Fuller-Deets v. Nat'l Insts. of Health
| Decision Date | 14 January 2020 |
| Docket Number | Case No.: GJH-18-3175 |
| Parties | JOSHUA FULLER-DEETS, Plaintiff, v. NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
Plaintiff Joshua Fuller-Deets brought this pro se civil action challenging the decision by Defendant National Institutes of Health ("NIH") to prohibit him from bringing a service dog in training to his job on the NIH campus under the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"), 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., and MD. CODE ANN., HUMAN SERVS. §§ 7-704, 7-705. ECF No. 15. Pending before the Court is Defendant's Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment.1 ECF No. 16. No hearing is necessary. See Loc. R. 105.6 (D. Md. 2016). For the following reasons, Defendant's Motion, construed as a Motion for Summary Judgment, is granted.
NIH is an agency of the United States Public Health Service, which is a division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services ("HHS"). ECF No. 15 ¶ 16; see 42 U.S.C. §§ 202, 281. NIH's main campus is located in Bethesda, Maryland. ECF No. 15 ¶ 6.Since September 2016, Plaintiff has been employed as a computer systems analyst contractor assigned to the Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, which is a part of the National Eye Institute at NIH. Id. ¶ 3.
Since 1943, Maryland law has provided that:
MD. CODE. ANN., GEN. PROVISION § 6-201 (formerly MD. CODE ANN., STATE GOV'T § 14-102 and MD. CODE (1957), Art. 96 § 47).2
In 1953, the State of Maryland ceded to the federal government the property on which NIH's Bethesda, Maryland campus currently sits. 1953 Md. Laws 311-14. At the time of cession, Maryland stipulated that:
Exclusive jurisdiction over the [NIH parcel of land] shall be and the same is hereby ceded to the United States for all purposes except that the State retains the right to serve thereon all civil and criminal process of the courts of this state, but the jurisdiction so ceded SHALL NOT VEST AS TO ALL OR ANY PORTION OF SAID PARCEL OF LAND UNLESS AND UNTIL THE UNITED STATES SHALL OWN IT, AND THE JURISDICTION shall continue no longer than the United States shall own such land.
Id. at 313 (emphasis in original).
In 1990, long after Maryland ceded the NIH property, NIH promulgated regulations governing the conduct of persons and traffic on the NIH campus. See Conduct of Persons andTraffic on the National Institutes of Health Federal Enclave, 55 Fed. Reg. 2047, 2067 (Jan. 22, 1990). The regulations provided, in relevant part, that Id. at 2070; see 45 C.F.R. § 3.42(b). This regulation has been incorporated into the NIH Policy Manual. See ECF No. 16-4 at 15.3 NIH regulations do not provide authorization for the use of animals by trainers of service animals.
Conversely, in 1997, Maryland's General Assembly enacted legislation that did provide protections to trainers of service animals (collectively, the "Service Animal Trainer Protections"). Section 7-704(a) of the Maryland Code's Human Services Article provides that "service animal trainers who are accompanied by an animal being trained or raised as a service animal have the same right as individuals without disabilities to the full and free use of the roads, sidewalks, public buildings, public facilities, and other public places." MD. CODE. ANN., HUM. SERVS. § 7-704(a). Section 7-704(b)(1) provides that "service animal trainers who are accompanied by an animal being trained or raised as a service animal are entitled to full and equal rights and privileges with respect to common carriers and other public conveyances or modes of transportation, places of public accommodations, and other places to which the general public is invited, subject only to any conditions and limitations of general application established by law." Id. § 7-704(b)(1). Section 7-705(c)(1) provides that "a service animal trainer may be accompanied by an animal that is being trained as a service animal in any place where an individual with a disability or a parent of a minor child with a disability has the right to beaccompanied by a service animal." Id. § 7-705(c)(1). Finally, Section 7-705(e)(2)(i) provides that "[a] person may not deny or interfere with the admittance of an animal being trained as a service animal that accompanies a service animal trainer." Id. § 7-705(e)(2)(i).
