Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-08-07068/USCOURTS-caDC-08-07068-0/pdf.json

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 February 6, 2009 Decided May 15, 2009 

No. 08-7068 

ALFRED WINDER, 

APPELLANT

v. 

LOUIS ERSTE, INDIVIDUALLY, AND AS CHIEF OPERATING 

OFFICER OF THE DIVISION OF TRANSPORTATION,

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS, ET AL., 

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:03-cv-02623) 

John F. Karl Jr. argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellant. 

Richard S. Love, Senior Assistant Attorney General, 

Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, 

argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were 

Peter J. Nickles, Attorney General, Todd S. Kim, Solicitor 

General, and Donna M. Murasky, Deputy Solicitor General. 

Before: HENDERSON, BROWN, and GRIFFITH, Circuit 

Judges. 

USCA Case #08-7068 Document #1181016 Filed: 05/15/2009 Page 1 of 18
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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH. 

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: Alfred Winder managed the 

transportation division of the District of Columbia Public 

Schools (DCPS) from 1999 until he was fired in 2003. He 

brought suit against the District of Columbia, DCPS, and 

several DCPS officials, claiming, among other things, that his 

firing not only was a breach of contract but also violated his 

constitutional and statutory rights to report supervisors’ 

misconduct without fear of retaliation. The district court ruled 

against Winder on every contested issue. We affirm its 

decision, with one exception. Because there is a genuine issue 

whether Winder was an at-will employee who served at the 

pleasure of his employer or had a contractually protected term 

of employment, we reverse the grant of summary judgment 

against his claims of premature termination and violation of 

procedural due process. 

I. 

A.

 In 1999, DCPS hired Winder as General Manager of its 

transportation division. Winder was responsible for the 

management, administration, and operation of transportation 

services for special education students. His duties primarily 

consisted of helping DCPS comply with court orders issued in 

Petties v. District of Columbia, No. 95-0148 (D.D.C.), a class 

action brought by parents of special education students 

frustrated with the District’s failure to provide their children 

with adequate transportation. The Petties orders mandated 

specific standards and procedures for DCPS’s transportation 

of special education students. The court appointed a Special 

Master and a Transportation Administrator to oversee 

USCA Case #08-7068 Document #1181016 Filed: 05/15/2009 Page 2 of 18
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implementation of the orders. Winder’s job included regular 

communication with these officials. 

 From 1999 to 2002, Winder was employed under a series 

of one-year contracts. In a 2002 reorganization, DCPS 

abolished the positions of all its managers and created new 

managerial jobs. Managers who wanted to stay with DCPS 

had to apply for these jobs. DCPS posted a vacancy 

announcement for the “new” job of General Manager of the 

transportation division (which had the same duties and 

responsibilities as the position Winder had held). The 

announcement described the position as “Senior Executive” 

and stated that “Appointees to this position serve at the 

pleasure of the appointing authority.” Supp. App. at 1. Winder 

applied for and received the job. A letter summarizing the 

terms of his employment stated that it would commence on 

July 22, 2002, and that “[t]he tenure of this contract is one 

year from the commencement date.” Letter from Louis J. 

Erste, Chief Operating Officer, D.C. Pub. Sch. Transp. Div., 

to Alfred Winder, Gen. Manager of Transp., D.C. Pub. Sch. 

(July 17, 2002). The letter also explained that Winder was 

entitled to a range of benefits, including an employer-paid 

pension plan as well as sick and annual leave. 

 Despite the contract’s one-year term, DCPS terminated 

Winder on April 3, 2003. His firing followed years of tension 

between Winder and his supervisors, stemming from 

Winder’s belief that they were resisting or interfering with 

efforts to comply with the Petties orders. Tensions peaked 

during Winder’s 2002–2003 contract term. First, in late 2002, 

Winder placed nearly fifty phone calls to the Special Master 

reporting problems with his supervisors. According to 

Winder, they began to retaliate against him as a result. They 

pressured him to resign, encouraged parents and school board 

USCA Case #08-7068 Document #1181016 Filed: 05/15/2009 Page 3 of 18
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members to file complaints against him, and falsely told his 

staff that he planned to resign. 

