Moran v. Barr

AMANDA MORAN, Plaintiff, v. WILLIAM BARR, Defendant.¹

Civil Action No. 18-1986 (CKK)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

July 27, 2020

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Pending before the Court is Plaintiff Amanda Moran's Motion for Leave to Amend Her First Amended Complaint, ECF No. 12. Plaintiff's suit is brought under Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 791. Am. Compl., ECF No. 9, at ¶ 1. Plaintiff seeks leave to file a Second Amended Complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2) that alleges further discriminatory and retaliatory actions. Pl.'s Mem. at 2. Defendant opposes her Motion because, he argues, her proposed amendments would alter the scope of the case and would be futile. Def.'s Opp'n at 1. Upon consideration of the pleadings,² relevant legal authorities, and therecord as a whole, the Court DENIES Plaintiff's Motion.

I. BACKGROUND

At the time of her Complaint, Plaintiff Amanda Moran had worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") for approximately sixteen years in various positions. Am. Compl. ¶ 8. She alleges that she suffered a severe back injury while on duty in 2005, which left her with permanent back damage. Id. ¶ 9. As a result of her disability, her physician had restricted her to a commuting time of less than thirty minutes. Id.

She alleges that shortly after arriving in the Behavioral Science Unit in 2013, she learned that unit was going to be merged into the Critical Incident Response Group. Id. ¶¶ 10, 12. The section chief of the Critical Incident Response Group, Leonard Johns, made Plaintiff feel that "her position was in jeopardy," so she began to seek lateral transfer opportunities. Id. ¶ 13. She also alleges that, in or about August 2015, she met with Deputy Assistant Director Frankland Gorham about her concerns regarding the section chief and that she was not being given the same transfer opportunities as other colleagues. Id. ¶ 14. Moreover, Plaintiff alleges that in or about December 2015, she learned that her immediate supervisor, Unit Chief Kristen Slater, had failed to forward her medical documentation to the health services and firearms units, which caused her later to appear "delinquent." Id. ¶ 15.

From August 2015 until January 2016, Plaintiff alleges that she was on medical leave due to a disability-related back injury that required surgery and a long recovery period. Id. ¶ 16. In or about February 2016, Johns informed her that Deputy Assistant Director Gorham had denied her request for a four-month extension to her term as a reasonable accommodation. Id. ¶ 17. The purpose of the requested extension was to allow her to seek transfer and other work opportunities within FBI which she could not pursue while had been on medical leave. Id. She alleges that thisrefusal "effectively prevented her from preparing for the end of her term because of her disability." Id.

She alleges that thereafter, Johns and Slater had demoted her from Program Manager for the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Program, id. ¶ 18, and that she was instead given "menial and intern-level tasks" that constituted a downward shift in workplace responsibility, id. ¶ 19. When she met with Johns in 2016 to discuss her future in the Critical Incident Response Group, she was told that she was "crazy" if she thought she could stay in the Group. Id. ¶ 20. She further alleges that Gorham was unwilling to help her after this and after her medical leave, and that he denied her requests for a lateral transfer. Id. ¶ 22. This resulted in a lack of transfer opportunities, which Plaintiff alleges made it severely difficult for her to find a position that would allow her to commute for less than thirty minutes as her physician had mandated. Id. ¶ 23.

Plaintiff subsequently filed an Equal Employment Opportunity ("EEO") complaint in May 2016 for a hostile work environment, disability-based harassment, and reprisal for a prior EEO complaint (a 2012 complaint for sexual harassment). Id. ¶¶ 11, 24. She received the FBI's Report of Investigation on September 29, 2016 and subsequently requested a hearing before the Washington, D.C. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") Field Office on October 25, 2016. Id. ¶ 25.

