Court Opinion

ID: 9409252
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-17 16:01:29.458658+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:49.777234
License: Public Domain

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
                            FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

 EUGENE HUDSON, JR.,

        Plaintiff,
                v.                                      Civil Action No. 17-1867 (JEB)
 AMERICAN FEDERATION OF
 GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES,

        Defendant.

                                 MEMORANDUM OPINION

       Plaintiff Eugene Hudson, Jr. and Defendant American Federation of Government

Employees have been locked in an interminable dispute over Hudson’s removal from the

position of AFGE National Secretary-Treasurer. This latest bout concerns this Court’s

September 26, 2022, Opinion on AFGE’s Motion for Summary Judgment, which granted the

Motion in part and denied it in part. Hudson v. Am. Fed’n of Gov’t Emps., 630 F. Supp. 3d 214

(D.D.C. 2022). Both Hudson and AFGE now seek reconsideration of that Opinion. Sticking to

its ruling, the Court will deny both Motions.

I.     Legal Standard

       Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) provides that interlocutory decisions may be

“revised at any time before the entry of a judgment adjudicating all the claims” in the action.

Reconsideration of such decisions is “available under the standard ‘as justice requires,’” which

affords courts wide latitude and substantial discretion. Mahoney v. U.S. Capitol Police Bd., 566

F. Supp. 3d 22, 25 (D.D.C. 2022) (citation and internal quotations omitted); see also Capitol

Sprinkler Inspection, Inc. v. Guest Servs., Inc., 630 F.3d 217, 227 (D.C. Cir. 2011). The court’s

                                                 1
task, essentially, is to determine “whether [relief upon] reconsideration is necessary under the

relevant circumstances.” Lewis v. District of Columbia, 736 F. Supp. 2d 98, 102 (D.D.C. 2010)

(quoting Cobell v. Norton, 224 F.R.D. 266, 272 (D.D.C. 2004)). Amorphous as that standard

may seem, it is grounded in concrete considerations and “hardly [offers] a free pass.” Mahoney,

566 F. Supp. 3d at 25; Singh v. George Washington Univ., 383 F. Supp. 2d 99, 101 (D.D.C.

2005) (noting that “as justice requires” standard entails considerations such as whether court

“patently misunderstood a party, has made a decision outside the adversarial issues presented to

the Court by the parties, has made an error not of reasoning but of apprehension, or where a

controlling or significant change in the law or facts [has occurred] since the submission of the

issue to the Court”).

II.    Analysis

       The Court will begin with Hudson’s Motion for Reconsideration, see ECF No. 212

(Hudson Motion) and then will turn to AFGE’s. See ECF No. 211 (AFGE Motion).

       A. Hudson’s Motion

       Plaintiff’s Motion is no easy sledding. From its jumble of assorted grievances, however,

the Court discerns three particular requests.

       First, Hudson asks the Court to reopen discovery based on his perceived inconsistencies

between two declarations from AFGE National Vice President Philip Glover. See Hudson Mot.

at 1, 33. The Court has already denied a similar motion to reopen discovery based on those

declarations, an inconvenient fact that Hudson’s present Motion does not appear to recognize.

See ECF Nos. 191 (Motion to, among other things, Reopen Discovery); 191-1 (Declaration of

Philip Glover); see also Minute Order of Aug. 23, 2022 (denying Motion to Reopen Discovery).

To the extent that Hudson seeks reconsideration of that ruling, his Motion does not identify

                                                 2
reasons why it was incorrect; he recites only the same grievances that the Court did not find

persuasive there. The Court accordingly will again decline to reopen discovery.

       Second, Hudson moves to amend his Complaint after completing the sought discovery.

See Hudson Mot. at 33 (describing this request as “motion for leave to file an Amended

Complaint after written discovery and depositions are concluded”). In other words, he does not

want to amend his Complaint now; he instead seeks the Court’s blessing to amend it at some

point after discovery has been reopened and then concluded. Id. at 12. As such discovery has

not yet concluded — indeed, the Court has just declined to allow it — that Motion is not ripe and

will be denied as well.

       Third, Hudson also appears to seek reconsideration of the Court’s partial summary-

judgment ruling. Id. at 1 (moving for “reconsideration of the Court’s order dismissing Plaintiff’s

LMRA count”). As with his Motion to Amend, however, Hudson does not actually ask for

reconsideration of that Opinion now; he instead seeks permission only to move for reconsideration

at a later date. Id. at 12 (asking Court to, “[a]fter reopening discovery, allow Plaintiff to file a

motion for reconsideration”). This request is thus likewise not ripe. To the extent Hudson seeks

reconsideration now, his Motion provides no argument to that end.

       The Court will thus deny Hudson’s Motion in full.

       B. AFGE’s Motion

       AFGE’s Motion proves a closer call but meets the same fate. Defendant asks the Court

to reconsider its prior holding that Hudson could proceed with claims under the Labor-

Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) — Counts I and II — because in the

Court’s view there remained a genuine issue as to whether his alleged violation of AFGE rules

                                                   3
was an independent reason for his removal. See 630 F. Supp. 3d at 225–26. AFGE challenges

this portion of the Court’s Opinion on two grounds.

