Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05306/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05306-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 16, 2014 Decided September 5, 2014

No. 12-5306

ANN J. BARKLEY, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

UNITED STATES MARSHALS SERVICE, BY AND THROUGH 

DIRECTOR STACIA HYLTON AND ANY SUCCESSOR, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:02-cv-01484)

Phoebe L. Deak argued the cause for appellants. With 

her on the brief was John A. Tucker.

Sydney A. Foster, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellees United States Marshals Service 

and Stacia A. Hylton. On the brief were Stuart F. Delery, 

Assistant Attorney General, Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. 

Attorney, and Marleigh D. Dover and Stephanie R. Marcus, 

Attorneys.

Michelle E. Shivers was on the brief for appellee Akal 

Security, Inc. 

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Kurt N. Peterson entered an appearance.

Before: ROGERS, SRINIVASAN and MILLETT, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.

SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge: The United States Marshals 

Service contracts with private security companies for the 

provision of security officers in the federal courts. The 

Marshals Service requires officers to undergo annual medical 

examinations to assure their continued medical fitness for the 

position. A government physician reviews an officer’s annual 

examination to determine the officer’s medical status. If the 

physician initially determines the officer to be medically 

disqualified, the officer is given the opportunity to submit 

additional medical information. If the additional information 

fails to demonstrate the officer’s medical qualification, the 

officer may no longer work under his security company’s 

federal contract as a court security officer.

Former officers who had been medically disqualified 

from serving as federal court security officers brought an 

action against the Marshals Service. They alleged that the 

procedures culminating in their dismissals failed to satisfy the 

Due Process Clause, and that their dismissals had been

motivated by discrimination in violation of the Rehabilitation 

Act. The officers also sued the private security companies 

that employed them under the Americans with Disabilities 

Act. 

The district court granted summary judgment to the 

Marshals Service on the due process claim, finding that the 

process afforded to the officers satisfied constitutional 

requirements. The court rejected the Rehabilitation Act 

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claims of most of the plaintiffs on the ground that they had

failed to exhaust administrative remedies. The court also 

denied the plaintiffs leave to amend their complaint to add 

claims under the Rehabilitation Act and Americans with 

Disabilities Act for a number of recently terminated officers. 

We affirm the grant of summary judgment on the due process 

claims and the dismissal of the Rehabilitation Act claims for 

failure to exhaust, but reverse the denial of leave to amend the 

complaint. 

I.

A.

The United States Marshals Service bears responsibility 

to provide security for the federal courts. 28 U.S.C. § 566(a). 

In fulfilling that duty, the Marshals Service contracts with 

private security companies to supply court security officers

for federal courthouses. Although the Marshals Service 

specifies the standards and qualifications for the officers, they 

are employees of the private security companies. Under the 

agreement between the Marshals Service and the security 

companies, “[a]ny employee provided by the Contractor that 

fails to meet the requirements of the Contract . . . may be 

removed from performing services for the Government under 

[the] Contract upon written request of [the Marshals Service 

officer overseeing the contract].” Supp. App. 27-28.

In 1997, a committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference 

expressed concerns about the ability of court security officers

to respond to security threats. The Judicial Conference, in 

conjunction with the Marshals Service, asked the U.S. Public 

Health Service to study the medical standards for the officers. 

The Marshals Service implemented a number of 

recommendations made by the U.S. Public Health Service. 

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One new procedure implemented by the Marshals Service

requires each officer to undergo an annual medical 

examination to assure the officer’s medical qualification for 

the position. The initial medical examination is conducted by 

a physician selected by the officer’s private security company 

and approved by the office of Federal Occupational Health, a 

component of the U.S. Public Health Service. That 

examination produces a medical file that is provided to the 

private security company and forwarded to the Marshals 

Service. The Marshals Service, in turn, sends the file to the 

office of Federal Occupational Health for review by a 

government physician with experience in law enforcementrelated occupational medicine. If the government physician 

determines that the officer is medically qualified, the process 

ends and the officer continues in his position. 

If the government physician finds either that she lacks 

adequate information with which to make an assessment or 

that the officer may have a disqualifying condition, the 

physician requests additional information (unless an 

emergency situation requires immediate termination). The 

physician sends a medical review form to the Marshals 

Service, which then submits the form to the officer’s security 

company. The form is addressed to the officer. It explains 

the concerns of the physician and describes the additional 

information needed. Ordinarily, the officer can obtain that

information from a personal physician. The Marshals Service

gives the security company thirty days to respond. If the 

Marshals Service does not receive a timely response, it can 

send an additional request or can order the security company 

to remove the officer from her position as a court security 

officer under the government contract. If, after receiving 

additional information, the government physician concludes 

that the officer is medically disqualified, the Marshals Service 

sends a disqualification letter to the company. The company 

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must then remove the employee as a court security officer

under the contract (but can reassign the employee elsewhere).

