KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, United States District Judge.
Plaintiff Donald Rochon, a retired special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), recently spent the better part of three years trying to secure from his former employer a certain identification card that would permit him to carry a concealed weapon when he travels. First, Rochon contacted the FBI to get information about applying for the card and submitted
Before this Court at present is Defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint, or in the alternative, for summary judgment. (Ren[e]wed Mot. to Dismiss or[ ] in the Alternative for Summ. J. ("Def.'s Mot."), ECF No. 21, 1-2; Mem. of Law in Supp. of Def.'s Mot. ("Def.'s Mem."), ECF No. 21, 9-27.) This Court referred Defendant's motion, along with the entire case, to a magistrate judge for full case management on September 2, 2014 (see ECF No. 34), and the magistrate judge permitted Plaintiff to take limited discovery. Then, on May 14, 2015, that judge issued a Report and Recommendation that recommended Defendant's motion be denied. (See Report & Recommendation, ECF No. 43.)
On September 30, 2015, this Court issued an Order that declined to accept the recommendation of the magistrate judge. (See ECF No. 49.) This Memorandum Opinion explains the reasons for that order. In sum, after a thorough review of the Report and Recommendation, the parties' briefs, the record, and established case law, this Court finds that Plaintiff has failed to provide any evidence from which a jury could reasonably infer that he was temporarily denied the requested card because of his lengthy history of employment-related litigation against the FBI, and thus, the Court concludes that no reasonable jury could find in Plaintiff's favor on the retaliation claim. Accordingly, and as explained fully below, this Court has treated Defendant's motion as one for summary judgment, and so construed, the motion has been
The FBI hired Rochon as an agent in 1981. (See Compl. ¶ 6.) To put it mildly, the primary distinguishing feature of Rochon's employment relationship with the agency over the past 30-plus years has been the series of discrimination and retaliation claims that Rochon has made and the litigation that has resulted. (See, e.g., id. at ¶¶ 6-14). Rochon's numerous lawsuits — many, if not all, of which concluded in settlement — are well-documented in prior opinions, see, e.g., Rochon v. Gonzales, 438 F.3d 1211 (D.C.Cir.2006), and this Court need not recount that history here. It suffices to note that the first settlement was finalized in 1990, and it entitled Rochon to "front pay" as if he was continuing his work as an FBI Special Agent through
Rochon alleges that, after this last settlement agreement was executed, he wished to take advantage of a federal law that exempts certain retired law enforcement officers from state laws that prohibit the carrying of concealed weapons across state lines. See 18 U.S.C. § 926C. (See also Ex. 3 to Def.'s Mot., ECF No. 21-1, 7-13, at 8.) To access that benefit, retired officers must request a specific identification card from their former agency or employer — which is known as an "HR-218 card" — and the FBI itself has issued a policy document that addresses the circumstances under which HR-218 cards "may be issued[.]" (Ex. C to Def.'s Mot., ECF No. 21-3, 15-22, at 16-17.) The document states that, to be issued an HR-218 card, retired FBI agents must satisfy a list of criteria, including the requirement that "no issues are revealed in an NCIC III check for Agents who retired prior to the implementation date." (Id. at 17; see also id. at 16 (explaining that the agency created the document to provide "status of availability of ... identification (ID) cards for retired/retiring Special Agents").)
An NCIC III check (which is referred to in the parties' briefs and this Opinion as a "name check") is part of the background review that is a standard component of the FBI's process for considering an HR-218 card application. (See id. at 18; Pl.'s Statement of Genuine Issues, ECF No. 27-29, at 4.) A division of the FBI that is known as the Criminal Justice Information Services ("CJIS") performs the NCIC III check (see Decl. of Joseph McQueen ("McQueen Decl."), ECF No. 21-4, at ¶¶ 7-10 (identifying CJIS as a division of the FBI and describing its role)), and when such a name check is requested, CJIS runs the applicant's name through its database to determine whether that person has been charged with, or convicted of, a criminal offense. (McQueen Decl. at ¶ 8).
The Assistant Director of the FBI's Human Resources Division makes the final determination regarding whether or not to issue an HR-218 card. (See Bladen Statement at 32.) According to Anthony Bladen, who was the Assistant Director of the Human Resources Division at all relevant times, he invariably denied applications for an HR-218 card if CJIS generated a negative name check report. (See id. ("Every time I have received a recommendation from CJIS to discontinue a candidate's identification card processing, I have acted in the same manner and have denied the candidate an identification card."); id. at 33 (explaining this protocol works to ensure applications are evaluated "in a standardized manner").)
