Lewis v. Dist. of D.C.

• Decision Date: 08 September 2010
• Docket Number: Civil Action No.: 07-0429 (RMU)
• Citation: 736 F.Supp.2d 98
• Parties: Tanya LEWIS, Plaintiff, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

736 F.Supp.2d 98

Tanya LEWIS, Plaintiff,

v.DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant.

Civil Action No.: 07-0429 (RMU).

United States District Court,

District of Columbia.

Sept. 8, 2010.

John F. Mercer, Mercer Law Associates, PLLC, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.

Dwayne C. Jefferson, D.C. Attorney General's Office, Patricia Ann Jones, Office of the Attorney General, Washington, DC, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Denying the Defendant's Motion for Relief Upon Reconsideration; Granting the Plaintiff's Motion to Correct the Record

RICARDO M. URBINA, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

The plaintiff, an African-American woman, has asserted claims of gender-based disparate treatment, retaliation, hostile work environment and constructive discharge in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq., based on her non-selection for a supervisory position within the District of Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs ("DCRA"). In a memorandum opinion issued on September 14, 2009,653 F.Supp.2d 64 (D.D.C.2009), the court granted summary judgment to the plaintiff on her disparate treatment claims, concluding that she had set forth a prima facie case of disparate treatment and that the defendant had failed to articulate a legitimate, non-discriminatory justification for the plaintiff's non-selection. The court, however, granted summary judgment to the defendant on the plaintiff's remaining claims.

This matter is now before the court on the defendant's motion for relief upon reconsideration of that portion of the court's September 14, 2009 ruling granting summary judgment to the plaintiff on her disparate treatment claims. The defendant asserts, much as it did in its prior motion for summary judgment, that the plaintiff's disparate treatment claims fail because the plaintiff did not assert that she was treated differently from a similarly situated male applicant. For the reasons discussed below and in the court's prior memorandum opinion, the court denies the defendant's motion for relief upon reconsideration.¹

II. FACTUAL & PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The court has recounted the facts underlying this case on two prior occasions, see Mem. Op. (Nov. 6, 2009) at 2-5; 535 F.Supp.2d at 3-4, and will not endeavor to do so again here. Suffice it to say, the plaintiff contends that the defendant discriminated against her on the basis of her gender when it declined to select her for the position of Permanent Electrical Supervisor within the DCRA, a vacancy that it advertised on five separate occasions. See generally Am. Compl. On each occasion, the DCRA would issue a vacancy announcement for the position and the plaintiff would submit her application along with several other applicants. Id. ¶¶ 10-21. The DCRA would then cancel the vacancy announcement without selecting anyone for the position. Id. Ultimately, after issuing its fifth vacancy announcement for the position, the DCRA hired an African-American male to fill the vacancy. Id. ¶ 22.

The plaintiff commenced this action in March 2007, asserting claims of gender-based disparate treatment premised on her non-selection, as well as claims of retaliation, hostile work environment, constructive discharge and violations of District of Columbia law. See generally Compl.; Am. Compl. On January 24, 2008, the court issued a memorandum opinion granting in part and denying in part the defendant's motion to dismiss the amended complaint. See generally 535 F.Supp.2d 1 (D.D.C.2008). The court dismissed the plaintiff's disparate treatment claims premised on her non-selection following the fourth and fifth vacancy announcements because she had not exhausted her administrative remedies before commencing this action. Id. at 6-8. In addition, the court dismissed the plaintiff's claims based on D.C. law. Id. at 11. The court, however, declined to dismiss the remainder of the plaintiff's claims. Id. at 9-13.

On February 17, 2009, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment on the plaintiff's remaining claims. See generally Def.'s Mot. for Summ. J. The defendant argued that the plaintiff had failed to make out a prima facie case of disparate treatment based on her non-selection, relying on the fact that the DCRA had cancelled each vacancy announcement at issue without hiring anyone, male or female, tofill the vacancy. Id. at 7-8. In addition, the defendant asserted that the plaintiff had offered no evidence suggesting that the vacancy announcements were cancelled for discriminatory reasons. Id. at 9. The plaintiff filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, arguing that she had established a prima facie case of disparate treatment based on her non-selection and that because the DCRA had offered no legitimate, nondiscriminatory explanation for her non-selection, she was entitled to summary judgment on her non-selection claims. Pl.'s Cross-Mot. for Summ. J. at 10-15.

