Stewart v. Panetta

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
LISA STEWART,
Plaintiff,
Civil Action No. 09-1738 (BAH)
v. Judge Beryl A. Howell
LEON PANETTA,
Defendant.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Pending before the Court is the motion by the defendants Patrick Keough and William
Desautels (“Individual Defendants”) for reconsideration of this Court’s October 27, 2011
Memorandum Opinion and Order denying their motion pursuant to Rule 54(b) of the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure for the entry of final judgment on the dismissed claims against them.
See ECF Nos. 42 and 43, October 27, 2011 Memorandum Opinion and Order. The plaintiff Lisa
Stewart opposes this motion. For the reasons explained below, the motion for reconsideration
will be denied.
I. BACKGROUND
The plaintiff is a former civilian intelligence officer who worked in the Defense
Intelligence Agency’s (“DIA”) Field Operating Base in Japan. Her original employment
discrimination and retaliation complaint asserted claims against the Secretary of Defense, in his
official capacity, pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. §
2000e et seq. The original complaint also asserted claims, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983,
and 1985, against the Individual Defendants, who were her former DIA superiors, in their
individual capacities. By Memorandum Opinion and Order, dated May 16, 2011, the Court
1
dismissed the claims against the Individual Defendants “because Title VII provides the exclusive
remedy for claims of discrimination in federal employment” and “all of their alleged retaliatory
conduct is covered by the plaintiff’s Title VII claim against the DIA.” Stewart v. Gates, 786 F.
Supp. 2d 155, 166 (D.D.C. 2011).
No other claims are pending in the complaint against the Individual Defendants; only the
plaintiff’s claims under Title VII against the Department of Defense remain.
On June 21, 2011, the Individual Defendants moved for entry of final judgment against
them pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). ECF No. 26. The Court denied that
motion in its October 27, 2011 Memorandum Opinion and Order. The Individual Defendants
have now moved for reconsideration of that ruling. ECF No. 44, Individual Defendants’ Motion
for Reconsideration of the Court’s October 27, 2011 Order (“Reconsideration Mot.”).
II. DISCUSSION
A. Legal Standard
“An interlocutory order such as the Court’s partial dismissal ‘may be revised at any
time before the entry of judgment adjudicating all the claims and all the parties’ rights and
liabilities.’” Johnson-Parks v. D.C. Chartered Health Plan, No. 09-1492, 2011 WL
3835671, at *1 (D.D.C. Aug. 31, 2011) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b)). “[R]elief upon
reconsideration of an interlocutory decision pursuant to Rule 54(b) is available ‘as justice
requires.’” Id. (quoting Estate of Botvin ex rel. Ellis v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 772 F. Supp.
2d 218, 223 (D.D.C. 2011)). “‘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,
2
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.’” Id. (quoting Estate of Botvin, 772
F. Supp. 2d 218) (alteration in original quotation).
Therefore, “[i]n general, a court will grant a motion for reconsideration of an
interlocutory order only when the movant demonstrates: (1) an intervening change in the law;
(2) the discovery of new evidence not previously available; or (3) a clear error in the first
order.” Id. (quoting Zeigler v. Potter, 555 F. Supp. 2d 126, 129 (D.D.C. 2008) (internal
quotation marks omitted)).
B. Analysis
The Individual Defendants argue that the Court should reconsider its October 27, 2011
ruling primarily because the decision in one of the authorities the Court relied upon, Powers-
Bunce v. District of Columbia, 594 F. Supp. 2d 54 (D.D.C. 2009), was later reversed on
reconsideration. See Powers-Bunce v. District of Columbia, No. 06-1586, ECF No. 83 (D.D.C.
Mar. 13, 2009) (granting motion for reconsideration in part) (hereinafter, “Powers-Bunce
Reconsideration Order”). Since the Powers-Bunce Reconsideration Order was not published in
the major legal database services, the Court was unaware of this Order when it issued its prior
ruling. The Court has determined, however, that the Powers-Bunce Reconsideration Order does
not provide any reason for this Court to reverse its prior ruling.
