Court Opinion

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Date Created: 2023-03-16 14:02:39.117626+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:16.380703
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             DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

                                 No. 18-CV-0777

                           TROY STEWART, APPELLANT,

                                         V.

                    DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., APPELLEES.

                         Appeal from the Superior Court
                          of the District of Columbia
                             (2016-CA-002821-B)

                      (Hon. Florence Y. Pan, Motion Judge)

(Argued December 4, 2019                                Decided March 16, 2023)

      Kirk R. Ruthenburg, with whom Daniel Morris and Matthew A. Lafferman,
were on the brief, for appellant.

       Sarah L. Knapp, Assistant Attorney General, with whom Karl A. Racine,
Attorney General for the District of Columbia at the time of argument, Loren
AliKhan, Solicitor General at the time of argument, Caroline S. Van Zile, Deputy
Solicitor General, and Lewis Preston, Assistant Attorney General, were on the brief,
for appellees.

      Before BECKWITH, Associate Judge, and RUIZ and THOMPSON, * Senior Judges.

      Opinion of the court PER CURIAM.

      Opinion by Senior Judge THOMPSON, dissenting in part, at page 21.

      Senior Judge Thompson was an Associate Judge of the court at the time of
      *

argument. On February 18, 2022, she began her service as a Senior Judge.
                                          2

      PER CURIAM: Plaintiff/appellant, Troy Stewart, a former correctional officer

employed by the District of Columbia Department of Corrections (DOC), argues that

the trial court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of defendants/appellees,

District of Columbia and Major Joseph Pettiford, on Mr. Stewart’s District of

Columbia Whistleblower Protection Act (DCWPA) claim. 1 For the reasons that

follow, we affirm in part and reverse in part.

                                   I. Background

      Appellant’s DCWPA claim involves two correctional officer/inmate

interactions that took place at the D.C. Jail Northwest II housing unit on April 10,

2015, and two incident reports made the same day. At the time, appellant was a

probationary correctional officer, and Major Pettiford was part of DOC’s senior

management at the jail. Appellant was assigned to the Northwest II unit along with

Corporal (Cpl.) Pablo Rodriguez, 2 who was in command, and Cpl. Jonathan Evans.

      According to the complaint, on the day in question, Rodriguez assigned

appellant and Evans to conduct an inmate count while the inmates were on

      1
          See D.C. Code §§ 1-615.51 to -615.59.
      2
          Rodriguez’s surname also appears in the record as “Rodriquez.”
                                          3

lockdown. While conducting the count, appellant and Evans worked from opposite

ends of a hallway (or tier) of cells and converged near Cell 71, where they both

stopped and observed that the inmate in Cell 71 had covered the cell’s window with

a sheet, such that he could not be seen. Evans instructed the inmate to remove the

sheet, but the inmate refused. Evans asked Rodriguez, who was in the Northwest II

guard station—a monitoring station known as “the Bubble,” where correctional

officers can observe activities throughout the unit—to give him access to Cell 71

electronically.

      Once the cell door was opened and Evans had removed the sheet, appellant

stepped away from the cell to resume his inmate count. Appellant alleges that he

then “heard a loud noise,” “turned around,” “saw a piece of orange jumpsuit,” and

“saw [the inmate] in the cell and the cell door closing.” Security camera footage

shows that the inmate had partially emerged from his cell and scuffled momentarily

with Evans before being pushed back inside. Appellant contends that he did not see

the physical struggle, but only saw and assisted Evans’s effort to close the cell door.

      When the cell door closed, appellant continued walking along the tier and

resumed counting. Security camera footage shows that as appellant faced away from

Cell 71, Evans thrust his clipboard into the horizontal food slot of the door to Cell
                                           4

71. Appellant contends that he did not see Evans put his clipboard into the slot, but

that he heard yelling coming from Cell 71. Appellant walked back towards the cell,

found that the inmate was “babbling,” and determined that Evans was arguing with

the inmate. Appellant alleges that when he told Evans to disengage with the inmate,

Evans ordered him to proceed with his inmate count. Appellant complied. 3 The

surveillance video shows that while appellant was still near the door to Cell 71, the

inmate threw liquid from the toilet at appellant through the slot in the cell door.

