Opinion ID: 3155944
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Termination As A Discrete Act

Text: McCall‟s suit was dismissed in its entirety because the trial court reasoned that “any claim plaintiff may have had under the WPA started to accrue the first time defendants allegedly took prohibited personnel action,” and McCall had failed to file his complaint within a year of April 5, 2011, the day he was placed on administrative leave. Regardless of whether McCall‟s hostile work environment claim succeeds, his termination must be considered as a discrete violation of the WPA, not as part of his hostile work environment claim. Morgan, supra, 536 U.S. 16 at 110-15 (distinguishing between “[d]iscrete acts such as termination,” and “[h]ostile environment claims”); Sassé, supra note 8, 409 F.3d at 783 (“[plaintiff‟s] May 2000 suspension was a discrete act that cannot properly be characterized as part of a continuing hostile work environment”). Accordingly, we proceed to consider McCall‟s second claim: that his termination—as a discrete violation of the statute—independently triggers the statute of limitations.12 Three considerations lead us to agree with McCall‟s interpretation: (1) the wording of the statute, which clearly ties both civil actions and the limitations period to “a violation” of the statute, D.C. Code § 1-615.54 (a), thus allowing for the possibility of multiple violations being claimed in a single suit; (2) the remedial purpose of the WPA, clearly articulated in D.C. Code § 1-615.51, and (3) the nature of this case, which exemplifies how several violations of the WPA might occur in an escalating string of retaliatory personnel actions.
Any “employee aggrieved by a violation” of the WPA‟s prohibitions set forth in D.C. Code § 1-615.53 may bring a civil action against those responsible, 12 Of course, our holding that each violation of the WPA triggers the statute of limitations anew applies with equal force to hostile work environment claims. 17 and must file that action “within 3 years after a violation occurs or within one year after the employee first becomes aware of the violation, whichever occurs first.” D.C. Code § 1-615.54 (a)(1)-(2). The emphasis of this language is on the date that “a violation” occurs. D.C. Code § 1-615.54 (a). The Council‟s use of the phrase “a violation” is significant: because the statute can be violated by numerous types of “prohibited personnel action,”13 the statute contemplates that multiple violations can occur, and allows a civil action based on a single violation. We conclude that failure to file suit within a year of one violation does not preclude filing suit based on subsequent violations.14 This conclusion finds support in federal case law interpreting the same provision of the D.C. Code. In Clayton, supra note 3, 931 F. Supp. 2d at 204, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held that Ms. Clayton‟s WPA claim was not untimely, even though her claim was based on a reclassification decision of which she had received notice by letter thirteen months earlier. The 13 D.C. Code § 1-615.52 (a)(5)(A) (“„Prohibited personnel action‟ includes but is not limited to: recommended, threatened, or actual termination, demotion, suspension, or reprimand; involuntary transfer, reassignment, or detail; referral for psychiatric or psychological counseling; failure to promote or hire . . . .”). 14 See Morgan, supra, 536 U.S. at 114 (2002) (“Each incident of discrimination and each retaliatory adverse employment decision constitutes a separate actionable unlawful employment practice.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). 18 reclassification placed Ms. Clayton in a category of employees terminable at will, and made her vulnerable to the termination that followed shortly thereafter. Id. at 199. Because Ms. Clayton asserted that she did not learn that the reclassification was retaliatory until her termination became effective, and she filed her complaint less than one year after learning that fact, the court held that her claim based on the reclassification that occurred in September of 2010, thirteen months prior to the filing of the complaint, “was not filed untimely.” Id. at 204. This was true even though Ms. Clayton had received whistleblowing-related “termination threats in June or July 2009, January 2010, and September 2010,” and “threatened . . . termination” based on an employee‟s “protected disclosure” constitutes an actionable violation of the WPA. See id. at 198; D.C. Code § 1-615.52 (a)(5)(A). Thus, Clayton supports the straightforward reading of the statute that McCall desires. Because the limitations period begins to run from the date that “a violation” occurs or from the date that an employee becomes “aware” of it, each subsequent violation triggers the statute anew with respect to the subsequent violation.15 D.C. Code § 1-615.54 (a). Accordingly, failure to file an action within 15 Although McCall also argues that the “campaign of harassment” he suffered should be considered a single prohibited personnel action, his alternative argument is that “[e]ven if the Superior Court was correct in determining that all (continued . . .) 19 the limitations period for one violation does not make District agencies and their employees immune from suit with respect to all subsequent violations. Such a reading would conflict with the text and purpose of the statute.
