Royce C. Lamberth, United States District Judge.
Before the Court are the defendants' Partial Motion to Dismiss the Fourth Amended Complaint [30] and the plaintiff's Motion for Leave to File the Fifth Amended Complaint [33]. Upon consideration of each of these motions, the oppositions thereto, and the replies, the defendants' Motion [30] is GRANTED and the plaintiff's Motion [33] is DENIED. And, for the reasons stated herein, the plaintiff's remaining claims will be transferred to the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
Gary Reynolds is a medical doctor previously employed by the federal Bureau of Prisons ("BOP") at the federal detention center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On January 5, 2009, BOP terminated Mr. Reynolds' decade-long tenure as a Medical Officer after finding that Mr. Reynolds improperly performed a breast examination during the pre-employment screening of a female correctional officer. In compliance with the Health Insurance Portability
The NPDB is maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services ("HHS") and exists to improve healthcare quality by collecting and disseminating information regarding the professional record of healthcare practitioners. Federal agencies are required to report all "adjudicated actions or decisions," including employment terminations, to the NPDB "regardless of whether the [termination] is subject to a pending appeal." 45 C.F.R. § 60.16(a); 45 C.F.R. § 60.3. Subjects of adverse Bank reports who wish to challenge the accuracy or propriety of an NPDB entry must first request that the reporting agency revise the report. 45 C.F.R. § 60.21(b)(3). If the agency declines, or fails to respond within 60 days, the subject may request that the Secretary of HHS review the report for accuracy. Id. Secretarial review is limited to the accuracy of the reported information and does not include "the merits or appropriateness of the action or the due process that the subject received." Id. § 60.21(c)(1). At the conclusion of the review, the Secretary will decide whether to void the NPDB report or issue a corrected report, typically within 30 days, though more time is permitted for "good cause." Id. § 60.21(b)(3); § 60.21(c)(2).
BOP reported Mr. Reynolds' termination to the Bank on February 5, 2009. Fourth Am. Compl., Ex. D (Secretarial Review Decision, June 8, 2010), at 1. The report stated that
Id. The reason for Mr. Reynolds' termination was listed as a "non-sexual dual relationship or boundary violation." Id.
A year later, in January 2010, Mr. Reynolds requested Secretarial review of the NPDB report. On June 8, 2010, HHS issued a decision denying Mr. Reynolds any relief, finding that "when the Federal BOP terminated [Mr. Reynolds'] employment, they were legally required to report [Mr. Reynolds] to the [NPDB]." Id. at 3. The decision letter encouraged Mr. Reynolds to seek reconsideration of the decision should he become aware of information that was unavailable to him at the time of his initial review request. Id.
Aside from his administrative challenge to the NPDB report, Mr. Reynolds filed three separate lawsuits stemming from his tenure with, and termination from, BOP.
First, in March 2007, Mr. Reynolds filed Civil Action No. 07-0499 in this Court,
Fourth Am. Compl., Ex. E (Stipulation for Compromise Settlement, Dec. 24, 2010), at ¶ 2 [hereinafter Settlement Agreement].
Second, on August 5, 2009, Mr. Reynolds filed Civil Action No. 09-3096 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania alleging that BOP violated his constitutional right to due process, violated various state and federal statutes, and engaged in tortious conduct against Mr. Reynolds. The district court ultimately dismissed Mr. Reynolds' complaint because "none of the claims alleged therein is viable." Reynolds v. BOP, No. 09-3096, Mem. Op., ECF No. 56, at 5. Mr. Reynolds appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, but withdrew the appeal pursuant to the agreement reached in his Title VII case. Reynolds v. BOP, No. 10-4250, Order, ECF Doc. No. 003110395150, Dec. 30, 2010.
Finally, on October 20, 2010, Mr. Reynolds filed Civil Action No. 10-5549 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania challenging the NPDB report regarding his termination. The sole claim presented by Mr. Reynolds was that the NPDB report should have listed the cause for his termination as unprofessional conduct involving sexual misconduct rather than the boundary and relationship violations cited in the report. Reynolds v. DOJ, No. 10-5549, Am. Compl., ECF No. 22. On December 24, 2010, roughly two months after Mr. Reynolds filed this complaint, Mr. Reynolds and BOP settled the Title VII case. In a summary judgment motion filed on May 25, 2011, Mr. Reynolds argued that the terms of the settlement—which required BOP to replace the termination letter with a resignation SF-50—precluded any report to the NPDB. S.J. Mot., ECF No. 26, at ¶¶ 41-42.