       First, Defendant contends that the Court’s analysis of Hudson’s burden improperly

conflated the Title VII retaliation framework with the Title VII discrimination framework. See

AFGE Mot. at 2, 6–7; see also 2022 WL 4464976, at *13 (challenged analysis). Our Circuit,

however, has instructed that the burden-shifting framework is the same across both

discrimination and retaliation claims. In Jones v. Bernanke, 557 F.3d 670 (D.C. Cir. 2009), that

court held that the streamlined discrimination burden-shifting that the court had articulated in

Brady v. Office of Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d 490 (D.C. Cir. 2008), “appl[ies] equally to

retaliation claims.” 557 F.3d at 678. The Circuit has since reiterated that conclusion, see, e.g.,

Calhoun v. Johnson, 632 F.3d 1259, 1261 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (citing and quoting this language

from Jones), and district courts have followed it as well. See, e.g., Leach v. Yellen, No. 18-

3075, 2023 WL 2496840, at *8 (D.D.C. Mar. 14, 2023). Because the burdens across these two

types of cases are the same in our Circuit, AFGE is incorrect that the Court erred by drawing

analogies to both.

       Second, AFGE argues that Hudson has offered insufficient evidence that his two

attempted terminations were pretextual and not (as AFGE contends) explained by his violation of

union rules. AFGE focuses much of its briefing on whether Hudson has made out a prima facie

case of retaliation. As the Court has just discussed, however, the D.C. Circuit’s Brady burden-

shifting approach applies here. Under that approach, the district court “need not — and should

not — decide whether the plaintiff actually made out a prima facie case under McDonnell

Douglas.” Brady, 520 F.3d at 494 (formatting modified). Instead, the court’s task is to “resolve

one central question: Has the employee produced sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find

                                                 4
that the employer’s asserted [non-retaliatory] reason was not the actual reason and that the

employer intentionally [retaliated] against the employee . . . ?” Id. AFGE’s argument, then,

taken in its best light, is that Hudson has not offered sufficient evidence that Defendant’s reasons

for terminating him were pretextual. See also AFGE Mot. at 18–20 (arguing this in the

alternative).

        AFGE’s specific contention on this score is that the Court improperly relied on a piece of

hearsay evidence to conclude that Hudson had created a fact dispute on the motives for his

removal. Id. at 16–18. The evidence in question is a declaration from Shawn Petty, a former

AFGE National Vice President, that Petty had heard Eric Bunn, AFGE’s former National

Secretary-Treasurer, describe Hudson’s removal as retaliation for revealing unlawful

expenditures by AFGE’s former president. See 2022 WL 4464976, at *13 (citing and describing

ECF No. 184-3 (Declaration of Shawn Petty) at 1). AFGE argues that Bunn’s statement is

inadmissible hearsay. See AFGE Mot. at 17–18.

        While AFGE is correct on its threshold point that it has preserved this argument, see ECF

No. 187-1 (AFGE Response to Hudson Statement of Facts) at 7, the Court concludes that Bunn’s

statement is not hearsay because it is a party-opponent admission under Federal Rule of

Evidence 801(d)(2)(D). That Rule allows admission of an employee’s statement against his

employer if it “concern[s] a matter within the scope of the . . . employment.” Fed. R. Evid.

801(d)(2)(D) Advisory Committee Note. In our Circuit, “[i]n the employment discrimination

context[,] . . . Rule 801(d)(2)(D) requires only that the declarant have some authority to speak on

matters of hiring or promotion or that the declarant be involved in the decision-making process

in general.” Talavera v. Shah, 638 F.3d 303, 309 (D.C. Cir. 2011); see also, e.g., Ritchie v.

Napolitano, 196 F. Supp. 3d 54, 64 (D.D.C. 2016). That rule squarely covers Bunn’s statement

                                                 5
here. As AFGE concedes, Bunn was one of the fifteen National Executive Council members

responsible for deciding whether or not to remove Hudson. See AFGE Mot. at 18. Bunn

accordingly was involved in the decisionmaking process behind Hudson’s removal, and Rule

801(d)(2)(D) comfortably covers his statement concerning that removal.

       AFGE has no persuasive counter. It asserts without citation that “there is no evidence

that . . . discussing [Hudson’s removal] was ‘within the scope’ of [Bunn’s] duties.” AFGE Mot.

at 17. But, as AFGE concedes on the very next page, voting on Hudson’s removal was within

Bunn’s duties. Our Circuit has made clear that Rule 801(d)(2)(D) requires no more. AFGE also

falls back on a broader argument that other circumstances suggest that Bunn’s statement was

unreliable. Id. at 18. This argument goes to the weight a jury should give to this evidence, not to

its admissibility. The statement accordingly comes in.

       With that hearsay argument dispensed with, the Court is left where it was in September:

believing this issue to be close, but convinced that Hudson has done just enough to create a fact

dispute. As the Court discussed in its prior Opinion, the combination of this piece of evidence

and an inference of pretext from the circumstances of the two removal proceedings could allow a

jury to side with Hudson on this question. See 2022 WL 4464976, at *8–13. The Court will thus

deny AFGE’s Motion as well.

III.   Conclusion

       For the foregoing reasons, the Court will deny both Hudson’s and AFGE’s Motions for

Reconsideration. A separate Order so stating will issue this day.

                                                             /s/ James E. Boasberg
                                                             JAMES E. BOASBERG
                                                             Chief Judge
Date: July 17, 2023

                                                6