      When appellant completed his inmate count, he returned to the Bubble and

told Rodriguez, three times, that the inmate was “down there babbling about

something” and that Rodriguez “need[ed] to check on the welfare” of the inmate

because “something [was] wrong down there.” Appellant also told Rodriguez that

“Evans don’t [sic] want me down there.”

      After visiting Cell 71 and observing that the inmate’s lip was bleeding,

Rodriguez took the inmate to the infirmary.         Both appellant and Evans were

instructed to complete incident report (DCDC-1) forms. In the report that he

submitted, appellant wrote the following:

      3
        Appellant asserts that DOC rules required him to “strictly comply with the
order of a superior.”
                                           5

             On, 4/10/15 at approximately 3:15 PM, I OFC Stewart was
             assigned to NW #2 Housing Unit. As I OFC Stewart was
             doing the count I notice [sic] Cpl. J. Evans was talk [sic]
             to inmate . . . then I walk [sic] over to cell 71. And inmate
             [name redacted] was talking [sic] very high voice. Then
             Cpl. J. Evans told me to keep counting its [sic] ok. I did
             the count and went to the bubble. And then Cpl.
             Rodriguez went to cell 71 . . . and took [the inmate] to the
             infirmary.

In response to the form’s question, “[i]f force was used, describe type (i.e. physical,

chemical agent, baton, etc.),” appellant responded “No.” In response to the form’s

directive to “[d]escribe injuries to staff or inmate,” appellant responded “N/A.”

      After reviewing appellant’s incident report, Lieutenant MaRion Boyd ordered

appellant to go with him to Major Pettiford’s office. Appellant’s complaint alleges

that after reviewing appellant’s incident report, Pettiford told appellant “to change

material facts in his incident report” because “[t]his kind of statement can make you

lose your job.” Appellant testified during his deposition that Pettiford, a minute after

being handed appellant’s just-completed written report, confronted him, saying,

“You’re going against a man that’s been here 20 years, Evans? This f****n’ report

will get you fired. I want it changed.” 4 Appellant asserts that he understood

Pettiford to be asking him to falsify his report, presumably in order to protect Evans.

      4
       Pettiford claims that he called appellant into his office to discuss “the
importance of submitting factual reports.”
                                           6

Appellant testified in his deposition that he refused to do so and told Pettiford,

“That’s my report and that’s what I saw.” Appellant’s complaint further alleges that

Boyd told him that the Deputy Warden wanted appellant to change his report.

      On April 15, 2015, Pettiford submitted a memorandum to Warden William

Smith and Deputy Warden Lennard Johnson. Pettiford recommended that appellant

“not be retained past his [p]robationary [p]eriod and that he be immediately removed

from his position” because of appellant’s: (1) denial that he witnessed interactions

between the inmate and Evans (even after he was allowed to view the video

surveillance footage), (2) refusal to submit a factual report, (3) lack of integrity, and

(4) “willingness to hide behind the so called ‘thin blue line.’” Warden Smith

recommended to DOC Director Thomas Faust that he terminate appellant’s

probationary employment because appellant “wasn’t being truthful about the

situation.”   After reviewing the Warden’s recommendation and supporting

documentation, Faust accepted the recommendation. Appellant was terminated on

April 22, 2015.

      On April 14, 2016, appellant filed a complaint against the District and

Pettiford alleging retaliatory discharge in violation of the DCWPA. Appellant

alleged—either in his complaint or in his supplemental interrogatory responses—
                                           7

that he was terminated in retaliation for his: (1) verbal disclosure of the Cell 71

inmate’s condition after his interaction with Evans, (2) written report relating to the

same incident, and (3) refusal to comply with an illegal order to falsify his incident

report and thereby assist in an attempted cover-up of Evans’s misconduct. 5 The

District moved for summary judgment, arguing that appellant did not make any

disclosure protected under the DCWPA. The District also argued that, even if

appellant had made protected disclosures, no disinterested observer viewing the

surveillance video could conclude that appellant—who failed to submit a complete

report and refused to supplement his report when asked to do so—refused to comply

with an illegal order because correctional officers are required to submit accurate

reports of any significant events such as confrontations or use of force that they

observe or are aware of within the facility.

