baines was not rehired on Ms. Birch’s instructions.

Ms. Baines again filed a retaliation charge against the company with the EEOC, but in its investigation the agency found that all information about Ms. Baines was missing, including her interview scores, and Walgreens was unable to provide an explanation.

After Ms. Baines received a right-to-sue letter from the EEOC, she filed suit charging retaliation in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee, which granted Walgreens summary judgment dismissing the case.

A three-judge appeals court panel unanimously reinstated the case.

“Martin’s testimony is particularly important because it provides a link between Baines’ earlier EEOC filings and Walgreens’ 2014 decision not to rehire her,” said the ruling.

“Birch was personally involved in handling Baines’ earlier EEOC charges … The evidence of her unusual intervention to stop (the supervisor) from hiring Baines as a pharmacy technician (in just one of twenty or thirty stores that Birch oversaw) supports a reasonable inference that Baines’ earlier protected activity caused Walgreens’ 2014 decision to not rehire her.”

The opinion states that if Ms. Martin’s testimony is true, “it also provides evidence that Walgreens lied.”

The case was remanded for further proceedings.