 The hostilities escalated after December 2002, when 

DCPS bus drivers walked off the job to protest a new policy 

that deprived them of earned benefits. Two of Winder’s 

supervisors, Louis Erste and Kennedy Khabo, testified about 

the driver walkout at a January 2003 meeting of the D.C. 

Council Committee on Education, Libraries, and Recreation. 

Winder attended the meeting but did not sit with his 

supervisors at the witness table. When Erste and Khabo failed 

to provide answers to the satisfaction of a councilman, he 

summoned Winder to the table. According to Winder, Erste 

was angered by the answers he gave and expressed hostility 

toward him after the meeting. 

 The next month, Winder filed a complaint with the D.C. 

Inspector General against Erste and Khabo. The complaint 

recited the difficulties Winder was experiencing in carrying 

out his job duties because of them. It also charged both with 

filing false affidavits in the Petties litigation, blocking 

compliance with court orders, and harassing Winder and 

others. 

 Winder left work for an extended, pre-approved medical 

leave in March 2003. During this leave he received a letter 

from DCPS telling him he was being discharged. Although he 

has since found new employment, Winder alleges that his 

former supervisors made it hard for him to do so. For 

example, when Winder asked a friend in the D.C. government 

about an open transportation position, he was told that Deputy 

Mayor Herb Tillery considered him “persona non grata” 

based on information from DCPS officials. 

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B. 

Winder filed this action in the district court in December 

2003, asserting constitutional, statutory, and common law 

claims. The district court resolved almost all of these claims 

in favor of the defendants.1

 We discuss only those claims 

relevant to this appeal. 

In a March 2005 order, the court dismissed several of 

Winder’s claims under FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6) for failure to 

state a claim. The court dismissed Winder’s common-law tort 

claims for unliquidated damages and his claims under the 

D.C. Whistleblower Act because he failed to provide the presuit notice required by statute. The court also dismissed 

Winder’s other common-law tort claims and his breach of 

contract claims, holding that they were preempted by the D.C. 

Comprehensive Merit Personnel Act (CMPA), which governs 

grievances of District employees. Winder sought 

reconsideration of the dismissal of his breach of contract 

claims. For the first time, Winder informed the court that he 

had already pursued relief under the CMPA. In December 

2004, the District agency charged with enforcing that statute 

held that it lacked jurisdiction over his claims. The court 

therefore reinstated the claims that it had earlier held were 

preempted by the CMPA. It did not reinstate the preempted 

tort claims because Winder failed to seek their 

reconsideration. 

In September 2007, the court granted summary judgment 

in favor of the District and several individual defendants on 

Winder’s First Amendment claims. It held that under Garcetti 

 

1

 The court ruled in Winder’s favor on his uncontested claim that 

the District owed him compensation for 176 hours of sick leave. 

USCA Case #08-7068 Document #1181016 Filed: 05/15/2009 Page 5 of 18
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v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006), Winder’s speech was not 

protected because he spoke pursuant to his official duties 

when he complained to DCPS officials, reported problems to 

the Petties Special Master, testified before the D.C. Council, 

and filed a complaint with the D.C. Inspector General. The 

court also granted summary judgment against Winder’s 

claims that the defendants breached his written contract and 

violated his procedural due process rights when they fired him 

before the end of his one-year term. The court found that 

Winder was a member of the Executive Service and thus, 

under D.C. law, an at-will employee who served at the 

pleasure of the mayor. 

The district court issued its final ruling on May 20, 2008, 

disposing of Winder’s claims that the District breached his 

contract by denying him certain benefits. As to unpaid 

compensatory time, the court held that the 2002 contract did 

not provide for such payment, that regulations requiring 

payment did not apply to Winder, that an alleged pre-contract 

promise by a former supervisor was not incorporated into the 

contract, and that Winder had not pleaded breach of any pre2002 contract. As to pension benefits, the court held that 

Winder had not met the minimum vesting period under D.C. 

regulations and federal law. 

