Knope v. Sessions

Sharon M. Knope, Plaintiff, v. Jefferson B. Sessions, III, in his official capacity as Attorney General, United StatesDepartment of Justice, Defendant.

16-CV-809V

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

September 20, 2017

Decision and Order

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Sharon Knope ("Knope") worked for approximately 20 years as an administrative staffer with the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of New York (the "Employer"). Beginning in 2012, according to Knope, Employer began changing her job duties, berating her when confusion arose about her job duties, and refusing to accommodate her medical conditions. When Knope filed internal agency complaints alleging discrimination, Employer allegedly retaliated by denying her certain leave applications and ultimately terminating her on April 4, 2016. Knope filed suit on October 11, 2016, alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101-12213; Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e to 2000e-17; and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634. Knope's current complaint contains details of a number of alleged acts of discrimination and retaliation.

Knope now seeks permission to amend her complaint to add details of other alleged acts of retaliation, acts related to interruptions in her medical coverage and her notices about retirement benefits. Knope filed a non-dispositive¹ motion to amend on July 17, 2017 under Rule 15(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. (Dkt. No. 21.) Employer opposes the motion for several reasons, including that Knope did not exhaust administrative remedies for the proposed amendments and that the proposed amendments do not set forth legally cognizable allegations. The proposed amendments, in Employer's view, thus are futile.

The Hon. Lawrence J. Vilardo has referred this case to this Court under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b). (Dkt. No. 7.) The Court held oral argument on August 29, 2017. For the reasons below, the Court grants the motion.

II. BACKGROUND

This case concerns allegations of a vicious circle of negative performance appraisals, denials of disability accommodations, and reprisals that occurred between Knope and Employer over a series of several years. According to the current complaint, Knope began working for Employer in 1996 as a Victim Witness Coordinator. "In this position Ms. Knope managed the district's victim witness program; in that she handled all the victim cases for the Buffalo Office, notified victims of case status and their rights as victims, accompanied victims to court proceedings and explained the criminal justice process, and provided referrals to victim assistance agencies as needed, handled witness management for trials, including witness travel arrangements for out of town witnesses,assisting any other local witnesses that may need assistance in getting to court, answering their questions about the court process." (Dkt. No. 17 at 4-5.) In Knope's view, she received good performance reviews until 2015; Employer took no position on this assertion in its answer. Since 2005, Knope worked through diagnoses of Celiac disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and frequent kidney stones. Knope's conditions required occasional medical leave and medical treatments; the current complaint implies that she might have needed reasonable accommodations (id. at 5 ¶ 28) but does not specify any accommodations actually requested and provided.

Knope has alleged that the problems leading to this litigation began in June 2012. Around that time, according to Knope, Employer began questioning both the quality of Knope's work and the quantity of her responsibilities. By 2013, Employer placed Knope under increased scrutiny while giving her additional responsibilities related to attorney support, grand jury paperwork, and 24-hour call. Knope protested to Employer that the additional responsibilities reached outside of her job description and that the increased scrutiny increased her stress, which in turn exacerbated her medical conditions. Knope also has cited a few examples of a work environment that became increasingly hostile to her after 2013. One example was an incident in October 2014 in which an apparent miscommunication about trial support responsibilities led to aggressive verbal abuse without reprisal. Another example was an incident in June 2015 in which a kidney stone attack and emergency surgery left her unable to be on 24-hour call for several days. According to Knope, Employer nonetheless held Knope responsible for the lapse in call coverage, refused the reasonable accommodation of taking her off of call, and gave her a negative performance review at the end of the month. The allegation of the negative performance review, though just an allegation at thistime, is notable because Knope "was bluntly told it was a result of her request for a reasonable accommodation." (Id. at 9.)