B.

The plaintiffs are former federal court security officers

who had been removed from their service under government 

contracts after the Marshals Service determined they were 

medically disqualified. Fifty-four former officers, and their 

union, the United Government Security Officers of America 

International Union, sued the Marshals Service under the Due 

Process Clause. They challenged the procedures by which the 

officers were deemed medically disqualified to continue their 

service under the government contracts. The individual 

plaintiffs also raised claims under the Rehabilitation Act, 29 

U.S.C. §§ 701 et seq., against the Marshals Service, and 

claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 

U.S.C. § 12101 et seq., against three private security 

companies that employed them. The plaintiffs also sought 

certification of a class in connection with the Rehabilitation 

Act and ADA claims.

In September 2006, the district court determined that only 

four of the plaintiffs could proceed with Rehabilitation Act 

claims against the Marshals Service. See Int’l Union v. Clark, 

No. 02-1484, 2006 WL 2598046, at *12 (D.D.C. Sept. 11, 

2006). Finding that only five officers had properly exhausted 

administrative remedies (and that one of those five officers 

faced a separate bar against going forward under res judicata

principles), the district court granted judgment on the 

pleadings to the Marshals Service on the Rehabilitation Act 

claims of all plaintiffs except the four who had exhausted 

administrative remedies. Id. at *12, n.19. The court relied on 

this court’s decision in Spinelli v. Goss, 446 F.3d 159, 162 

(D.C. Cir. 2006), which held that there is no jurisdiction over 

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the Rehabilitation Act claims of individuals who failed to file 

any administrative complaint. See Clark, 2006 WL 2598046, 

at *10. 

In a subsequent order, the district court denied the 

plaintiffs’ motion for class certification on the Rehabilitation 

Act claims. The court explained that, after it dismissed the 

bulk of the Rehabilitation Act claims for failure to exhaust

administrative remedies, the class was not “so numerous as to 

make joinder impracticable.” Clark, No. 02-1484, 2006 WL 

2687005, at *5-*6 (D.D.C. Sept. 12, 2006). In addition, the 

named representatives could not adequately represent the 

class because they had failed to exhaust the special 

administrative procedures for class claims. See id. at *6-*7.

In October 2006, the plaintiffs sought leave to file a fifth 

amended complaint, which would add twelve former officers

as plaintiffs along with any future terminated officers. The 

newly added officers, according to the motion, had “the same 

claims as Plaintiffs against Defendant [Marshals Service] for 

the violation of their Fifth Amendment rights to due process.” 

Pls.’ Mot. for Leave 2. The proposed complaint attached to 

the motion also added Rehabilitation Act and ADA claims by 

the new officers. The district court granted leave to amend 

the complaint. But in response to a motion for clarification, 

the court barred the new plaintiffs from asserting claims under 

the Rehabilitation Act or ADA. Clark, No. 02-1484, slip op. 

at 3 (D.D.C. Sept. 20, 2007). In denying reconsideration, the 

court explained that the plaintiffs’ initial motion explicitly 

requested the addition only of claims under the Due Process 

Clause. Clark, No. 02-1484, slip op. at 2-3 (D.D.C. Jan. 22, 

2009).

In 2008, the plaintiffs and the Marshals Service filed 

cross-motions for summary judgment with regard to the due 

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process claims. The district court granted summary judgment 

to the Marshals Service. The court concluded that the officers

held a constitutionally protected property interest in their 

employment, but that they had received constitutionally 

adequate process before being deprived of that interest. 

Clark, 706 F. Supp. 2d 59, 65-71 (D.D.C. 2010).

Another set of former officers brought parallel claims

against the same parties in a separate case, Neal v. Reyna, No. 

05-07 (D.D.C. filed Jan. 4, 2005). The district court 

consolidated the two cases. Consistent with its prior rulings, 

the court determined that the Neal plaintiffs who had failed to 

exhaust administrative remedies could not proceed on their 

Rehabilitation Act claims, and the court granted summary 

judgment to the Marshals Service on the due process claims. 

See Clark, 878 F. Supp. 2d 127, 137 (D.D.C. 2012); Clark, 

704 F. Supp. 2d 54, 63 (D.D.C. 2010).

The plaintiffs now appeal (i) the district court’s grant of

summary judgment against them on their due process claims,

(ii) the rejection of their Rehabilitation Act claims for failure 

to exhaust administrative remedies, and (iii) the denial of 

leave to add Rehabilitation Act and ADA claims in the fifth 

amended complaint. We discuss each of those issues in turn.