Allowing a civil suit based on any particular violation of the WPA, along with a distinct corresponding limitations period for each violation, is not merely consistent with the text of the statute, it is also in accord with its declared policy: effective protection for whistleblowers. D.C. Code § 1-615.51. The Act‟s initial “declaration of purpose” states that “the public interest is served when employees of the District government are free to report waste, fraud, abuse of authority, violations of law, or threats to public health or safety without fear of retaliation or reprisal.” Id. It goes on to list the goals of the Act in great detail, declaring it to be the Council‟s “policy to . . . [e]nhance the rights of District employees to challenge ____________________________________ (. . . continued) actions prior to October 19, 2011[] would be untimely, there is no basis for dismissing as untimely [claims based upon] acts which did not occur until after that date. . . . [T]he statute clearly enumerates termination as a separate discrete personnel action, which is prohibited if taken in retaliation for protected activity.” For the reasons given in the text, both the governing language and stated purpose of the WPA lead us to the conclusion that McCall‟s alternative argument is correct. 20 the actions or failures of their agencies and to express their views without fear of retaliation . . . [and] [e]nsure that rights of employees to expose corruption, dishonesty, incompetence, or administrative failure are protected.” Id. The history of the statute evinces a consistent legislative intent to expand and secure protections for whistleblowers. The Council‟s declaration of purpose has remained substantially unchanged since the time that whistleblower protections were originally enacted as part of the Comprehensive Merit Personnel Act of 1978. Compare D.C. Code § 1-345.1 (1980 Supp.), with D.C. Code § 1-615.51 (2012 Repl.). However, these original protections made it unlawful only to retaliate “against subordinate employees appearing as witnesses before the Council,” and employees could initiate a civil action only after “the Corporation Counsel decline[d] to prosecute” their case. D.C. Code § 1-345.3 (a), (f) (1980 Supp.). To address these limitations, the Whistleblower Amendment Act of 1998 expanded the 1978 protections, declaring “that the public interest is served when employees of the District government are free to report waste, fraud, abuse of authority, [or] violations of law . . . without fear of retaliation or reprisal.” D.C. Code § 1-616.11 (1999 Repl.). The 1998 amendments introduced the current definitions for “protected disclosure” and “prohibited personnel action,” and 21 allowed “[a]n employee aggrieved by a violation” of the statute to “bring a civil action . . . seeking relief and damages.” D.C. Code §§ 1-616.12-.14 (1999 Repl). Along with this cause of action, the Council introduced a one year statute of limitations, applicable from the date that “a violation occurs or . . . the employee first becomes aware of the violation.” D.C. Code § 1-616.14 (a) (1999 Repl.). In 2009, however, the Council found that “District employees continue to be subject to retaliation when they report government misconduct,” and that “[w]orse, many District employees remain silent despite the existing protections, because those protections do not go far enough.” D.C. Council, Report on Bill 18-233 at 2 (Nov. 9, 2009) [hereinafter 2009 Committee Report]. Certain rulings by federal judges had, in the Council‟s view, “diminished the law‟s efficacy” by holding that plaintiffs were required by statute to provide notice of injury within six months,16 and that no implied right of action existed against supervisors.17 Id. at 3. The Whistleblower Protections Amendment Act of 2009 addressed these “judicially created gaps,” id. at 4, by “eliminat[ing] the requirement . . . that plaintiffs provide 16 Winder v. Erste, 566 F.3d 209, 213-14 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (applying D.C. Code §§ 1-615.54 (a), 12-309 (2006)). 17 Tabb v. District of Columbia, 477 F. Supp. 2d 185, 189 (D.D.C. 2007) (applying D.C. Code § 1-615.54). 