II. 

On appeal, Winder challenges the district court’s Rule 

12(b)(6) dismissal of his D.C. Whistleblower Act claims and 

its summary judgment rulings against his First Amendment 

claim, his breach of contract claims, and his procedural due 

process claim. We review these dispositions de novo. See 

Gilvin v. Fire, 259 F.3d 749, 756 (D.C. Cir. 2001). A court 

may dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) if, accepting the allegations 

in the complaint as true, the plaintiff has nonetheless failed to 

USCA Case #08-7068 Document #1181016 Filed: 05/15/2009 Page 6 of 18
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state plausible grounds for relief. See Bell Atl. Corp. v. 

Twombly, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 1965 (2007). Summary judgment 

is appropriate if, drawing all reasonable inferences in the 

nonmovant’s favor, there is no genuine issue of material fact 

and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of 

law. See Gilvin, 259 F.3d at 756. 

A.

 We first address the dismissal of Winder’s D.C. 

Whistleblower Act claims for lack of pre-suit notice. The Act 

provides that supervisors of District employees “shall not 

threaten to take or take a prohibited personnel action or 

otherwise retaliate against an employee because of the 

employee’s protected disclosure.” D.C. CODE § 1-615.53 

(2006). Aggrieved employees may bring a civil action seeking 

reinstatement, back pay, restoration of lost benefits, 

compensatory damages, and other relief. Id. § 1-615.54(a). 

But the Act imposes a notice obligation on plaintiff 

employees: “A civil action brought pursuant to this section 

shall comply with the notice requirements of § 12-309.” Id.

Section 12-309 of the D.C. Code is a general notice provision 

applicable to all tort claims against the District: “An action 

may not be maintained against the District of Columbia for 

unliquidated damages . . . unless, within six months after the 

injury . . . the claimant . . . has given notice in writing to the 

Mayor of the District of Columbia of the approximate time, 

place, cause, and circumstances of the injury or damage.” 

 The question for us is whether, as the district court held, 

the Whistleblower Act requires the written notice described in 

section 12-309 for all claims. Section 12-309 itself imposes 

this obligation only on plaintiffs seeking unliquidated 

damages. But the district court dismissed all of Winder’s 

Whistleblower Act claims for lack of notice, holding that “the 

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Act . . . specifies that compliance with § 12-309 is required 

before bringing a civil action for any of the remedies 

authorized thereunder.” Winder v. Erste, No. 03-2623, slip op. 

at 19 n.11 (D.D.C. Mar. 31, 2005). Winder does not dispute 

that he failed to provide pre-suit notice to the District, but he 

challenges the dismissal of his Whistleblower Act claims for 

injunctive relief and back pay. He argues that because section 

12-309 only requires notice for unliquidated damages claims, 

the Act’s incorporation of section 12-309 must include that 

limitation as well. 

 We disagree. The district court’s reading of the 

Whistleblower Act is faithful to the plain language of the 

statute. The Act incorporates only “the notice requirements of 

§ 12-309,” D.C. CODE § 1-615.54(a), which call for written 

notice to the D.C. Mayor within six months after the injury is 

sustained, see id. § 12-309. Unlike section 12-309, the 

Whistleblower Act does not limit the application of those 

requirements to specific claims for relief. Rather it mandates 

compliance in “[a] civil action brought pursuant to this 

section.” Id. § 1.615.54(a). Our reading of the statute is 

reinforced by the “cardinal rule of statutory interpretation that 

no provision should be construed to be entirely redundant,” 

Kungys v. United States, 485 U.S. 759, 778 (1988) (plurality 

opinion of Scalia, J.). Winder’s interpretation of section 

1.615.54(a) would render it redundant with section 12-309, 

which already applies its notice requirements to any claim for 

unliquidated damages against the District. The district court 

properly rejected this interpretation and dismissed all of 

Winder’s Whistleblower Act claims for failure to comply with 

the pre-suit notice requirements. 