II.

In examining the plaintiffs’ claim of a violation of 

procedural due process, we apply “a familiar two-part 

inquiry”: we “determine whether the plaintiffs were deprived 

of a protected interest, and, if so, whether they received the 

process they were due.” UDC Chairs Chapter, Am. Ass’n of 

Univ. Professors v. Bd. of Trs. of the Univ. of the Dist. of 

Columbia, 56 F.3d 1469, 1471 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). We need not resolve whether the 

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plaintiffs possessed a “protected interest” in their continued 

service under a federal government contract because, even if 

so, the Marshals Service’s medical review procedures 

afforded the officers “the process they were due.” Id.

“An essential principle of due process is that a 

deprivation of life, liberty, or property ‘be preceded by notice 

and opportunity for hearing appropriate to the nature of the 

case.’” Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 

542 (1985) (quoting Mullane v. Cent. Hanover Bank & Trust 

Co., 339 U.S. 306, 313 (1950)). Here, both the notice and the 

opportunity for hearing given to the plaintiffs met the 

requirements of the Due Process Clause.

A.

To satisfy due process, notice must be “reasonably 

calculated to reach interested parties.” Mullane, 339 U.S. at

318. Here, when a government physician reviewing a court 

security officer’s file identified a need for further medical 

information, the physician requested the information through

a medical review form. The Marshals Service sent the form 

to the security company employing the officer. If an officer 

failed to respond to the first request, moreover, a second form 

might be sent. Forms were sent to an officer’s employer but 

were addressed to the individual officer, and the plaintiffs 

identify no record evidence of any officer who failed at least 

to receive timely notice of the need to submit additional 

medical documentation. Indeed, the Marshals Service might 

well have reasonably viewed a response to be more likely if 

the officer’s employer was made party to the interaction: the 

companies’ contracts with the Marshals Service obligated 

them to “ensure that [officers] comply with the [Marshals 

Service’s] request for follow-up or clarifying information 

regarding treatment measures.” Supp. App. 24. Sending a 

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form addressed to the officer through the officer’s employer, 

with the employer in turn contractually bound to assure a 

response by its employee, readily constitutes notice 

“reasonably certain to inform those affected.” Dusenbery v. 

United States, 534 U.S. 161, 169 (2002) (quoting Mullane, 

339 U.S. at 315).

The medical review form also “provided an accurate 

picture of what was at stake,” Brown v. Plaut, 131 F.3d 163, 

172 (D.C. Cir. 1997), and adequately explained how an

officer should respond. The form stated that the officer “has 

medical findings which may hinder safe and efficient 

performance of essential job functions” and asked for “the 

following detailed or diagnostic medical information.” See, 

e.g., J.A. 346. It then explained that, “if further information is 

not provided, a determination will be made based on available 

medical information.” Id. Officers reviewing the form would 

have understood the significance of the matter, and that, 

because the inquiry concerned their “performance of essential 

job functions,” their continued employment was in question. 

See id. The form also adequately communicated the 

information requested from the officer. As an example, one 

officer was asked to have “[his] treating physician provide a 

report regarding [his] diabetes control,” including “[his] 

current diabetic condition and what [was] being done to 

manage [his] diabetes,” a “history of all medications, 

including type and dosage adjustments over the past 2 years,” 

a “copy of all labs taken over the past 2 years,” and “any 

evidence of medical complications . . . and hypoglycemic 

episodes in the past 2 years.” See id. As that example 

illustrates, the forms supplied “notice . . . of such nature as 

reasonably to convey the required information.” Mullane, 

339 U.S. at 314. 

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B.

We consider the adequacy of the officers’ opportunity to 

be heard through the lens of the three factors set out in 

Mathews v. Eldridge: “First, the private interest that will be 

affected by the official action; second, the risk of an 

erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures 

used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute 

procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's interest, 

including the function involved and the fiscal and 

administrative burdens that the additional or substitute 

procedural requirement would entail.” 424 U.S. 319, 335 

(1976). The Third Circuit, reviewing a substantially similar 

claim under the Mathews factors, held that the Marshals

Service’s medical review procedures afforded officers 

constitutionally sufficient process. See Wilson v. MVM, Inc., 

475 F.3d 166, 178-79 (3d Cir. 2007). We reach the same 

conclusion.

A security officer has a substantial interest in maintaining 

his or her employment, see Loudermill, 470 U.S. at 543, and 

we assume for purposes of this decision that the interest 

extends to maintaining service as a court security officer 

under a federal government contract. “[D]ue process 

normally requires pre-termination proceedings of some kind 

prior to the discharge of employees with constitutionally 

protected interests in their jobs.” Washington Teachers’ 

Union Local No. 6 v. Bd. of Educ., 109 F.3d 774, 780 (D.C. 