      The trial court entered summary judgment in favor of appellees. The court

found that appellant’s evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to establish

DCWPA violations.       Appellant contends that the trial court erred in granting

summary judgment because his verbal and written reports constituted DCWPA-

      5
         Appellant’s complaint also included a count alleging wrongful termination
in violation of public policy. The trial court dismissed that count for failure to state
a claim, and appellant has not challenged that ruling.
                                          8

protected disclosures and because there is a genuine dispute of material fact as to

what he saw and whether Pettiford ordered him to falsify his report.

                                II. Legal Standard

      In reviewing a grant of summary judgment, we view “the record in the light

most favorable to the non-moving party, drawing all reasonable inferences from the

evidence in the non-moving party’s favor.” Medhin v. Hailu, 26 A.3d 307, 310 (D.C.

2011). Our review is de novo, and we will affirm the judgment only if there is no

genuine issue of material fact and the evidence entitles the moving party to judgment

as a matter of law. Id. Generally that means that if opposing parties present

contradictory evidence about a material fact, summary judgment is not proper

because questions of credibility are resolved by the finder of fact. See Samm v.

Martin, 940 A.2d 138, 141 (D.C. 2007). The usual resort to the factfinder is not

necessary, however, and summary judgment is proper, “[w]hen opposing parties tell

two different stories, one of which is blatantly contradicted by the record, so that no

reasonable jury could believe it.”     Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380 (2007).

Evidence satisfying this “rarely” met standard includes “a video tape that ‘quite

clearly’ demonstrates the falsity of [a] statement.” Robinson v. Pezzat, 818 F.3d 1,

10 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (quoting Scott, 550 U.S. at 378); see also, e.g., Franklin v.
                                             9

Blackman, No. 13-CV-470, 2014 WL 6685950, at *6 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 25, 2014)

(noting that “Scott’s standard is exceptionally high”).

                 III. District of Columbia Whistleblower Protection Act

      The DCWPA’s premise is 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.” D.C. Code § 1-615.51. To establish a prima facie case for retaliation

under the DCWPA, a plaintiff must show that he “made a protected disclosure, that

a supervisor retaliated or took or threatened to take a prohibited personnel action

against h[im], and that h[is] protected disclosure was a contributing factor to the

retaliation or prohibited personnel action.”         Wilburn v. District of Columbia,

957 A.2d 921, 924 (D.C. 2008).

      A protected disclosure is

              any disclosure of information . . . by an employee to a
              supervisor or a public body that the employee reasonably
              believes evidences . . . [a]buse of authority in connection
              with the administration of a public program . . . [or a]
              violation of federal, state, or local law, rule or regulation. 6

      6
          Under D.C. Code § 1-615.52(a)(6), a protected disclosure must concern:
                                           10

D.C. Code § 1-615.52(a)(6). “Abuse of authority occurs when there is an arbitrary

or capricious exercise of power by a federal official or employee that adversely

affects the rights of any person or that results in personal gain or advantage to himself

or to preferred other persons.” District of Columbia v. Poindexter, 104 A.3d 848,

857 (D.C. 2014) (quoting Embree v. Dep’t of Treasury, 70 M.S.P.R. 79, 85 (1996)).

An employee’s disclosure is protected only “if it reveals ‘such serious errors by the

agency that a conclusion the agency erred is not debatable among reasonable

people.’”   Williams v. Johnson, 776 F.3d 865, 870 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (quoting

Wilburn, 957 A.2d at 925). The putative whistleblower must show “not just his

subjective belief that the information set forth evidenced official misconduct, but

also the objective reasonableness . . . [of] that belief.” Freeman v. District of

Columbia, 60 A.3d 1131, 1151 (D.C. 2012). That belief must have been held “at the

time the disclosure was made.”         Id.; cf. Holbrook v. District of Columbia,

             (A) Gross mismanagement;
             (B) Gross misuse or waste of public resources or funds;
             (C) Abuse of authority in connection with the
             administration of a public program or the execution of a
             public contract;
             (D) A violation of a federal, state, or local law, rule, or
             regulation, or of a term of a contract between the District
             government and a District government contractor which is
             not of a merely technical or minimal nature; or
             (E) A substantial and specific danger to the public
             health and safety.
                                          11

259 A.3d 78, 89 & n.8 (D.C. 2021) (clarifying that we do not consider “after-the-fact

characterizations” of what a whistleblowing employee “believed their objections

conveyed” when the “employee’s contemporaneous disclosure betrayed no hint of

wrongdoing”). The DCWPA also protects against retaliation for a refusal to comply

with an illegal order, which is defined as “a directive to violate or to assist in

violating a federal, state or local law, rule, or regulation.” Rodriguez v. District of

Columbia, 124 A.3d 134, 142 (D.C. 2015) (quoting D.C. Code § 1-615.52(a)(4)

(2001)).