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B. 

 We next address the district court’s conclusion that 

Winder’s various complaints about his DCPS supervisors are 

not protected by the First Amendment. On appeal, Winder 

limits his challenge to his testimony before the D.C. Council, 

his reports to the Petties Special Master, and his complaint to 

the D.C. Inspector General. He argues that the defendants 

violated his First Amendment rights by firing him in 

retaliation for these actions. 

 A public employee like Winder “does not relinquish First 

Amendment rights to comment on matters of public interest 

by virtue of government employment,” Connick v. Myers, 461 

U.S. 138, 140 (1983). At the same time, the government as 

employer must be able to prevent employees’ speech from 

interfering with the “efficient provision of public services.” 

Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 418. The threshold question for a public 

employee’s First Amendment claim is “whether the employee 

spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern.” Id. If so, his 

speech is protected unless the government can justify treating 

its employees differently from other citizens. But if the 

employee spoke “pursuant to” his official duties, he cannot 

claim constitutional protection. Id. at 421. 

 Winder argues that he spoke as a citizen because his 

statements were made publicly, voluntarily, and outside his 

chain of command. But by his own description, Winder’s 

responsibilities with DCPS included implementing the Petties

court orders and reporting regularly to the Special Master. 

J.A. at 120 ¶ 29, 183 ¶ 44 (Amended Complaint). Winder was 

hired to help DCPS comply with the Petties court orders. And 

in each communication at issue on appeal he acted in 

furtherance of that duty by exposing the efforts of DCPS 

officials to block compliance. 

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In our cases applying Garcetti, we have consistently held 

that a public employee speaks without First Amendment 

protection when he reports conduct that interferes with his job 

responsibilities, even if the report is made outside his chain of 

command. See Thompson v. District of Columbia, 530 F.3d 

914, 917–18 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (Chief of Security for D.C. 

Lottery Board spoke pursuant to duty to maintain Board’s 

financial integrity when he reported Board members’ 

financial misconduct); Wilburn v. Robinson, 480 F.3d 1140, 

1151 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (employee hired “to root out 

discrimination in the District government” did not speak as 

citizen when reporting discriminatory hiring practices); cf.

Tao v. Freeh, 27 F.3d 635, 640 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (FBI 

translator spoke as citizen when reporting racial 

discrimination because her job duties did not include exposing 

or preventing discrimination). In reporting his supervisors’ 

alleged obstruction of the Petties orders to the Special Master, 

Winder was fulfilling his undisputed duty to see that those 

orders were implemented. Likewise, his complaint to the D.C. 

Inspector General requested a formal inquiry into Erste and 

Khabo’s efforts to block implementation of the orders. 

Finally, Winder’s testimony to the D.C. Council 

committee about the DCPS bus driver walkout was also 

pursuant to his duty to implement the orders. The Petties

orders required DCPS to transport students in a punctual 

manner using qualified, properly trained drivers. See, e.g., No. 

95-0148 (D.D.C. July 9, 1999) (order summarizing DCPS 

obligations). The drivers’ walkout prevented that from 

happening. And although, as Winder points out, ordinary 

citizens often speak at city council meetings, Winder was not 

merely speaking as a citizen when he answered the 

councilman’s questions. In testifying, he was promoting 

DCPS’s compliance with the Petties orders—a duty he was 

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being “paid to perform,” Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 422. If the facts 

before us were different—if Winder was not hired to enforce 

the Petties orders but to perform some other function within 

DCPS—his testimony before the committee might fall within 

the protection of the First Amendment. But by Winder’s own 

description, it was his job to implement the Petties court 

orders. His testimony was an attempt to ensure proper 

implementation of those orders and was therefore offered 

pursuant to his job duties. 