The Court’s October 27, 2011 ruling did take into account the authorities cited in the
Powers-Bunce Reconsideration Order – namely, Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 808 (1982)
and Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 507-08 (1978). The Court’s October 27, 2011
Memorandum Opinion addressed and distinguished these cases. See ECF No. 42 at 7 n.1. As the
3
Court previously noted, and as the Individual Defendants concede, see Reconsideration Mot. at 3,
these cases do not address Rule 54(b) entry of final judgment. Rather, these cases address more
generally the need for insubstantial lawsuits against federal officials to be quickly terminated due
to certain public policy considerations. See Harlow, 457 U.S. at 814 (quoting Butz, 438 U.S. at
507-08). The Court has followed the imperatives expressed in these cases by dismissing the
claims against the Individual Defendants in this action.
Whether entry of final judgment is appropriate at this time, however, is a separate
questioned governed by Rule 54(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. As the Court
previously explained, Rule 54(b) authorizes a court to direct entry of a final judgment on
fewer than all the claims or parties “only if the court expressly determines that there is no just
cause for a delay.” FED. R. CIV. P. 54(b); Blackman v. District of Columbia, 456 F.3d 167,174-
75 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (Rule 54(b) expressly requires finding that “there is no just reason for
delay”). “Only ‘exceptional cases’ merit Rule 54(b)’s direct entry, and the district court has
discretion in identifying such cases because of its ‘familiarity with the case and with any
justifiable reasons for delay.’” Grosdidier v. Chairman, Broad. Bd. of Governors, 774 F.
Supp. 2d 76, 123 (D.D.C. 2011) (quoting Ben-Rafael v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 718 F.
Supp. 2d 25, 33 (D.D.C. 2010) and Bldg. Indus. Ass'n of Superior Cal. v. Babbitt, 161 F.3d
740, 743 (D.C. Cir. 1998)); see also Curtiss-Wright Corp. v. Gen. Elec. Co., 446 U.S. 1, 10
(1980) (“[S]ound judicial administration does not require that Rule 54(b) requests be granted
routinely”).
Here, while the Individual Defendants concede that the Harlow and Butz rulings do not
address Rule 54(b), they argue that those rulings “are directly relevant to the balancing of
4
equities that the Court must undertake in deciding whether to grant a Rule 54(b) motion,
including the ultimate question of whether there is any just reason for delay.” Reconsideration
Mot. at 3. The Individual Defendants argue that “their dismissal should be reduced to a final
judgment so that they are no longer burdened by being named as defendants in a civil lawsuit,”
id. at 6, but the Individual Defendants have not identified any concrete burdens they will face as
a result of their status as dismissed defendants in this lawsuit.1 On the other hand, as discussed in
the Court’s prior ruling, granting the Rule 54(b) motion would disturb the “the more normal
practice that, when some but not all defendants are dismissed early in an action, final judgment is
entered after the case is completed in order for the entire case to be presented to the Court of
Appeals.” ECF No. 42 at 6; see also Grosdidier, 774 F. Supp. 2d at 123 (“Ordinarily, the
presumption against piecemeal appeals will be sufficient to deny certification under Rule
54(b).”). While the Individual Defendants argue that Rule 54(b) certification is appropriate
because the legal issues involving the dismissal of the Individual Defendants are separable from
the other legal issues in the case, the Court nonetheless finds that judicial resources will be best
preserved in this case by providing a unified opportunity for appeal following the conclusion of
the litigation. See id. (“Not all final judgments on individual claims should be immediately
appealable, even if they are in some sense separable from the remaining unresolved claims.”)
(quoting Curtiss-Wright Corp. v. Gen. Elec. Co., 446 U.S. 1, 8 (1980)).
1
In its prior ruling, the Court cited Wheeler v. Hilo Med. Ctr., Inc., No. 09-533, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 113374, at
*9-10 (D. Haw. Oct. 21, 2010), in which the court denied a Rule 54(b) motion by prevailing defendants after
concluding that the defendants fell short in articulating how certain medical reporting requirements concerning
pending litigation “would in fact impose an undue hardship.” The Individual Defendants here argue that reliance on
this case was misplaced because Wheeler did not involve federal defendants and, therefore, did not involve the
policy considerations identified in Harlow and Butz. Yet even if those policy considerations are taken into account
in the Court’s Rule 54(b) “balancing of the equities,” as the Individual Defendants suggest and as the Court has done
here, the Court still finds a concrete showing of actual hardship, absent here, to be a relevant consideration in
deciding whether to grant a Rule 54(b) motion.
5
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the motion of the Individual Defendants for reconsideration
of this Court’s October 27, 2011 Memorandum Opinion and Order is denied.
DATED: November 30, 2011 /s/Beryl A. Howell
BERYL A. HOWELL
United States District Judge
6