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Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 6, 2005 Decided November 15, 2005

No. 04-7162

AZHAR ALI KHAN AND

ASMA AZHAR KHAN,

APPELLANTS

v.

PARSONS GLOBAL SERVICES, LTD., ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 03cv01574)

Cyril V. Smith argued the cause for appellants. With him on

the briefs was Elaine Charlson Bredehoft.

Eugene Scalia argued the cause for appellees. With him on

the brief was Tanya Axenson Macallair.

Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, and ROGERS and BROWN,

Circuit Judges.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge: To recover for injuries resulting

from his kidnapping, Azhar Ali Khan and his wife, Asma Azhar

Khan, sued Parsons Global Services Limited (“PGSL”) and its

affiliates and agents (together, “Parsons”) for negligence and

intentional infliction of emotional distress. The district court

granted summary judgment to Parsons, ruling that the Khans’

tort claims were barred by Mr. Khan’s contractual agreement

with PGSL to accept workers’ compensation insurance as the

exclusive remedy for injuries arising out of and in the course of

his employment. On appeal, the Khans contend that the district

court abused its discretion by granting summary judgment

without permitting discovery requested under Fed. R. Civ. P.

56(f). They maintain that abuse of discretion is manifest where

a motion for summary judgment is filed at the outset of a case

prior to any discovery, key facts are in the defendant’s exclusive

possession, and the plaintiffs submit detailed affidavits

describing the discovery they seek. Whether this is so depends

principally on whether, as the Khans also contend, the district

court erred as a matter of law in interpreting the D.C. Workers’

Compensation Act (“WCA”), D.C. Code Ann. §§ 32-1501 et

seq., as it was incorporated in Mr. Khan’s employment contract.

Because Parsons considers Mr. Khan to have been a “traveling

employee” at the time of his kidnapping and because it regards

his injuries to have accrued due to the employment relationship,

Parsons maintains that workers’ compensation is Mr. Khan’s

sole avenue of relief. Because the traveling employee exception

under the WCA, as interpreted by the District of Columbia

Court of Appeals, is a narrow exception to the exclusion of

coverage for injuries suffered while away from an employer’s

premises, we reverse and remand the case for further

proceedings. 

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I.

In March 2001, Azhar Ali Khan, a British citizen, signed an

employment contract (the “Assignment Agreement” or

“agreement”) with PGSL, which has its principal place of

business in the District of Columbia. Mr. Khan agreed to work

as an accountant in Manila, the Philippines, for a term of two

years. At that time, Mr. Khan, Mrs. Khan, and their children

were living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where Mr. Khan

worked for Parsons. The agreement noted that Mrs. Khan and

the children would live with Mr. Khan in Manila, and provided

for a housing allowance as well as health benefits. The

agreement contained a clause requiring Mr. Khan to accept

workers’ compensation “as full and exclusive compensation for

any compensable bodily injury, occupational disease, or death

resulting therefrom, arising out of and in the course of

Employee’s employment hereunder,” (emphasis added), and a

clause requiring him to arbitrate in Geneva, Switzerland, under

the laws of the State of California, any claims “aris[ing] out of

or in connection with” his employment. Mr. Khan departed for

Manila on Tuesday, May 1, 2001, obtained lodging at a hotel,

and had intended to look for an apartment on Sunday, May 6,

2001. 

On Saturday evening, May 5, a day when PGSL’s Manila

offices were closed, Mr. Khan dined alone, paying cash for his

meal in a local restaurant. As he returned to his hotel, he was

abducted by three men. The kidnappers held Mr. Khan for

approximately three weeks, during which time they chained him

to the floor, attempted to hang him, and tortured him in other

ways. During this period, the complaint alleges, Parsons

officials promised Mrs. Khan that Parsons would pay the ransom

demanded by the kidnappers; they also, however, took the

position that paying the ransom would undercut Parsons’ longterm interests by providing an incentive to kidnap Parsons

employees in the future. On May 25, 2001, the kidnappers cut

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off a portion of Mr. Khan’s ear and sent the videotape of the

event to Parsons. The next day, Mr. Khan was released after

Parsons paid the ransom.

