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Parties Involved:
District of Columbia
Appellee
Carolyn Graham
Appellee
Viola J. Keyes
Appellant

Document Text:

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 17, 2004 Decided June 25, 2004

No. 03-7155

VIOLA J. KEYES,

APPELLANT

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND CAROLYN GRAHAM,

DEPUTY MAYOR FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

INTERIM DIRECTOR DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES,

IN HER INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 00cv01343)

Michael G. Kane argued the cause and filed the briefs for

appellant.

Donna M. Murasky, Assistant Attorney General, Office of

Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the

 Bills of costs must be filed within 14 days after entry of judgment.

The court looks with disfavor upon motions to file bills of costs out

of time.

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cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Robert J.

Spagnoletti, Attorney General for the District of Columbia,

and Edward E. Schwab, Deputy Attorney General, Office of

Attorney General for the District of Columbia.

Before: EDWARDS, SENTELLE and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge: Viola J. Keyes appeals the grant of

summary judgment to the District of Columbia and her

former supervisor Carolyn Graham on the ground that they

violated her civil rights and other statutory and constitutional

rights in taking termination action against her. Because we

conclude that Ms. Keyes left District government service

voluntarily, and because she conceded that the voluntariness

issue is dispositive of her claims, we affirm the judgment.

I.

Viewing the evidence and making all justifiable inferences

in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, see Fed.

R. Civ. P. 56; Whitbeck v. Vital Signs, Inc., 116 F.3d 588, 592

(D.C. Cir. 1997) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477

U.S. 242, 255 (1986)), reveals the following. In 1995, Viola J.

Keyes, a civil servant holding multiple advanced degrees who

had served the District of Columbia in management-level

positions for over two decades, was appointed Chief of the

Office of Investigations and Compliance (‘‘OIC’’) of the Department of Human Services (‘‘DHS’’). As Chief, she ‘‘served

as the sole official responsible for investigations of fraud,

waste and abuse by employees in all Department of Human

Service Programs, including, but not limited to the Mental

Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Administration’’

(‘‘MRDDA’’). In 1999, the Washington Post published a

series of articles reporting that the District government had

failed to ensure proper treatment of MRDDA ‘‘customers,’’

specifically, the mentally disabled citizens whose care was

entrusted to the District government. The Post further

reported that ‘‘DHS hasn’t investigated a single death of a

retarded person since at least 1993.’’ See Katherine Boo,

System Loses Lives and Trust, Washington Post, Dec. 5,

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1999, at A1. Contrary to the Post’s reporting, under Keyes’

supervision the OIC had investigated several deaths. However, outside investigators commissioned by the United States

Department of Justice and an internal DHS review identified

systemic problems similar to those reported in the Post.

On January 18, 2000, appellee Carolyn Graham, then the

Interim Director of DHS, gave Keyes ‘‘advance notice of at

least fifteen (15) calendar days’’ of her proposed removal as

Chief of OIC (emphasis added). Director Graham based her

decision on Ms. Keyes’ ‘‘negligence in the performance of

official duties,’’ including her failure to have OIC conduct

comprehensive investigations of MRDDA customer deaths.

The notice informed Ms. Keyes of her right to an adversarial

hearing and to representation by counsel. The letter further

stated that Ms. Keyes could, within five days, file a written

defense. The notice made clear that no final decision would

issue until review of Ms. Keyes’ appeal was complete.

On January 24, Ms. Keyes submitted a lengthy response to

the charges prepared with the assistance of her private

counsel. On January 27, she met with a District of Columbia

Office of Personnel specialist, whom she had known since

1984, in order to determine whether she would be off the

payroll after the fifteen day notice period, even if she were

still fighting the proposed termination. Ms. Keyes was confused, because in her twenty-seven years’ experience in the

District government, employees were always given thirty

days advance notice of an adverse action. The personnel

specialist told Ms. Keyes that she would be off the payroll at

the end of the fifteen day period, and that it was unclear

when a hearing on Ms. Keyes’ termination would take place.

Recommending that Ms. Keyes take ‘‘early-out’’ retirement,

which would provide her with income while she awaited her

hearing, the personnel specialist assured Ms. Keyes that she

would be able to continue challenging the charges even after

her retirement. The personnel specialist further advised Ms.

Keyes that she would be ineligible for early-out retirement

after she was officially terminated, because she would no

longer be a District government employee.

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Based on this personnel advice, Ms. Keyes on January 27,

2000 completed a ‘‘Request for Personnel Action’’ form, on

which she explained her resignation from District government

employment as, ‘‘I have no choice based on false allegations’’

and ‘‘Early Out Retirement.’’ On the Request, she indicated

February 3, 2000 as the effective date of her retirement. The

following day, January 28, Ms. Keyes took custody of her

termination-related files from her private counsel, whom she

discharged. When the District government processed Ms.

