Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05070/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05070-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Timothy C. Cox
Appellee
Jeffrey T. Green
Appointed Amicus Curiae for Appellant
United States of America
Appellee
Theodore R. Wilson
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 24, 2013 Decided June 3, 2014

No. 12-5070

THEODORE R. WILSON,

APPELLANT

v.

TIMOTHY C. COX, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, ARMED

FORCES RETIREMENT HOME AND UNITED STATES OF

AMERICA,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:06-cv-01585)

Eric D. McArthur, appointed by the court, argued the cause

as amicus curiae in support of appellant. With him on the briefs

was Jeffrey T. Green, appointed by the court.

Sobia Haque, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellees. With her on the brief were Ronald C.

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant

U.S. Attorney. Jane M. Lyons, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered

an appearance.

Before: KAVANAUGH and SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judges, and

EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.

SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge: Theodore Wilson, a former

employee of the Armed Forces Retirement Home-Washington,

alleges that his termination from his position as a security guard

was motivated by discrimination based on age in violation of the

Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The district court,

determining that no reasonable factfinder could conclude that

Wilson was discharged because of his age, granted summary

judgment in favor of the defendants. Wilson, however,

introduced evidence of two statements made by the person who

effected his termination, both of which are indicative of a

discriminatory motive. Because those statements, if proven to

have been made, would permit a reasonable factfinder to

conclude that age-based discrimination led to Wilson’s ouster,

we reverse and remand for trial proceedings.

I.

We consider the facts in the light most favorable to Wilson,

the party against whom summary judgment was granted. See

Hampton v. Vilsack, 685 F.3d 1096, 1099 (D.C. Cir. 2012). 

Wilson retired from the military in 1974 after having

accumulated more than twenty-three years of service in the Air

Force and Army. In May 2001, when Wilson was sixty-nine

years old, the Armed Forces Retirement Home-Washington (the

Home) hired him as a security guard. The Home is one of two

facilities operated by the Armed Forces Retirement Home

(AFRH), an executive agency. See 24 U.S.C. § 411(a). The

other AFRH facility is located in Gulfport, Mississippi. Both

facilities provide “residences and related services for certain

retired and former members of the Armed Forces.” Id. § 411(b).

When he began his work as a security guard at the Home,

Wilson did not reside there. In December 2002, Wilson became

a resident. At the time, the Home operated a resident employee

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program under which residents could work at the Home in

various positions, including in security and health care services. 

Wilson decided to become a resident in part because he could

continue his employment at the Home as a security guard. The

Home’s chief of security described Wilson as a “very good

employee.”

In 2002, TimothyCox became the AFRH’s Chief Operating

Officer. Cox decided to replace the resident employee program

with a resident stipend program. Under the stipend program,

residents could earn no more than $120 per month for twelve

hours of work in a “supportive role.” Any additional work

would be considered an uncompensated donation to the Home. 

In January 2004, as a result of the dissolution of the resident

employee program, the Home terminated Wilson’s employment.

Wilson was then seventy-one years of age.

Cox met with the Home’s residents about his decision to

abolish the resident employee program. In the meeting, Cox

told the residents, “you didn’t come here to work, you came here

to retire.” Cox also discussed his decision in a telephone

conversation with Wilson’s Equal Employment Opportunity

(EEO) counselor. According to the counselor, “[a]nother issue

Mr. [C]ox had with the older guards at Armed Forces

Retirement Home, ‘was that they were not doing their jobs

properly, as from time to time they would be found asleep,

which was not safe for a government agency in DC, what with

all the threats since 9/11.’” The counselor attributed the

language within single quotation marks directly to Cox. Cox

later testified that he decided to eliminate the resident employee

program in order to save costs, assure a better-trained work

force, and achieve consistency with AFRH’s Gulfport facility,

which had no resident employee program. 

After Wilson’s termination, he contacted his EEO

counselor, but the counselor was unable to resolve the dispute

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informally. In June 2004, Wilson filed a formal EEO complaint.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that

there had been no discrimination, and the Merit Systems

Protection Board denied Wilson relief. 

In September 2006, Wilson filed this action in the district

court against Cox and the United States, alleging, as is relevant

here, that the termination of his employment violated the Age

Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Wilson

subsequently sought leave to amend his complaint to allege that

his termination violated his due process rights.