           IV. Whether Appellant Made a Prima Facie Showing That He Made
                             Protected Disclosures

      Appellant contends that his verbal report to Rodriguez that something was

wrong with the inmate in Cell 71 and that Evans did not “want him down there”

along with his verbal request for Rodriguez to check on the welfare of the inmate,

constituted protected disclosures.     The District argues that appellant’s verbal

statements to Rodriguez were not protected disclosures.

      We agree with the trial court that appellant’s verbal report did not apprise

Rodriguez of a “serious agency error” or abuse of authority. There is a fair inference

that appellant’s request for a check on the inmate’s welfare indicated that the inmate
                                         12

was in some kind of distress. However, appellant’s verbal report did not say what

had caused the inmate to be in distress and whether and how Evans—or anyone

else—had caused or responded to such distress. The verbal report did not “disclose

such serious errors . . . that a conclusion the agency erred is not debatable among

reasonable people.” Wilburn, 957 A.2d at 925 (quoting White v. Dep’t of the Air

Force, 391 F.3d 1377, 1382 (Fed. Cir. 2004)). Accordingly, we conclude that

appellant’s verbal report to Rodriguez was not a protected disclosure under the

DCWPA.

      Appellant also contends that his written DCDC-1 report, specifically his

disclosure of Evans’s order that appellant should “keep counting it[’]s ok,” was

protected under the DCWPA because it evinced Evans’s abuse of authority in

directing appellant to violate DOC’s purported de-escalation policy requiring that a

second correctional officer step in when there is a confrontation between an officer

and an inmate. 7

      7
         The District disputes that the DOC policy exists. Appellant has not shown
that the purported policy is memorialized in writing anywhere, but he points to the
deposition testimony of Warden Smith, who, when asked whether there was such a
policy, stated that when “one officer has a negative interaction with [an] inmate, the
second officer should at least pay attention to what’s going on as a witness and
probably to intercede to either deescalate, or, if needed, provide assistance if it
escalates out of control.”
                                          13

      We agree with the trial court that what appellant wrote in his DCDC-1 report

“cannot carry th[e] weight” appellant now assigns to it because, like appellant’s

verbal statements to Rodriguez, the order to “keep counting it’s ok” while Evans

talked to the inmate who was speaking in a “very high voice” does not reveal serious

agency errors. As the trial court put it, “[t]he report, on its face, does not accuse

Corporal Evans of wrong-doing.” 8 During his deposition, appellant essentially

agreed, testifying that he did not know whether what he wrote in his DCDC-1 report

was “damaging [to or about Evans] or not.” The scant report suggests that an inmate

needed assistance, but not that his condition was the result of a serious agency error.

And it shows that, in response, Rodriguez rendered assistance to the inmate by going

to his cell and taking him to the infirmary.

      8
        The issue of whether appellant made a protected disclosure might be a closer
question if appellant had written in the DCDC-1 report what his complaint alleges
he wrote. Appellant averred in paragraph 21 of the complaint that what he wrote
“disclosed that Evans had, in violation of department policy, remained in the cell of
the inmate” and “ordered Stewart to leave when Stewart returned to the cell after
hearing a verbal altercation.” But the record shows that what appellant actually
wrote disclosed nothing about Evans having remained in the cell, an altercation with
the inmate, or a violation of department policy. See supra at 5; cf., e.g., Maine v.
Dep’t of Corr., 845 S.E.2d 736, 713 (Ga. Ct. App. 2020) (concluding that a letter,
which plaintiff claimed disclosed his superiors’ failure to adhere to a policy requiring
written authorization to give cell phones to inmates, “did not mention a lack of
written authorization at all” and thus did not qualify as a protected disclosure).
                                          14

      Summary judgment was appropriate with respect to appellant’s DCWPA

claims based on alleged protected disclosures.