Keyes’ Request, it made her retirement effective February 1.

On February 8, Director Graham wrote Ms. Keyes that, ‘‘[a]s

a result of your retirement, no further action will be taken

with regard [to your proposed termination].’’ Similarly, the

official responsible for conducting Ms. Keyes’ termination

hearing wrote her on February 23 that, as a result of her

retirement, ‘‘the proposal to remove you from [your] position

is now moot and a decision from me is not necessary.’’

On June 9, 2000, Ms. Keyes filed a suit against the District

of Columbia and several of its officials, alleging they had

violated her civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by retaliating

against her for her First Amendment-protected speech; by

depriving her of her property interest in her job without

substantive and procedural due process; by infringing on her

liberty interest without due process; and by denying her

equal protection of the laws. She also alleged the violation of

the District of Columbia’s whistleblower statute, D.C. Code

§ 1–616.13 (now codified at D.C. Code § 1–615.53). The

district court granted summary judgment for the District of

Columbia and Director Graham (together, ‘‘the District’’), the

only remaining defendants, upon determining that each of

Ms. Keyes’ claims depended on her retirement being involuntary, and that, given the undisputed facts, no reasonable jury

could find that her resignation was involuntary as a result of

the District’s misrepresentations. The district court denied

Ms. Keyes’ motion for reconsideration, see Fed. R. Civ. P.

59(e), refusing to consider her argument that she resigned

under duress, because she had ‘‘mention[ed] duress only in

passing and le[ft] any possible duress ‘argument’ entirely

undeveloped.’’ The court also refused to reconsider its deterUSCA Case #03-7155 Document #832422 Filed: 06/25/2004 Page 4 of 11
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mination that the voluntariness of Ms. Keyes’ resignation was

dispositive of all her claims, because she had previously

conceded that this inquiry was determinative.

II.

On appeal, Ms. Keyes contends that the district court erred

in granting summary judgment because it proceeded on the

basis that she had retired voluntarily. According to Ms.

Keyes, because her retirement was not effective until the day

after her termination, her discharge was involuntary and

occurred without a pre-termination hearing. She further

maintains both that her retirement was the result of duress

induced and misrepresentations made by District government

personnel, and that the retirement voluntariness issue was

not dispositive of her other claims. The court reviews de

novo the grant of summary judgment, see Tao v. Freeh, 27

F.3d 635, 638 (D.C. Cir. 1994), which is proper only where

there are no genuine issues of material fact and judgment is

proper as a matter of law. See id. at 638. Our review of the

denial of reconsideration is for abuse of discretion. See

Anyanwutaku v. Moore, 151 F.3d 1053, 1058 (D.C. Cir. 1998).

We first address several threshold matters, and then consider

whether Ms. Keyes has raised a material issue of disputed

fact concerning whether her retirement was involuntary as a

result of duress or her employer’s misrepresentations.

A.

As an initial matter, Ms. Keyes cannot prevail on the basis

that, contrary to the district court’s conclusion, the issue of

the voluntariness of her departure from government service

is not dispositive of all her claims. As the District notes, Ms.

Keyes failed to argue in her first appellate brief that the

district court abused its discretion in denying her motion for

reconsideration. Ms. Keyes’ initial brief mentions only twice

her motion for reconsideration and the district court’s resulting memorandum opinion, both times in a cursory fashion

without any argument. See Appellant’s Br. at 2 (Jurisdictional Statement), 3 (Statement of the Case). Arguments raised

belatedly in her reply brief do not remedy a failure to address

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the issue earlier. See Rollins Envtl. Servs. (NJ) Inc. v.

United States EPA, 937 F.2d 649, 652 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 1991).

Under the circumstances, where the District has been denied

an opportunity to respond in its brief, the court declines to

consider the issue. See Washington Legal Clinic for the

Homeless v. Barry, 107 F.3d 32, 39 (D.C. Cir. 1997). In any

event, a review of the record, see, e.g., Ms. Keyes’ Opposition

to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment at 7, in which

Ms. Keyes addresses the voluntariness issue as a threshold

question immediately following her discussion of the standard

of review, indicates that the district court did not abuse its

discretion when it concluded that Ms. Keyes ‘‘conceded that

the voluntariness issue was dispositive of her other claims;

she cannot now argue that the issue is not dispositive simply

because of an unfavorable ruling.’’

