Redding v. Ahuja
| Docket Number | 21-cv-2449 (DLF) |
| Decision Date | 18 September 2023 |
| Parties | STEPHANIE M. REDDING, Plaintiff, v. KIRAN AHUJA, Director, Office of Personnel Management, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Stephanie Redding brings this suit alleging that the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) unlawfully discriminated against her in violation of the Rehabilitation Act and violated her constitutional procedural due process rights when OPM rescinded her disability retirement benefits. Before the Court is the defendant's Motion to Dismiss or in the Alternative, to Transfer Venue, Dkt. 28, and the plaintiff's Motion to Consolidate, Dkt. 34. For the following reasons, the Court will grant the defendant's motion and deny the plaintiff's motion.
In March 13, 2011, Redding started working as a Federal Air Marshal in the Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Agency.[1] Am. Compl. ¶ 10, Dkt. 23. She suffers from severe myopia and chronic dry eyes. Id. ¶ 11. In April 2017, a physician determined that she was no longer medically qualified to continue as a Federal Air Marshal. Id. ¶¶ 14, 15. After learning this, on September 28, 2017, Redding submitted a disability retirement application to OPM. Id. ¶ 15.
In January 2018, Redding completed a reasonable accommodation request to be reassigned to a position for which she would be medically qualified. Id. ¶ 21. She had not been notified that, prior to her request, the Transportation Security Agency had already determined that a reassignment search would be futile. Id. ¶¶ 16, 17. In May 2018, Redding was reassigned to a position in the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers Behavioral Science Division in Brunswick, Georgia, with a $20,000 decrease in salary Id. ¶¶ 24, 25, 27. Redding “had difficulty with the conditions of the reassignment,” but found that “[n]o one seemed to know the process” for requesting reconsideration of it. Id. ¶ 28. On January 6, 2020, Redding “was placed in an Absent Without Leave status[,] and [she was] ultimately removed from service” “for excessive absences” on June 17, 2020. Id. ¶ 37 & n.6.
Around the same time Redding was reassigned, OPM denied her initial disability retirement application, which had been submitted before her reassignment. Id. ¶ 29. After Redding requested reconsideration, id. ¶ 30, OPM approved the application, id. ¶ 31. On October 2, 2019, Redding attempted to request “immediate separation” from her position based on this approval, but her request was not processed. Id. ¶¶ 32, 33. On October 25, 2019, Redding was instead told that she could no longer rely on the approval and “needed to reapply for disability retirement” because she had accepted a reassigned position. Id. ¶ 35. Ultimately, in April 2020, OPM rescinded its initial approval of Redding's disability retirement application, id. ¶ 38.
Redding filed “informal complaints of disability discrimination” against the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers. Id. ¶ 34. She also filed before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) an appeal of OPM's April 2020 rescission of her disability retirement benefits approval, id. ¶ 39, that the MSPB dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, id. ¶ 41. At the same time, on both August 10, 2020 and August 25, 2020, she requested that OPM reconsider its April 2020 rescission. Id. ¶¶ 40, 42. On September 24, 2020, OPM affirmed that it “had improperly approved [her] disability retirement application,” id. ¶ 43, and Redding requested reconsideration again, id. ¶ 45.
On October 30, 2020, OPM changed course again and approved Redding's disability retirement application a second time-this time, for her job in the Behavioral Science Division. Id. ¶ 46. On March 2, 2021, however, OPM rescinded the second approval, too. Id. ¶ 48. Redding appealed this second rescission to the MSPB in March 2021. Id. ¶ 49. On July 13, 2021, the MSPB issued an initial decision “affirming [OPM] had properly withdrawn . . . Redding's disability retirement application and properly rescinded its approval of benefits.” Id. ¶ 52. That decision became final on August 17, 2021. Id.