Defendants maintain that such was the case here. Rochon submitted an application for an HR-218 card on or about April 19, 2010.
Rochon subsequently challenged this denial determination in multiple letters to Bladen, asserting that there had been a mistake and that any 1998 charges had been dismissed. (See Ex. 14 to Def.'s Mot., ECF No. 21-1, 51-60, at 52; Ex. 10 to Def.'s Mot., ECF No. 21-1, 36-37, at 37.) In response, Bladen stated that, "[i]n accordance with Bureau policy," his decision to deny the card was only appealable "to the extent that the ... decision [was] based upon a record error or a record that does not actually belong to the individual requesting the HR-218 Card[ ]" (Ex. 8 to Def.'s Mot., ECF No. 21-1, 27-28, at 28), and that, in Bladen's estimation, Rochon's letters had not demonstrated either of these flaws (see id.). Rochon then pursued an entirely different avenue to address the rejection of his HR-218 card application: on November 22, 2010, he initiated proceedings with the Kane County court to have the charges expunged. (See Ex. 12 to Def.'s Mot., ECF 21-1, 40-48, at 48.) A Kane County official agreed to the expungement on December 7, 2010 (see id. at 47), and a state judge signed the petition expunging the charges on January 28, 2011 (see id. at 43, 45).
Rochon filed a complaint against the FBI in this Court on January 31, 2013, alleging that the FBI had retaliated against him for his history of protected activity by denying him the HR-218 card. In late 2013 — while the instant lawsuit was pending — Rochon reapplied for the card, and the FBI granted his request. (See Compl. ¶ 42.) Rochon then amended his complaint to request compensatory and injunctive relief notwithstanding the fact that Defendant had issued him the requested card; he alleged that, regardless, the FBI's prior denial was a retaliatory act that had exposed him to harm because it had needlessly delayed the requested permission to carry a concealed weapon across state lines for a three-year period, which had caused him to fear that he would be unable to protect his family and had also injured him mentally and emotionally in various ways. (See Compl. ¶¶ 28, 44-45.) Defendant filed a motion to dismiss, or in the alternative, a motion for summary judgment on March 31, 2014. As mentioned above, after this Court referred the entire case for full case management to a magistrate judge, a period of discovery commenced (see Minute Entry for Proceedings dated October 31, 2014), and, ultimately, the magistrate judge recommended that Defendant's motion be denied (see Report & Recommendation, ECF 43).
Defendant timely filed with this Court an objection to the Report and Recommendation on June 15, 2015 (see Def.'s Objections to Report & Recommendation, ECF 46), to which Rochon responded (see Pl.'s Resp. to Def.'s Objections, ECF 48). In
Defendant has moved for dismissal of Rochon's one-count retaliation complaint because, in Defendant's view, the complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, or in the alternative, because the record evidence is such that Defendant is entitled to summary judgment. (See Def.'s Mem. at 9-10.) Where, as here, a defendant maintains that the case should be terminated either for defective pleadings or because there is no genuine issue of material fact to be presented to a jury, the court may review the parties' arguments with respect to both of those grounds to determine the extent to which the motion can be sustained. See, e.g., Smith v. United States, 121 F.Supp.3d 112, 116-19, No. 12-cv-1679, 2015 WL 4880891, at *3-4 (D.D.C. Aug. 14, 2015) (evaluating certain arguments under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and others under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 where defendants filed motion seeking either dismissal for failure to state a claim or summary judgment). However, because such a motion presents these alleged defects as alternative bases for terminating the action, the court may also opt to evaluate one basis for termination of the action and not the other. See, e.g., Jones v. Nat'l Council on Disability, 66 F.Supp.3d 94, 104 n. 8 (D.D.C.2014) ("Because the Court has decided the issues pursuant to the standards set forth in Rules 12(b)(1) and (6), it does not address Defendants' alternative argument that they are entitled to summary judgment."); VioPharma, Inc. v. Hamburg, 916 F.Supp.2d 76, 77, 83 (D.D.C. 2013) (granting summary judgment to defendants who had filed a motion to dismiss, or, in the alternative, for summary judgment, without analyzing the motion under Rule 12); cf. PDK Labs., Inc. v. DEA, 362 F.3d 786, 799 (D.C.Cir.2004) (Roberts, J., concurring) (stating where there "is a sufficient ground for deciding th[e] case," the "cardinal principle of judicial restraint — if it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more — counsels us to go no further").