Mr. and Mrs. Khan sued Parsons, alleging that PGSL,

various affiliated corporate entities (PGSL’s parent company,

Parsons Corp., and other Parsons Corp. subsidiaries), and

several agents of the Parsons entities were negligent and liable

for the intentional infliction of emotional distress. The alleged

torts were improperly conducting negotiations with the

kidnappers; delaying payment of the demanded ransom; refusing

to provide Mrs. Khan with information about the kidnapping,

including the amount of the ransom demand; telling her “lies”

and “inconsistent, illogical, negligent” explanations for the

actions taken; and forcing her to communicate with the

kidnappers and to give them false promises that payment of the

ransom was forthcoming. According to the complaint, if Mrs.

Khan had been aware of the kidnappers’ demands, she would

have been able to obtain the money to free Mr. Khan, which

could have prevented his torture and mutilation. Mr. Khan also

alleged that Parsons coerced him into employment negotiations

after his ordeal, required him to resume work “only a few weeks

after his release,” threatened to stop paying his housing

allowance, medical expenses, and other allowances, and

threatened to transfer him to Karachi, Pakistan, despite the fact

that Mr. Khan would not “feel safe” there.

The complaint was filed in D.C. Superior Court on May 20,

2003. On July 22, 2003, Parsons removed the case to the federal

district court pursuant to the Convention on the Recognition and

Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, implemented in 9

U.S.C. § 201 et seq., which provides federal jurisdiction in

matters involving an arbitration agreement arising out of a

commercial relationship where one party to the agreement is not

a United States citizen. 9 U.S.C. §§ 202-203. The notice of

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removal included the Assignment Agreement as an attachment.

A week later, Parsons filed a motion to dismiss, or alternatively

for summary judgment or to compel arbitration, arguing that Mr.

Khan was “effectively still in travel status” at the time of his

kidnapping. The Khans filed an opposition, seeking denial

outright because, in part, the “horrifying injury and acts of

deliberate torture . . . neither arose from, nor occurred in the

course of, Mr. Khan’s work for [PGSL],” and alternatively

seeking the motion’s denial “pending plaintiffs’ opportunity to

take discovery under Rule 56(f).” Pls.’ Mem. Opp’n 1-2. They

attached to their opposition declarations describing the

discovery sought pursuant to Rule 56(f) as well as a statement

describing material facts in dispute pursuant to L.R. 7.1(H) and

56.1. The district court granted summary judgment to Parsons

and denied the Khans’ motion for reconsideration. The Khans

appeal. Our review of the grant of summary judgment is de

novo, Universal City Studios LLLP v. Peters, 402 F.3d 1238,

1241 (D.C. Cir. 2005), accepting the factual allegations in the

complaint as true, Information Handling Services, Inc. v.

Defense Automated Printing Services, 338 F.3d 1024, 1029

(D.C. Cir. 2003). Our review of the decision to grant summary

judgment instead of permitting discovery under Rule 56(f) is

reviewed for abuse of discretion. Paquin v. Fed. Nat’l

Mortgage Ass’n, 119 F.3d 23, 28 (D.C. Cir. 1997).

II.

The Assignment Agreement, which settles on workers’

compensation as the “full and exclusive compensation for any

compensable bodily injury, occupational disease, or death

resulting therefrom, arising out of and in the course of

Employee’s employment hereunder,” copies the standard

phrasing of many workers’ compensation statutes. See 1

ARTHUR LARSON & LEX K. LARSON, LARSON’S WORKERS’

COMPENSATION § 3.01 (2002) (hereinafter “LARSON’S”). As the

case comes to us, the parties agree that the WCA, which defines

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compensable injury in the same terms, controls the interpretation

of the Assignment Agreement. In order to determine whether

the district court abused its discretion by granting summary

judgment before allowing the Khans to pursue requested

discovery as contemplated by Rule 56(f), the court must first

determine whether the district court’s interpretation of the

contractual bar reflected a proper construction of the WCA.

Although it would not be unusual for this court to certify a

“genuinely uncertain” question of District of Columbia law to

the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, see Sturdza v. United

Arab Emirates, 281 F.3d 1287, 1303 (D.C. Cir. 2002); D.C.

Code § 11-723(a) (2001), we conclude that the Court of Appeals

has already provided the guidance necessary to resolve this point

of law.