On September 14, 2021, Redding filed a pro se complaint in this Court against the Director of OPM. Dkt. 1. Still proceeding pro se, she filed an amended complaint on August 4, 2022. Dkt. 23. In Count I of the amended complaint, she alleges that the Director unlawfully discriminated against her in violation of § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act by “fail[ing] to provide policies and procedures that would provide [her] a timely decision regarding her disability retirement,” id. ¶ 66; “fail[ing] to provide . . . timely notice that [the Transportation Security Administration] had deemed the effort to reassign or accommodate [her] futile,” id. ¶ 67; “fail[ing] to provide . . . the policies and procedures that would allow [her] to be separated due to her disability,” id. ¶ 68; “rescinding approvals of [her] disability retirement,” id. ¶ 69; and “subject[ing] [her] to a bureaucratic process that non-disabled federal employees are not subjected to,” id. ¶ 70. In Count II, she alleges that the Director violated her constitutional procedural due process rights by denying her disability retirement benefits twice “without appropriate notice and reasoning[] and[,] on at least one occasion, without appeal rights.” Id. ¶ 76. According to Redding, these errors “allowed [the Department of Homeland Security] to proceed with removing [her] from federal service for reasons other than the disability retirement approval,” and “caused [her] to lose her ability to obtain gainful employment.” Id. ¶¶ 83, 84. Before the Court now is the Director's motion to dismiss the amended complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction or, in the alternative, to transfer venue, Dkt. 28, and the plaintiff's motion to consolidate this case with a related case in this District, Dkt. 34.
Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allows a defendant to move to dismiss an action for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1). Federal law empowers federal district courts to hear only certain kinds of cases, and it is “presumed that a cause lies outside this limited jurisdiction.” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994). When deciding a Rule 12(b)(1) motion, the court must “assume the truth of all material factual allegations in the complaint and construe the complaint liberally, granting plaintiff the benefit of all inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged, and upon such facts determine [the] jurisdictional questions.” Am. Nat'l Ins., 642 F.3d at 1139 (cleaned up). But the court “may undertake an independent investigation” that examines “facts developed in the record beyond the complaint” in order to “assure itself of its own subject matter jurisdiction.” Settles v. U.S. Parole Comm'n, 429 F.3d 1098, 1107 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Count I, labeled “Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act” in the amended complaint, alleges that the Director violated Section 504 by discriminating against Redding “on the basis of her disability.” Am. Compl. ¶¶ 61-71. This count will be dismissed.
Section 504 prohibits “discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance or under any program or activity conducted by any Executive agency.” 29 U.S.C. § 794(a). Redding does not allege that she has been discriminated against by such a “program or activity.” Rather, she was a federal employee of the Department of Homeland Security. Am. Compl. ¶ 10. And the Circuit has held that § 501 of the Rehabilitation Act is the sole route to relief for federal employees alleging disability discrimination; “§ 504 does not provide federal employees an alternative route for relief under the Rehabilitation Act.” Taylor v. Small, 350 F.3d 1286, 1291 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (emphasis added) (cleaned up).[2] Redding therefore cannot state a claim under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. See id.; Rouse v. Berry, 680 F.Supp.2d 233, 238-39 (D.D.C. 2010) ().
Even if the Court were to construe Redding's pro se complaint liberally,[3] see Dufur v. U.S. Parole Comm'n, 34 F.4th 1090, 1096 (D.C. Cir. 2022), to instead allege a claim under § 501 of the Rehabilitation Act (), it would still dismiss Count I for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. To bring a § 501 claim, a plaintiff must timely exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit in federal district court, including by filing an administrative complaint. See Spinelli v. Goss, 446 F.3d 159, 162 (D.C. Cir. 2006); see also Taylor, 350 F.3d at 1292 (“Even if Taylor had pleaded her claim under § 501, we doubt the district court would have had jurisdiction to entertain it because she failed to exhaust her administrative appeal rights.”). In this Circuit, the failure to administratively exhaust a Rehabilitation Act claim by “fail[ing] to file an administrative complaint or to obtain any administrative decision at all” is a jurisdictional defect. Doakv. Johnson, 798 F.3d 1096, 1103-04 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (citing Spinelli, 446 F.3d at 162); see also Morris v. Off. of Pers Mgmt., No. 20-cv-0016, 2021 WL 2188143, at *3 . Accordingly, “the plaintiff bears the burden of alleging facts sufficient to establish that . . . she exhausted...
To continue reading
Request your trial