Blaney v. Gonzalez
| Decision Date | 12 April 2021 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL NO. JKB-19-2264 |
| Parties | ROBERT BLANEY, Plaintiff, v. BEATRIZ GONZALEZ, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
In March 2013, Plaintiff Robert Blaney applied for a position with the National Security Agency ("NSA"). After a prolonged application period, Plaintiff's conditional offer of employment with the NSA was ultimately withdrawn. Subsequently, Plaintiff filed this lawsuit against four NSA employees alleging that the withdrawal of his offer was retaliation for complaints he had lodged against them with NSA Customer Care ("NSACC") and the NSA Office of the Inspector General (the "NSA OIG"). This Court dismissed Plaintiff's Complaint (ECF No. 35), finding that the Civil Service Reform Act ("CSRA") precluded judicial review of personnel actions taken by intelligence agencies, including the NSA. Now pending before the Court is Plaintiff's Motion to Alter or Amend the Court's September 16, 2020 Order and Judgment. (ECF No. 37.) The motion is fully briefed, and no hearing is required. See Local Rule 105.6 (D. Md. 2018). For the reasons set forth below, Plaintiff's motion will be denied.
Plaintiff is a Maryland resident and former NSA applicant. (Compl. ¶ 5, ECF No. 1.) According to the allegations in the Complaint, the Defendants—Beatriz Friedl (formerly Beatriz Gonzalez), Jennifer Fernandes, Jessica Gnagey, and Brenda Martineau—are NSA employees in the Office of External Recruiting ("OER"). (Id. ¶¶ 6-9.)
In 2013, Plaintiff applied for a position as a language analyst at the NSA and received a conditional offer of employment. (Id. ¶ 12.) However, the required security processes for the position lasted several years. (See id. ¶¶ 18-33.) Olena Blaney, who is now Plaintiff's ex-wife, also applied for and received a conditional offer to work at the NSA during this time. (Id. ¶ 30.)
In 2017, Plaintiff attempted to accelerate his security clearance adjudication by working with his recruiters, Gnagey and Fernandes. (Id. ¶ 35.) Specifically, on March 20, 2017, Plaintiff emailed OER to request an update and ask whether he could access his Security File, which the NSA uses "to make a final adjudication of security clearance and suitability for national security employment" and includes "the results of [the applicant's] Background Investigation, a polygraph examination, and a psychological examination." (Id. ¶¶ 16, 33.) Gnagey emailed Plaintiff back, reporting "that no individual at OER could access his Security File, because doing so was legally prohibited by the Privacy Act." (Id. ¶ 34.) In August 2017, Plaintiff again reached out regarding his Security File and was informed by Gnagey and Fernandes that he could access his Security File through a Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") request. (Id. ¶ 35.) Plaintiff responded that he believed the appropriate mechanism to access his Security File was a Privacy Act request and raised "concern[s] that their insistence on Plaintiff using incorrect methods to access his SecurityFile could be considered an attempt to prevent Plaintiff from realizing his rights under the Privacy Act." (Id. ¶ 36.) After Defendants responded that a FOIA request was the appropriate avenue for obtaining the Security File, Plaintiff escalated his concerns to NSACC. (Id. ¶¶ 37, 39.)
After contacting NSACC, Plaintiff allegedly received a phone call from Friedl, who "shouted at him to never make any complaints to NSACC regarding anyone at OER, and that Plaintiff should know that doing so would carry serious consequences for him." (Id. ¶ 40.) Plaintiff, in turn, reported Friedl to NSACC, whereupon she allegedly again contacted Plaintiff and asked whether Plaintiff would like to speak to her supervisor. (Id. ¶ 42.) After Plaintiff replied that he would, Friedl allegedly informed him that "she would intercept any further communications Plaintiff made to NSACC, and that she would make sure that she spoke to her supervisor before Plaintiff did." (Id.) On August 25, 2017, Plaintiff reported the sum of his communications with Defendants to the NSA OIG, which ultimately "found no violation of law or regulation" after an investigation. (Id. ¶¶ 44, 59.)
Four days after Plaintiff complained to the NSA OIG, Friedl's supervisor, Martineau, informed Plaintiff that "OER was not privy to any details of the Plaintiff's Security File or Background Information, and that Plaintiff had received all information he needed to answer his questions about the FOIA/PA process." (Id. ¶ 45.) On September 12, 2017, Gnagey informed Plaintiff that the NSA had withdrawn its employment offer. (Id. ¶ 46.)
Plaintiff appealed the decision to withdraw his conditional offer to the Merit Systems Protection Board ("MSPB"). (Id. ¶ 60.) On February 5, 2018, the MSPB dismissed Plaintiff's appeal for lack of jurisdiction. (Id. ¶ 61.) Less than two weeks later, Gnagey informed Plaintiff's ex-wife that the NSA was withdrawing her offer of employment. (Id. ¶ 62.)