Between September 2016 and January 2018, Plaintiff was a volunteer service animal raiser for New Horizons Service Dogs, an accredited service dog agency. ECF No. 15 ¶ 11. During that time, Plaintiff brought two golden retriever service-dogs-in-training to work on NIH's Bethesda campus. Id. ¶¶ 12, 13. At some point before May 2017, Plaintiff, through his supervisor Bevil Conway, asked permission to have another service-dog-in-training at work. ECF No. 16-4 ¶ 2; id. at 5. On December 15, 2017, David Schneeweis, Deputy Scientific Director at the National Eye Institute, emailed Plaintiff conveying that he had "heard from Bevil that questions are being raised over whether [Plaintiff] can continue to have [his] dog in [building] 49," and he invited Plaintiff to meet "to hear [Plaintiff's] perspective." Id. ¶ 3; id. at 5.
On January 11, 2018, Plaintiff emailed Mr. Schneeweis to "ask if [he]'d heard anything new on this issue," because New Horizons was slated to "have a new litter of animals ready in a month or two" and Plaintiff "need[ed] to give them some advance notice about whether [he] c[ould] take another dog or not." Id. ¶ 4; id. at 8. On January 22, 2018, Mr. Schneeweis responded to inform Plaintiff that he was "[g]athering information to give [Plaintiff] a complete response." Id. at ¶ 5; id. at 10.
On February 2, 2019, Plaintiff again emailed Mr. Schneeweis, sharing that he "need[ed] to let [New Horizons] know by mid-February whether [he would] be able to take an animal." See id. ¶ 6; id. at 13. On February 5, 2019, Mr. Schneeweis responded, informing Plaintiff that "there are two key issues: (1) What does NIH policy have to say; and (2) Is there any reason to believethat NIH policy might be inconsistent with the law." Id. at 15. On the first issue, Mr. Schneeweis cited to Section 1301 of an NIH policy manual— tracking 45 C.F.R. § 4.32(b)—which provides that "[a] person may not bring on the [NIH] campus any cat, dog, or other animal except for authorized purposes." Id. He concluded that because "having a service animal in training on campus is not explicitly authorized, NIH policy dictates that it is not allowed." Id. On the second issue, Mr. Schneeweis stated that "the NIH Office of General Counsel weighed in, affirming that a service dog in training does not fall under [the] ADA because service animals are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a disabled individual," and "while Maryland law gives additional rights to trainers ... , the NIH is a federal enclave." Id. Mr. Schneeweis concluded: "While I applaud your commitment to a very worthwhile cause, I need to ask you to comply with existing NIH policy going forward." Id.
On September 7, 2018, Plaintiff emailed Mr. Schneeweis, informing him that Plaintiff "[ran] [his] situation by a couple of lawyers and [he had] decided to file an [APA] appeal regarding the NIH's decision to prohibit [his] campus access with a service animal in training." Id. at 18.
On October 12, 2018, Plaintiff filed a Complaint in this Court, ECF No. 1, and later amended the Complaint on April 16, 2019, ECF No. 15.4 He alleges that Defendant's decision to ban him from bringing a service dog in training onto the NIH campus violates Maryland's Service Animal Trainer Protections. Id. Thus, pursuant to the APA, he asks the Court to declare "that there is no federal law which prohibits the Defendant from complying with Maryland laws related to [service dogs in training]" and to issue "an order setting aside the Defendant's actionsand policies related to [service dogs in training]" and "requiring the Defendant to comply with state laws relating to [service dogs in training]..." Id. On May 6, 2019, Defendant filed a Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, Motion for Summary Judgment. ECF No. 16. Plaintiff filed an opposition on July 22, 2019, ECF No. 21, and Defendant filed a reply on August 20, 2019, ECF No. 23.
Defendant has moved to dismiss this case pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1), asserting that the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff's APA claim. "A district court should grant a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1) 'only if the material jurisdictional facts are not in dispute and the moving party is entitled to prevail as a matter of law.'" Upstate Forever v. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P., 887 F.3d 637, 645 (4th Cir. 2018) (quoting Evans v. B.F. Perkins Co., 166 F.3d 642, 647 (4th Cir. 1999)). "The burden of establishing subject matter jurisdiction rests with the plaintiff." Demetres v. East West Constr., 776 F.3d 271, 272 (4th Cir. 2015). "When a defendant challenges subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1), 'the district court is to regard the pleadings as mere evidence on the issue, and may...
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