22 notice of claims to the District of Columbia within six months of their injury,” and expressly providing for a right of action against supervisors and other D.C. employees. Bowyer v. District of Columbia, 779 F. Supp. 2d 159, 162, 165 (D.D.C. 2011) (noting that the Council ended the six-month notice requirement “to ensure that WPA claims were not unnecessarily barred by technical requirements”); see also 2009 Committee Report at 7. The 2009 Act also extended the limitations period from one year to three years for undiscovered violations, in order to “reduce the likelihood that a whistleblower‟s case would be dismissed on procedural grounds while avoiding the possibility of stale claims.” 2009 Committee Report at 6-7. These changes indicate a legislative desire, consistent throughout the history of the statute, to protect whistleblowers from retaliation. By contrast, requiring whistleblowers to be vigilant to file suit as soon as their employer takes the first in a series of what the employee has reason to believe to be retaliatory actions would have the opposite effect. Some whistleblowers would be forced to choose between filing quickly—with any number of potentially 23 adverse consequences18—or risk losing their cause of action entirely despite later being fired or otherwise retaliated against in a more unequivocal manner. This would not “[e]nsure that rights of employees to expose corruption, dishonesty, incompetence, or administrative failure are protected,” or even come close to “[m]otivat[ing] employees to do their duties justly and efficiently.” D.C. Code § 1-615.51. Instead, corrupt or incompetent city employees would be motivated to punish whistleblowers through subtle though discernable violations of the statute, thus triggering the one-year statute of limitations, while saving for later periods more major retribution, for which they would face no civil liability. The most significant cost would be the loss of information that might otherwise be reported. As the Council succinctly put it, “[r]etaliation deters future whistleblowing.” 2009 Committee Report at 3. Reading the statute of limitations as applying to each violation is not only the most natural reading of the statutory text, but it is also consistent with the statute‟s declared purposes: effective protection for whistleblowers. Consistent 18 For example, some whistleblowers thus pressured might file WPA suits over petty or borderline violations of this anti-retaliation statute, thus straining already fragile workplace relationships, and risking the expenses of litigation over undeveloped workplace disputes. 24 with that purpose, it “ensure[s] that WPA claims [are] not unnecessarily barred by technical requirements.” Bowyer, supra, 779 F. Supp. 2d at 165.
The April 5, 2011, events leading up to and including McCall‟s placement on administrative leave certainly constituted a violation of the WPA.19 However, later actions by DCHA and other defendants can reasonably be viewed as further discrete violations of the WPA, and McCall‟s termination, of which he was not apprised until November 2011, certainly can be so viewed. D.C. Code § 1-615.52 (a)(5)(A) (“„Prohibited personnel action‟ includes . . . actual termination.”). The fact that McCall was “aware” that his placement on administrative leave was retaliatory would start the statute of limitations clock with respect to only that violation. D.C. Code § 1-615.54 (a). To the extent that McCall‟s suit is based upon renewed violations of the WPA, and is brought within one year of the time he 19 Seeking to silence McCall by placing him on administrative leave for a phony impersonating-an-officer investigation, as alleged, would satisfy the definition of a “prohibited personnel action,” which includes “recommended, threatened, or actual . . . suspension, or reprimand . . . or retaliating in any other manner against an employee because that employee makes a protected disclosure.” D.C. Code § 1-615.52 (a)(5) (“„Retaliating‟ includes conducting . . . an investigation of an employee . . . because of a protected disclosure.”). 25 became aware of those subsequent violations, his suit is not barred by the statute of limitations. Id.