 V. Whether Appellant Made a Prima Facie Showing of Refusal to Obey an
                            Illegal Order

      We come to a different conclusion regarding appellant’s allegation that

Pettiford’s demand that appellant change his DCDC-1 report was an illegal order

that appellant refused to follow. The trial court found that the surveillance video

contradicts what appellant wrote in his report and thus shows unequivocally that the

report was, as the District contends, incomplete and inaccurate, and required

supplementation. Specifically, the trial court found that the video shows that

appellant “clearly witnessed” the incident in which Evans “pushed the inmate back

into the cell, engaging in a brief struggle with the inmate.” The trial court determined

that “the complete lack of ambiguity in the videotape dispel[ed] any factual dispute”

that appellant actually witnessed the incident. The trial court further found that given

the “unequivocal[]” proof that appellant witnessed the physical altercation but failed

to mention it in his report, no jury “could reasonably conclude that Major Pettiford’s

request that [appellant] supplement or change [his] report was an illegal order or a

violation of DOC policy.” Thus, the trial court concluded there was “no genuine
                                          15

dispute that [appellant]’s refusal to alter or supplement his report was not”

DCWPA-protected conduct.

        Having viewed the surveillance video and the still images from the video that

the District attached to its motion for summary judgment, we agree with the trial

court that the surveillance video shows that appellant observed at least some of the

first incident involving a physical altercation between Evans and the inmate.

Although the view is obstructed because Evans is positioned between appellant and

the video camera at the moment when the inmate can be seen emerging from his cell,

the video shows appellant standing right next to Evans and appellant’s feet pointing

toward the cell during the struggle between Evans and the inmate at the entrance to

the cell. 9

        Additionally, the video and still images unambiguously show appellant’s

interaction with the inmate after the clipboard incident, when the inmate threw a foul

liquid at appellant. The District cited as undisputed material facts that appellant

        9
          We acknowledge Boyd’s deposition testimony—which appellant
emphasizes—that he could not “from this distance” tell from the video what
appellant could see during the incident. Boyd’s “from this distance” remark is not
explained. That said, during the deposition Boyd was not asked to review the still
images, which show clearly that appellant (unless he was standing at the cell with
eyes closed) could not have missed seeing the physical skirmish between the inmate
and Evans at the cell door.
                                          16

returned to Cell 71 and interacted with the inmate for about fifteen seconds after that

incident based on the video and still-image evidence. From this evidence, the

District argued that appellant undisputedly was aware that Evans had injured the

inmate, but tried to cover up Evans’s actions by omitting that information and by

refusing to supplement his written report when asked to do so, even though he was

required by DOC policy to timely report any “significant incident [such as a physical

or verbal confrontation] through the appropriate chain of command.”

      We agree that there is unambiguous evidence that appellant failed to disclose

all that he knew about the incidents of April 10, 2015. For example, appellant’s

complaint alleges that after he had completed his written report, and before he met

with Pettiford, he heard Evans tell Rodriguez that Evans hit the inmate in the mouth

with a clipboard, because Evans “just felt like hitting him.” But appellant did not

amend his DCDC-1 form to report this, even though DOC policy requires a

correctional officer to submit accurate reports of any significant event or

extraordinary occurrence that he or she “is directly involved in, witness[es,] or

becomes aware of.”       We disagree, however, that the record unambiguously

establishes that appellant knew the inmate had been injured during the clipboard

incident.   The angle of the still images and video does not show appellant’s
                                          17

viewpoint, and it is unclear whether the inmate’s injured mouth was visible to

appellant while appellant was looking through the cell window.

      Regardless of the omissions in appellant’s report or his failure to supplement

it as he acquired additional information, the relevant question at the preliminary

prima facie stage of a DCWPA claim is what Pettiford ordered appellant to do. If it

were undisputed that Pettiford told appellant to only report everything that appellant

observed related to the altercations with the inmate, and there was no reason for

appellant to think otherwise, there would be no prima facie showing of refusal to

obey an unlawful order. But that is not the situation here, as there is a genuine issue

of material fact as to whether Pettiford asked appellant to change the report to protect

Evans.