Winder argues that his complaints could not be part of his 

official duties because his supervisors at DCPS did not want 

him to speak candidly to officials who were reviewing the 

system’s compliance with the Petties orders. Wilburn

forecloses this argument. In that case, the employee 

complained of discriminatory hiring practices and the 

supervisor did not approve of the speech at issue. See 480 

F.3d at 1142–43, 1151. But we held the speech unprotected 

because the employee’s specific duties included “root[ing] out 

discrimination in the District government,” id. at 1151, and 

the government as employer is free to control the content of 

“speech that owes its existence to a public employee’s 

professional responsibilities,” Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 421. 

Although some complaints of hiring discrimination might 

receive First Amendment protection, they are not covered 

when made by an employee whose job duties involve exactly 

such complaints. So too here, although testimony before a city 

council might otherwise be just the sort of citizen speech 

protected by the First Amendment, the uncommonly close 

relationship between Winder’s duties and his advocacy before 

the council precludes protection. Thus as in Wilburn, the 

disapproval of Winder’s supervisors does not bring his 

comments within the scope of the First Amendment. 

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Finally, Winder argues that the district court improperly 

broadened the Garcetti test by holding unprotected any 

speech that “concerns” an employee’s job duties. Had the 

district court so held, we agree that it would be in error. 

Speech can be covered by the First Amendment even if it is 

related to one’s job function. See, e.g., Pickering v. Bd. of 

Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 568 (1968) (holding that the First 

Amendment protects a school teacher’s speech about the 

school district’s use of taxpayer revenue). But Winder 

mischaracterizes the district court’s holding. The court 

observed that all of the speech Winder cited “concerned” his 

official duties. Winder v. Erste, 511 F. Supp. 2d 160, 173 

(D.D.C. 2007). But it did not rest its conclusion on that fact. 

Rather it explained, as we have, how in each instance 

Winder’s speech was an attempt to implement the Petties

orders and was therefore “pursuant to” his official duties. Id.

at 173–75.2

Some remedy, such as a properly preserved claim under 

the whistleblower protection laws, may have been available to 

Winder. But the district court correctly held that the First 

Amendment does not provide that remedy. 

 

2

 By contrast, the district court held that Winder’s complaints to 

Erste and Khabo were unprotected because they were made to his 

supervisors and concerned “the precise subject matter of his 

employment.” Winder, 511 F. Supp. 2d at 173. This holding could 

be read as broader than the “pursuant to” standard. But the court 

only applied this reasoning to the complaints to Erste and Khabo, 

and Winder does not challenge the First Amendment status of those 

complaints on appeal. Accordingly, we need not decide whether 

this arguable gloss on Garcetti for speech to supervisors is correct. 

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C. 

 The next question for us is whether the district court 

correctly held that Winder was an at-will employee without 

the protection of a contract. Two of Winder’s claims—breach 

of the 2002 contract through premature termination and 

violation of procedural due process—turn on this question. If 

the 2002 contract did not guarantee Winder a one-year term, 

then DCPS did not breach that contract by firing him within a 

year. Similarly, if the contract did not give Winder a property 

interest in an employment term of one year, DCPS could not 

have violated his due process rights by depriving him of that 

interest. 

 The district court acknowledged that the plain language 

of the July 2002 employment contract, which provides for a 

one-year term, suggests that Winder was not an at-will 

employee. But the court found two reasons to look past the 

written contract. Most important, the court relied on the 

District’s contention—and Winder’s apparent agreement—

that Winder was employed in the Executive Service. By 

statute, “[p]ersons serving in the Executive Service . . . shall 

serve at the pleasure of the Mayor.” D.C. CODE § 1-610.51(b). 

Thus the court held that DCPS had no authority to hire 

Winder for a fixed term. The court also looked to the vacancy 

announcement for Winder’s position: “Appointees to this 

position serve at the pleasure of the appointing authority.” 