The WCA provides that workers’ compensation is an

employee’s exclusive remedy against the employer for injuries

“arising out of” and “in the course of” the employment. D.C.

Code § 32-1501(12). The District of Columbia has adopted the

“going and coming” rule. As explained by the District of

Columbia Court of Appeals in Kolson v. Department of

Employment Services, 699 A.2d 357, 359 (D.C. 1997), “[t]he

general rule [is] that the occurrence of employee injuries

sustained off the work premise, while enroute to or from work,

do not fall within the category of injuries in the course of

employment.” Id. at 359 (quoting 1 LARSON, THE LAW OF

WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION § 15.00) (internal quotation marks

omitted). The District of Columbia recognizes an exception to

this rule for the “traveling employee,” see, e.g., id. at 360, and

it is the scope of this exception that is at issue here.

The Khans contend that the district court erred as a matter

of law by concluding that Mr. Khan’s injuries arose out of and

occurred in the course of his employment because the travel

involved in his relocation to Manila was completed several days

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prior to his kidnapping, his job as an accountant did not involve

travel, and his kidnapping occurred on a non-working day after

a non-business dinner. Under the district court’s interpretation

of the traveling employee exception, which the Khans maintain

is unprecedented and radically expansive, “the [workers’

compensation] statute covered every minute of every day of Mr.

Khan’s time in the Philippines.” Br. of Appellants at 9. Further,

the Khans contend, Mrs. Khan’s injuries, which are alleged to

have resulted from Parsons’ refusal to inform her of the ransom

demand, did not occur “in the course of” her husband’s

employment because those injuries resulted from Parsons’ postkidnapping refusal to divulge the ransom demand. Parsons

responds that the Khans’ injuries are covered by workers’

compensation because they arose as a result of the fact that Mr.

Khan was on a work assignment in a foreign country and his

“injury ha[d] its origin in a risk created by the necessity of

sleeping and eating away from home.” Br. of Appellees at 15

(quoting 1 LARSON’S § 25.03[1] (2002)) (internal quotation

marks omitted). Parsons therefore maintains that “all the natural

incidents of [a business] trip which would be contemplated by

the employer, such as the eating of meals in ordinary places at

ordinary times, were in the course of that employment.” Id. at

16 (quoting Hurley v. Lowe, 168 F.2d 553 (D.C. Cir. 1948))

(internal quotation marks omitted). 

The district court appears to have treated Mr. Khan as a

“traveling employee” of Parsons, concluding that because Mr.

Khan’s “injuries arose as he walked between a restaurant and a

hotel he was patronizing as a consequence of his businessrelated travel for defendant Parsons,” workers’ compensation

would be his exclusive remedy. Although Parsons, in support

of its “travel status” gloss on the traveling employee exception,

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1 S. Motor Lines Co. v. Alvis, 104 S.E.2d 735 (Va. 1958).

2 Leonard Van Stelle, Inc. v. Indus. Accident Comm’n, 382

P.2d 587, 591 (Cal. 1963). 

3 Markoholtz v. Gen. Elec. Co., 193 N.E.2d 637 (N.Y. 1963);

Capizzi v. S. Dist. Reporters, Inc., 459 N.E.2d 847, 849-50 (N.Y.

1984). 

4

 Voight v. Rettinger Transp., Inc., 306 N.W.2d 133, 138

(Minn. 1981); Epp v. Midwestern Mach. Co., 208 N.W.2d 87, 89

(Minn. 1973). 

5

 In Leonard Van Stelle, 382 P.2d at 590-91, a real estate

saleswoman was injured on “the return trip from the inspection” of a

ranch property on behalf of her employer. In Markoholtz, 193 N.E.2d

637, the court found that the employee, who was killed in a plane

crash following a one-week vacation, was covered by workers’

compensation because the crash occurred when he was “on his way to

resume his employment” in Schenectady via Paris, “whither his

employer’s business had taken him” for a conference. Id. at 639.

relies on cases from Virginia,1 California,2 New York,3 and

Minnesota,4 none is dispositive. Those cases where workers’

compensation coverage was found involved employees who

were required to travel away from the employer’s premises for

a brief period, or who engaged in continuous travel because of

the demands of their job. For example, in Capizzi v. Southern

District Reporters, Inc., 459 N.E.2d 847, 849-50 (N.Y. 1984), a

transcriber-typist employed by a New York firm slipped and fell

on the first day of a four-day business trip to Toronto, Canada.