On July 24, 2011, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the government, finding that the NPDB report "adequately describe[d] the actions of Reynolds and the corresponding findings of the BOP." Mem. Op., No. 10-5549, ECF No. 31, at 7. As to Mr. Reynolds' argument regarding the settlement agreement, the court found that because Mr. Reynolds failed to advance that argument to HHS, he failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. Id. Mr. Reynolds did not appeal.
More than a year after he was first invited to do so, and nearly one year after the December 2010 settlement, Mr. Reynolds requested that HHS reconsider its decision regarding the NPDB report, arguing that the settlement agreement required removal of the report entirely.
The Fourth Amended Complaint alleges nine causes of action: (1) failure of HHS to void the original NPDB report in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 701-706 ("APA"); (2) application for a writ of mandamus requiring HHS to void all NPDB reports regarding Mr. Reynolds; (3) failure of BOP to release documents in violation of the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a; (4) failure of BOP to release documents in violation of the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552 ("FOIA"); (5) failure of BOP to withdraw the initial NPDB report and improper filing of the corrected reports in violation of the APA; (6) application for a writ of mandamus requiring BOP to withdraw the NPBD reports filed in October 2012; (7) deprivation of Mr. Reynolds' liberty interest in having no NPDB reports in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment; (8) breach of the settlement agreement by failure to allow Mr. Reynolds access to a corrected SF-50 pursuant to the Little Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1246(a)(2); and (9) retaliation by filing corrected NPDB report in violation of Title VII.
The government has moved to dismiss all except the third and fourth claims alleged in the complaint. For the reasons stated below, the Court will dismiss Counts One, Two, Five, Six, Seven, and Nine of the Fourth Amended Complaint, and transfer Counts Three, Four, and Eight to the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. The Court will also deny as futile Mr. Reynolds' motion to amend his complaint.
The government makes the following arguments in support of its motion to dismiss: (1) that the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is the proper venue for the claims arising from the settlement agreement; (2) that the plaintiff's claims regarding the NPDB report are barred by the doctrine of res judicata; (3) that the plaintiff has failed to exhaust his administrative remedies with respect to the corrected NPDB reports; (4) that the writ of mandamus is unavailable to the plaintiff; (5) that the plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted on his Title VII retaliation claim; and (6) that the District of Maryland, and not this Court, is the proper venue for the plaintiff's claim under the Little Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1246(a)(2). The Court will address each of these arguments in turn.
Generally, venue must be established as to each cause of action. See, e.g., Lamont v. Haig, 590 F.2d 1124, 1135 (D.C.Cir.1978). With the exception of Counts Eight and Nine, discussed separately in Sections II.F and II.E, respectively, the venue for each of the plaintiff's claims is governed by 28 U.S.C. § 1391(e)(1), which permits civil actions against officers or agencies of the United States to be brought in any "judicial district in which any defendant resides." Because each of the defendants reside and maintain offices and records in this district, venue is not only proper under
The Court therefore finds that this district is a proper venue for Counts One, Two, Five, Six, and Seven of the Fourth Amended Complaint.
The doctrine of res judicata "is designed to conserve judicial resources, avoid inconsistent results, engender respect for judgments of predictable and certain effect, and to prevent serial forum-shopping and piecemeal litigation." Hardison v. Alexander, 655 F.2d 1281, 1288 (D.C.Cir.1981). To this end, the doctrine bars "repetitious suits involving the same cause of action." C.I.R. v. Sunnen, 333 U.S. 591, 597, 68 S.Ct. 715, 92 L.Ed. 898 (1948). Suits implicate the same cause of action when they arise from the same "nucleus of facts." Drake v. F.A.A., 291 F.3d 59, 66 (D.C.Cir.2002). Once a court renders a final judgment on the merits of a cause of action, the parties are forever precluded from "relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in that action." Id. Significantly for the present case, dismissal of a case for failure to exhaust administrative remedies is a final judgment that triggers res judicata and bars subsequent litigation based upon the same cause of action. See e.g., McGee v. D.C., 646 F.Supp.2d 115, 123 (D.D.C.2009) (collecting cases).
Applying these principles to Mr. Reynolds' complaint, this Court finds that Counts One, Two, Five, Six, and Seven are barred by res judicata. Each of these claims stems from the same nucleus of facts—BOP's submission of the NPDB report and the effect of the Title VII settlement agreement on that report. Mr. Reynolds advances two theories to support these causes of action. First, he alleges that the settlement agreement transformed his termination into a resignation, and second, that this transformation precludes any NPDB report regarding the improper breast examination and his subsequent departure from the BOP. All of the facts and both of these theories were available to Mr. Reynolds while his case was pending in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania; yet, Mr. Reynolds declined to amend his complaint or appeal the district court's judgment. These failures require dismissal of Counts One, Two, Five, Six, and Seven of Mr. Reynolds' complaint.