Thus, unless this court concludes that Ms. Keyes left her

job involuntarily, the court cannot reach the substance of her

claims. One route to characterizing her departure from

District government service as involuntary is her contention

on appeal that, because the effective date of her retirement

was one day after the date she maintains she was terminated

according to the terms of Director Graham’s letter, she was

discharged without a pre-termination hearing. While this

approach would appear to fly in the face of the plain language

of the termination notice, which afforded her ‘‘at least’’ fifteen

days, the court does not reach the merits of her argument. It

is not properly before the court because it was not raised in

the district court. See District of Columbia v. Air Florida,

Inc., 750 F.2d 1077, 1084 (D.C. Cir. 1984). Hence, as she

cannot show that she was actually terminated, the only question is whether she has raised a material issue of fact that,

because her resignation by retirement was involuntary, her

retirement was effectively a termination.

Ms. Keyes’ contention that her retirement was involuntary

is based on two alternative theories: a theory of duress

caused by District government officials falsely accusing her of

malfeasance in office, and a theory of misrepresentations

based on misleading personnel information from District officials. Simply put, for duress she maintains that because

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there was ‘‘no factual support for any of these allegations and

TTT some of them were outright falsehoods, the termination

letter lacked good cause when it stated, ‘The aforementioned

failures on your part constitute the on-duty or employmentrelated act or omission that interfered with the efficiency or

integrity of government operations.’ ’’ Appellant’s Br. at 34.

Alternatively, she maintains that she was given ‘‘bad information’’ about the effect of taking early-out retirement on her

efforts to fight the charges against her. She concludes that

she relied on these misrepresentations in deciding to retire,

and therefore her retirement was involuntary. The District

responds that she waived her duress claim, and, in any event,

has not satisfied the requirements for such a claim. The

District further maintains that her retirement was voluntary

because, in light of undisputed facts, the district court did not

err in finding she could not have been misled by any incorrect

information.

B.

It is doubtful that Ms. Keyes properly raised and preserved

a claim of duress in the district court. In opposing the

District’s motion for summary judgment, she scarcely mentioned duress, and she never fleshed out any coherent theory

to support the claim. She wrote simply that, ‘‘In addition, the

evidence also shows that Ms. Keyes resigned under duress as

a result of the false allegations.’’ Opp’n to Defs.’ Mot. for

Summ. J. at 7. Instead, she argued only her misrepresentation theory. Thus, it is no mystery why the district court, in

granting summary judgment, determined that ‘‘[a]side from

her ‘misrepresentation theory,’ [Ms. Keyes] has provided no

other legal basis, such as actual duress, to support her theory

that her retirement was involuntary.’’ To avoid summary

judgment, Ms. Keyes was required to ‘‘set forth specific facts

showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.’’ Fed. R. Civ.

P. 56(e); see 10A C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal

Practice and Procedure § 2719 (1998). Her failure to include

a duress theory in her opposition precluded her from arguing

it in her motion for reconsideration, see Kattan v. District of

Columbia, 995 F.2d 274, 276 (D.C. Cir. 1993), and this court

does not normally consider arguments improperly raised in

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the district court. However, even assuming that Ms. Keyes

properly raised a claim based on duress, the record only

establishes that she faced a hard choice in electing to retire,

not duress.

For a resignation to be rendered involuntary on account of

duress, three criteria must be met: ‘‘[1] an agency imposes

the terms of an employee’s resignation, [2] the employee’s

circumstances permit no alternative but to accept, and [3]

those circumstances were the result of improper acts of the

agency.’’ Schultz v. United States Navy, 810 F.2d 1133, 1136

(Fed. Cir. 1987); see Edgerton v. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 768

F.2d 1314, 1317 (Fed. Cir. 1985). However, ‘‘a retirement

request initiated by an employee is presumed to be a voluntary act,’’ Schultz, 810 F.2d at 1135, and ‘‘where an employee

is faced merely with the unpleasant alternatives of resigning

or being subject to removal for cause, such limited choices do

not make the resulting resignation an involuntary act.’’ Id. at

1136. Ms. Keyes’ appellate brief dwells on only the third of

the Schultz criteria. Viewing the evidence in the light most

favorable to her and assuming that District government

officials acted improperly in proposing to terminate her,

thereby satisfying the third criterion, Ms. Keyes has not

established either of the first two criteria. On the contrary,

the evidence shows that Ms. Keyes was confronted with a

difficult choice — i.e., whether to remain an employee and

continue to fight the charges or to take early-out retirement

and be done with it — but not duress, in deciding to retire.

If the charges against Ms. Keyes were baseless, as she

maintains, she could have retained her position and successfully defended herself at the hearing she had requested. Or

she could have retired, as she did, after nearly three decades

with the District government. Although choosing between

these options may have been difficult, it was a voluntary

decision nonetheless. No reasonable jury could find she

retired under duress.

C.

