Chennareddy v. Dodaro

• Decision Date: 18 December 2009
• Docket Number: 06-1712(EGS).,06-1002(EGS),Civ. Action No. 87-3538 (EGS),01-0517(EGS)
• Citation: 698 F.Supp.2d 1
• Parties: Venkareddy CHENNAREDDY, et al., Plaintiffs,v.Gene DODARO, Acting Comptroller General, Defendant.Venkareddy Chennareddy, Plaintiff,v.Gene Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General, Defendant.Arthur L. Davis, et al., Plaintiffs,v.Gene Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General, and Mary E. Leary, Chair, Personnel Appeals Board, Defendants.James D. Moses, Plaintiff,v.Gene Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General, and Mary E. Leary, Chair, Personnel Appeals Board, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

698 F.Supp.2d 1

Venkareddy CHENNAREDDY, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.Gene DODARO,¹ Acting Comptroller General, Defendant.

Venkareddy Chennareddy, Plaintiff,

v.Gene Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General, Defendant.

Arthur L. Davis, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.Gene Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General, and Mary E. Leary,² Chair, Personnel Appeals Board, Defendants.

James D. Moses, Plaintiff,

v.Gene Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General, and Mary E. Leary, Chair, Personnel Appeals Board, Defendants.

Civ. Action Nos. 87-3538 (EGS), 01-0517(EGS), 06-1002(EGS), 06-1712(EGS).

United States District Court,

District of Columbia.

Dec. 18, 2009.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Heather Graham-Oliver, Christopher B. Harwood, Harry B. Roback, U.S. Attorney's Office, Washington, DC, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

EMMET G. SULLIVAN, District Judge.

Pending before the Court ³ are the above-captioned four employment discrimination actions against the Government Accountability Office (“GAO” or the “agency”).⁴ With the exception of one plaintiff who is still employed by the GAO, plaintiffs in these actions are all former employees of the agency. Throughout the lengthy litigation of these cases, plaintiffs have essentially treated these actions as if they are one unitary case, relying on many of the same factual allegations and legal theories in each of the cases. As a result, and in the interest of judicial economy, this Memorandum Opinion will address and resolve the issues pending before the Court in all of the pending actions. In so doing, however, the Court emphasizes that these cases have not been consolidated for any purpose. This Memorandum Opinion, moreover, should in no way leave the parties with the impression that the Court views these cases as inextricably related. To the contrary, the discussion below should make clear why-aside from the fact that some of the cases involve overlapping plaintiffs and all of the cases include allegations of age discrimination against the GAO-each case involves separate issues that must be addressed individually.

I. Overview

Each of the cases pending before the Court has a long, complicated history largely characterized by undue delay owing to a variety of factors. The background information set forth below will be far from comprehensive, and will include an overview of each case only insofar as is necessary to provide sufficient information for a discussion and resolution of the issues currently before the Court.⁵

A Chennareddy et al., Civil Action No. 87-3538

The original complaint in this case (“ Chennareddy I ”) was filed in December 1987 by then GAO employee Venkareddy Chennareddy (“Chennareddy”) ⁶ as a general class complainant, in addition to Sandra Thiabault, Roger Carroll, Hector Rojas, and “an unnamed GS-15 Employee of the United States General Accounting Office Representing Himself and All Other GS-15's [sic] Similarly Situated” as “Sub-Class Complainants.” Plaintiffs sought to represent a class of GAO employees who had been discriminated against in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (“ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. In March 1989, after this case was consolidated with another action involving the same allegations and many of the same plaintiffs, the Court (1) struck the unnamed plaintiffs from the complaint, and (2) dismissed the actions for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.⁷ Chennareddy appealed, and the D.C. Circuit held that exhaustion was not required “under GAO regulations governing ADEA claims at the time Chennareddy brought his claim in the District Court.” Chennareddy v. Bowsher, 935 F.2d 315, 322 (D.C.Cir.1991).

In the years following remand from the D.C. Circuit, the parties engaged in a lengthy period of class discovery, followed by the filing of a second amended complaint. On September 16, 1993, Plaintiffs filed a motion to certify a class pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. That motion defined the class as follows:

Every person who was employed by the United States General Accounting Office during all or part of the time period beginning September 17, 1983 to date who:

1. was classified as an evaluator or evaluator related professional person, GS-12 through GS-15 (or equivalent) ⁸ during any part of that time; and

2. had reached the age of 40 before or during that time.

Chennareddy I, Docket No. 155. According to plaintiffs, the class would be comprised of more than 1,500 individuals. See Chennareddy I, Docket No. 155.