The negative performance review of June 2015 set in motion a series of events that culminated in Knope's termination. In August 2015, Knope filed an internal agency complaint of unlawful discrimination based on age, sex, and disability. (Id. at 3.) Knope described the complaint as "a complaint of discrimination based on sex and disability and reprisal (retaliation)" (id. at 3 ¶ 14) though Employer made no admission in its answer about the content of the complaint. (Dkt. No. 18 at 4 ¶ 14.) While the agency complaint was pending, Employer allegedly ordered Knope back to work "while she was on legitimate leave." (Id. at 10.) A few months later, on March 1, 2016, Knope filed a second internal agency complaint called a Complaint of Reprisal. (Dkt. No. 17 at 4 ¶ 18.) Employer has acknowledged the title of the document but has made no admission about its contents. (Dkt. No. 18 at 5 ¶ 18.) According to Knope, Employer soon began removal proceedings against her. Employer ultimately terminated Knope as of April 4, 2016.

Knope began this litigation by filing her original summons and complaint on October 11, 2016. At the Court's prompting (Dkt. No. 13), Knope filed an amended complaint—the current operative complaint—on April 27, 2017 to reflect the change in Attorney General and to adjust the caption accordingly. The amended complaint contains seven claims. In the first three claims, Knope accuses Employer of failure to provide a reasonable accommodation, a hostile work environment, and retaliation, all in violation of the ADA. In the next three claims, Knope accuses Employer of sex-based discrimination, a hostile work environment, and retaliation, all in violation of Title VII. In the seventh claim, Knope accuses Employer of age-based discrimination inviolation of the ADEA. Employer answered the amended complaint on May 10, 2017. (Dkt. No. 18.)

Knope filed the pending motion on July 17, 2017 and seeks permission to file a second amended complaint. The redline copy of the proposed second amended complaint (Dkt. No. 21-4) reveals that many of Knope's proposed changes are cosmetic. The big proposed change concerns the addition of a factual allegation about health insurance and retirement benefits. (Id. at 14-16.) Knope wants to allege that Employer failed to tell her about a notice, placed in her online personnel folder on April 16, 2016, that she would lose health insurance as of May 16, 2016. Knope has not clarified whether her online personnel folder had been set up to send email notices directly to her, or whether perhaps any email notices had been going to a work email address that she no longer could access. In any event, Knope wants to allege that she did not know about the termination of her health insurance until she received a notice of cancellation on May 17, 2016. A second, allegedly improper, cancellation of medical coverage occurred in February 2017. Similarly, Knope wants to allege failures by Employer to give her certain information about her status in the Federal Employee Retirement System ("FERS"). Knope believes that Employer's failures to provide important notices constituted additional acts of retaliation after her termination. The redline copy of the proposed second amended complaint explicitly places the post-termination allegations under the sixth claim for Title VII retaliation. (Id. at 21-22.) Despite some initial confusion about whether Knope wanted to add new claims (compare Dkt. No. 21-2 at 1 with Dkt. No. 25 at 1), she insists that she "has offered facts that show continuation of actions on the part of the Defendant that relate to an already pled claim ofretaliation. In particular the Plaintiff notes that the issue of failure to provide requisite documents to health care providers has caused her to lose her health care coverage. This loss seriously interfered with the Plaintiff's health, caused her unnecessary stress, financial loss in terms of cost of continuing health care, and left her without final record of her federal employee benefits. These are materially adverse acts." (Dkt. No. 25 at 2.) To the extent that Employer is raising any issue about exhaustion of administrative remedies, Knope counters that she had no internal complaint process to exhaust once she lost her job.

Employer opposes the filing of a second amended complaint and the addition of the post-termination allegations. Employer argues first that Knope did not exhaust administrative remedies with respect to post-termination retaliation. Knope filed internal agency complaints regarding age, sex, and disability discrimination, but not about benefits or notices concerning those benefits. Secondly, Employer argues that the proposed allegations about post-termination retaliation do not set forth an adverse action that the Second Circuit recognizes. The Second Circuit, according to Employer, recognizes post-termination retaliation only when it affects the ability to secure future employment. Finally, Employer argues that Knope has failed to...