Her alternative misrepresentation theory ultimately fares

no better. Like the decision of the district court, our analysis

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is guided by Stone v. University of Maryland Medical System Corp., 855 F.2d 167 (4th Cir. 1988). There the Fourth

Circuit held that ‘‘a resignation may be deemed involuntary if

induced by the employee’s reasonable reliance on her employer’s misrepresentation of a material fact concerning the resignation.’’ Id. at 174; see Scharf v. Dept. of the Air Force, 710

F.2d 1572, 1575 (Fed. Cir. 1983). The court rejected the

argument that the resignation of the Chief of the Division of

General Surgery at a state university hospital was involuntary as a result of university officials’ misrepresentation that

they could immediately expel him from the hospital’s medical

staff if he did not resign on the spot. Stone, 855 F.2d at 171,

176. The court held that no reasonable jury could find that

Stone had reasonably relied on this threat in resigning,

because, as a sophisticated, well-educated doctor with three

decades of service at teaching hospitals, where he had supervised numerous medical staff members, he was familiar with

hospital bylaws, which precluded such summary actions. Id.

He could not have reasonably resigned without consulting

them, and because his reliance on the university officials’

misrepresentations was therefore unreasonable, his resignation could not be deemed involuntary. Id.

Ms. Keyes proffered evidence that she was told by a

District government personnel specialist that she could retire

and continue to fight the charges against her. The specialist

also told her she would be off the payroll after the fifteen day

notice period. Furthermore, Director Graham’s letter stated

that Ms. Keyes was being given only fifteen days’ notice of

her proposed termination, even though in Ms. Keyes’ experience thirty days was the norm. These misrepresentations

are material because they concern the consequences of her

resignation or the alternatives thereto. See id. at 174; Covington v. Dept. of Health & Human Servs., 750 F.2d 937, 942

(Fed. Cir. 1984). But assuming the truth of these claimed

misrepresentations, for the first two of which we must rely

exclusively on Ms. Keyes’ declaration that fails to describe

adequately the context in which the specialist’s advice was

given, the district court correctly concluded, on the record at

hand, that no reasonable jury could find that Ms. Keyes was

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misled. She had received written notice of the proposal to

remove her and of her right to administrative review of that

proposal; she was represented by private counsel; and, after

meeting with the personnel specialist, she had nearly a week

to decide whether to retire before the earliest date on which

her termination could have become effective. Under the

circumstances, Ms. Keyes could not have reasonably relied on

the incorrect statements. Like the supervising physician in

Stone, Ms. Keyes was in an unusually good position to know

that the information could not be correct. She had been a

District government employee for twenty-seven years, had

served in senior positions for most of that time supervising

numerous employees, and was knowledgeable about personnel

rules. Critically, she was also represented by private counsel, whom she does not claim was unfamiliar with District

personnel laws, and who could advise her on such matters,

including any personnel issues with which she might be

unfamiliar. Additionally, after receiving the notice and

speaking with the personnel specialist, she had ample time —

fifteen and six days, respectively — to confirm the accuracy

of the information. A person in Ms. Keyes’ position could not

reasonably be misled by the misinformation. If, as she

claims, she was confused, she should not have resigned on the

basis of the representations without verifying them with her

attorney or perhaps even with the decisionmakers or the

regulations themselves.

Ms. Keyes relies on Cocome v. District of Columbia Lottery and Charitable Games Control Board, 560 A.2d 547

(D.C. 1989), for the proposition that, where an employee is

misled about her rights, her retirement must be deemed

involuntary. In Cocome, the court was reviewing an agency

action under the plainly erroneous standard, see id. at 550,

which is a more deferential standard than de novo review.

Nothing in Cocome raised serious doubts about the reasonableness of the employee’s reliance on his supervisor’s misrepresentations. Mr. Cocome, who at the time of his retirement was Chief of the Charitable Games Division of the

Lottery Board, had worked for the District government for

less than two years, was not well-acquainted with its personUSCA Case #03-7155 Document #832422 Filed: 06/25/2004 Page 10 of 11
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nel rules, had inadequate time — less than one day — to

verify his supervisor’s representations and to consider whether to resign, and consulted counsel who was unfamiliar with

District of Columbia personnel law and who, because of the

short time period, was unable to consult with the relevant

decisionmakers or gain access to pertinent materials. See id.

at 548–49. Given Ms. Keyes’ very different circumstances,

her reliance on Cocome is misplaced and does not support her

claim that her employer’s misrepresentations rendered her

resignation involuntary.

Accordingly, because Ms. Keyes has failed to present a

material issue of disputed fact that her retirement was involuntary, either as a result of duress or her employer’s misrepresentations, and because the court declines to resolve her

belated contentions that her other claims do not hinge on the

voluntariness of her retirement, we affirm the grant of summary judgment for the District and Director Graham.

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