On March 20, 1995, the Court denied plaintiffs' motion for class certification. See Mem. Order Chennareddy I, Docket No. 202 (“Class Cert. Order”). The Court concluded that although plaintiffs met the “numerosity” requirement of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) (i.e., the number of potential plaintiffs would make joinder impractical), plaintiffs were unable to meet the remaining requirements of the Rule. See Class Cert. Order at 3-4. As the Court explained, plaintiffs had not demonstrated either that there were legal or factual issues common to all class members' claims, or that the class representatives' claims were typical of the class members' claims. Specifically, the Court noted that plaintiffs had failed to adduce evidence showing that the alleged discrimination “manifested itself in a particular employment practice leveled against all members of the proposed class.” Class Cert. Order at 4 (emphasis in original) (citing Gen. Tel. Co. of Sw. v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 159 n. 15, 102 S.Ct. 2364, 72 L.Ed.2d 740 (1982) (“Title VII prohibits discriminatory employment practices, not an abstract policy of discrimination.”)); see also Class Cert. Order at 7 (“[P]laintiffs provide no basis for concluding that 1,500 employees suffer from a common discriminatory practice.”).

The Court further concluded that certification was improper because plaintiffs had not shown that they could “ ‘fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class.’ ” Class Cert. Order at 9 (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a)(4)). In this regard, the Court found that a “direct intra-class conflict” existed among members of the class, because “a class comprised of GS-12, -13, -14, and -15 level employees would place some class members in the awkward position of challenging other members who participated in the promotion process.” Class Cert. Order at 10. Finally, the Court recognized that it had the authority to narrow the class, divide it into subclasses, or permit potential class members to opt out of the class. Class Cert. Order at 11. The Court declined to do so, however, because such measures “would not cure the defects in this case. Plaintiffs would still have failed to identify a discriminatory practice or policy affecting promotion decisions at the GAO.” Class Cert. Order at 11.

In response to this ruling, plaintiffs filed motions to alter the class-certification judgment, for an evidentiary hearing, for leave to expand discovery, and for various forms of emergency injunctive relief. Those motions were all denied by the Court without reaching the merits of the arguments raised therein. In April and May 2000, plaintiffs filed a new round of motions, including a(1) motion for leave to file a third amended complaint, which included a request to add the GAO's Personnel Appeals Board (“PAB”) as a defendant; (2) renewed motion for class certification; (3) motion to add three new party intervenors; ⁹ (4) motion for reconsideration of all pending motions; (5) motion for partial summary judgment; and (6) motion for a preliminary injunction.

At a status hearing on March 10, 2005 (before the merits of any of the pending motions had been addressed by the Court), plaintiffs sought “additional limited discovery which they believe may impact the pending motions in this case.” Order Chennareddy I, Docket No. 330 (Mar. 14, 2005). Their subsequent motion for discovery, filed at the Court's order, addressed plaintiffs' discovery of the existence of “GAO computerized data files recording essentially all of the information relevant to Plaintiff's [sic] claims. That system is maintained by Robert Mowbray, Director of the Statistical Applications Software department.” Pls.' Motion for Additional Disc. at 3, Chennareddy I, Docket No. 332. Plaintiffs argued that the agency had falsely represented that no such data existed, and additional discovery related to the “data system” would support plaintiffs' pending motions. Pls.' Motion for Additional Disc. at 7, Chennareddy I, Docket No. 332. Specifically, plaintiffs claimed that the additional discovery would support both plaintiffs' request for class certification and amendment of the complaint to include the PAB. Pls.' Motion for Additional Disc. at 7, Chennareddy I, Docket No. 332. On September 11, 2006, plaintiffs filed a motion for leave to file a fourth amended complaint, to add the PAB as a defendant and three new party intervenors, and for reconsideration of several motions. In addition, on November 27, 2006, plaintiffs filed a motion to consolidate pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 42(a).¹⁰

With the exception of those motions that had become moot, all of the above-described motions that had been filed since April 2000 were pending when the case was transferred to this Court in 2007. After the Court denied without prejudice all pending motions, plaintiffs filed (1) their fourth amended complaint, and (2) a renewed motion to intervene on behalf of Davis, Moses, and Gilbert. Those motions were referred to a magistrate judge for a Report and Recommendation. The magistrate judge denied both plaintiffs' request for discovery prior to a ruling on the motion to intervene, in addition to the motion itself.¹¹ The GAO then filed a motion for a more definite statement and partial motion to dismiss, and plaintiffs filed a motion to compel the GAO's electronic personnel data. On February 4, 2009, the magistrate judge granted defendant's motion for a more definite statement, denied without prejudice the partial motion...