Here, as explained below, this Court has assumed (without deciding) that Rochon engaged in protected activity and that the FBI's temporary denial of an ID card qualifies as an adverse action under Title VII, and thus, that his complaint states a claim for the purpose of Defendant's motion to dismiss. (See infra Part III.) However, this Court concludes nevertheless that Defendant is entitled to summary judgment on Rochon's retaliation claim because, based on the Court's examination of the record evidence that the parties have submitted in conjunction with Defendant's request for summary judgment, no reasonable jury could find that Rochon was denied the ID card because of his prior protected activity. Thus, what follows is a brief recitation of the legal standards applicable to motions for summary judgment.
Title VII prohibits retaliation against an employee "because [the employee] has opposed any practice made an unlawful practice by [Title VII], or because he has made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under [Title VII]." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a). Based on the text of the statute, courts have identified three requirements for a plaintiff who seeks to prove that he has been subjected to unlawful retaliation: such an employee must show that (1) he engaged in an activity that Title VII protects; (2) his
Here, Rochon's complaint is somewhat vague about what he considers his protected activity to have been — i.e., rather than pinpointing a particular past act, he recounts the litany of allegedly discriminatory and retaliatory acts the FBI has purportedly taken against him over the past thirty years and the "series of cases" he brought against the agency as a result (Compl. ¶ 7) — and it is not at all clear that his lawsuits of yesteryear are sufficient support for the retaliation claim he brings today. See Carlson v. CSX Transp., Inc., 758 F.3d 819, 828 (7th Cir.2014) ("If the best a plaintiff can do is allege that he engaged in protected activity and then, years later, the employer took an adverse action against him, the claim may not be permitted to proceed."). What is more, Defendant argues that "the temporary denial of the HR-218 card [does not] constitute[ ] a materially adverse action because the denial would not have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination[,]" and thus, Defendant suggests that, even if taken as true, the allegations of Rochon's complaint fail to establish the second retaliation-claim element as a matter of law. (Def.'s Mem. at 19.) But this Court finds that it need not decide whether the complaint's assertions of protected activity and adverse action would be sufficient to establish retaliation on their face, because, regardless, Rochon has failed to point to sufficient evidence from which one could infer causation (the third element of a retaliation claim). In other words, even assuming arguendo that the allegations in Rochon's complaint would be sufficient to withstand a Rule 12(b) motion, this Court concludes that, based on its review of the record evidence, no reasonable jury could find that Rochon was denied an HR-218 card because of his protected activity, and thus, that summary judgment in favor of Defendant is warranted.
To understand the basis for this Court's conclusion — and also why it cannot accept the legal analysis in the Report and Recommendation — one must first keep firmly in mind the well-established evidentiary burdens that a plaintiff must bear when he or she claims retaliation or discrimination in violation of Title VII.
It has long been recognized that proving the aforementioned elements of a Title VII retaliation claim can be quite difficult for an employee when, as is often the case, the employee lacks direct evidence of retaliation (or discrimination). See, e.g., Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U.S. 111, 121, 105 S.Ct. 613, 83 L.Ed.2d 523 (1985). Of course, it is also clear beyond cavil that relying on circumstantial evidence
Generally speaking, in retaliation cases, the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework requires that the plaintiff must, first, point to evidence of a "prima facie case" — i.e., "(1) that he engaged in statutorily protected activity; (2) that he suffered a materially adverse action by his employer; and (3) that a causal link connects the two." Jones, 557 F.3d at 677. If a plaintiff identifies such evidence, the burden of production — but not persuasion — shifts to the defendant to provide "a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason[ ]" for its actions. Reeves, 530 U.S. at 142, 120 S.Ct. 2097 (explaining the defendant's burden here "can involve no credibility assessment"). Then, if the defendant provides a nondiscriminatory or nonretaliatory reason for the challenged employment action, "the McDonnell Douglas framework — with its presumptions and burdens — disappear[s]," leaving only the ultimate question of "discrimination vel non[.]" Id. at 142-43, 120 S.Ct. 2097 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). And on that question, the burden of showing that a reasonable jury could find that defendant's reasons are pretextual and that the real reason for the adverse action was discriminatory or retaliatory animus falls on the plaintiff. See Morgan v. Fed. Home Loan Mortg. Corp., 328 F.3d 647, 654 (D.C.Cir.2003); cf. Ajisefinni v. KPMG LLP, 17 F.Supp.3d 28, 38 (D.D.C.2014) (noting that, when facing a motion for summary judgment, the non-movant must respond with "specific facts in the record that reveal a genuine issue that is suitable for trial" (citing Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 324, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986))).