Supp. App. at 1. 

 The district court’s reliance on section 1-610.51(b) was 

misplaced, because Winder could not have been a member of 

the Executive Service. DCPS lacked authority to classify him 

as such. The Executive Service consists of “any subordinate 

agency head whom the Mayor is authorized to appoint in 

accordance with subchapter X-A of this chapter.” D.C. CODE

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§ 1-603.01(9). A “subordinate agency” is “any agency under 

the direct administrative control of the Mayor.” Id. § 1-

603.01(17). At the time Winder worked for DCPS, the agency 

was under the control of the Board of Education. See id. § 38-

102. The Board of Education was expressly excluded from the 

definition of “subordinate agency,” id. § 1-603.01(17), and 

was instead included in the definition of an “independent 

agency” not subject to the administrative control of the 

Mayor, id. § 1-603.01(13). And Winder was not even the 

“head” of the transportation division, let alone DCPS or the 

Board of Education. 

 Moreover, appellees make no argument that Winder was 

“appointed in accordance with subchapter X-A,” id. § 1-

603.01(9). That subchapter requires the Mayor to nominate 

and the D.C. Council to confirm members of the Executive 

Service. See id. § 1-610.51(b) (directing the Mayor to 

nominate subordinate agency heads to the Executive Service 

using the process described in section 1-523.01); id. § 1-

523.01(a) (requiring confirmation by the D.C. Council of all 

Executive Service nominees). Winder was neither nominated 

by the Mayor nor confirmed by the Council. 

 The district court’s mistaken conclusion that Winder was 

part of the Executive Service may have resulted from 

personnel records listing Winder’s job class and pay plan as 

“EX” and a representation by DCPS that these records 

“indicate that Mr. Winder was employed in the ‘executive 

service.’” Supp. App. at 6, 8. The meaning of Winder’s 

classification is unclear. There is nothing in the statute or 

regulations to support such a classification. According to the 

statute, Executive Service members are classified as “DX,” 

not “EX.” Id. § 1-610.52(a). And the regulations provide that 

employees under the control of the Board of Education (like 

Winder) were classified as “EA” (Board members), “EB” 

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(Excepted Service), “ET” (Former Teachers’ Salary Act), 

“EG” (Former General Schedule), or “DS” (Career Service). 

See D.C. MUN. REGS. tit. 5, § 1102.3–.4. There was no 

category identified as “EX.” 

 Without a finding that Winder was in the Executive 

Service and served at the pleasure of the Mayor, the sole 

remaining support for the district court’s conclusion that he 

was an at-will employee is the statement in the vacancy 

announcement that appointees would serve at the pleasure of 

the appointing authority. But as Winder points out, the plain 

language of the contract negotiated between the parties 

suggests that they intended to guarantee Winder a one-year 

term. A contract that specifies a duration of time is not a 

contract for at-will employment. See, e.g., Reaves-Bey v. 

Karr, 840 A.2d 701, 704 (D.C. 2004) (“Absent ‘expression of 

a specific term of duration’ in an employment relationship, 

there is a presumption that the employment is ‘terminable at 

will by any party at any time.’”); see also 19 WILLISTON ON 

CONTRACTS § 54:39 (4th ed. 1993) (“There are two basic 

forms of employment: employment for a definite or 

ascertainable term and employment at will.”). 

 Because Winder’s employment classification is muddled 

at best, there is a genuine question whether DCPS could 

terminate him when it did. With that issue in dispute, the 

district court lacked a basis to grant summary judgment 

against Winder’s claims that he was fired prematurely and 

that his procedural due process rights were violated. 

D. 

 Finally, we decide whether the district court properly 

disposed of Winder’s remaining contract claims. 

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 As explained above, the district court initially ruled that 

many of Winder’s claims, including those for breach of 

contract, were preempted by the CMPA. At Winder’s request, 

the court later reinstated the claim for breach of the written 

contract discussed in Part II.C, supra, after the District agency 

charged with administering the CMPA ruled that he was not 

covered by that statute. Winder argues that the court erred by 

refusing to reinstate his “claims of breach of oral contract.” 

