Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-98-05146/USCOURTS-caDC-98-05146-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Roy E. Bowden
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 22, 1999 Decided June 4, 1999

No. 98-5146

Roy E. Bowden,

Appellant

v.

United States of America,

Appellee

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 94cv01832)

---------

Daniel F. Rinzel argued the cause and filed the briefs for

appellant.

Doris D. Coles, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause

for appellee. With her on the brief were Wilma A. Lewis,

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

Before: Randolph, Rogers and Tatel, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Tatel.

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Tatel, Circuit Judge: Appealing to this court for a second

time, appellant challenges the district court's rejection of his

claim that the government had agreed to pay all federal and

state taxes on back pay he received in settlement of his Title

VII employment discrimination complaint. Appellant also

challenges the district court's denial of his demand for trial by

jury. Because Title VII does not authorize jury trials on

claims of breach of settlement agreements, and because the

district court's finding that the government had no obligation

to pay appellant's remaining tax liability was not clearly

erroneous, we affirm.

I

Appellant Roy Bowden worked for the Immigration and

Naturalization Service from 1975 to 1982. After INS declined to select him for several vacancies as a criminal investigator, Bowden filed a race discrimination complaint with the

agency. On January 10, 1990, Bowden agreed to settle his

claim in exchange for a lump-sum back pay award. The

precise amount of back pay, however, was not specified in the

settlement agreement. Following further negotiations, the

government gave Bowden a check for $190,000. It also paid

over $50,000 in federal and state taxes on Bowden's behalf,

but that payment fell approximately $60,000 below the

amount necessary to cover Bowden's full tax liability on the

back pay. Claiming that it had fulfilled its obligation under

the settlement, INS refused to pay any additional taxes on

Bowden's behalf. Bowden sued. The district court, finding

Bowden had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies,

dismissed the complaint. Finding that INS had waived its

exhaustion defense, we reversed. See Bowden v. United

States, 106 F.3d 433 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (Bowden I).

On remand, Bowden moved under Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 15(a) to amend his complaint to clarify certain

factual allegations, to add claims for attorneys' fees and

compensatory damages, and to demand trial by jury. Stating

that "trial is less than two months away; and ... the motion

is extraordinarily untimely," the district court denied the

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motion to amend. Bowden v. United States, No. 94-1832

(D.D.C. Oct. 22, 1997).

At the bench trial, Bowden testified that during the back

pay negotiations that followed the signing of the settlement

agreement, the government agreed to pay all taxes on the

back pay award so that he would receive exactly $190,000.

See 12/15/97 Tr. at 33. Finding that the government had not

agreed to "assume several thousands of dollars of an indeterminate tax liability," the district court entered judgment for

the government. Bowden v. United States, No. 94-1832, at

5-6 (D.D.C. Mar. 27, 1998) ("Bowden II"). Bowden appeals.

He also challenges the denial of his motion to amend and his

request for trial by jury.

II

As we stated in Bowden I, extrinsic evidence of prior or

contemporaneous oral agreements is inadmissible to vary the

terms of an integrated written agreement. See Bowden I,

106 F.3d at 439-40. Here, however, both parties introduced

evidence of a subsequent agreement that supplied a term

missing from the written agreement, i.e., the amount of the

settlement.

In ruling for the government, the district court relied on

the testimony of the agency's payroll accounting chief, who

testified that prior to the preparation of the settlement check

she expressly told Bowden that the government was only

paying his tax liability at the minimum withholding rate. The

witness also testified that she warned Bowden he would face

additional tax liability and offered to withhold more, but

Bowden declined. See 12/16/97 Tr. at 60-61 (testimony of

Donna Brock). Later, after Bowden received notices of

federal and state tax deficiencies, she reminded him of her

previous advice, to which Bowden responded: "I know, I am

my own worst enemy." See Memorandum from Donna Brock

to Winona Varnon (July 13, 1992); 12/16/97 Tr. at 64.

Bowden did not contradict the payroll chief's version of

these conversations. Instead, Bowden testified that he and

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INS had an oral agreement under which the agency would

settle his claim for a net amount and pay his full federal and

state tax liability. According to Bowden, he told the payroll

chief that he needed no further withholding "because the

government had assured me they paid the taxes." 12/15/97

Tr. at 40; see also id. at 33-34. In support of this claim,

Bowden introduced a "buck slip" showing the agency's

"grossing up" calculations starting from the $190,000 net

amount, as well as its initial back pay and benefits calculations yielding a gross figure that would result in a net

payment to Bowden of approximately $190,000 after taxes.

