United States District Court, District of Columbia
ANDREW H. FARRAR, Plaintiff,
v.
JAMES F. BRIDENSTINE, Defendant.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
JAMES
E. BOASBERG UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Pro
se Plaintiff Andrew Farrar wants to have his cake and
eat it, too. After prevailing at the administrative level in
a disability-based discrimination claim against his former
employer, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
Farrar obtained a damages award that he has retained. He
nonetheless now sues NASA seeking additional damages and
other relief on the same underlying claim. NASA's current
Motion to Dismiss correctly points out that he is entitled to
only the original remedy or to a new trial on liability and
damages. As he has expressed no desire to relinquish his
first award, the Court will dismiss the suit.
I.
Background
The
Court considers the facts set forth in the Complaint as true,
particularly as supplemented with undisputed documents
referenced by Plaintiff and attached to Defendant's
Motion to Dismiss. See ECF No. 9 (Def. MTD), Atts.
2-4. Farrar's tenure at NASA Headquarters was brief,
lasting only from August 2010 to January 2011. See
Compl., ¶ 5. He alleges that Defendant
“discriminated against [him] by refusing to accommodate
[his] disability.” Id., ¶ 14. Such
disability appears to be attention-deficit disorder, memory
loss, and depression. See ECF No. 9-2 (Final Agency
Decision of Nov. 14, 2014) at 1. He “filed a timely
formal discrimination complaint on April 4, 2011.”
Compl., ¶ 15. At the conclusion of the administrative
process, NASA issued a 16-page opinion finding that Farrar
had established disability discrimination and failure to
accommodate, but not retaliation. See 2014 FAD at
15. The FAD also found him entitled to reinstatement to his
position and compensatory damages to be proved subsequently.
Id. at 16. Although NASA offered to reinstate his
employment, Plaintiff believed that the salary was too low
and thus refused. See Compl., ¶¶ 20-21.
On
February 11, 2016, NASA issued its Final Agency Decision on
damages and awarded him $8, 440.18 plus interest, restored
leave, $3, 000 in non-economic damages, and $1, 375 in
attorney fees. See ECF No. 9-3 at 10-11. Plaintiff
successfully appealed that ruling, and the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission issued another 16-page opinion on
September 21, 2018, in which it increased the non-economic
damages to $25, 000 and retained the other relief.
See ECF No. 9-4 at 13. Farrar nonetheless believes
that “[t]he modicum of relief which has trickled down
to me has been inadequate to make me whole.” Compl.,
¶ 41.
In this
suit, consequently, he seeks “placement into the
position I would have occupied if not for the unlawful
conduct of Defendant, ” which means, inter
alia, “employment or front pay” and
“[a]dditional compensation beyond the $25, 000
previously paid to address the full exten[t] of the losses
caused by the unlawful conduct of Defendant.”
Id., ¶¶ 86-91. NASA now moves to dismiss.
II.
Legal Standard
Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 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) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). 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)).
Even at
the Rule 12(b)(6) stage, a Court can review “documents
attached as exhibits or incorporated by reference in the
complaint, ” or “documents upon which the
plaintiff's complaint necessarily relies even if the
document is produced not by the plaintiff in the complaint
but by the defendant in a motion to dismiss.” Ward
v. D.C. Dep't of Youth Rehab. Servs., 768 F.Supp.2d
117, 119 (D.D.C. 2011) (citations omitted); see also
Banneker Ventures, LLC v. Graham, 798 F.3d 1119, 1133
(D.C. Cir. 2015) (“A district court may consider a
document that a complaint specifically references without
converting the motion into one for summary judgment.”).
In this case, Farrar has referenced the three agency opinions
discussed in the Background section above. See
Compl., ¶¶ 18, 36, 39-40. The Court may therefore
properly consider these items without converting
Defendant's Motion into one for summary judgment.
Where
the action is brought by a pro se plaintiff, the
Court must construe her filings liberally and hold the
complaint to “less stringent standards than formal
pleadings drafted by lawyers.” Haines v.
Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972); see also
Schnitzler v. United States, 761 F.3d 33, 38 (D.C. Cir.
2014).
III.
Analysis
Defendant
spends no time in its Motion discussing the particulars of
the alleged discrimination charges or its potential defenses
thereto. Its point is far simpler: where Farrar has accepted
and retained damages awarded during the administrative
process, he does not get another bite at the apple. That is
what the law says, too. In teeing up this very question, the
D.C. Circuit explained, “In this case, we must decide
whether an employee who secures a final administrative
disposition finding discrimination but who is dissatisfied
with the remedy may challenge only the remedy in the federal
court action.” Scott v. Johanns, 409 F.3d 466,
468 (D.C. Cir. 2005). In other words, “[m]ay a court
review a final administrative disposition's remedial
award without reviewing the disposition's underlying
finding of liability? According to Title VII's plain
language, the answer is no.” Id. at 469. The
court concluded: “Under Title VII, federal employees
who secure a final administrative disposition finding
discrimination and ordering relief have a choice: they may
either accept the disposition and its award, or file a civil
action, trying de novo both liability and remedy. They may
not, however, seek de novo review of just the remedial
award.” Id. at 471-72. As Farrar never
mentions any desire or agreement to return the money he has
received pending the outcome of this suit, he cannot proceed.
The
Government acknowledges that this suit falls under the
Rehabilitation Act rather than Title VII, see MTD at
3, but correctly cites 29 U.S.C. § 794a(1), which states
that “[t]he remedies, procedures, and rights set
forth” under the latter apply to the former. This Court
sees no reason why the holding of Scott should not
govern here.
Although
this has no bearing on the outcome, the Court notes that the
Government believes that dismissal here should be predicated
on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), as certain
district courts have previously held in similar cases.
See MTD at 4 (citing cases). The D.C. Circuit in
Scott did not weigh in on whether dismissal should
be jurisdictional or substantive, but the Eleventh Circuit
believes the latter is correct. See Jones v. Sec'y,
Dep't of Defense, 730 F. App'x. 885, 886 n.1
(11th Cir. 2018) (“Whether or not [plaintiff's
return of an EEOC award] might be a precondition [of the
suit's moving forward], it is certainly not a matter of
the subject matter jurisdiction of the district
court.”). And, indeed, Defendant here agrees that
“to the extent Plaintiff is seeking de novo review of
the remedial damages award only [which may well be a ...