Appellant’s Br. at 28. But Winder never asserted such a 

claim. He relies on Count VII of the amended complaint but 

never asked the district court to reinstate Count VII. He 

sought reinstatement only of Count IX, which only alleged 

breach of the written contract. See Plaintiff’s Motion for 

Reconsideration at 2, Winder, No. 03-2623 (D.D.C. Nov. 15, 

2006) (“This motion seeks reconsideration only of the 

portions of the . . . Orders dismissing the claims for breach of 

written employment contract.”); id. at 7 (“[W]e request the 

court to reinstate Winder’s contract claims in Count IX.”). 

Having failed to request reinstatement of Count VII, Winder 

cannot challenge its dismissal on appeal. See Trout v. Sec’y of 

Navy, 540 F.3d 442, 448 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (arguments not 

raised before the district court are waived). Even if his 

argument were properly raised, Count VII does not contain a 

claim for breach of oral contract. Although that claim is 

labeled “Breach of contract and tortious interference,” its 

allegations refer only to his written contract (and are 

duplicative of the written contract claim in Count IX) or relate 

to tortious interference. See J.A. at 139. Winder cannot 

ground his new arguments about oral contract on Count VII. 

 Winder next argues that the district court improperly 

granted summary judgment on his contract claim for 

compensatory time. Before the district court, Winder argued 

that he was entitled to payment for compensatory time he 

accumulated prior to and under the 2002 contract. His claim 

USCA Case #08-7068 Document #1181016 Filed: 05/15/2009 Page 16 of 18
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was based on an alleged pre-2002 oral promise from a DCPS 

official, which Winder argued had become part of the 2002 

contract. On appeal, however, Winder no longer relies on the 

written contract to support his claim for compensatory time. 

Instead he argues that the District’s failure to pay for this time 

is a breach of the alleged oral contract. But again, Winder has 

waived any claim for breach of oral contract by not raising it 

before the district court, either in the complaint or in the 

motion for reconsideration. 

 Finally, Winder argues that the district court should not 

have granted summary judgment against his claim for pension 

benefits. The 2002 contract entitled Winder to “an employer 

paid pension benefit plan with a contribution by DCPS of 7% 

of total compensation.” J.A. at 111. The District initially 

agreed that Winder’s benefits had vested and directed him to 

apply for a refund. But in its summary judgment reply brief, 

the District changed positions, explaining that its regulations 

and federal law imposed a minimum five-year vesting period. 

Because Winder had not worked for the District for five 

years, the court denied his pension benefits claim. Winder 

does not dispute that, under federal law, a pension plan such 

as the District’s must impose either a five-year minimum 

vesting period before an employee has a right to 100% of 

employer contributions or an alternative, graduated vesting 

plan. See 26 U.S.C. § 411(a)(2)(A)(i) (2006). Nor does he 

dispute that the District has chosen to comply with this 

requirement by using the five-year, 100% vesting period. See

D.C. MUN. REGS. tit. 6, §§ 2602.3, 2605.10, 2606.1. Instead 

he claims, without offering support, that these regulations do 

not apply to him. But even if Winder could show that he was 

within one of the exceptions to the regulations, federal law 

also requires a five-year vesting period. The district court was 

bound to apply that law regardless of the District’s initial 

oversight. 

USCA Case #08-7068 Document #1181016 Filed: 05/15/2009 Page 17 of 18
18 

III. 

 Because there is a genuine issue whether DCPS could fire 

Winder before the expiration of the one-year term specified in 

his employment contract, we reverse the district court’s 

summary judgment on the premature termination and 

procedural due process claims and remand for further 

proceedings. We affirm the district court in all other respects. 

So ordered. 

USCA Case #08-7068 Document #1181016 Filed: 05/15/2009 Page 18 of 18