Cir. 1997). Here, the officers were accorded “pre-termination 

proceedings of some kind.” Those proceedings adequately 

limited the risk of an erroneous decision while vindicating the 

government’s weighty interests in assuring courthouse 

security. 

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Before an officer could be terminated for reasons of 

medical fitness, the officer was given the opportunity to 

supply additional medical information responding to the 

specific concerns of the physician charged with making the 

final decision. Contrary to the plaintiffs’ contention, there 

was no need to give an officer an oral hearing as well. Unlike 

circumstances in which questions of credibility and veracity 

are centrally in issue, in which event an oral hearing can be 

especially useful, the assessment of an officer’s medical 

qualifications suitably turns on an experienced physician’s 

review of written medical records. See Mathews, 424 U.S. at 

344-45 (noting “reliability and probative worth of written 

medical reports,” and observing that “potential value of an . . .

oral presentation to the decisionmaker[] is substantially less in 

this context”) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The government physicians responsible for the final 

determination, moreover, serve as neutral decisionmakers. 

Cf. Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584, 607 (1979) (concluding that 

“staff physician” is neutral decisionmaker in connection with 

voluntary admission of children to mental hospitals “so long 

as he or she is free to evaluate independently” the “mental and 

emotional condition and need for treatment”). A government 

physician independently reviews each officer’s medical 

records and reaches an individualized determination. The 

plaintiffs point to no evidence showing that the deciding 

physician is biased or non-independent. Instead, relying on 

our decision in Propert v. District of Columbia, 948 F.2d 

1327 (D.C. Cir. 1991), the plaintiffs contend that officers are 

constitutionally entitled to the review of a second, neutral 

decisionmaker. In Propert, a police officer determined 

whether a car had been abandoned as “junk”— allowing it to 

be towed and destroyed—by assessing whether “you [would] 

take your mother to church in it.” Id. at 1333 (alteration in 

original). The car owner could attempt to appeal the “junk” 

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assessment only to the same officer who had made the 

original assessment. We required a separate decisionmaker in 

part because the officer’s standard was “particularly 

subjective.” See id. No comparable subjectivity inheres in 

the assessment of medical qualifications at issue here so as to 

require the review of a second medical professional, 

particularly when taking into account the government’s 

interests in prompt and efficient determinations affecting 

courthouse security.

The plaintiffs highlight the case of one former officer, 

Felipe Jorge-Rodriguez, in an effort to demonstrate that the 

Marshal Service’s procedures produce erroneous decisions. 

“[P]rocedural due process rules,” however, “are shaped by the 

risk of error inherent in the truthfinding process as applied to 

the generality of cases, not the rare exceptions.” Mathews, 

424 U.S. at 344. In any event, the record shows no deficiency 

in the process resulting in Officer Jorge-Rodriguez’s 

termination. He received two notices requesting additional

medical information. He responded to the second, but the 

government physician made a determination of medical 

disqualification based on the information then available, 

resulting in Officer Jorge-Rodriguez’s dismissal. The 

plaintiffs now assert that, two weeks after his dismissal,

Officer Jorge-Rodriguez submitted additional medical 

information disproving one of the bases for his 

disqualification. But even accepting the plaintiffs’ account of 

the additional information’s probative value, the failure to 

submit that information in a timely fashion suggests an 

inadequacy in the individual’s response, not an inadequacy in 

the Marshals Service’s procedures. Those procedures

satisfied the Due Process Clause.

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III.

We next consider the district court’s rejection of the 

claims under the Rehabilitation Act of those plaintiffs who 

failed properly to exhaust administrative remedies. The Act 

requires individuals to exhaust administrative remedies before 

filing suit in federal district court. 29 U.S.C. § 794a(a)(1); see

Spinelli v. Goss, 446 F.3d 159, 162 (D.C. Cir. 2006). As this 

court has explained, “the required recourse to administrative 

review has special prominence with respect to the . . . claims 

of federal employees.” Kizas v. Webster, 707 F.2d 524, 543 

(D.C. Cir. 1983).

Whereas the exhaustion requirement for discrimination 

claims against private employers involves the filing of a 

charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 

(EEOC), claims against a federal agency—such as the 

Rehabilitation Act claims in this case—must initially be 

brought before the employing agency itself. See id. at 543-44. 

