Acosta v. D.C. Gov't

SHARI ACOSTA, Plaintiff, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA GOVERNMENT, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No.: 20-1189 (RC)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

June 3, 2020

Re Document No.: 2

MEMORANDUM OPINION

DENYING PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

I. INTRODUCTION

Up until her recent termination, Plaintiff, Shari Acosta, had worked with the District of Columbia Government for over eighteen years. Compl. ¶ 3, ECF No. 1. On May 7, 2020, alongside her Complaint, she filed a motion for a temporary restraining order to retain her employment during the pendency of this case. See Pl.'s Mot. TRO, ECF No. 2; Pl.'s Mem. Supp. Mot. TRO, ECF No. 2-1. On May 13, 2020, this Court heard argument from the parties on Plaintiff's motion and denied injunctive relief. Plaintiff made an oral motion for preliminary injunction during the hearing. For the reasons stated below, the Court, having considered the parties' briefing, the record, and oral arguments, denies Plaintiff's motion for preliminary injunction.

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

As alleged in the Complaint, Plaintiff started her employment with the District of Columbia in 2001. Compl. ¶ 4. She spent much of her career as a Staff Assistant with the Department of Housing and Community Development ("DHCD") and provided administrative support to the D.C. Rental Housing Commission ("RHC"), which is an independent, quasi-judicial body with three Commissioners, one of whom is Defendant Michael Spencer. Id. Plaintiff's lawsuit stems from her acrimonious relationship with Defendant Spencer.

In July 2017, Plaintiff filed an internal complaint with DHCD regarding allegations that Defendant Spencer had treated her in an abusive manner in the presence of Plaintiff's granddaughter. Id. ¶ 6. The internal complaint later became the subject of a lawsuit brought in D.C. Superior Court in July 2018. Id. ¶ 7. Around the same time as the filing of the D.C. Superior Court case, Plaintiff was placed on a 120-day detail in a different department of DHCD and removed from her position under Defendant Spencer's supervision. Id. ¶ 8. After multiple extensions to this detail, on July 19, 2019, Plaintiff was told that she would be returned to her position with RHC under Defendant Spencer. Id. ¶ 10.

Plaintiff returned to work at RHC in September 2019 and within a week was issued a counseling letter by Defendant Spencer that detailed complaints about her performance. Id. ¶¶ 21, 23. From there, the employment relationship continued to deteriorate. In November 2019, Defendant Spencer suspended Plaintiff for twenty days. Id. ¶ 24. At the end of December, Defendant Spencer placed Plaintiff on a Performance Improvement Plan. Id. ¶ 26. At the end of January 2020, Defendant Spencer ordered Plaintiff to submit to medical and psychiatric fitness for duty examinations. Id. ¶ 27. On February 21, 2020, Defendant Spencer issued Plaintiff an Advance Notice of a Proposed Termination, id. ¶ 28, and on May 2, 2020, he sent her the Final Agency Decision that ended her employment with the D.C. government effective May 7, 2020, id. ¶ 30. One of the stated reasons for her termination in the Final Agency Decision was that Plaintiff "made false sexual harassment claims against Defendant Spencer, and she made false statements to the District of Columbia Office of Risk Management and the Office of EmployeeAppeals." Id. Plaintiff filed this lawsuit to challenge her termination pursuant to the District of Columbia Human Rights Act, D.C. Code §§ 2-1401 et seq. Compl. ¶¶ 32-38.

In support of her motion for preliminary injunction, Plaintiff submitted a declaration detailing the effects her termination will have on her life. See Pl.'s Reply at 15-21, ECF No. 13. She states she has "two mortgages, a car payment, credit card payments, utility bills, and other financial obligation . . . with no spouse or other family to assist with bills." Id. at 16. She provides financial support to her daughter and granddaughter and states that "[t]he loss of my job and employment income will be devastating to them." Id. She claims that her daughter depends on her for health insurance coverage and that she herself requires surgery to remove her gallbladder, which will be impossible to pay for without health insurance. Id. at 18-19. She also states that the jobs she has applied for since her termination pay $30,000 to $50,000 less than she was making before and that she would not be able to sustain herself and her family on such a salary. Id. at 20. Her declaration also establishes that Plaintiff does have some savings, id. at 21 ("draining what little savings that I have"), two retirement accounts, id. at 19, and that she had a previous salary of $85,784, id. at 17.

