Said v. Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp.

390 F. Supp. 3d 46
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedJuly 18, 2019
DocketCivil Action No. 15-1289 (RBW)
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 390 F. Supp. 3d 46 (Said v. Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Said v. Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp., 390 F. Supp. 3d 46 (D.C. Cir. 2019).

Opinion

REGGIE B. WALTON, United States District Judge

The plaintiff, Cheryl Renee Said, initiated this civil action against the defendant, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation ("Amtrak"), alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e to 2000e-17 (2012), the Civil Rights Act of 1866, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (" § 1981"), the District of Columbia Human Rights Act ("DCHRA"), D.C. Code § 2-1401.01 to 1404.04 (2012), the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the *49United States Constitution, District of Columbia public policy, and District of Columbia common law. See Complaint ("Compl.") ¶¶ 3, 64. On July 10, 2018, the Court granted in part and denied in part Amtrak's motion for summary judgment (the "July 10, 2018 Memorandum Opinion"). See Said v. Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. (Said III ), 317 F. Supp. 3d 304, 311, 343 (D.D.C. 2018) (Walton, J.). Currently before the Court is the Defendant's Motion for Reconsideration of the Court's Order Denying, in Part, Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment ("Def.'s Mot."). The Court held oral argument on Amtrak's motion on June 12, 2019. Upon careful consideration of the parties' oral argument and written submissions,1 the Court concludes that it must grant Amtrak's motion for reconsideration.

I. BACKGROUND

The Court discussed the factual background and statutory authority pertinent to this case in the July 10, 2018 Memorandum Opinion, see Said III, 317 F. Supp. 3d at 311-17, and will not reiterate those facts and authorities again here. In that opinion, the Court denied the defendant's motion for summary judgment on the plaintiff's claims of race discrimination under § 1981 (Count II) and race and gender discrimination under the DCHRA (Count III) (collectively, the "race and gender discrimination claims"), but granted Amtrak's motion for summary judgment on the plaintiff's remaining claims. See id. at 343. The plaintiff's race and gender discrimination claims assert that Amtrak unlawfully terminated her employment because of her race and gender. See id. at 313, 317. In its summary judgment motion, Amtrak denied that it discriminated against the plaintiff, asserting to the contrary that it terminated the plaintiff for legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons pursuant to the Collective Bargaining Agreement ("CBA") between Amtrak and the plaintiff's Union. See Def.'s Summ. J. Mem. at 6. Specifically, Amtrak asserted:

[The] [p]laintiff was terminated pursuant to Rule 24 of the [ ] CBA [ ('CBA Rule 24') ] after failing to communicate with Amtrak during her extended leave of absence, failing to advise Amtrak of the reason she continued to be on leave or her expected return date, and failing to respond to correspondence from Amtrak regarding the same.

Id. CBA Rule 24 states that "[e]mployees who are absent from work for ten [ ] days without notifying [Amtrak] shall be considered *50as having resigned from the service, unless [Amtrak] is furnished satisfactory evidence that circumstances beyond their control prevented such notification." Said III, 317 F. Supp. 3d at 326 (citation omitted).

Upon considering Amtrak's proffered reasons for the plaintiff's termination and the evidence in the record, the Court concluded:

[T]he plaintiff has identified facts in the record sufficient to cast doubt on two of [Amtrak's] proffered reasons for her termination-that the plaintiff failed to communicate with [Amtrak] during her extended leave of absence and failed to notify [Amtrak] of the reason for her extended leave of absence-and to make a reasonable jury "quite suspicious" of [Amtrak's] application of [CBA] Rule 24 to the plaintiff and the circumstances surrounding [Amtrak's CBA] Rule 24 correspondence[.]

Id. at 334 (internal citations omitted). The Court further concluded that this evidence, combined with "the plaintiff's testimony that [one of her supervisors, Patrick] Ryan[,] made a racially discriminatory statement to her of the type that [the District of Columbia] Circuit has warned district courts not to ignore, ... [wa]s sufficient to allow the plaintiff to survive summary judgment." Id. (internal citation omitted).

On July 30, 2018, Amtrak filed its motion for reconsideration, see Def.'s Mot. at 1, which seeks reconsideration of the Court's July 10, 2018 Memorandum Opinion pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), see Def.'s Mem. at 1. That motion is the subject of this Memorandum Opinion.

II. STANDARD

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), any order or decision that does not constitute a final judgment "may be revised at any time before the entry of a judgment adjudicating all the claims and all the parties' rights and liabilities." Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b). Although "district court[s] ha[ve] 'broad discretion to hear a motion for reconsideration brought under Rule 54(b),' " Univ. of Colo. Health at Mem'l Hosp. v. Burwell, 164 F. Supp. 3d 56, 62 (D.D.C. 2016) (quoting Isse v. Am.

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390 F. Supp. 3d 46, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/said-v-natl-rr-passenger-corp-cadc-2019.