Perhaps because the requirements of the first step of the McDonnell Douglas framework (i.e., the "prima facie" case stage) track the three essential elements of a Title VII discrimination or retaliation claim, see McGrath, 666 F.3d at 1380 n. 3 (noting the overlap), confusion has occasionally arisen regarding what the law actually requires of the parties. In recent years, however, the D.C. Circuit has clarified that the need to "make out a prima facie case" is not the be-all-and-end-all of claim brought under Title VII; rather, it is merely a tool that, when used appropriately, helps to guide judges' consideration of the evidence that the parties have presented regarding the ultimate question of whether discrimination or retaliation occurred. See Brady v. Office of Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d 490, 493-94 (D.C.Cir.2008). Thus, at the summary-judgment stage, if "the defendant has done everything that would be required of him if the plaintiff had properly made out a prima facie case[]" — i.e., if the defendant has proffered a non-discriminatory reason for its challenged decision — "whether the plaintiff really [made out a prima facie case] is no longer relevant" because "[t]he district
Notably, nothing in the D.C. Circuit cases that discuss the parties' relative evidentiary burdens in Title VII cases purports to diminish in any way what a plaintiff must ultimately prove in order to prevail on a discrimination or retaliation claim. That is, what "falls away" is the burden-shifting framework itself, and not the substantive requirements of Title VII — the plaintiff must still offer evidence that is sufficient to establish that his employer intentionally discriminated or retaliated against him in violation of that statute, notwithstanding the fact that the defendant has provided a nondiscriminatory or non-retaliatory justification. See McGrath, 666 F.3d at 1380 & n.3. What is more, the plaintiff's ultimate burden once the employer has asserted its nondiscriminatory or non-retaliatory reason is consistently expressed in the D.C. Circuit's precedents in the conjunctive. See, e.g., Allen, 795 F.3d at 39 (holding that the court must determine "whether the employee produced sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that the employer's asserted nondiscriminatory [or non-retaliatory] reason was not the actual reason and that the employer intentionally discriminated [or retaliated] against the employee[]" (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (first and second alterations in original) (emphasis added)). This means that summary judgment will sometimes be proper even when a plaintiff "set[s] forth sufficient evidence to reject the defendant's explanation," if it is nevertheless impossible for a rational factfinder to conclude the action was discriminatory. Giles v. Transit Emps. Fed. Credit Union, 794 F.3d 1, 9 (D.C.Cir.2015) (explaining the ultimate question of discrimination is a holistic inquiry). In other words, after the defendant provides its reason and the court focuses on whether the evidence is sufficient to support the plaintiff's claim, the evidence before the court "must be such that a reasonable jury could not only disbelieve the employer's reasons, but [also] conclude that the real reason the employer took a challenged action was a prohibited one." Walker v. Johnson, 798 F.3d 1085, 1093 (D.C.Cir.2015); see also Giles, 794 F.3d at 9-10 (holding in the analogous disability-discrimination context, that notwithstanding possibility that a jury could reasonably disbelieve the employer's proffered reason, no reasonable jury could conclude the employer took the adverse employment action because of the employee's disability).
This all means that the Report and Recommendation here — which suggests that a plaintiff bears no burden of proof whatsoever once a defendant articulates its legitimate reason and reasons that this case must proceed to trial simply and solely because Rochon has challenged the proffered justification and attacked the sworn testimony of Defendant's witnesses (see Report and Recommendation at 14-15 & n.9) — failed to consider the full scope of Rochon's obligations in opposing Defendant's
The FBI has provided a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason for its initial denial of Rochon's request for an HR-218 card: due to the results of the name check, the CJIS report recommended against allowing the applicant to proceed, and Bladen accepted the CJIS recommendation, in accordance with his ordinary practice. (See Def.'s Mem. at 24; Bladen Statement at 32.) Therefore, to survive the motion for summary judgment in accordance with the proper legal standards, Rochon must now point to record evidence that is sufficient for a reasonable jury to "not only disbelieve the employer's reasons, but conclude that the real reason the employer took a challenged action was a prohibited one." Walker, 798 F.3d at 1093.