      Appellant testified that Pettiford attempted to cover up the incident by

threatening appellant that “going against a man that’s been here 20 years” would

“get [appellant] fired.” 10 The trial court concluded that appellant’s “allegations

about his conversations with Major Pettiford do not create any genuine dispute of

      10
         As noted above, the complaint alleges that Pettiford told appellant “to
change material facts in his incident report” because “[t]his kind of statement can
make you lose your [] job.” (alteration in original). We also note that the record
contains a memorandum in which Pettiford stated that Evans had been “employed
with the agency for 32 [not 20] years.”
                                          18

material fact” because this allegation is “unsupported by the evidence, even when

that evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to [appellant].” Specifically, the

trial court reasoned that appellant’s “report, on its face, does not accuse Corporal

Evans of wrong-doing.”

      We disagree with the trial court’s conclusion that appellant’s testimony does

not create a genuine issue of material fact because it is uncorroborated. “Even

standing alone, self-serving testimony can suffice to prevent summary judgment.”

Greer v. City of Wichita, 943 F.3d 1320, 1325 (10th Cir. 2019); accord Davis v.

Gallagher, 951 F.3d 743, 750 (6th Cir. 2020). The trial court may not make

credibility determinations at the summary judgment stage. See Katz v. District of

Columbia, 285 A.3d 1289, 1301 (D.C. 2022).           To be sure, there is a narrow

exception to the general rule: “Where the record taken as a whole could not lead a

rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party, there is no ‘genuine issue for

trial.’” Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986)

(quoting First Nat’l Bank of Arizona v. Cities Serv. Co., 391 U.S. 253, 289 (1968));

see also, e.g., In re Buescher, 783 F.3d 302, 308 (5th Cir. 2015) (“[A] party’s

uncorroborated self-serving testimony cannot prevent summary judgment,

particularly if the overwhelming documentary evidence supports the opposite

scenario.” (quoting Vinewood Cap., LLC v. Dar Al-Maal Al-Islami Tr., 541 F. App’x
                                        19

443, 447-48 (5th Cir. 2013) (per curiam))). Here, there is evidence going both ways

such that the factfinder would have to engage in its assigned role of making

credibility determinations and weighing the evidence.

      Some evidence contradicts appellant’s testimony that Pettiford ordered him to

change his report because he wanted to protect Evans. As the trial court noted,

appellant’s written report did not accuse Evans of wrongdoing. Pettiford himself did

so in an April 17, 2015, “Extraordinary Occurrence Report Staff on Inmate Staff

Assault Northwest Two” memorandum noting that Evans “assaulted [the i]nmate . . .

by striking him in the face with a clipboard.” 11       Pettiford’s April 15, 2015,

memorandum also details Evans’s actions. And, on August 5, 2015, Pettiford issued

a “Final Decision” letter that disciplined Evans for the clipboard incident,

suspending him for five days without pay.

      This contradictory evidence does not, however, render appellant’s version of

what Pettiford ordered him to do “totally implausible” or “demonstrably false.”

Davis, 951 F.3d at 750. This is so for three reasons. First, the evidence shows

Pettiford was terminated for lying and falsifying documents related to a cell block

      11
         Rodriguez also reported Evans’s use of physical force against an inmate in
his incident report.
                                          20

audit. Second, Pettiford’s “Final Decision” letter does not indicate that Evans

assaulted the inmate with the clipboard as did his earlier reports; instead, it states

that Evans “did not exercise due diligence which led to the subsequent assaults on

[Evans], [appellant,] as well as the inmate.” This letter led to a five-day suspension.

Evans would have potentially faced a more serious punishment, such as termination,

had the letter indicated that Evans assaulted the inmate. Cf. McCormick v. District

of Columbia, 752 F.3d 980, 983 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (noting that the D.C. DOC director

“terminated [the correctional officer] because Internal Affairs had concluded that

[the officer] had assaulted a handcuffed inmate”). Last, when Rodriguez submitted

his initial report, it identified Evans as using physical force against an inmate and

included the word “clipboard” under the “Descriptions of Weapons” heading. But

Rodriguez later signed and submitted a revised report—written by a different

employee, Lieutenant Sandra Griffin—that changed his response under this heading

to “None.” Viewed in the context of Pettiford’s own termination for lying and

falsifying documents, the change in Rodriguez’s report and the altered, lesser ground

for suspending Evans in Pettiford’s final report, lend credence to appellant’s

assertion that Pettiford wanted appellant to change his report in order to protect

Evans. We cannot say that the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier

of fact to find that Pettiford ordered appellant to change his report to cover up or

minimize the incident. The factfinder may or may not credit appellant’s version of
                                         21

events. 12 But viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to appellant as the

nonmoving party, at this point it is a material fact genuinely in dispute and summary

judgment was improper.