In Southern Motor Lines Co. v. Alvis, 104 S.E.2d 735 (Va.

1958), a long-haul truck driver whose work “required [him] to

be on the road” died from an accidental fall from a hotel room,

where his employer was putting him overnight as he broke up

his journey on a long trip. Id. at 738. Neither of these cases, nor

any of the other cases cited by Parsons,5

 indicates that an

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Neither of the Minnesota cases apply to Mr. Khan’s situation either.

The first, Voight, 306 N.W.2d at 134, involves a school bus driver

injured while on “a weekend charter run,” and the second, Epp, 208

N.W.2d at 87, involves a constantly itinerant truck driver injured

while on a “weekend layover.”

employee who relocates in order to accept a new job would fall

within the exception. Mr. Khan was not on a trip away from a

home base of Parsons’ operations when he was injured, nor was

he an itinerant employee. So far as the record reveals, he was

hired to work at a fixed job site for a period of years. 

The case with facts closest to those in the instant case is

Butera v. Fluor Daniel Construction Corp., 18 P.3d 278, 282

(Kan. App. 2001). In Butera, a fixed-site employee took up

residence at a hotel for six months in order to shorten his

commute to work. His work required that he be willing to

temporarily relocate to remote construction sites and find longterm lodging convenient to the site. Id. at 280. The Kansas

court held that because the nature of the employee’s

employment did not increase his risk of a road accident, the

employee’s off-site injuries in such an accident would not be

covered by workers’ compensation. Id. at 282. Under Kansas

law, the court pointed out, an employee’s injury must both be

“reasonably foreseeable” and “result from a rational causal

connection between the work itself and the resulting injury.” Id.

at 283 (emphasis added). No such work connection was present

in Mr. Khan’s case; he was employed as an accountant, and his

injuries chiefly arose from his employer’s alleged action and

inaction, and that of its parent and affiliates, as negotiators for

his release from the kidnappers. 

Butera alone would seem to settle the matter except for the

fact that the WCA may impose a less stringent causal

requirement than the Kansas statute does. See, e.g., Harrington

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v. Moss, 407 A.2d 658, 662 (D.C. 1979). In the District of

Columbia, what is required is that “the obligations or conditions

of employment create the ‘zone of special danger’ out of which

the injury arose.” Id. (citing O’Leary v. Brown-Pacific-Maxon,

Inc., 340 U.S. 504, 507 (1951)). Even with this lesser causal

requirement, however, it is apparent that the traveling employee

exception does not extend to encompass every situation where

an employee ventures abroad. 

In Kolson, relied upon by Parsons as the “leading case” on

this issue, Br. of Appellees at 12, the D.C. Court of Appeals

explained that “[t]raveling employees are employees for whom

travel is an integral part of their jobs, such as those who travel

to different locations to perform their duties, as differentiated

from employees who commute daily from home to a single

workplace.” Kolson, 699 A.2d at 360 (emphasis added).

Kolson was an interstate bus driver who sought coverage for

injuries sustained when he was assaulted at 4:30 a.m. while

walking to a hotel, arranged through his employer, because the

bus driver was too tired to travel back to his home after a

twelve-hour shift. Id. at 358. The court held that “when a

traveling employee is injured while engaging in a reasonable

and foreseeable activity that is reasonably related to or

incidental to his or her employment, the injury arises in the

course of employment.” Id. at 361. Because the bus driver’s

injuries resulted from a foreseeable risk of his employment,

which required traveling away from home for long and odd

hours, id., the court held that the injury rose in the course of and

out of his employment. Id. at 362. 

Although Parsons takes refuge in the “foreseeable activity”

language of Kolson, it ignores the court’s emphasis on the nexus

between the travel, the work, and the injury that must exist if

workers’ compensation is to be obtained. Id. at 360-62. The

terms of the Assignment Agreement did not indicate that Mr.