In a memorandum opinion issued on September 14, 2009, the court concluded that the plaintiff had stated a prima facie case of disparate treatment based on her non-selection. 653 F.Supp.2d at 72-75. The court held that the plaintiff's prima facie case gave rise to a rebuttable presumption of discrimination, which required the defendant to offer a legitimate, non-discriminatory justification for its actions. Id. at 75-76. Because the defendant declined to offer such a justification to rebut the presumption of discrimination created by the prima facie case, the court granted the plaintiff's cross-motion for summary judgment on her non-selection claim. Id. at 75-76. The court noted, however, that it would consider a legitimate, nondiscriminatory justification offered by the defendant in a subsequent motion for relief upon reconsideration.² Id. at 76 n. 7.

In November 2009, the defendant filed the motion for relief upon reconsideration now before the court.³ See generally Def.'s Mot. for Relief Upon Recons. ("Def.'s Mot."). The defendant contends that the court erred in granting summary judgment to the plaintiff on her non-selection claims. See generally id. With the defendant's motion now ripe for adjudication, the court turns to the applicable legal standards and the parties' arguments.

III. ANALYSIS

A. The Court Denies the Defendant's Motion for Relief Upon Reconsideration

1. Legal Standard for Altering or Amending an Interlocutory Judgment

A district court may revise its own interlocutory decisions "at any time before the entry of judgment adjudicating all the claims and the rights and liabilities of all the parties." Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b); see also Childers v. Slater, 197 F.R.D. 185, 190 (D.D.C.2000) (citing the Advisory Committee Notes to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)). The standard for the court's review of an interlocutory decision differs from the standards applied to final judgments under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 59(e) and 60(b). Compare Muwekma Tribe v. Babbitt, 133 F.Supp.2d 42, 48 n. 6 (D.D.C.2001) (noting that "motions for [reliefupon] reconsideration of interlocutory orders, in contrast to motions for [relief upon] reconsideration of final orders, are within the sound discretion of the trial court") and United Mine Workers v. Pittston Co., 793 F.Supp. 339, 345 (D.D.C.1992) (discussing the standard applicable to motions to grant relief upon reconsideration of an interlocutory order) with LaRouche v. Dep't of Treasury, 112 F.Supp.2d 48, 51-52 (D.D.C.2000) (analyzing the defendant's motion for relief from judgment under Rule 60(b)) and Harvey v. District of Columbia, 949 F.Supp. 878, 879 (D.D.C.1996) (ruling on the plaintiff's motion to alter or amend judgment pursuant to Rule 59(e)). A motion pursuant to Rule 59(e), to alter or amend a judgment after its entry, is not routinely granted. Harvey, 949 F.Supp. at 879. The primary reasons for altering or amending a judgment pursuant to Rule 59(e) or Rule 60(b) are an intervening change of controlling law, the availability of new evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice. Id.;Firestone v. Firestone, 76 F.3d 1205, 1208 (D.C.Cir.1996) (per curiam); Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b); LaRouche, 112 F.Supp.2d at 51-52.

By contrast, relief upon reconsideration of an interlocutory decision pursuant to Rule 54(b) is available "as justice requires." Childers, 197 F.R.D. at 190. "As justice requires" indicates concrete considerations of whether the court "has patently misunderstood a party, has made a decision outside the adversarial issues presented to the [c]ourt by the parties, has made an error not of reasoning, but of apprehension, or where a controlling or significant change in the law or facts [has occurred] since the submission of the issue to the court." Cobell v. Norton, 224 F.R.D. 266, 272 (D.D.C.2004) (internal citation omitted). These considerations leave a great deal of room for the court's discretion and, accordingly, the "as justice requires" standard amounts to determining "whether [relief upon] reconsideration is necessary under the relevant circumstances." Id. Nonetheless, the court's discretion under Rule 54(b) is limited by the law of the case doctrine and "subject to the caveat that, where litigants have once battled for the court's decision, they should neither be required, nor without good reason permitted, to battle for it again." Singh v. George Washington University, 383 F.Supp.2d 99, 101 (D.D.C.2005) (internal citations omitted).

2. The Defendant Has Not Presented Any Basis for Overturning the Court's Prior Ruling

The defendant contends that the court erred in granting summary judgment to the plaintiff on her non-selection claims. See generally Def.'s Mot. More specifically, the defendant asserts that the plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case of gender discrimination because she failed to offer any evidence that she was treated differently from a similarly situated male applicant. Id. at 9, 12-13. The defendant also argues that in granting summary judgment to the plaintiff, the...