The obligation to initiate one’s claim in the government 

agency charged with discrimination is “part and parcel of the 

congressional design to vest in the federal agencies and

officials engaged in hiring and promoting personnel primary 

responsibility for maintaining nondiscrimination in 

employment.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The 

requirement of “initial recourse to [an] agency” manifests a 

“carefully structured scheme for resolving charges of 

discrimination within federal agencies” when possible, 

limiting the need for resort to judicial proceedings. See id. at 

546. And because the “requirement that the aggrieved 

employee first seek an administrative resolution” before the 

employing government agency constitutes a precondition to 

bringing “suit against the sovereign,” it, like any condition on 

the waiver of sovereign immunity, commands strict 

adherence. See McIntosh v. Weinberger, 810 F.2d 1411, 

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1424-25 (8th Cir. 1987), vacated on other grounds and 

remanded sub nom. Turner v. McIntosh, 487 U.S. 1212 

(1988); see also Lane v. Pena, 518 U.S. 187, 192 (1996) 

(applying obligation to “strictly construe[]” any “waiver of 

the Government’s sovereign immunity” to claims under the 

Rehabilitation Act); Irwin v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, 498 

U.S. 89, 94 (1990).

The relevant administrative remedies for discrimination 

claims against federal agencies—including under the 

Rehabilitation Act—contain distinct procedures for individual 

actions and class actions. See 29 C.F.R. § 1614.106 

(“Individual complaints”); id. § 1614.204 (“Class 

complaints”). Here, thirty-eight plaintiffs appeal the rejection 

of their Rehabilitation Act claims for failure to exhaust those 

administrative remedies. None of the appealing plaintiffs 

properly exhausted administrative remedies for their 

individual claims. Nor did any plaintiff attempt to invoke the 

administrative procedure for class claims. Five former 

officers who were plaintiffs at the time of the district court’s 

rulings on exhaustion, however, did timely exhaust 

administrative remedies for their individual claims. 

The plaintiffs appealing dismissal of their Rehabilitation 

Act claims argue that, although none of them personally 

exhausted administrative remedies for their individual claims, 

the doctrine of “vicarious exhaustion” should permit them to 

proceed with their suits. That doctrine functions as an 

exception to the ordinary requirement that each plaintiff must 

have exhausted administrative remedies. It allows an 

individual to treat her claim as having been exhausted, 

notwithstanding her failure personally to have done so, if her 

claim and that of a person who did personally exhaust “are so 

similar that it can fairly be said that no conciliatory purpose 

would be served by filing separate [administrative claims].” 

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Foster v. Gueory, 655 F.2d 1319, 1322 (D.C. Cir. 1981). 

Here, the appealing plaintiffs contend that vicarious 

exhaustion enables them to piggyback on the administrative 

complaints of the five officers who properly exhausted 

individual remedies. We are unpersuaded.

In Spinelli v. Goss, we held that a district court lacks 

jurisdiction over a Rehabilitation Act claim if “there was no 

administrative complaint [filed] and thus no final disposition 

of one.” 446 F.3d at 162. Here, the district court understood 

Spinelli to establish that the Rehabilitation Act’s exhaustion 

requirement is jurisdictional and to thus bar application of 

vicarious exhaustion principles for claims under that Act. Cf. 

Blackmon-Malloy v. U.S. Capitol Police Bd., 575 F.3d 699, 

706 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (“Because we hold that the 

[Congressional Accountability Act]’s counseling and 

mediation requirements are jurisdictional, the district court 

. . . was not empowered to apply the equitable doctrine of 

vicarious exhaustion to excuse compliance with those 

requirements.”). The plaintiffs contend that Spinelli, which 

did not address the doctrine of vicarious exhaustion, does not 

foreclose application of the doctrine here. We need not 

resolve that issue. Instead, we affirm the district court’s 

dismissal of plaintiffs’ Rehabilitation Act claims for a 

different reason: vicarious exhaustion is unavailable in the 

circumstances of this case unless some individual exhausted 

the administrative procedure for a class complaint.

A review of the EEOC’s class administrative procedures 

provides the background for understanding the unavailability 

of vicarious exhaustion in this case. The Civil Service 

Commission, whose equal opportunity enforcement powers 

were later transferred to the EEOC, promulgated rules 

governing class administrative remedies in cases of 

discrimination brought against federal employers. See 29 

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C.F.R. § 1614.204. (There is no such class administrative 

remedy for discrimination claims against private employers.) 

A class administrative complaint against a federal employer 

must allege numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequate 

representation—mirroring the requirements for class actions 

under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. Compare id. 

§ 1614.204(a)(2), with Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 23. The complaint 

must also identify the policy or practice adversely affecting 

the class. 29 C.F.R. § 1614.204(c)(1). An administrative 

judge determines whether to certify the class, and, following 

any grant of certification, supervises discovery and 

adjudicates the complaint. Id. § 1614.204(b), (f). After a 

final action on the class complaint, or after passage of 180 

days after filing without a final action, the class agent (or 

another individual who sought relief pursuant to the class 

administrative complaint) can bring an action in district court. 