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Khan needed to “travel to different locations” to perform his

accounting duties; rather, he was to travel to a single location,

PGSL’s office in Manila, in order to take a new job as a Project

Finance Administration Manager and thereafter enjoy a

sedentary existence. Once in Manila, he commuted from home

(temporarily, a hotel) to a single workplace. Even assuming that

PGSL has more than one office location in Manila, there is

nothing to indicate that travel formed an “integral part” of Mr.

Khan’s job. Parsons has never contested Mr. Khan’s declaration

to that effect. Thus, his injuries had nothing to do with fulfilling

his responsibilities to PGSL as an accountant, much less with

“travel away from [his] employer’s premises” as that phrase is

used in cases applying the traveling employee exception. See,

e.g., Kolson, 699 A.2d at 362; Vieira v. D.C. Dep’t of

Employment Servs., 721 A.2d 579, 583 (D.C. 1998). The other

examples of a traveling employee discussed in Kolson, 699 A.2d

at 362, similarly indicate that the traveling employee exception

would not extend to an employee hired to relocate for a lengthy

period to a different city. As the Khans contend, were the rule

otherwise, workers’ compensation would cover all of the Mr.

Khan’s activities in Manila regardless of the work

connectedness required by Kolson.

Even assuming for purposes of argument the merit of

Parsons’ theory that workers’ compensation reaches injuries

incurred by employees who are on “travel status” by virtue of

having to relocate their permanent residence to accept a new job,

coverage under that theory would not reach Mr. Khan’s injuries.

The Assignment Agreement limited Mr. Khan’s relocation travel

time from Kuala Lumpur to Manila to two days, and he was

kidnapped several days after his arrival, on his day off, when

PGSL’s offices were closed. It is irrelevant that he was living

temporarily at a hotel when he was kidnapped; the Assignment

Agreement included payment of a housing allowance, so PGSL

would be subsidizing his housing no matter where he lived for

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the term of his employment. That he ate in a restaurant on his

day off does not render him a traveling employee either; many

non-traveling employees eat in restaurants on their days off.

Parsons can cite to no authority, from within the District of

Columbia or without, that an employee is converted into a

traveling employee who is entitled to coverage under a state’s

workers’ compensation statute simply because he is at the start

of a new job at a fixed, out-of-state location. 

The District of Columbia’s interpretation of the traveling

employee exception as a narrow exception to the going and

coming rule is buttressed by decisions from other jurisdictions.

For example, New York courts have not applied the traveling

employee exception to bring employees in Mr. Khan’s position

within the reach of its workers’ compensation statute. The New

York workers’ compensation statute does not apply to

employees who are “employed to work at a fixed place or places

outside the state,” as opposed to employees called upon to

perform “transitory work” outside of the state. Cameron v. Ellis

Constr. Co., 169 N.E. 622, 624 (N.Y. 1930). The New York

Court of Appeals explained that this result would obtain even if

the claimant were hired in New York; in other words, a New

York contract that creates a fixed-state employment outside of

New York does not confer upon the employee the status of being

a “traveling employee” from New York and hence such an

employee is not covered by the state’s workers’ compensation

law. Id.; see also Spomer v. Westron Corp., 312 N.Y.S.2d 730

(N.Y. App. Div. 1970); Root v. Workmen’s Comp. Appeal Bd.,

636 A.2d 1263 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 1994). These holdings accord

with the views of the authors of the leading treatise on workers’

compensation that when “regular employment becomes

centralized and fixed so clearly in another state that any return

to the original state would itself only be casual, incidental and

temporary by comparison,” then the employee ceases to be

considered to be “traveler” from the original state. 9 LARSON’S

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§ 143.04[2][d] (citing cases); cf. Lewis v. Knappen Tippetts

Abbett Eng’g Co., 112 N.Y.S.2d 79 (N.Y. App. Div.), aff’d 108

N.E.2d 609 (N.Y. 1952). Like the employees in Cameron,

Spomer, and Root, and unlike the employee in Lewis, Mr.

Khan’s employment was from the outset of the employment

contract “fixed” and “centralized” in Manila, and neither the

Khans nor Parsons have claimed any ongoing work-related

contacts with Washington, D.C., where PGSL is located. Cf.

Hartham v. George A. Fuller Co., 453 N.Y.S.2d 843 (N.Y. App.