      For the foregoing reasons, we affirm in part and reverse in part. We affirm

the trial court’s grant of summary judgment with respect to the claims that appellant

made protected disclosures. We reverse the trial court’s grant of summary judgment

in favor of the District and Major Pettiford on appellant’s DCWPA claim based on

refusal to follow an unlawful order and remand for further proceedings consistent

with this opinion.

                                              So ordered.

      THOMPSON, Senior Judge, dissenting in part: I dissent from my colleagues’

determination to reverse the grant of summary judgment with respect to

      12
         We note that in Rodriguez we left open the question of whether the DCWPA
“requires that an employee have refused to comply with an order that is actually
illegal or whether it is sufficient that the employee reasonably believed the order to
be illegal because [the] appellants failed to present evidence of either a reasonable
belief or actual illegality.” 124 A.3d at 145 n.6. We need not resolve that question
here because it is undisputed that if Pettiford ordered appellant to change or falsify
his report to cover up Evans’s actions, that would be an illegal order in violation of
DOC policy. See D.C. Code § 1-615.52(a)(6)(D).
                                          22

Mr. Stewart’s claim that Major Pettiford caused him to be terminated for refusing to

comply with an unlawful order – specifically, for refusing to change his April 10,

2015, written report. According to Mr. Stewart, Major Pettiford ordered him to

change the report so as not to “go[] against a man [Cpl. Evans] that’s been here 20

years.” There is to be sure a factual dispute between the parties about whether Major

Pettiford actually gave that order, as Mr. Stewart claims. But, as the Superior Court

found, Mr. Stewart’s April 10, 2015, report “on its face, does not accuse Corporal

Evans of wrong-doing.” 1 That undisputed fact brings Mr. Stewart’s claim under the

rule recognized by Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372 (2007): that the usual resort to the

factfinder to resolve issues of fact is not necessary, and summary judgment is proper,

“[w]hen opposing parties tell two different stories, one of which is blatantly

contradicted by the record, so that no reasonable jury could believe it.” 2 Id. at 380.

      1
        As my colleagues acknowledge, Mr. Stewart’s report disclosed nothing
about Cpl. Evans having remained in the inmate’s cell, about an altercation with the
inmate, or about a violation of Department of Corrections policy. Ante, at 14 n.8.
      2
        As my colleagues note, ante at 18 n.10, the record contains a memorandum
in which Major Pettiford stated that Cpl. Evans had been “employed with the agency
for 32 years,” not 20 years as Mr. Stewart referenced in his claim about the change
in his report that Major Pettiford ordered Mr. Stewart to make. That discrepancy
casts doubt on the credibility of Mr. Stewart’s account, as does the record evidence
of Major Pettiford’s April 17, 2015, memorandum that went against Evans by
reporting his assault on the inmate by striking him in the face with a clipboard and
Major Pettiford’s April 15, 2015, memorandum criticizing Cpl. Evans for bragging
about his antics in the inmate’s cell.
                                         23

      Mr. Stewart’s claim that Major Pettiford wanted Mr. Stewart’s written report

changed to protect Corporal Evans is unsupported by the evidence, even when the

record evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to Mr. Stewart. Thus, this case

is one “[w]here the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to

find for the nonmoving party, [such that] there is no genuine issue for trial.”

Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986)

(internal quotation marks omitted). It is one of those “rare[]” cases in which the

documentary record “quite clearly demonstrates the falsity” of the claim. Robinson

v. Pezzat, 818 F.3d 1, 10 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). I

would therefore affirm in full the judgment of the Superior Court.

      But the issue at summary judgment is not the credibility of the competing
witnesses. My point is that upon review of the Mr. Stewart’s written report, which
Mr. Stewart claims was the immediate trigger for Major Pettiford’s allegedly
unlawful order, no reasonable juror could conclude that Major Pettiford ordered
Mr. Stewart to change his (innocuous) report so as not to “go[] against” Cpl. Evans.