Hampton v. Vilsack, Civil Action No. 07–2221 (ESH).

• Decision Date: 14 June 2011
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 07–2221 (ESH).
• Citation: 791 F.Supp.2d 163,112 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 914
• Parties: Karl HAMPTON, Plaintiff,v.Tom VILSACK, Secretary, United States Department of Agriculture, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

791 F.Supp.2d 163

112 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 914

Karl HAMPTON, Plaintiff,

v.Tom VILSACK, Secretary, United States Department of Agriculture, Defendant.

Civil Action No. 07–2221 (ESH).

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

June 14, 2011.

Cathy A. Harris, Kerrie D. Riggs, Michael J. Kator, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.Christian Alexander Natiello, United States Attorney's Office, Washington, DC, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ELLEN SEGAL HUVELLE, District Judge.

Plaintiff Karl Hampton was terminated from his position as a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) and filed suit against his former employer, claiming numerous violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. In a Memorandum Opinion issued on January 13, 2011, the Court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment and dismissed all but one of plaintiff's original ten counts. Before the Court is plaintiff's motion for reconsideration. As explained herein, the Court will deny the motion, since it finds that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Staub v. Proctor Hospital, ––– U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 1186, 179 L.Ed.2d 144 (2011), does not necessitate reconsideration of this Court's prior opinion.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff is an African–American male who was terminated for cause from his position as a Foreign Service Officer with the USDA following allegations that he had submitted altered hotel receipts for reimbursement.¹ Plaintiff filed a ten-court complaint on December 6, 2007, alleging discrimination on the basis of his race, retaliation for engaging in protected activity, and a hostile work environment in violation of Title VII. ( See generally Compl. [Dkt. No. 1].) Defendant moved for summary judgment on July 21, 2010, and on January 13, 2011, the Court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment and dismissed all nine of plaintiff's ten counts. Trial has been set for August 2, 2011, on the sole remaining count, Count Five, which alleges that USDA retaliated against plaintiff by denying him a foreign assignment.²

On March 1, 2011, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Staub v. Proctor Hospital, 131 S.Ct. 1186, which addressed the question of when an employer may be held liable in “cat's paw” situations under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (“USERRA”). On April 4, 2011, plaintiff filed a “Motion for Reconsideration,” ³ claiming that Staub constitutes an intervening change of controlling law that “calls into serious question the correctness of this Court's judgment in granting in part Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment.” (Plaintiff's Motion for Reconsideration [“Mot.”] at 4.)

ANALYSIS

I. LEGAL STANDARDA. Rule 60(b)(1)

Rule 60(b)(1) provides in pertinent part: “On motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may relieve a party or his legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for the following reasons: (1) mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect....” Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b)(1). The D.C. Circuit has stated that a court may reconsider an order which was inconsistent with an intervening decision of controlling law pursuant to Rule 60(b)(1). See D.C. Federation of Civic Ass'ns v. Volpe, 520 F.2d 451, 453 (D.C.Cir.1975). “[A] district court enjoys significant discretion in deciding whether to grant or deny a Rule 60(b) motion.” Computer Prof'ls for Soc. Responsibility v. U.S. Secret Serv., 72 F.3d 897, 903 (D.C.Cir.1996).

B. Staub v. Proctor Hospital

In Staub, an employee of Proctor Hospital was a member of the United States Army Reserve. 131 S.Ct. at 1189. Both his immediate supervisor and his supervisor's supervisor were hostile to his military obligations and fabricated allegations against him, causing the hospital's Vice President of Human Resources to fire him upon reviewing his personnel file. Id. at 1190. Staub sued Proctor under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA), which forbids an employer to deny “employment, reemployment, retention in employment, promotion, or any benefit of employment” based on a person's “membership” in or “obligation to perform service in a uniformed service,” and provides that liability is established “if the person's membership ... is a motivating factor in the employer's action.” Id. (quoting 38 U.S.C. § 4311(a), (c)). Staub contended not that the ultimate decisionmaker was motivated by hostility to his military obligations, but that his immediate supervisors were, and that their actions influenced the vice-president's decision. Id. A jury found Proctor liable and awarded damages, but the Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that Proctor was entitled to judgment as a matter of law because he had brought a “cat's paw” case, and the decisionmaker had relied on more than the supervisors' advice in making her decision.⁴ Id.