See id. § 1614.407.

Those class administrative procedures “create[] a detailed 

scheme markedly different than the administrative mechanism 

for addressing individual discrimination claims.” Gulley v. 

Orr, 905 F.2d 1383, 1384 (10th Cir. 1990) (per curiam); 

compare 29 C.F.R. § 1614.106, with 29 C.F.R. § 1614.204. 

The class procedures give the federal agency an “opportunity 

to discover and correct discriminatory practices that may 

amount to class-wide discrimination.” Patton v. Brown, 95 

F.R.D. 205, 208 (E.D. Pa. 1982). Relatedly, the class 

mechanism affords the affected government agency notice of 

the potential scale of a multiple-employee complaint, 

promoting efficient administration of system-wide relief. See 

McIntosh, 810 F.2d at 1425 (“If the agency is to attempt to 

resolve the [class] grievance, and if a usable record is to be 

assembled, the nature of the complaint must be defined.”). 

An agency’s awareness of the scope of a dispute could also 

make resolution in the administrative phase more likely, 

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potentially affording relief to a larger class of affected 

individuals and alleviating the need for resort to judicial 

proceedings. Cf. Tolliver v. Xerox Corp., 918 F.2d 1052, 1058 

(2d Cir. 1990) (“[T]here must be some indication that the 

grievance affects [a large group] . . . . [to] alert[] the EEOC 

that more is alleged than an isolated act of discrimination and 

afford[] sufficient notice to the employer to explore 

conciliation with the affected group.”); McIntosh, 810 F.2d at 

1425 (“An administrative proceeding . . . based on guesswork 

by the [government] is likely to be a waste of time for all 

concerned.”).

“In light of the distinct administrative mechanism created 

specifically to address class claims of discrimination,” courts 

have generally held that “exhaustion of individual 

administrative remedies is insufficient to commence a class 

action in federal court.” Gulley, 905 F.2d at 1385 (collecting 

cases). Rather, to bring a class action, there must have been 

an exhaustion of “class administrative remedies.” Id.; see

McIntosh, 810 F.2d at 1424-25. Allowing a class action to 

proceed in federal court even if there has been no exhaustion 

of class administrative procedures would undermine the 

important objectives served by bringing a class claim before 

the government agency in an effort to attain class-wide, 

administrative resolution. Here, however, no plaintiff invoked 

(much less exhausted) the class administrative process. The

district court, therefore, was required to dismiss the class 

claims under the Rehabilitation Act for failure to exhaust 

administrative remedies.

The same result must also obtain with respect to the 

individual Rehabilitation Act claims of those plaintiffs who 

failed properly to exhaust. Forty-five plaintiffs asserted 

individual claims, 4th Am. Compl. ¶ 92, and those individual 

claims involve precisely the same programmatic allegations 

as the claims asserted on behalf of the class, see id. ¶¶ 10, 16, 

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93-97. The lion’s share of the plaintiffs—all but five—failed 

properly to exhaust their individual claims before the agency. 

The government therefore was not made aware during the 

administrative phase that numerous individuals sought to 

press similar claims. Any plaintiff could have invoked and 

exhausted class administrative proceedings, in which event 

the Marshals Service would have been “given the opportunity 

to discover and correct discriminatory practices that may 

amount to class-wide discrimination.” Patton, 95 F.R.D. at 

208. No plaintiff did so, however, frustrating the objective of 

the class administrative process to enable the fashioning of 

program-wide relief under the coordination of the affected 

agency.

Vicarious exhaustion allows a plaintiff to overcome his or 

her own failure to satisfy the statutory requirement to exhaust 

administrative remedies if “it can fairly be said that” 

exhaustion would serve “no conciliatory purpose.” Foster, 

655 F.2d at 1322. That cannot be said about the failure to 

exhaust the class administrative process here. A fundamental 

object of the class administrative mechanism is to promote a 

government agency’s awareness of, and ability to resolve, an 

allegedly program-wide problem. Those important objectives 

are no less salient when more than forty plaintiffs attempt to 

bring unexhausted individual actions challenging a common 

practice than when they bring a class action challenging the 

same practice. And we are aware of no reason to suppose that 

the class administrative mechanism would have been 

unavailable in this case or futile to pursue. To the contrary, 

the plaintiffs sought to bring class claims in district court 

conditioned on satisfying essentially the same criteria—such 

as numerosity, commonality, and typicality—that would have 

attended a class administrative complaint. Compare 29 C.F.R. 