On December 5, 2011, the district court granted summary

judgment in favor of the defendants. Wilson v. Cox, 828 F.

Supp. 2d 20, 38 (D.D.C. 2011). The defendants argued that the

decision to abolish the resident employee program and terminate

Wilson’s employment did not stem from any discriminatory

motive, but instead aimed to save money, to ameliorate concerns

about the capabilities of the Home’s security staff, and to attain

operational consistency with the Gulfport facility. The district

court concluded that Wilson failed to demonstrate that those

legitimate, nondiscriminatory rationales were a pretext for

discrimination. See id. at 30-33. The court also addressed

Cox’s statements that the Home’s residents were “here to retire”

rather than to work and that he had concerns about the older

security guards falling asleep on the job. In the court’s view, the

former statement “cannot be taken as evidence of an

impermissible assumption based on [the guards’] ages,” id. at

34, and the latter statement exhibited concerns about

performance rather than age, id. at 33. The court also denied

Wilson’s motion to amend his complaint to allege a due process

violation, holding that any amendment would be futile because

Wilson lacked a protected property interest in his continued

employment. Id. at 35-36. At the time that the district court

granted summary judgment to the defendants, Wilson had

conducted no discovery. 

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Wilson now appeals the district court’s grant of summary

judgment on his ADEA claim. In addition, Wilson contends that

the district court erred in granting summary judgment before he

had any opportunity to conduct discovery, and in denying him

leave to amend his complaint to add a due process claim.

II.

The ADEA requires that “[a]ll personnel actions affecting

employees . . . who are at least 40 years of age . . . in executive

agencies . . . shall be made free from any discrimination based

on age.” 29 U.S.C. § 633a(a). We generally apply the same

approach in ADEA cases under that provision as we do in Title

VII cases. See Barnett v. PA Consulting Grp., Inc., 715 F.3d

354, 358 (D.C. Cir. 2013); Hall v. Giant Food, Inc., 175 F.3d

1074, 1077 (D.C. Cir. 1999); see also Ford v. Mabus, 629 F.3d

198, 203-07 (D.C. Cir. 2010). At the summary judgment stage,

the “operative question” is whether “the employee produced

sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that . . . the

employer intentionally discriminated against the employee on

the basis of” age. Ayissi-Etoh v. Fannie Mae, 712 F.3d 572, 576

(D.C. Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (ellipsis in original) (quoting

Brady v. Office of the Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d 490, 494

(D.C. Cir. 2008)); see Barnett, 715 F.3d at 358. If “the plaintiff

offers direct evidence of discriminatoryintent, that evidence will

‘generally entitle a plaintiff to a . . . trial.’” Ayissi-Etoh, 712

F.3d at 576 (quoting Vatel v. Alliance of Auto. Mfrs., 627 F.3d

1245, 1247 (D.C. Cir. 2011)). A “statement that itself shows . . .

bias in the employment decision” qualifies as direct evidence. 

Id. (quoting Vatel, 627 F.3d at 1247) (brackets omitted).

Wilson has produced two statements that constitute direct

evidence of age discrimination, entitling him to proceed to trial. 

Both statements came from Cox, who made the decision to

terminate the resident employee program, causing Wilson’s

discharge. In the first statement, Cox told the Home’s residents

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that “you didn’t come here to work, you came here to retire.” In

the second statement, Cox explained to the EEO counselor that

he had concerns about the older security guards because “they

were not doing their jobs properly, as from time to time they

would be found asleep, which was not safe for a government

agency in DC, what with all the threats since 9/11.” 

A reasonable factfinder could conclude from those

statements that a discriminatory intent motivated the decision to

abolish the resident employee program and terminate Wilson’s

employment. Both statements indicate the sort of “inaccurate

and stigmatizing stereotypes” that led Congress to enact the

ADEA. Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604, 610 (1993). 

In particular, as the Supreme Court has explained, it “is the very

essence of age discrimination for an older employee to be fired

because the employer believes that productivity and competence

decline with old age.” Id.

Here, a reasonable factfinder could conclude that Cox’s

statement that the Home’s residents were “here to retire,” rather

than “to work,” exhibits just such a discriminatory stereotype. 