The Supreme Court reversed, holding that “if a supervisor performs an act motivated by antimilitary animus that is intended by the supervisor to cause an adverse employment action, and if that act is a proximate cause of the ultimate employment action, then the employer is liable under USERRA.” Id. at 1194. “So long as an agent intends, for discriminatory reasons, that the adverse action occur, he has the scienter required to be liable under USERRA.” Id. at 1192. In addition, the Supreme Court held that the exercise of independent judgment by the ultimate decisionmaker “does not prevent the earlier agent's action (and hence the earlier agent's discriminatory animus) from being the proximate cause of the harm. Proximate cause requires only ‘some direct relation between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct alleged,’ and excludes only those ‘link[s] that are too remote, purely contingent, or indirect.’ ” Id. (quoting Hemi Group, LLC v. City of New York, ––– U.S. ––––, 130 S.Ct. 983, 175 L.Ed.2d 943 (2010)).

II. PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION

Plaintiff reasserts his earlier claim that Dale Miller, plaintiff's first-line supervisor, harbored discriminatory animus towards him and took active steps to have him fired for discriminatory reasons. (Mot. at 4–5.) Mr. Hampton now argues that the Court should reverse its ruling in light of Staub,⁵ because, in his view, the Court improperly “stated on numerous occasions that the reason for its decision was because Miller was not the deciding official for the adverse actions taken against Plaintiff.” (Mot. at 7.)

The Court rejects this invitation to revisit its earlier ruling. Plaintiff expends a great deal of effort repeating ⁶ many of the arguments from his original opposition—namely, that Miller harbored discriminatory animus against plaintiff, and that “Miller's discriminatory animus tainted all of the adverse actions taken against him.” (Mot. at 5–6.) The Court, however, considered and rejected these arguments in its earlier opinion, explicitly holding that “Miller's racially-tinged remarks—the most recent of which allegedly occurred more than a year before, outside plaintiff's presence, and had no relation to any alleged misconduct by plaintiff” did not “automatically taint any and all actions taken by Miller from that date forward.” Hampton, 760 F.Supp.2d at 51. Plaintiff's instant motion merely repeats his prior arguments on this point, and he fails to cite any reason to disturb the Court's earlier ruling. A motion for reconsideration “is not simply an opportunity to reargue facts and theories upon which a court has already ruled.” New York v. United States, 880 F.Supp. 37, 38 (D.D.C.1995) (discussing motion to reconsider in analogous context of Rule 59(e)).

As to plaintiff's Staub argument, Mr. Hampton is simply incorrect when he asserts that “the reason for [the Court's] earlier decision was because Miller was not the deciding official” or that the Court “reli[ed] ... on the fact that Miller was not the ultimate decisionmaker.” (Mot. at 7.) In discussing plaintiff's non-promotion and non-selection for foreign assignment claims (Courts One, Two, Five and Six), the Court noted as a factual matter that Miller had no role in the ultimate decision to terminate plaintiff. This fact was not, however, the “reason” for the Court's decision. Rather, the Court held that plaintiff had failed raise a material dispute of fact as to whether USDA's proffered reason for terminating plaintiff (namely, that plaintiff was found to have submitted falsified reimbursement requests) was pretextual. See Hampton, 760 F.Supp.2d at 47–50. Plaintiff previously advanced the same theory as he argues now: that stray remarks made by his supervisor more than a year prior automatically tainted all subsequent actions taken by Miller. ( See Mot. at 5–6; Pl.'s Summ. J. Opp. at 22.) The Court rejected this theory. Hampton, 760 F.Supp.2d at 48. Staub's holding that “if a supervisor performs an act motivated by [improper] animus that is intended by the supervisor to cause an adverse employment action, and if that act is a proximate cause of the ultimate employment action, then the employer is liable,” 131 S.Ct. at 1192 (emphasis added), is therefore inapposite, as the Court held that plaintiff failed to raise a material dispute of fact that defendant's actions were motivated by discriminatory animus at all.⁷Hampton, 760 F.Supp.2d at 48.

Plaintiff's Staub argument is arguably more appropriate in the context of the Court's discussion of his leave-without-pay and termination claims (Counts Two, Three, Nine and Ten). Plaintiff argued that because Henwood (a political appointee who made the ultimate determination to terminate plaintiff) did not sustain two of the six charges against plaintiff, “a reasonable fact-finder would almost have to conclude that the allegation[s] w [ere] pretext for discrimination and retaliation.” (Pl.'s Summ. J. Opp. at 30–31; Hampton, 760 F.Supp.2d at 49–50.) In response, the Court noted that “plaintiff's invocation of Miller is irrelevant to the...