§ 1614.204(a)(2), with Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 23. Nor is there any 

question that group litigation was intended by the time of 

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administrative exhaustion: the three named class plaintiffs 

who did exhaust did so less than three months before the 

motion for class certification was filed. And although the 

district court ultimately denied class certification on 

numerosity grounds, that was only because of the small 

number of plaintiffs whose Rehabilitation Act claims 

remained after rejection of the bulk of those claims for failure 

to exhaust individual administrative remedies.

Another court of appeals, albeit in an unpublished 

opinion, likewise disallowed vicarious exhaustion for a group 

of plaintiffs because of the failure of any individual to exhaust 

a class administrative complaint. See Williams v. Henderson, 

129 Fed. Appx. 806, 812 (4th Cir. 2005) (per curiam). None 

of our previous decisions adopts a contrary approach. Foster 

v. Gueory allowed vicarious exhaustion, but that case 

involved a private employer, 655 F.2d at 1320, 1323, as to 

which the class administrative mechanism does not apply. In 

Cook v. Boorstin, 763 F.2d 1462 (D.C. Cir. 1985), we 

recognized vicarious exhaustion in the context of an action 

against the Library of Congress, but the plaintiffs in that case 

exhausted class administrative remedies before filing suit in 

federal district court. See id. at 1463, 1465. Cook aligns with 

today’s decision because the exhaustion of class 

administrative remedies was deemed sufficient to allow the 

plaintiffs to proceed with their individual claims. Accord 

Artis v. Bernanke, 630 F.3d 1031, 1039 (D.C. Cir. 2011) 

(allowing vicarious exhaustion under regulations for Federal 

Reserve employees where named plaintiffs had submitted 

administrative class complaint).

Finally, in De Medina v. Reinhardt, 686 F.2d 997, 1012-

13 (D.C. Cir. 1982), we allowed vicarious exhaustion for 

individual claims of discrimination against a federal agency. 

There had been no exhaustion of class administrative 

remedies in that case, but it is far from clear that the class 

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administrative procedures were available at the time of the 

discriminatory acts: those procedures came into being in 

1977, see 42 Fed. Reg. 11,807 (Mar. 1, 1977), and the 

discrimination in De Medina dated back to 1974. At any rate, 

even if the class administrative mechanism was in theory 

available to the plaintiffs in De Medina, there is no indication 

that the court considered whether the plaintiffs should have 

exhausted a class administrative complaint. That is 

understandable, as the decision ultimately allowed only one 

plaintiff to piggyback on the complaint of one other plaintiff 

who had exhausted. Id. at 1012-13. It may well have been 

futile—e.g., for reasons of numerosity—for the two plaintiffs 

to initiate a class administrative complaint. In this case, by 

contrast, there is no reason to suppose that the class 

administrative mechanism would have been unavailable to the 

more than forty plaintiffs who jointly brought discrimination 

claims challenging a common practice.

The plaintiffs here seek to overcome their failure 

personally to exhaust their discrimination claims against the 

government by resort to the doctrine of vicarious exhaustion. 

We conclude that the plaintiffs cannot do so when there has 

been no exhaustion of a class administrative complaint, at 

least in the circumstances presented here—i.e., where there 

were no exceptional barriers to undertaking class exhaustion 

and class litigation was intended at the time exhaustion was or 

could have been pursued.

IV.

The plaintiffs finally contend that the district court 

abused its discretion when it denied leave to include the

claims of twelve new plaintiffs under the Rehabilitation Act 

and ADA in the fifth amended complaint. We agree with the 

plaintiffs.

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Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a) allows a plaintiff to 

amend a complaint “once as a matter of course” within 

twenty-one days after service of a defendant’s answer or Rule 

12 motion. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(1). Subsequent 

amendments are governed by Rule 15(a)(2) and require either 

“the opposing party’s written consent or the court’s leave.” 

Id. 15(a)(2). “The court should freely give leave when justice 

so requires.” Id.

The Supreme Court in Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178 

(1962), elaborated on the expectation that courts would 

“freely give leave” under Rule 15(a)(2):

In the absence of any apparent or declared 

reason—such as undue delay, bad faith or 

dilatory motive on the part of the movant, 

repeated failure to cure deficiencies by 

amendments previously allowed, undue 

prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of 

allowance of the amendment, futility of 

amendment, etc.—the leave sought should, as 

the rules require, be “freely given.”

Foman, 371 U.S. at 182. If the district court denies leave, it 

must state its reasons, as an “outright refusal to grant the leave 

without any justifying reason appearing for the denial is not 

an exercise of discretion; it is merely abuse of that discretion 

and inconsistent with the spirit of the Federal Rules.” Id.