A case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Hardison v. Alexander, 655 F.2d 1281, 1288 (D.C.Cir.1981), is particularly instructive. Hardison, a captain in the U.S. Army, alleged that he was
Id. at 1289.
This reasoning applies equally to the present case. Mr. Reynolds' argument that his "new" claim based on the settlement agreement could not have been litigated in the EDPA fails because just as in Hardison, Mr. Reynolds could have, but did not, properly advance those arguments before the court that first considered his claims. Although the settlement agreement occurred seven months prior to the summary judgment decision, Mr. Reynolds did not seek to amend his complaint or seek a stay of the litigation in order to present the settlement argument to HHS—both court-approved methods for avoiding the res judicata bar. See, e.g., Owens v. Kaiser Found. Health Plan, Inc., 244 F.3d 708, 714-15 (9th Cir.2001); Woods v. Dunlop Tire Corp., 972 F.2d 36, 40-41 (2d Cir.1992). And perhaps most significantly, Mr. Reynolds did not appeal the district court's summary judgment opinion. Rather, he simply brought his claim to a different jurisdiction and hoped for a different result. Allowing Mr. Reynolds' claims to proceed would defeat the purpose of res judicata "to prevent serial forum-shopping and piecemeal litigation." Hardison, 655 F.2d at 1288. As the Circuit stated in Hardison, "the appeal process is available to correct error; subsequent litigation is not." 655 F.2d at 1288.
Mr. Reynolds also argues that the corrected reports issued in October 2012 create a new cause of action, but this is not so. In Hardison, the Circuit considered the question whether the Army had waived the res judicata effect of the summary judgment ruling by agreeing to reconsideration, thereby resurrecting the cause of action. In answer, the Circuit noted that penalizing an agency for its willingness to reconsider would "only serve as a disincentive to future flexibility." Id. at 1289. Given the important policy interests served by res judicata, the Circuit held that courts "should act with caution before [finding] an implicit waiver of the res judicata effects of a judgment." Id. at 1290. Mr. Reynolds has presented no compelling reason to find an implicit waiver here.
Moreover, neither the statute nor the regulations governing the NPDB require reconsideration of a final review decision; thus, the reconsideration offered by HHS is akin to the standby advisory boards that reconsidered Captain Hardison's promotion, which were not required by statute but created as "an act of administrative grace," Knehans v. Alexander, 566 F.2d 312, 315 (D.C.Cir.1977). Faced with an undesirable outcome of such administrative grace, Mr. Reynolds, like Captain Hardison, must "take the bitter with the
Accordingly, Counts One, Two, Five, Six, and Seven of the Fourth Amended Complaint are dismissed.
Even if Mr. Reynolds could somehow surmount the res judicata bar, the APA violations alleged in Counts One and Five would be subject to dismissal because Mr. Reynolds has—yet again—failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. The APA permits judicial review of "final agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy." 5 U.S.C. § 704. HHS regulations, in accordance with HIPAA, delineate an administrative process for challenges to NPDB reports. In response to the reconsideration requested by Mr. Reynolds, BOP has submitted corrected NPDB reports to HHS, and HHS, per Mr. Reynolds' request, is currently reviewing the propriety of those reports. Judicial review at this juncture would improperly interfere with the agency's ability to "exercise its discretion and expertise on the matter and to make a factual record to support its decision." Hidalgo v. F.B.I., 344 F.3d 1256, 1258 (D.C.Cir.2003).
Additionally, the writs of mandamus sought in Counts Two and Six would be unavailable to Mr. Reynolds even if those claims were not precluded by res judicata. The extraordinary remedy of mandamus "generally will not issue unless [1] there is a clear right in the plaintiff to the relief sought, [2] a plainly defined and nondiscretionary duty on the part of the defendant to honor that right, and [3] no other adequate remedy, either judicial or administrative, available." Ganem v. Heckler, 746 F.2d 844, 852 (D.C.Cir.1984). Mr. Reynolds' request for writs of mandamus ordering HHS and BOP to void the NPDB reports fails on each of these three prongs. First, it is not at all clear that a settlement agreement, which neither mentions the NPDB nor negates BOP's finding that Mr. Reynolds grossly abused his power as a physician, relieves BOP of its statutory duty to report such abuse to the NPDB. Second—although both BOP's duty to report Mr. Reynolds' abuse and subsequent termination and HHS's duty to maintain an accurate Data Bank are plainly defined—there is no plain, nondiscretionary
Count Nine of the Fourth Amended Complaint alleges that BOP retaliated against Mr. Reynolds by filing the October 2012 corrected NPDB report in violation of Title VII.
The government next alleges that Mr. Reynolds has failed to state a claim of retaliation and moves this Court to dismiss this claim pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).