Although the district court never commented on Bowden's

documentary evidence, it "refuse[d] ... to credit Bowden's

testimony of a collateral or superseding oral agreement by

INS to assume several thousands of dollars of an indeterminate tax liability for him." Bowden II, No. 94-1832, at 5-6.

The court also inferred from Bowden's exchanges with the

payroll official that he "understood at the time that he was

not getting a tax-free payment in settlement of his claim."

Id. at 5. We are convinced that these findings are not clearly

erroneous, particularly in view of the unusual nature of the

agreement that Bowden claims he had with the government

(the agency's Deputy Director of Finance testified that in

twenty years of experience he had never seen a settlement

agreement in which the government orally agreed to pay all

taxes due on the settlement amount, see 12/16/97 Tr. at 115),

the fact that Bowden never gave the agency the personal and

financial information that would have enabled it to calculate

his exact tax liability, and the additional fact that Bowden has

switched his position in this litigation (in his first appeal, he

argued that the tax liability agreement was made prior to

signing the settlement agreement). See Albright v. United

States, 732 F.2d 181, 183 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (district court's

factual findings reviewed for clear error).

III

Bowden next challenges the district court's denial of his

motion to amend the complaint to clarify certain factual

allegations and to demand attorneys' fees, compensatory

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damages, and trial by jury under Title VII. See 42 U.S.C.

ss 1981a, 2000e-5(k) (1994). We generally review a denial of

a motion to amend for abuse of discretion. See Material

Supply Int'l, Inc. v. Sunmatch Indus. Co., 146 F.3d 983, 991

(D.C. Cir. 1998). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a),

however, permits a plaintiff to amend a complaint once as a

matter of right "at any time before a responsive pleading is

served." Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a); see Confederate Mem'l Ass'n,

Inc. v. Hines, 995 F.2d 295, 299 (D.C. Cir. 1993). At the time

Bowden sought to amend, the government had filed only a

motion to dismiss or in the alternative for summary judgment, which is not considered a responsive pleading. See

Confederate Mem'l Ass'n, 995 F.2d at 299. Although the

district court had entered final judgment dismissing Bowden's

complaint, this court's reversal and remand effectively returned the case to the prejudgment stage where Bowden

could amend once as a matter of right before the government

filed a responsive pleading. See Reuber v. United States, 750

F.2d 1039, 1062 n.35 (D.C. Cir. 1984). Even if, as the

government argues, Bowden had no right to amend his

complaint, see Firestone v. Firestone, 76 F.3d 1205, 1208

(D.C. Cir. 1996) (leave to amend is within the district court's

discretion after judgment is vacated under Rule 59(e)), we

think denying the motion would have been an abuse of

discretion: Not only did Bowden's "extraordinar[y] untimel[iness]" in filing the motion result primarily from the time

consumed by his first appeal, but the government has alleged

no prejudice that amendment would have caused. See Harrison v. Rubin, No. 98-5019, slip op. at 5-6 (D.C. Cir. May 7,

1999).

Though erroneous, the district court's denial of Bowden's

motion to amend does not require a new trial. At the bench

trial, the district court not only permitted Bowden to pursue

his revised theory of the case, but also allowed him to

introduce the very facts he had sought to add to his complaint. Moreover, because we have affirmed the district

court's finding that the government had no obligation to pay

Bowden's entire tax liability, Bowden is not a prevailing party

entitled to attorneys' fees or compensatory damages. FinalUSCA Case #98-5146 Document #440025 Filed: 06/04/1999 Page 5 of 6
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ly, as to Bowden's jury demand, the Supreme Court held in

Lehman v. Nakshian, a case arising under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, that "if Congress waives the

Government's immunity from suit, ... the plaintiff has a

right to a trial by jury only where that right is one of 'the

terms of [the Government's] consent to be sued.' " 453 U.S.

156, 160 (1981) (quoting United States v. Testan, 424 U.S. 392,

399 (1976)); see also id. at 162 n.9 ("Since there is no

generally applicable jury trial right that attaches when the

United States consents to suit, the accepted principles of

sovereign immunity require that a jury trial right be clearly

provided in the legislation creating the cause of action.").

Because section 102 of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 makes

trial by jury available only in actions alleging "unlawful

intentional discrimination" under Title VII, see 42 U.S.C.

s 1981a(a)(1) & (c), and because Bowden's claim under the

settlement agreement does not turn on whether he was a

victim of "intentional discrimination," Bowden had no right to

trial by jury.

IV

We affirm the judgment of the district court.

So ordered.

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