Bassett v. Walsh

1

CONRAD BASSETT, Plaintiff, v. MARTIN J. WALSH, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor, Defendant.

Civil Action No. 22-2408 (JEB)

United States District Court, District of Columbia

August 4, 2023

MEMORANDUM OPINION

JAMES E. BOASBERG CHIEF JUDGE

Plaintiff Conrad Bassett is an employee at the Department of Labor. In this suit against Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh, he alleges that the Department violated the Rehabilitation Act by refusing him reasonable accommodations, discriminating against him based on his disability, and retaliating against him. Defendant now moves to partially dismiss, contending that many of Plaintiff's claims are unexhausted unavailable under the Rehabilitation Act, or unsubstantiated. The Court agrees that none of the challenged claims may proceed and will accordingly grant the Motion.

I. Background

The Court at this stage sets forth the facts as pled in the Complaint, assuming them to be true. See Sparrow v United Air Lines, Inc., 216 F.3d 1111, 1113 (D.C. Cir. 2000). Bassett has worked at the Department since 1994 and now works as a Government Information Specialist in the Wage and Hour Division. See ECF No. 16 (Second Am. Compl.), ¶¶ 8-9. “At all times relevant to the Complaint,” Genise Coleman and Patrice Rachel Torres were his first-line and second-line supervisors, respectively. Id., ¶¶ 10-11. Bassett suffers from congenital cataracts and glaucoma, which affect “his daily life activities like seeing, working, reading and driving.” Id., ¶ 16. The Department is aware of Plaintiff's disability and granted him a reasonable accommodation in 2014; it also approved him for a computer program called ZoomText in 2019. Id., ¶¶ 45, 47 n.3.

The events that eventually led to this suit began on August 28, 2019, when Bassett requested and was denied leave to take a month off from October 1 to November 1, 2019. Id., ¶¶ 24-27. In a subsequent discussion regarding his leave request that took place on September 19, Coleman told him that she could “only approve his leave if he changed it to a leave request pursuant to the Family [and] Medical Leave Act (FMLA).” Id., ¶ 28. Then, on October 2, Coleman again denied Plaintiff's leave request as not submitted pursuant to the FMLA. Id., ¶ 29.

Later, on October 11, Bassett and Coleman met to discuss his 2018/2019 Performance Evaluation. At this time, Plaintiff was unable to respond to his evaluation because it was delivered “in a format he could not read due to his disability.” Id., ¶ 33. He accordingly requested his evaluation, as well as the materials Coleman relied on, in a legible format. Id., ¶ 34. Five days later, Coleman provided him “the entire record” in such a format. Id., ¶ 38. Unhappy about this delay and believing that his initial evaluation was inaccurate, Plaintiff through his counsel requested additional time to review the materials he had been given and to respond to his performance evaluation. Id., ¶ 39. After some disputes about when this review period began, Torres provided a new deadline of October 22. Id. In addition, despite Plaintiff's response, Coleman did not revise the “Minimally Satisfactory” rating she had initially given him. Id., ¶¶ 43-44.

What turned out to be the last nail in the coffin occurred on October 18, when Bassett was supplied with ZoomText, which the Court assumes makes it easier to read and work on a computer screen. He alleges that he informed his supervisors that the computer he was using at the time could not support this program. Id., ¶ 45, 52. This, along with other issues Plaintiff had with using Adobe and accessing a department database, made it difficult for him to meet assigned deadlines. See ECF No. 19 (Pl. Opp. to MTD) at 5. Bassett alleges that the Department nevertheless continued to give him deadlines that were “completely unattainable” and assigned him to “more complex” work. Id. “To this day,” Plaintiff states, his accommodations request “has not been met.” Second Am. Compl., ¶ 55.

Having failed to secure his desired relief, Bassett filed a formal Equal Employment Opportunity complaint against the agency on December 28, 2019. See ECF No. 17 (Def. MTD), Exh. 1 (Formal EEO Compl.) at 3. This complaint alleged discrimination and retaliation based on the denial of his leave request, the denial of his reasonable-accommodation requests, the format in which he was given his 2018/2019 performance evaluation, the time he was given to respond to this evaluation, and the rating he received. Id. at 3-5. On April 29, 2020, the Department issued a letter notifying Plaintiff that it was accepting some, but not all, of his claims for investigation. See Def. MTD, Exh. 3 (April 29, 2020, Letter) at 2. Bassett objected to the Department's decision to reject some of his claims, and the agency responded by reformulating the claims it would accept for investigation. See Def. MTD, Exhs. 4, 5 (May 14, 2020, Letter; November 13, 2020, Letter). The Department accepted Plaintiff's claims of discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment based on the events described above. See November 13, 2020, Letter at 2-3. Ultimately, however, it denied relief for all claims in a Final Agency Decision issued on May 16, 2022. See Def. MTD, Exh. 6 (Final Agency Decision) at 17.