III. LEGAL STANDARD

Preliminary injunction is an "extraordinary remedy." Winter v. Nat'l Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 24 (2008). The purpose of a preliminary injunction is "to protect [the movant] from irreparable injury and to preserve the court's power to render a meaningful decision after a trial on the merits." Select Milk Producers, Inc. v. Johanns, 400 F.3d 939, 954 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (dissenting opinion) (quoting 11A Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller, & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and Procedures § 2947 (2d ed. 1992)).

A plaintiff seeking preliminary injunctive relief "must establish [1] that [s]he is likely to succeed on the merits, [2] that [s]he is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, [3] that the balance of the equities tips in h[er] favor, and [4] that an injunction is in the public interest." Aamer v. Obama, 742 F.3d 1023, 1038 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (quoting Sherley v. Sebelius, 644 F.3d 388, 392 (D.C. Cir. 2011)). "[T]he plaintiff bears the burden of persuasion on all four preliminary injunction factors in order to secure such an extraordinary remedy." Singh v. Carter, 185 F. Supp. 3d 11, 17 (D.D.C. 2016) (internal quotations omitted). With respect to irreparable harm, "[m]ere injuries, however substantial, in terms of money, time, and energy necessarily expended in the absence of a stay, are not enough. The possibility that adequate compensatory or other corrective relief will be available at a later date . . . weighs heavily against a claim of irreparable harm." Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S. 61, 90 (1974) (quoting Virginia Petroleum Jobbers Ass'n v. Federal Power Commission, 259 F.2d 921, 925 (D.C. Cir. 1958)).

IV. ANALYSIS

Because the Court finds that Plaintiff has not demonstrated irreparable harm, the Court denies the motion for preliminary injunction without consideration of the other factors relevant to preliminary injunctive relief. See Farris v. Rice, 453 F. Supp. 2d 76, 79 (D.D.C. 2006) (denying injunctive relief on failure to demonstrate irreparable harm without analysis of the other factors).

In government employment cases, irreparable harm is governed by Sampson. In that case, the Supreme Court stated that the "District Court, exercising its equitable powers, is bound to give serious weight to the obviously disruptive effect which the grant of temporary relief [is] likely to have on the administrative process . . . the Government has traditionally been grantedthe widest latitude in the dispatch of its own internal affairs." Sampson, 415 U.S. at 83 (internal quotations omitted). Against this backdrop, Sampson requires an extraordinary case to justify a grant of injunctive relief in the government employment context. Id. at 92 n.68. "[I]nsufficiency of savings or difficulties in immediately obtaining other employment . . . will not support a finding of irreparable injury, however severely they may affect a particular individual." Id. The Sampson Court noted that "[s]uch extraordinary cases are hard to define in advance of their occurrence," but did not "foreclose[e] relief in the genuinely extraordinary situation." Id.

Courts in this district routinely deny injunctive relief to government employees based on Sampson. See, e.g., Washington v. District of Columbia, 530 F. Supp. 2d 163, 171 (D.D.C. 2008) (finding no irreparable harm where "plaintiffs have alleged only a general financial hardship"); Farris, 453 F. Supp. 2d at 79 ("[G]iven the court's equitable power to remedy for loss in employment through, for example, back pay and time in service credit, cases are legion holding that loss of employment does not constitute irreparable injury."); Int'l Ass'n of Machinists & Aerospace Workers v. Nat'l Mediation Bd., 374 F. Supp. 2d 135, 142 (D.D.C. 2005) ("[A] loss of income does not constitute irreparable injury because the financial loss can be remedied with money damages.").

In Bonds v. Heyman, a case invoked by Plaintiff, the court determined that the plaintiff had shown one of the extraordinary cases referred to in Sampson. 950 F. Supp. 1202 (D.D.C. 1997). There, a 58-year-old African-American woman brought a Title VII claim after her job was eliminated as part of a reduction-in-force ("RIF") plan. Id. at 1204. She had worked with the federal government for nearly forty years and worked her way from a typist position to a high-level job with substantial responsibility. See id. After determining that the Sampsonstandard applies to Title VII cases, the court explained why plaintiff had demonstrated an extraordinary case:

After a careful analysis of the facts of this case, the court finds that plaintiff meets the extraordinary Sampson standard. The fact of the matter here is that the Smithsonian will be RIFing a 58 year-old woman who has worked for the Smithsonian for nearly 40 years. She has no college education, and worked her way up from a typist to a program analyst—attaining a high level position with substantial responsibility. But should she be terminated, it is unlikely she could ever find work approaching what she now does, if she could find work at all. It is telling that Bonds has tenaciously fought not only [to] stay employed but to be promoted as well given her age and tenure. As things now stand,

...