Robertson v. Dist. of Columbia

• Citation: 269 A.3d 1022
• Decision Date: 17 February 2022
• Docket Number: 19-CV-567
• Parties: Margie E. ROBERTSON, Appellant, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Appellees.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Columbia District

269 A.3d 1022

Margie E. ROBERTSON, Appellant,

v.DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Appellees.

No. 19-CV-567

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Submitted September 24, 2020

Decided February 17, 2022

Margie E. Robertson, pro se.

Karl A. Racine, Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Loren L. AliKhan, Solicitor General, Carl J. Schifferle, Acting Deputy Solicitor General at the time of submission, and Jacqueline R. Bechara, Assistant Attorney General at the time of submission, were on the brief for appellees.

Before Glickman, Thompson^* , and Deahl, Associate Judges.

Thompson, Associate Judge:

In July 2017, while she was a probationary employee of the District of Columbia Courts (the "D.C. Courts"), plaintiff/appellant Margie E. Robertson was terminated from her position as a supervisor in the Superior Court's Warrants and Special Proceedings Division. She responded by filing suit against defendants/appellees the District of Columbia, the D.C. Courts, and D.C. Courts’ employees Daniel Cipullo, Yvonne Martinez-Vega, Belinda Carr, Alicia Shepard, Anne Wicks, James McGinley, and Tiffany Adams-Moore. Her Amended Complaint alleged inter alia (1) that she was subject to discrimination, retaliation, and, ultimately, termination based on her race (African-American), gender, age (60+), and dark skin, all in violation of the District of Columbia Human Rights Act of 1977 (the "DCHRA")¹ ; (2) that her termination violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII")² ; (3) that the defendants defamed her and inflicted emotional distress through statements about her they made to potential employers and former coworkers; (4) that she was wrongfully terminated in violation of public policy; and (5) that defendants conspired to terminate her employment. In this appeal, she contends that the Superior Court erred in granting defendants’ motion to dismiss.³ For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court, including its determination that the DCHRA affords appellant no remedy for the claims she has raised.

I.

Appellant alleges that beginning in March 2017, defendant Carr, the Superior Court's Branch Chief of Special Proceedings, began to pressure appellant to intimidate and bully her own staff, and that when appellant refused, Carr began to bully her. Appellant, who had been employed by the D.C. Courts for only seven months at the time, responded by filing an internal Equal Employment Opportunity ("EEO") complaint with defendant Adams-Moore, the D.C. Courts EEO Officer. Appellant amended her internal complaint on July 24, 2017, to add allegations against defendant Cipullo, then-Director of the Superior Court Criminal Division; defendant Martinez-Vega, Deputy Director of the Criminal Division, and defendant Shepard, Branch Chief. Three days later, appellant received an email from defendant Cipullo transmitting a letter informing her that she was terminated. The termination notice stated that appellant had failed to demonstrate satisfactory performance during her probationary period. Thereafter, appellant filed complaints with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the "EEOC") and with the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights ("OHR"). By letter dated October 12, 2017, she received from the EEOC a notice dismissing her complaint and notifying her of her right to file suit under the statutes enforced by the EEOC (including Title VII and the ADEA). OHR dismissed her complaint for lack of jurisdiction on March 20, 2018. Appellant filed her lawsuit on August 7, 2018.⁴

Ruling on defendants’ motion to dismiss, the Superior Court determined that the Amended Complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. As noted above, appellant challenges all aspects of the court's ruling except for its dismissal of her ADEA and breach of contract claims. Below, we address each portion of the Superior Court's rationale for dismissal. Our review of the Superior Court's ruling granting defendants’ motion to dismiss is de novo. Grimes v. District of Columbia , 89 A.3d 107, 112 (D.C. 2014).

II.

A.

In dismissing appellant's DCHRA discrimination and retaliation claims, the Superior Court found that it is "established law" that the DCHRA is inapplicable to employees of the D.C. Courts. The court relied on Mapp v. District of Columbia , 993 F. Supp. 2d 26, 28 (D.D.C. 2014) (holding that the broad power the DCHRA gives District of Columbia executive agencies to remedy discrimination in all aspects of employment "fatally conflicts" with the 1970 District of Columbia Court Reorganization Act (the "Court Reorganization Act"⁵ ) and the 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act (the "Home Rule Act"⁶ )); see also Cornish v. District of Columbia , 67 F. Supp. 3d 345, 366 (D.D.C. 2014) (agreeing that "[t]he D.C. City Council may not regulate matters covered by the Reorganization Act, which expressly reserves management of personnel policies to the [D.C. Courts] Joint Committee [on Judicial Administration,]" quoting Mapp , 993 F. Supp. 2d at 28 (internal quotation marks omitted)).⁷

This court has not previously addressed whether the DCHRA applies to the D.C. Courts. Considering that issue for the first time in this case, we hold that it does not, i.e., that the DCHRA does not provide an employment-discrimination remedy for D.C. Courts employees.