Dissatisfied with this result, Plaintiff brought this action on August 14, 2022. His initial Complaint contained two counts of discrimination and retaliation under the Rehabilitation Act and one count of hostile work environment based on disability, for which he mistakenly invoked Title VII. See ECF No. 1 (Compl.), ¶¶ 44-67. Shortly thereafter, he filed an Amended Complaint, which the Department moved to dismiss. See ECF No. 4 (Am. Compl.); No. 12 (Initial Def. MTD). Plaintiff then obtained leave to amend his Complaint for the second time. See ECF No. 15 (Minute Order dated April 28, 2023). In the Second Amended Complaint, which is the operative pleading here, Bassett again brings two counts of discrimination and retaliation under the Rehabilitation Act but now drops his Title VII cause of action. See Second Am. Compl., ¶¶ 56-71. Defendant now moves to dismiss in part under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).

II. Legal Standard

Rule 12(b)(6) provides for the dismissal of an action where a complaint fails to “state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Although “detailed factual allegations” are not necessary to withstand a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007), “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal quotations marks and citation omitted). In weighing a motion to dismiss, a court “may consider only the facts alleged in the complaint, any documents either attached to or incorporated in the complaint[,] and matters of which [the court] may take judicial notice.” EEOC v. St. Francis Xavier Parochial School, 117 F.3d 621, 624 (D.C. Cir. 1997). The court “must treat the complaint's factual allegations as true and must grant [the] plaintiff ‘the benefit of all inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged.'” Sparrow v. United Air Lines, Inc., 216 F.3d 1111, 1113 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (quoting Schuler v. United States, 617 F.2d 605, 608 (D.C. Cir. 1979)) (internal citations omitted). It need not accept as true, however, “a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation” or an inference unsupported by the facts set forth in the complaint. Trudeau v. FTC, 456 F.3d 178, 193 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (quoting Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986)).

Rule 12(b)(1), conversely, permits dismissal of a complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. In general, courts must first address jurisdictional arguments before turning to the merits. See Sinochem Int'l Co. v. Malaysia Int'l Shipping Co., 549 U.S. 422, 430-31 (2007). A plaintiff bears the burden of proving that a court has subject-matter jurisdiction to hear her claims. See Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992); U.S. Ecology, Inc. v. U.S. Dep't of Interior, 231 F.3d 20, 24 (D.C. Cir. 2000). A court has an “affirmative obligation to ensure that it is acting within the scope of its jurisdictional authority.” Grand Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police v. Ashcroft, 185 F.Supp.2d 9, 13 (D.D.C. 2001). For this reason, “‘the [p]laintiff's factual allegations in the complaint . . . will bear closer scrutiny in resolving a 12(b)(1) motion' than in resolving a 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim.” Id. at 13-14 (quoting 5A Charles A. Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Fed. Practice & Procedure § 1350 (2d ed. 1987)).

III. Analysis

In seeking dismissal, Labor raises three arguments: 1) Plaintiff has not exhausted two of his Rehabilitation Act claims, 2) His failure-to-accommodate allegations cannot be fashioned as separate discrimination or retaliation claims, and 3) He has not adequately pled certain other causes of action. Bassett challenges some of these contentions and concedes others, as will be detailed below.

A quick clarification on what is not at issue here. Defendant does not seek dismissal of Plaintiff's discrimination and retaliation claims relating to his August 2019 denial of leave, the assignment of tight deadlines, and the rating he received in his 2018/2019 performance evaluation. Nor does Labor assail his failure-to-accommodate claims based on his varied troubles with technology and computer software.

With these preliminaries out of the way, the Court examines Defendant's assertions in turn.

A. Exhaustion

Before filing suit under the Rehabilitation Act, an employee must first exhaust his administrative remedies. Huang v Wheeler, 215 F.Supp.3d 100, 107-08 (D.D.C. 2016). To do so, he m...