Div. 1982). Although most of these cases rest their holdings on

the territorial limitations of the state workers’ compensation

statute in question, the cases cited reflect the fact that the

traveling employee exception cannot be used to bypass the

jurisdictional limits of state workers’ compensation laws. Once

an employee lies outside a statute’s territorial limits, which

Parsons concedes Mr. Khan does, Br. of Appellees at 44, the

traveling employee exception does not bring that employee back

into the realm of the statute’s coverage. 

Parsons’ position that any torts committed by Parsons

“arose from the employment relationship” need not detain us.

Mr. Khan contacted Parsons, the complaint alleges, at the

insistence of the kidnappers. See Compl. ¶ 42. Parsons’

contrary assertion is unsupported by affidavit, and, in any event,

Mr. Khan’s alleged injuries did not “arise out of and in the

course of” Mr. Khan’s status in the manner in which courts have

interpreted the phrase. See, e.g., Harrington, 407 A.2d at 662;

Joyner v. Sibley Mem’l Hosp., 826 A.2d 362, 374 (D.C. 2003).

Rather, courts have followed Professor Larson’s admonition that

the fundamental question for coverage is one of “work

connection.” 1 LARSON’S §3.01. Therefore, the question is

whether the injury is “reasonably related to or incidental to” the

employment. Kolson, 699 A.2d at 361. Holding the WCA to

apply to Mr. Khan’s injuries would override this “basic concept

of compensation coverage.” 1 LARSON’S §3.01. Because the

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traveling employee exception, as construed in Kolson by the

District of Columbia’s highest court, does not extend to travel

status as defined by Parsons, the question whether Mr. Khan was

on a “personal break” during his kidnapping does not arise.

Because Mr. Khan was not properly considered a “traveling

employee” when he was kidnapped in Manila, the district court

erred in entering summary judgment for Parsons on the ground

that the Assignment Agreement barred tort recovery under the

Khans’ complaint. Because the agreement does not bar Mr.

Khan’s tort claims, the court has no occasion to address three

related workers’ compensation issues: whether there can be

recovery for the intentional infliction of emotional distress

notwithstanding WCA coverage, whether Mrs. Khan’s claims

are barred by the Assignment Agreement, and whether the

Khans’ claims against the Parsons’ agents and corporate

affiliates are likewise barred. 

III.

We need only briefly discuss the Khans’ claim of Rule 56(f)

error. Rule 56(f) provides that the district court “may refuse the

application for [summary] judgment or may order a continuance

to permit affidavits to be obtained or depositions to be taken or

discovery to be had” if it “appear[s] from the affidavits of a

party opposing the motion that the party cannot for reasons

stated present by affidavit facts essential to justify the party’s

opposition.” The court has long recognized that a party

opposing summary judgment needs a “reasonable opportunity”

to complete discovery before responding to a summary

judgment motion and that “insufficient time or opportunity to

engage in discovery” is cause to defer decision on the motion.

Martin v. Malhoyt, 830 F.2d 237, 256 (D.C. Cir. 1987); see also

First Chi. Int’l v. United Exch. Co., 836 F.2d 1375, 1380 (D.C.

Cir. 1988). 

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Parsons attached three affidavits to its motion for summary

judgment. Its motion was filed in lieu of an answer, before a

scheduling order, discovery, or initial disclosures, and the

motion relied upon information in Parsons’ sole control. In

response to the motion, the Khans filed two Rule 56(f)

declarations by their counsel outlining the nature of the

discovery they sought. As the Khans suggest, “[i]t makes no

sense for [Parsons] to assert that the key issue [of WCA

coverage] in the case had already been ‘determined’ by its

insurance carrier,” Reply Br. at 3, and as it was, the Khans were

forced “to operate in the dark, with no discovery – not even a

copy of the alleged workmen’s compensation insurance

agreement.” Br. of Appellants at 15. Cf. Dean v. Motel 6

Operating L.P., 134 F.3d 1269, 1271 (6th Cir. 1998). Because

the district court never ruled on the Khans’ initial Rule 56(f)

discovery request, on remand, the district court should address

both Rule 56(f) declarations.

Accordingly, we reverse the grant of summary judgment

and remand the case to the district court for further proceedings.

We do not rule on the Khans’ challenges to the arbitration clause

in the Assignment Agreement as they still seek discovery

regarding it.

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