Here, the district court’s primary reason for denying 

leave to add claims under the Rehabilitation Act and ADA 

was that the plaintiffs, in their motion, made express reference 

only to the addition of due process claims. The motion stated 

that the newly added plaintiffs “have the same claims as 

Plaintiffs . . . for the violation of their Fifth Amendment rights 

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to due process,” but it made no comparably explicit reference 

to Rehabilitation Act or ADA claims. Pls.’ Mot. for Leave 2. 

The motion otherwise made apparent, however, that the new 

plaintiffs sought to bring discrimination claims under those 

statutes as well. It explained that the new plaintiffs “timely 

filed administrative complaints and exhausted . . . 

administrative remedies,” id. at 3, a statement with relevance 

only to the discrimination claims (given the absence of any 

exhaustion requirement for the due process claims). It also 

explained that there would have been no need to seek leave 

for new plaintiffs to be added to the case “had the Motion for 

Class Certification been granted,” citing the Supreme Court’s 

decision in Crown, Cork & Seal Co. v. Parker, 462 U.S. 345 

(1983), for the proposition that “employees with 

discrimination claims [as] part of [a] putative class have their 

statutes of limitations tolled until the court issues a decision 

on class certification.” Pls.’ Mot. for Leave 3. That 

explanation likewise pertained solely to the Rehabilitation Act 

and ADA claims, the only ones for which the plaintiffs had 

sought to certify a class. 

It is no surprise, then, that the proposed fifth amended 

complaint attached to the motion expressly included claims 

under the Rehabilitation Act and ADA, an unambiguous 

indication that the new plaintiffs sought to bring those claims. 

The Marshals Service and the security companies, in their 

opposition to the plaintiffs’ motion, correspondingly 

understood the motion to seek leave to add discrimination 

claims, and responded accordingly. While the district court 

observed that granting leave to add those claims would 

“deprive Defendants of a full opportunity to state their 

objections and would invite manipulation of the amendment 

process by future litigants,” Clark, No. 02-1484, slip op. at 3

(D.D.C. Sept. 20, 2007), the defendants understood that the 

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plaintiffs sought to bring those claims and made responsive 

arguments in their opposition filing.

When it denied reconsideration, the district court stated 

that “the Defendants will be prejudiced if the new Plaintiffs’ 

disability discrimination claims are added to the case at this 

late date. There will be delay; there will be substantial 

expenses for expert witnesses and evaluations; and, of course,

there will be additional attorneys’ fees.” Clark, No. 02-1484, 

slip op. at 3 (D.D.C. Jan. 22, 2009). It is not clear, however, 

that the court viewed those concerns as independently 

sufficient grounds for declining to grant leave. And the grant 

of leave to amend a complaint might often occasion some

degree of delay and additional expense, but leave still should 

be “freely given” unless prejudice or delay is “undue,” 

Foman, 371 U.S. at 182, a finding not made by the district 

court here. Nor is this a case in which the plaintiffs, for 

instance, “attempted to raise an entirely new issue by 

amendment . . . after the parties had conducted extensive 

discovery, and after the district court had granted a summary 

judgment motion.” See Williamsburg Wax Museum, Inc. v. 

Historic Figures, Inc., 810 F.2d 243, 247 (D.C. Cir. 1987). 

The plaintiffs already in the case had raised substantially the 

same discrimination claims, no summary judgment motion 

had been granted, and no discovery had taken place as to the 

ADA claims against the security companies. At the time the 

new plaintiffs sought to add their claims, moreover, the 

district court had just denied class certification, making it 

necessary for the new plaintiffs to assert their own individual 

discrimination claims in order to obtain relief. 

The district court has endured a multitude of motions and 

amendments to the pleadings in this case over the course of 

more than a decade. We are sympathetic to the court’s 

understandable interest in efficiently administering the

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litigation. And considerable confusion could have been 

avoided if the plaintiffs had been more clear in their motion to 

file a fifth amended complaint. The court, however, granted 

leave to file that complaint, and thereby to add new plaintiffs 

asserting claims under the Due Process Clause. The motion 

and the attached proposed complaint, read together,

adequately notified the defendants and the court of the desire

of the new plaintiffs also to add claims under the 

Rehabilitation Act and the ADA, and the defendants so 

understood. In those circumstances, we find that the court 

should have granted leave to include those claims.

* * * * *

We affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment 

to the defendants on the due process claims, as well as its 

grant of judgment on the pleadings to the defendants on the 

Rehabilitation Act claims for failure to exhaust. We reverse 

the district court’s denial of leave to amend to add the 

discrimination claims, however, and we remand the case for 

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

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