As the courts did in Mapp and Cornish , we begin our analysis with the language of the Court Reorganization Act and the Home Rule Act. The Court Reorganization Act established the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Superior Court of the District of Columbia as components of "a wholly separate court system designed primarily to concern itself with local law and to serve as a local court system for a large metropolitan area." Palmore v. United States , 411 U.S. 389, 408, 93 S.Ct. 1670, 36 L.Ed.2d 342 (1973). The Court Reorganization Act also established the Joint Committee on Judicial Administration (the "Joint Committee"), conferring on it "responsibility within the District of Columbia court system for ... [g]eneral personnel policies, including those for recruitment, removal, compensation, and training" and for "other policies and practices of the District of Columbia court system." D.C. Code § 11-1701(b)(1), (9). The Reorganization Act further specified that "[a]ppointments and removals of court personnel shall not be subject to the laws, rules, and limitations applicable to District of Columbia employees." D.C. Code § 11-1725(b). As we have previously observed, "[t]hese provisions, among others, manifest Congress's overall intent to vest ‘final authority’ over the operations of the D.C. Courts in the Chief Judges and the Joint Committee." Martin v. District of Columbia Courts , 753 A.2d 987, 992 (D.C. 2000).

In enacting the Home Rule Act, Congress mandated that the District of Columbia court system "shall continue as provided under the ... Court Reorganization Act," "subject to ... [D.C. Code] § 1-206.02(a)(4)."⁸ D.C. Code § 1-207.18(a). Section 1-206.02(a)(4) states that the Council of the District of Columbia (the "Council") "shall have no authority to ... [e]nact any act, resolution, or rule with respect to any provision of Title 11 (relating to organization and jurisdiction of the District of Columbia courts)."

The Mapp court relied on the foregoing provisions to conclude that, under the "plain and unambiguous" statutory language, the Council "may not [including through the DCHRA] regulate matters covered by the Reorganization Act, which expressly reserves management of [D.C. Courts] personnel policies to the Joint Committee[.]" 993 F. Supp. 2d at 28. The court reasoned that a holding that the DCHRA applies to the D.C. Courts "would permit regulation of court personnel by the Office and Commission on Human Rights" through their broad power under D.C. Code § 2-1411.03 "to receive, review, investigate, and mediate employment discrimination claims" and "to remedy discrimination in all aspects of employment" in the District, and would "fatally conflict[ ]" with the Reorganization and Home Rule Acts. Id.⁹

We have no difficulty agreeing with the Mapp court that because the DCHRA gives the Executive Branch "broad power [under the DCHRA] to remedy discrimination," Mapp , 993 F. Supp. 2d at 28, permitting D.C. Courts employees to seek remedies for alleged employment-related discrimination through administrative complaints filed with OHR would be inconsistent with the Joint Committee's plenary power with respect to court-system personnel policies and practices.¹⁰

This court has recognized the Council's "inten[t] to allow the courts of this jurisdiction to grant broader relief under the DCHRA than the OHR [i]s authorized to grant" in resolving administrative complaints. Arthur Young & Co. v. Sutherland , 631 A.2d 354, 371 (D.C. 1993). Thus, the same issue presented by OHR's broad power to remediate DCHRA violations arises with respect to the broad remedial powers of courts in this jurisdiction, which likewise could be employed in a way that encroaches on the Joint Committee's responsibility to determine personnel policies and practices for the D.C. Courts. However, given the "strong presumption ... in favor of judicial reviewability" and our recognition that "the general equitable jurisdiction of the Superior Court extends to challenges by public employees of official decisions affecting their tenure," Martin , 753 A.2d at 991 (internal quotation marks omitted), we cannot easily conclude that an employee of the D.C. Courts may not sue the D.C. Courts to seek redress for what the employee alleges are the D.C. Courts’ violations of the DCHRA.¹¹

The Mapp court did not grapple with the issue of whether a judicial remedy would be inconsistent with the Court Reorganization Act's reservation of "regulation of court personnel for the Joint Committee," but concluded instead that "[a]ny legislation concerning [D.C. Courts] personnel policies exceeds th[e] boun...