On August 6, 2019, Plaintiff brought this lawsuit, alleging common law, statutory, and constitutional claims against Defendants. (Id. ¶¶ 81-144.) Defendants moved to dismiss or for summary judgment (ECF No. 27), and Plaintiff filed a cross-motion for summary judgment (ECF No. 31). In its Memorandum of September 16, 2020 (the "Dismissal"), the Court dismissed Plaintiff's Complaint, finding inter alia that the Court lacks jurisdiction over this dispute pursuant to the CSRA. (See ECF No. 35.) On October 14, 2020, Plaintiff filed this motion requesting that the Court alter or amend the Dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e). (ECF No. 37.)
"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) permits the district court to reconsider a decision in certain circumstances." Hughley v. Matthew Carpenter, P.A., Civ. No. JKB-19-1950, 2020 WL 6703717, at *1 (D. Md. Nov. 13, 2020) (quoting Ross v. Early, 899 F. Supp. 2d 415, 420 (D. Md. 2012)). In the Fourth Circuit, "Rule 59(e) motions can be successful in only three situations: (1) to accommodate an intervening change in controlling law; (2) to account for new evidence not available at trial; or (3) to correct a clear error of law or prevent manifest injustice." Zinkand v. Brown, 478 F.3d 634, 637 (4th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). "Clear error or manifest injustice occurs where a court has patently misunderstood a party or has made a decision outside the adversarial issues present to the Court by the parties, or has made an error not of reasoning but of apprehension." Wagner v. Warden, Civ No. ELH-14-791, 2016 WL 1169937, at *3 (D. Md. Mar. 24, 2016) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).
Although Rule 59(e) "permits a district court to correct its own errors," it "may not be used [] to raise arguments which could have been raised prior to the issuance of the judgment, nor may [it] be used to argue a case under a novel legal theory that the party had the ability to address inthe first instance." Pac. Ins. Co. v. Am. Nat'l Fire Ins. Co., 148 F.3d 396, 403 (4th Cir. 1998) (citing Russell v. Delco Remy Div. of Gen. Motors Corp., 51 F.3d 746, 749 (7th Cir. 1995)). The court should also keep in mind that "reconsideration of a judgment after its entry is an extraordinary remedy which should be used sparingly." Id.
As explained in the Dismissal, Plaintiff's claims run squarely into the CSRA, which was enacted to "replace the haphazard arrangements for administrative and judicial review of personnel action that existed prior to the CSRA." Hall v. Clinton, 235 F.3d 202, 204 (4th Cir. 2000). "Because Congress clearly intended the CSRA to be the exclusive remedy for federal employees, the comprehensive grievance procedures of the CSRA implicitly repealed all other then-existing statutory rights of federal employees regarding personnel decisions." Id. at 206. Similarly, "state law challenges to federal personnel actions within the scope of the CSRA are 'preempted' by the CSRA." Petrini v. Howard, 918 F.2d 1482, 1484 (10th Cir. 1990) (collecting cases). Importantly, this comprehensive procedure not only prevents judicial review of federal employment decisions for employees and applicants who can seek review under the CSRA, but also "demonstrates Congress' intent to entirely foreclose judicial review to employees to whom the CSRA denies statutory review." Elgin v. Dep't of Treasury, 567 U.S. 1, 11 (2012) (emphasis in original) (internal quotations and citations omitted). In sum, judicial review outside the procedures mandated by the CSRA is entirely foreclosed "for claims arising out of federal employment." Fleming v. Spencer, 718 F. App'x 185, 186 (4th Cir. 2018).
In its Dismissal, the Court concluded that Plaintiff's claims were all attempts, directly or indirectly, to seek review of the NSA's withdrawal of his conditional offer, a personnel action covered by Chapter 23 of the CSRA. (ECF No. 35 at 15-16.) Though he now rejects thisconclusion, it appears that Plaintiff was originally of a similar view, as prior to filing this case he raised most of these claims with the MSPB.2 (MSPB Dismissal, Pl. Mot. Summ. J. Ex. Z, ECF No. 31-5 at 119 (). The Court's—and Plaintiff's—original judgment as to the nature of these claims is undoubtedly correct as his Complaint only alleges claims related his application to the NSA. Specifically, Plaintiff alleged that Defendants: interfered with his economic relationship with the NSA (Claims I and II); committed various forms of fraud to create a pretext to withdraw his NSA offer (Claims III, V, IX, and X); retaliated against him for reporting their misconduct by creating a pretext to withdraw his offer (Claim VIII); and did all of these things as part of an ongoing conspiracy, thereby violating RICO (Claim VII). He...
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