Interpreted in the light most favorable to Wilson, the statement

is indicative of an inaccurate and discriminatoryassumption that

older residents should not want to work or would prefer not to

work. In Wilson’s case, in fact, the opposite was true: Wilson

became a resident of the Home in part precisely because he

could continue working there as a security guard. Wilson was

there to work, not to retire.

The defendants contend that Cox’s statement in fact did not

exhibit age-based discrimination because it focused on

retirement, not age. The defendants are fully free to advance

that argument at trial; but at the summary judgment stage, an

alternative interpretation of that kind cannot overcome the need

to draw inferences in the non-moving party’s favor. See PardoKronemann v. Donovan, 601 F.3d 599, 604-06 (D.C. Cir. 2010). 

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We must interpret the statement in the light most favorable to

Wilson, and viewed in that light, the statement manifests

discriminatory stereotyping. Moreover, when Cox sought to

explain his statement to Wilson’s EEO counselor, Cox stated

that the AFRH “allowed the residents to work to make them feel

productive, not because they were entitled to the positions.” 

That statement, viewed most favorably to Wilson, tends to

reinforce the stereotype that older workers fall short in

productivity and thus should have no entitlement to

employment. The Home, that is, sought to make the older

employees “feel productive” notwithstanding that they were in

fact unproductive. A reasonable factfinder could conclude that

Cox’s statements exhibit a discriminatory intent.

The same is true of Cox’s statement to the EEO counselor

that one of his problems “with the older guards at Armed Forces

Retirement Home, ‘was that they were not doing their jobs

properly, as from time to time they would be found asleep.’” 

While Cox in that statement expressed a general concern about

a perceived tendency of older guards to fall asleep, he testified

that he had heard about only one such incident. Additionally,

the chief of resident services testified that he had never heard

any reports about any guard sleeping on the job. Even if Cox in

fact knew of one instance in which a guard fell asleep on the job,

a statement indicating a generalized concern about older guards

as a group, based on one incident alone, is suggestive of

impermissible, inaccurate stereotyping. A reasonable factfinder

could conclude that Cox attributed sleepiness to all older guards

as a class and terminated the resident employee program on that

discriminatory basis.

Because Cox’s statements constitute direct evidence of

discrimination entitling Wilson to proceed to trial, we need not

review the district court’s conclusion that the defendants’

proffered, nondiscriminatoryrationales for Wilson’stermination

were non-pretextual. At trial, the parties will have a fresh

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opportunity to present evidence about the motivation for

abolishing the resident employee program and terminating

Wilson’s employment, and the factfinder will assess and

determine, in light of all of that evidence, whether the decision

stemmed from a discriminatory motive. We also have no

occasion to address Wilson’s contention that the district court

erred in granting summary judgment before affording him any

discovery: the parties presumably will have the opportunity to

conduct discovery before trial.

Finally, Wilson challenges the district court’s denial of

leave to amend his complaint to add a due process claim. To

establish that his termination violated due process, Wilson must

demonstrate that he possessed a property interest in continued

employment. See, e.g., Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill,

470 U.S. 532, 538 (1985). In the district court, Wilson based his

claim of a protected property interest on the Home’s EEO

policy. The district court rejected that argument and denied him

leave to amend his complaint on grounds of futility. On appeal,

Wilson no longer relies on the Home’s EEO policy. Instead, he

presents a distinct argument of a protected property interest

based on his status as a preference-eligible veteran. Although

we ordinarily decline to hear arguments raised for the first time

on appeal, see District of Columbia v. Air Fla., Inc., 750 F.2d

1077, 1084-85 (D.C. Cir. 1984), the defendants do not argue that

Wilson forfeited his new due process argument, see Catholic

Health Initiatives Iowa Corp. v. Sebelius, 718 F.3d 914, 922 n.6

(D.C. Cir. 2013) (“[W]e construe [the party] as having itself

waived any waiver argument.”). Rather than consider and

resolve Wilson’s new due process argument in the first instance

on appeal, we leave it to the district court to do so on remand.

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* * * * *

We reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment

to the defendants on Wilson’s ADEA claim and remand for

proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

So ordered.

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