A Rule 12(b)(6) motion tests the legal sufficiency of a complaint. Browning v. Clinton, 292 F.3d 235, 242 (D.C.Cir.2002). "To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter... to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (internal quotations omitted). Although Rule 8(a)(2) does not require "detailed factual allegations," a complaint must present more than "[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements." Id. Taken together, the facts alleged in the complaint must be sufficient to raise a plausible claim and to permit "the reasonable inference that the
To prove unlawful retaliation, a plaintiff must show: (1) that he opposed a practice made unlawful by Title VII; (2) that the employer took a materially adverse action against him; and (3) that the employer took the action because the employee opposed the practice. McGrath v. Clinton, 666 F.3d 1377, 1380 (D.C.Cir. 2012). Even assuming that each of the facts alleged by Mr. Reynolds is true, this Court finds that the facts are insufficient to raise a plausible claim of reprisal, particularly as to the third element of a retaliation claim. Mr. Reynolds is correct that a false report to government authorities is a materially adverse action under Title VII. See, e.g., Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 64, 126 S.Ct. 2405, 165 L.Ed.2d 345 (2006); Steele v. Schafer, 535 F.3d 689, 696 (D.C.Cir.2008). But even if the report is materially adverse, Mr. Reynolds does not specifically allege, and the complaint does not give rise to a reasonable inference that, the report was filed because of the prior discrimination complaint. BOP is statutorily required to report certain conduct to the NPDB, and it would be illogical to find the fulfillment of a statutory duty illegal. Accordingly, Count Nine of Mr. Reynolds' complaint is dismissed.
Count Eight of Mr. Reynolds' complaint, brought pursuant to the Little Tucker Act, alleges that BOP breached the settlement agreement by refusing to produce the SF-50 reflecting resignation rather than termination. Mr. Reynolds claims that BOP's actions prohibited his employment, and $300 monthly salary, as a physician at an outpatient clinic operated by the Air Force. Fourth Am. Compl. ¶ 142. The Little Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(2), waives sovereign immunity for civil actions against the federal government arising from "any express or implied contract with the United States." For suits such as this seeking damages less than $10,000, the Act grants concurrent jurisdiction to federal district courts and the Court of Federal Claims, id., but venue is limited to the district where the plaintiff resides, 28 U.S.C. § 1402(a)(1). As Mr. Reynolds is a Maryland resident, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland is the proper venue for this claim. Mr. Reynolds, however, asks this Court to consider his Little Tucker Act claim under the doctrine of pendent venue.
The D.C. Circuit recognized the doctrine of pendent venue in Beattie v. U.S., 756 F.2d 91, 103 (D.C.Cir.1984) abrogated on other grounds by Smith v. U.S., 507 U.S. 197, 113 S.Ct. 1178, 122 L.Ed.2d 548 (1993). In doing so, the Circuit reasoned that pendent venue mirrors pendent jurisdiction in that both concepts "embod[y] factors that bear upon judicial economy, convenience, and fairness." Id. at 103. In deciding whether to exercise pendent venue, courts should consider factors such as "fairness to the litigants, convenience of the witnesses, and the avoidance of piecemeal litigation." Id.
Problems arise in cases where some claims (e.g., Counts Three and Four) are properly venued, while others (e.g., Count Eight) are not. Courts have recognized two approaches to resolving this problem. The first approach focuses on whether any
Under either approach—and given that this Court has dismissed, with the exception of the FOIA and Privacy Act counts, all of Mr. Reynolds's claims for which this Court was the proper venue—transfer of what remains of this case to the District of Maryland is appropriate. As an initial matter, all of Mr. Reynolds' remaining allegations center on BOP's alleged refusal to produce SF-50's and other documents related to Mr. Reynolds' employment. Maintaining two separate actions to adjudicate (1) whether BOP complied with FOIA and the Privacy Act in producing the SF-50's and other documents; and (2) whether BOP's refusal to produce the SF-50 regarding Mr. Reynolds' resignation/termination violated the settlement agreement would not advance the goals of judicial economy, convenience, fairness, or the avoidance of piecemeal litigation. Beattie, 756 F.2d at 103.
Mr. Reynolds' primary remaining claim that BOP blocked his efforts to secure the SF-50 promised in the settlement agreement is controlled by the specific venue provision of the Little Tucker Act. See 28 U.S.C. § 1402(a)(1).
Accordingly, Counts Three, Four, and Eight will be transferred to the District of Maryland. As such, any amendment to the complaint in this Court would be futile, and Mr. Reynolds' motion for leave to file is denied.
A separate Order consistent with this Memorandum Opinion shall issue this date.
Signed by Royce C. Lamberth, United States District Judge, on January 21, 2014.