Rochon has utterly failed to identify any such evidence. For example, a successful discrediting of the FBI's proffered reason for initially denying him the card might have involved evidence that the CJIS name check did not actually reveal any past charges against Rochon, or that, in contrast to Bladen's testimony, there really was no report from CJIS that recommended to Bladen that he disapprove Rochon's application. Similarly, Rochon could have undertaken to establish that it was not Bladen's ordinary practice to deny an application for an HR-218 card when CJIS recommended that he do so, which, if coupled with evidence that Bladen knew about Rochon's litigation history, could give rise to a reasonable inference that Bladen had a retaliatory motive when he denied the card in Rochon's case. But Rochon has pointed to no such evidence; instead, his argument in opposition to Defendant's motion appears to rest exclusively on several unfounded assertions regarding what Rochon perceives to be the illegitimacy of the practice of denying an HR-218 card to someone who has only been charged with a crime in the past as opposed to someone who has been convicted of such a crime. (See, e.g., Pl.'s Opp'n at 18, 25.)
Specifically, Rochon maintains that the FBI's policies require that an applicant's request for an HR-218 card be granted so long as the applicant has not been convicted of a disqualifying crime (see id. at 18) and that, because Bladen based his decision in Rochon's case on the mere fact of Rochon's past charges (see id. at 25), a jury could infer retaliatory motive. But Bladen did not testify to having reached the denial decision with respect to Rochon's application based on his consideration of Rochon's past charges; instead, he stated that he based his conclusion on CJIS's recommendation, and nothing in the record indicates otherwise. Moreover, even if Rochon has correctly interpreted FBI policy and can establish that Bladen actually considered Rochon's charges in contravention of that policy, such a demonstration would only show that Bladen was mistaken about the permissible bases for denying a card, which, alone, may not be sufficient to give rise to an inference of intentional discrimination. See George v. Leavitt, 407 F.3d 405, 415 (D.C.Cir.2005) ("[P]roving that an employer's reason is false will not always be sufficient to demonstrate pretext .... because an employer's action may be justified by a reasonable belief in the validity of the reason
Thus, this Court finds that, however vigorous, Rochon's lines of attack are largely, if not entirely, irrelevant to the task at hand. As explained, to survive Defendant's motion for summary judgment, the law requires Rochon to provide sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that the FBI's stated reasons for denying him the card were not the real reason for the denial and that, in fact, the real reason was unlawful retaliation. None of Rochon's assertions even come close to demonstrating that it was not Bladen's ordinary practice to honor the CJIS recommendation or that no negative CJIS report really issued in connection with Rochon's name check (circumstances that reasonably could give rise to an inference that the FBI's stated reason is objectively false), and Rochon has not pointed to anything else that even remotely suggests that Bladen was actually engaging in intentional retaliation when he rejected Rochon's HR-218 application. The smoke and mirrors of Rochon's various attempts to highlight standard agency policy regarding the issuance of HR-218 cards and to undermine the credibility of the FBI's witnesses do not obscure the obvious: there is simply no evidence that, when Rochon's application came across his desk, Bladen deviated from his usual practice of denying the HR-218 card based on a CJIS recommendation for non-approval or otherwise intentionally rejected Rochon's application in order to punish Rochon for suing the agency in the past. And when the law governing Title VII claims is properly understood, nothing more need be found for the defendant to be entitled to judgment in its favor. See, e.g., Walker, 798 F.3d at 1093-94, 96 (affirming a grant of summary judgment to defendant where the plaintiff's failure to undermine employer's proffered reasons barred any inference that the reasons given were a pretext for discrimination); McGrath, 666 F.3d at 1383-85 (affirming summary judgment grant where no rational juror could conclude that the nondiscriminatory reasons given for termination hid a forbidden motive).
For the reasons stated above, and as provided in the Order this Court issued on September 30, 2015, Defendant's motion for summary judgment has been GRANTED.