She further alleges that she subsequently was removed from a project on which she had dedicated six months of work, id. ¶ 26; that Slater denied her request to lead instructional training that she'd been asked to provide, id. ¶¶ 27-28; that she was transferred from her current unit to Counter Improvised Explosive Devices, which was a "complete change in her work responsibilities," id. ¶ 29; that during the meeting regarding her transfer, Critical Incident Response Group Deputy Assistant Director Edward Reinhold discussed her past EEO activity withher, told her that she had filed her paperwork wrong, questioned how she was able to commute for less than thirty minutes while she had worked in Nebraska, and ignored her concern about how she could travel to work for Counter Improvised Explosive Devices in a way that accommodated her disability, id. ¶¶ 29-31; that she was given only one week to prepare for her assignment with Counter Improvised Explosive Devices despite having no training in experience in explosives, id. ¶ 32; and that she was denied a request that she be considered for a position in the Behavioral Analysis Unit without explanation, id. ¶¶ 33-34. Then, in May 2017, Plaintiff filed a second EEO complaint for discrimination claiming a hostile work environment, denial of reasonable accommodations for her disability, and retaliation for engaging in protected activity. Id. ¶ 35.

On August 24, 2018, Plaintiff subsequently brought the instant suit under Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 791, alleging that many of the preceding acts constituted adverse employment actions that were discriminatory and/or retaliatory. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 1, 36-54.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a party may amend its pleadings once as a matter of course within twenty-one days after service or within twenty-one days after service of a responsive pleading. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(1). Where, as here, a party seeks to amend its pleadings outside that time period, they may do so only with the opposing party's written consent or the district court's leave. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). The decision whether to grant leave to amend a complaint is within the discretion of the district court, but leave should be freely given unless there is a good reason to the contrary. Under Rule 15(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, leave to amend a complaint "shall be freely given when justice so requires." Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a); see Firestone v. Firestone, 76 F.3d 1205, 1208 (D.C. Cir. 1996); Willoughby v. Potomac Elec. PowerCo., 100 F.3d 999, 1003 (D.C. Cir. 1996).

"When evaluating whether to grant leave to amend, the Court must consider (1) undue delay; (2) prejudice to the opposing party; (3) futility of the amendment; (4) bad faith; and (5) whether the plaintiff has previously amended the complaint." Howell v. Gray, 843 F. Supp. 2d 49, 54 (D.D.C. 2012) (citing Atchinson v. District of Columbia, 73 F.3d 418 (D.C. Cir. 1996)). "In the absence of any apparent or declared reason—such as undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed, undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the amendment, futility of amendment, etc.—the leave sought should, as the rules require, be 'freely given.'" Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962).

"[A] district court has discretion to deny a motion to amend on grounds of futility where the proposed pleading would not survive a motion to dismiss." In re Interbank Funding Corp. Sec. Litigation, 629 F. 3d 213, 215 (D.C. Cir. 2010). As a result, a court's decision as to whether to grant or deny on futility grounds a motion to amend "is for practical purposes, identical to review of a 12(b)(6) dismissal based on the allegation in the amended complaint." Id. at 215-16. And "[w]here . . . the complaint, as amended, would radically alter the scope and nature of the case and bears no more than a tangential relationship to the original action, leave to amend should be denied." Miss. Ass'n of Cooperatives v. Farmers Home Admin., 139 F.R.D. 542, 544 (D.D.C. 1991).

III. DISCUSSION

Plaintiff now seeks leave to amend her First Amended Complaint to include two new sets of allegations. The first set of allegations relate to a performance evaluation that she received. She alleges that in November 2018, her immediate supervisor, Unit Chief Steve Diaczyszyn, gavePlaintiff a Performance Appraisal Report grading of "3" after his request for an extension to evaluate her, as she was out on medical leave during the summer of 2018, was denied. Pl.'s Mem. at 2. A grading of "3" meant "Satisfactory." Id. This was Plaintiff's first time receiving such a rating. Id. She was told that she received this low rating due to the lack of an extension; he could not justify a higher rating because he had only been her supervisor for a short time, and, according to Plaintiff, he indicated that she would have received a higher rating if not for her medical leave. Id. at 3. Plaintiff explains that Performance Appraisal Ratings cannot be changed and will remain on her record, which may affect future promotions and employment decisions. Id.

Second, Plaintiff seeks to add allegations regarding a fitness for duty review. Id. Plaintiff alleges that on January 31, 2019, after she filed her Complaint in this case, she received a notice from the FBI that explained that after reviewing her medical records, they identified that she had a "long-term health condition that potentially limit[ed] [her] ability to safely perform all of the essential task of a Special Agent." Id. She further claims that the accompanying memorandum presented an inaccurate accounting of...